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| South Africa Trip December 2003 |
| During our time in the Netherlands, we wanted to make one or two "big" trips (define "big" as meaning going somewhere that we probably would not have gone if we were living in the US). South Africa is *huge* vacation destination for the Netherlands. The Dutch have a long history with South Africa as traders and settlers. Of the ttwo major languages in Africa (Afrikaans and English), Afrikaans is derived from Dutch. So for many Nederlanders, they can understand Afrikaans. I found that it sounded considerably different from Dutch, but the written language looks quite similar. We had never considered South Africa as a destination until we lived in the Netherlands and met many people who have been there. We spent a little over two weeks touring the country in a rental car, a week in the north and a week in the south. The travel agency we used organized the rental car and all the hotels, and provided a route for us to follow. We found after awhile, that we would plan our own routes from one stop to the next. It was alot of driving, but each day brought astounding sites and landscapes. The girls were not at all sure about being away from home for Christmas, but hopefully they will remember this Christmas for being so different. The links below point to the North trip and South trip. I have used some pictures on these travel logs, but included a link to a page of just pictures for each. The pictures are email quality -- meaning they are smaller and therefore not as good quality as full size pictures, but should load faster. I hope they are good enough to give you a feel for how beautiful the country is. |