plan A / it seems it is going to work... [thanks for your support]

'The world in one country' recite the tourist brochures and for once tell the truth. South Africa offers diverse and beautiful landscapes, deserts, savannas, canyons, lakes, mountains, coastlines washed by two oceans and everywhere extraordinary flora and fauna. It shows an incredible mix of Africa and Europe, sometimes in stark and dramatic contrast, sometimes able to meet and create a new reality. It is a piece of Africa where wealth is more prevalent than in the rest of the continent. But South Africa is primarily a country that is changing. The blacks, the colored have finally defeated apartheid to build a full democracy, thanks to the contribution of the former president, Nelson Mandela, symbol of the struggle for civil rights. Even in a journey of a few weeks you can bring this reality to become fast and try to understand. We start from the 'Italy in flight to Johannesburg airport and we will find the buses that will guide you during our journey through South Africa, Swaziland, Transkei and Ciskei up in Cape Town. After a brief tour of Jo'burg and, if possible, the township of Soweto, Pretoria and we drive to the nearby diamond mine in Cullinan. We continue to Sabie and Middleburg through a beautiful forest where we reach the Mac Falls Blyde River Canyon and the beautiful in the park. Continue through to the Phalaborwa Kruger Park, through a region among the most fascinating of South Africa, both for settlement of various ethnic groups (Venda, Ndebele), both for the great variety of landscapes: rivers, waterfalls, mountains, canyons, forests of pine and eucalyptus trees, savannas and patches of thorny acacia trees that are home to a large and varied fauna. We will enter the first of several parks that we visit during our trip: the Kruger National Park, limited to the open fields this season. We drive among herds of gazelles, antelope, eland, oryx, wildebeest, kudu, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, elephants, rhinos meet blacks and whites, hippos, crocodiles, lions (there are more than 2000), brown and spotted hyenas, jackals and with a little 'luck of cheetahs and leopards. And, for lovers of birdwatching, there is a huge variety of birds: 468 species including many raptors, herons, toucans, marabou, Serpentara, hornbills and starlings metal will keep us company at breakfast. Go through Swaziland, a small kingdom surrounded entirely black in RSA, where live, old and new, indigenous markets, but also supermarkets where you can still see men in traditional clothing of skins. Returning to South Africa we will not be spoiled for choice with the many parks and nature reserves that we will meet: Mkuze Game Reserve, Hlumhluwe, Umfolozi, and overlooking the sea, St. Lucia Game Reserve, where a boat up the river between hippos, crocodiles and an incredible variety of birds. We will cross the settlements and will target the Zulu Durban, where Africa has the flavor of India and wherever you feel the scent of curry. A short flight will take us in Port Elizabeth, change of car and stop in the Karoo in Graaff Reinet South Africa to enjoy the desert plateau and visit the Valley of Desolation with black eagles that hover over his head. We return to the coast and are looking towards the famous Garden Route along lakes, lagoons and forests in a landscape in the Alps and the sea, touching the Tsitsikamma National Park and the reserves of De Moop with dunes to the sea of white Koppie Alleen. Cape Agulhas will touch and admire the majestic sight of the two oceans meet, even a detour to Hermanus for whale watching and then on up to Cape Town, incredibly beautiful, so poised between mountains and ocean. We will visit the ethnographic museum with splendid collections, the flower market, the narrow streets of the neighborhood shopping center in Malaysia and the modern city and then by cable car (or walk for the brave) up to 1000 m of Table Mountain overlooking the city and the bay. If we succeed, we'll even bet on the Atlantic coast to see colonies of penguins and cormorants Betty's Bay Lamberts Bay and Langebaan National Park. We will then progress through the vineyards of Paarl and Stellenbosch (where sipping fine wine and learn the difference between the various farms prodottti) arriving at the Cape of Good Hope which greet this amazing corner of Africa. So we reach Cape Town where, in flight, we will return to Italy.