#Hiking

Given this week’s political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I’m hoping you’ve have had enough of the U.S. election horror show – I know I have – and are ready (at least temporarily) for some wholesome American travel adventures. If so, please read on about my four-day visit to Maine, the northeastern-most state in the lower 48, with my sister, Susanna.

Our recent visit to St. Lucia was a stop along the way to the final destination of our KwaZulu-Natal road trip: Mtunzini, a coastal town off the N2 highway, where we spent five days hanging out on near-empty beaches and wandering through tropical forests.

St. Lucia, the tourist town along South Africa’s northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) coast – not to be confused with St. Lucia the Caribbean island – has near-mythical status among South Africans. The town is completely surrounded by iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is famous for its ubiquitous hippos, who spend most of their time in the St. Lucia estuary but are also known to stroll about town at night.

When my friend Michelle, with whom I traveled around Spain during my recent European trip, first suggested we should check out the Picos de Europa, I had the same response that you might be having: the Who de What?

The Drakensberg Mountains fly under the radar in South Africa’s tourism scene. Everyone goes to Cape Town and the Kruger and the Garden Route, but the Drakensberg doesn’t often make it onto that “must-see” tourist itinerary. Even I’m guilty of neglecting the Drakensberg; I’d dipped in once or twice over the years but had never done a proper Drakensberg weekend until last month, when Thorsten and I stayed in Royal Natal National Park’s Thendele Camp and did the Tugela Gorge hike. Now I’m appalled at myself for sleeping on this spectacular part of South Africa for so long.

Leshiba Wilderness was the third stop on the Blogitects’ Limpopo road trip. Read about our first and second stops.

Like last week, I don’t know how to start writing this post because I don’t know how to describe our stay at Leshiba Wilderness. I don’t even know how to describe what Leshiba is. Calling it a “game reserve” is woefully insufficient. And calling it “luxurious”, even though it is, conveys the wrong impression. Leshiba is luxurious in the most fantastical sense…a luxury lodge built from artists’ visions and dreams.