#Trees

The Pafuri Triangle – a piece of wilderness in the very northern corner of South Africa’s Kruger National Park – is a land of giants. The trees are huge. The animals are huge. The beauty of the landscape is beyond comprehension.

This is my third summer in Joburg and I’ve yet to write a post about jacarandas. The jacarandas bloom around October or November, and the Jozi suburbs become shrouded in purple for a couple of weeks. We need to appreciate jacaranda season while we have it. Jacarandas are an invasive species in South Africa and the public is banned from planting new ones.

Tomorrow is Heritage Day, a South African public holiday.

South Africa has lots of public holidays. I have trouble keeping track of them and what they mean. Heritage Day is pretty simple though – it’s a day to celebrate South Africa’s heritage. This can mean basically anything, because South Africa, like the United States, is a very diverse place with lots of different heritages. So basically, Heritage Day is an excuse to take the day off from work and do fun cultural things. Heritage Day falls on a Monday this year, which means we have a whole long weekend of cultural celebrations to choose from.

Pine forests don’t belong in Southern Africa. Like countless other non-native plants and animals, pine trees were brought here by Europeans and continue to be cultivated on a large scale by paper and timber companies.