An enviable mixture of beauty and wildness, of mountain and sea, of untamed nature and urban sophistication, listing the country's 'Top Five' (as opposed to the famous Big Five of game viewing), is difficult. But here goes.
1. Kruger National Park
It may well be the country’s oldest nature reserve, but the Kruger National Park is utterly timeless. The park’s infrastructure is excellent and efficient, with miles of sealed roads and tracks crisscrossing the 4695 acres of bush and wilderness.
There is a network of camps and hotels offering reasonably priced, down-to-earth accommodation in Kruger Park and on its borders. You can camp, or stay in a self-catering hut, or a guest-house. You can bring your own food and drink, or buy in the camp shops, or eat in the camp restaurants. You can drive your own vehicle through the park, or take an organized game drive. Four- and five-star hotels and lodges are also strategically placed to give travelers an old-world colonial safari experience.
And ah, the game. The wildlife of the Kruger Park is stupendous, and roams free. As more and more perimeter fences are brought down between the Kruger Park and neighboring smaller, private reserves, the game has more and more space to roam.
Tip: Never think for one moment that you are in a zoo. You are in the bush, and to see the animals, you must drive for hours sometimes. An sometimes, as I've learned from personal experience, you'll be lucky enough to see a magnificent leopard lounging around at the gate. You drive slowly, eyes scouring the grass for a lion, or you look up at every tree hoping to spot a leopard, but if you don’t see a cat, it doesn’t matter here. There is no shortage of plains game and birds and elephants and it you have just spotted a young hyena playing or vultures circling overhead, then that's enough to have been bitten by the magic of the bush.
2. Cape Town
A breathtaking location – a mountain, the ocean all around, vineyards close by. No wonder the good folk of Johannesburg like to grouse about Cape Town – this is one city that really does have it all.
Cape Town is South Africa’s most beautiful city, and also, paradoxically, the least stereotypically 'African'. With the chilly sea breeze whipping in from the Atlantic and the clouds rolling in over Table Mountain, you can often feel as though you are in northern Europe rather than at the southernmost tip of Africa.
The city’s possibilities are endless: historic locations, great food and wine – not surprisingly, given the proximity of the Cape vineyards, excellent shopping. There's Table Mountain to climb, Robben Island to visit. You can fish, you can surf, you can even dive with sharks.
3. Table Mountain
You can scale this iconic mountain in one of several ways. The easy way is to take the cable-car up, marveling in the views as you rise up the mountain. The cable-car rotates, so you see the mountain and the sea and the city unfold before you as you climb ever higher.
Or you can walk up one of the many well-laid out, well-marked routes up to the summit. You will need good shoes, water, a sun-hat, and as you climb, the views get more breathtaking by the moment. Leave early in the morning to beat the heat and the crowds, and you will walk through the clouds to the top. The journey takes from one to three hours, depending on your fitness level. Truly unforgettable.
4. Johannesburg
Unlike Cape Town, which is blessed with seas and mountain and vineyards, Johannesburg relies entirely on charm and sass and its utterly wonderful highveld climate. It is a relatively new city, bursting with people and energy. Aside from great shopping and food, Joberg has some cutting-edge new museums.
5. The Apartheid Museum
Underpinning any visit to South Africa is its deeply divisive past, where, for years, a white minority ruled over a black majority. The apartheid system may have gone, but the legacy lives on, as do resentment and misunderstanding – on both sides of the divide.
A visit to the Apartheid Museum goes a long way to putting everything in context. From the moment you arrive and are arbitrarily assigned a color, which then determines how you see certain exhibits, the message is delivered loud and clear.
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