St Lucia Wetlands

The final days of our vacation was spent in a gorgeous tree house resort in St. Lucia. It is in the middle of the St. Lucia Wetlands, a part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Upon check in we were warned to keep an eye out when walking home at night, as we would be sharing the streets with hippos. That's right, one of the most dangerous animals around. They were also bathing in the lagoon, together with crocodiles, but the beaches were safe for a bit of swimming, or rather getting rolled over by the waves. The Indian ocean is nice and warm, so it was a lot of fun!

I was a bit worried about missing out on Christmas, which is a huge deal for me. On Christmas Eve we had an Italian dinner, where we got to talking to the owner who invited us to church the next morning. It was certainly different to what I'm used to...! The church was so full, we had to sit out in the garden. One family had brought their Jack Russell terrier who was always chasing the monkeys up the trees. On Christmas Day we hung out at the pool, drank champagne, ate burgers, had a long video skype with my family and then had Sushi for dinner.

The Indian Ocean

Barbecue on the beach with some new friends. And Gin.

A chameleon on my hat.


Monkeys on the street.

Hippo Tub

The boardwalk to the beach.

Waterbuck

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Pierre Marcolini Chocolates are the very best

Happy Birthday Mama!

Anniversary

Happy 13th, mein Schatz!

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The Vienna Post Office, exhibtion at their headquarters.

Present

In the months before we went to South Africa, Martin spent a hell of a lot time on the computer and I wasn't allowed to see. He told me point blank that he was working on my present and I didn't want to spoil my own surprise. On my birthday morning I opened the 3-pound package this came out:

A BOOK OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF MY BLOG!!!

Can you say awesome?!

Safari

You can't go to South Africa without going on a Safari. We decided not to hit Kruger National Park, as it would've meant even more days spent on the road and we discovered that South Africa's oldest game reserve was only a few hours away from Durban. It's called Hluhluwe-Imfolozi and used to be Shaka Zulu's hunting grounds.

The animals weren't shy at all.

Martin had been bugging me about getting a knife before we got to the park, as we were going to sleep in a tent that wasn't really fenced in. I insisted on buying enough water and canned food because we couldn't buy food there and although we knew there was going to be a refridgerator, we'd read on tripadvisor that it would be tiny. We are a bit excited to be 'roughing it' with wild animals around. As it turns out, this was the 'tent':

TOOOOOOTALLY roughing it.

Wildebeest with Zebra Butt

Impala, or Waste of Time (as the park ranger put it).

Zebra, another Waste of Time.

Elephant. Definitely NOT a Waste of Time.

Four giraffes in one shot. So pretty!


Rhino Family, Mother Pissing.

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Missing Jena