Category Archives: Photo 101

Solitude at Thandeka

Photo 101 – Day Five: Solitude & the “Rule of Thirds”

I remember a movie, many many years ago, about an explorer couple who’d set up a tent in the middle of the bush. They were plagued by mosquitoes, it was hot and they looked sweaty and miserable, drowning their sorrows with gin and tonic, hoping that the minuscule amounts of quinine in the tonic water would protect them from malaria. One can still rough it like that in Africa.

My idea of roughing it, however, is an upgrade from that of yesteryear. This tent came with air-conditioner, wi-fi and a corner bath.

I’m an explorer of a different sort and the solitude afforded me by this tent, spaced well apart from the next one, enabled me to relax and pretend that I was an intrepid explorer armed with a panga slashing my way through the bush. With all the mod-cons.

Does it count that I could hear the lions roar in the distance and the bush around the tent had a few black mambas slithering around?

Solitude at Thandeka luxury tented camp
Solitude at Thandeka, Bela Bela District, Limpopo Province , South Africa

I first posted about Thandeka in Cee’s Black and White photo challenge – Fences and Wild Animals.

Finding bliss at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Photo 101 Day Four: Bliss & Captions

Bliss: complete happiness, great joy, paradise, or heaven.

Via the shortest route, Cape Town is 1 399,6 kms from Joburg. 12h53 minutes by car on the N1. I prefer the 2 hour flight, after all my bliss place is waiting, the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town, South AFrica
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town (photo taken with iPhone 4S)