Ultimate Travel Experience

The southern most country in the African continent is South Africa. Their rugby team, Springbok, has just won the Rugby World Cup for 2007 beating England, the defending champion, in a very interesting final match in Paris, France. South Africa is not only about rugby. They have a wide variety of interesting attractions to give visitors their ultimate travel experience.

South Africa has many nice attractions to offer tourists and business people alike. South Africa has some nice wild life parks like Kruger National Park that offers the best of African wildlife. De Beer diamonds are famous throughout the world. White natural beaches are attracting thousands of visitors to South Africa each year.

One of the places tourists must do in South Africa is to visit Cape Town. There many things tourists can do to have their ultimate travel experience on Cape Town. Cape Town has natural attractions that are immensely beautiful.

In Cape Town, the 1086m majestic Table Mountain dominates over the city. One can choose to go up to the top of Table Mountain by a revolving cable car to get a good 360 degree via of Cape Town. Table Mountain is listed in UNESCO World Heritage Site listing.

Further south, the Indian Ocean converges with Atlantic Ocean at the tip of South Africa. There are many spectacular beaches located between the mountains along the coastline of both oceans. Clifton and Camp Bays are just 10 minutes from Cape Town. These beaches are nice for picnickers, surfers, scuba divers and sunbathing. False Bay with warmer water at Muizenberg, Kalk Bay or Simonstown are among the popular beaches. Sandy Beach is the only ‘unofficial’ nudist beach around this area.

The Robben Island is prison for those considered dangerous to the apartheid government. It’s an historical site today. Robber Island is made famous for hosting the Noble Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela. Mandela spend almost two decade in Robber Island. Today, tourist can visit Robben Island and it is accessible by boat or catamaran.

The Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens is renown for its collection of indigenous plants. There are over 5000 species of plants in this botanical garden. Tourists can stroll in this garden and picnic along the lawn.  Or, they can join guided walk on every Tuesday and  Saturday.

Tags: Africa · Sightseeing

Recently, my best friend managed to apply for a long vacation because his project was canceled. He was so happy that he could finally go for his long dreamed vacation in Egypt within a short notice.

Upon getting his leave approved, he immediately surfed the internet to look for cheap flights and last minute deals. He was lucky that he found the site that offers adventure holidays like what he wanted. He found so many attractive vacation offers in this site coupled with cheap flights. He immediately purchased his air ticket and vacation package through this site.

Next week, he will be on his way to Egypt to ride camels to visit Abu Simbel, Pyramids of Gaza and say ‘hello’ to Tutankhamum in the Egyptian Museum.

Tags: Africa · Historical

Mauritius has lots to offer for scuba diving. They are many top diving spots in Mauritius that is comparable among the world’s best. Diving in Mauritius is one of the ultimate dive experience for divers around the world. They have various types of dive sites ranging from coral reefs with abundant sea creatures, underwater sceneries with caves, tunnels and arches. Perhaps, underwater treasure hunting among shipwrecks is a possibility.

There are many dive shops around the country offering scuba diving trips. The prices range from $80 to $300 depending on the distance and number of dives per day. The price is negotiable and it fluctuates according to influx of visitors. Personally, I chose to dive with dive centers attached to major hotels for safety reasons. I want to be sure that the equipments I am using are properly maintained.

Dive sites in Mauritius are groups under three regions – South-West, North-West and East coast. Southern coast is not suitable for diving due to the sea condition.

The South-West is famous for its dive sites like Tamarin Bay and Flin-en-Flac. At Tamarin Bay, divers can see school of dolphins roaming in this area. Sometimes, divers can even find the dolphins playfully swimming among them.

At Flin-en-Flac, there are two remarkable dive sites – Cathedral and Rempart Serpent. At the Cathedral, there are remarkable underwater sceneries of caves, tunnels and arches. At Rempart Serpent, there are plenty of sea creatures for divers to see like stone fishes, moral eyes, lion fishes, scorpion fishes and clown fishes among the shipwrecks in this area.

Other dive sites in South-West region are Bottle Reef, St Jacques Pass, Deep Heaven, Heaven Pass and Anemone Pass.

In the North-West region, many underwater attractions can be found in various sites. Peter Holt’s Rock offers giant moral eels, Stenopus Reef offers giant gorgonias and corals and Roches Baleines with it’s drop which has plenty of sea fauna.

This region is a heaven for shipwreck diving. There are many shipwrecks like “Stella Maru”, “Amar” and “Star Hope” at Trou aux Biches, “Silver Star” at Grand Baie and “Hassen Mian” at Balaclava.

Round Island offers the best of the ‘big ones’ for divers. Diving around this island offers the possibility of seeing sharks, barracudas and marlins.

In the East region, the best dive site is the Belle Mare pass. Belle Mare pass is a drift dive site filled with lots of sea fauna like sharks, dolphins, barracudas and sting rays. Further south to Mahebourg, there are Roche Zozo and Colorado dive sites with their magnificent underwater landscape of caves, tunnels, arches, canyons, etc.

Even for a non-diver, snorkeling is sufficient to enjoy the beauty of the underwater wonders in Mauritius as the water is very clear and visibility is superb.

Tags: Africa · Diving

Mauritius, an island in the vast Indian Ocean, is offering nice tropical paradise to tourists from around the world. It’s situated off the east cost of Africa. Its closest neighbor is Madagascar. It’s predominantly Indian population is heavily influenced by British and French. French and English are widely spoken on this island.

Mauritius is a popular tourist destination for French tourists since it was a former French colony. Many tourists came by flights from France, European and Asian capitals. There are also tourists who come from Australia and Americas. Some tourists came by yachts or cruise ships originating from Africa.

The best time to visit this nice island is between May and November when it’s going through its ‘winder’. With less rain and humidity, it’s a nice time to visit and enjoy all the attractions in this island.

December to March is the best time for diving when the water is at its clearest. Yet again, the water in Mauritius is very clear most of the time. Surfing is best from June to August. Big game fishing is best from October to April.

The beaches on the island are often not crowded. Most of them has only a single resort hotel on each beach. The hotels provide most of the sea activities for free except for scuba diving. You can learn water skiing, snorkeling or even wind surfing from the instructors provided by the hotels free of charge.

Mauritius’ airport is the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport, near Mahébourg in eastern Mauritius, which is about 2 hours from capital city, Port Louis. Port Louis is a small capital city compared to western standard. It’s situated on the northwest of Mauritius.

The earliest and largest tourist town is at Grande Baie (Grand Bay) which is 30 minutes north of Port Louis. At Grand Baie, you can find some nice hotels, shopping malls selling branded goods and roadside stalls selling all sort of sea activities such as scuba diving, catamaran ride, underwater walk, submarine ride or even a round-island sight-seeing trip.

Tags: Africa