Up close and personal...
I was quite young when I travelled to Africa and descended upon my long-suffering aunt, who was living in Nairobi at the time; I went the summer after I finished my undergraduate degree, and I was only 20 years old. I say this because it was my first experience of 'proper' travelling, and a complete eye-opener. Prior to this, I had only been to the UK and France, so this was a major excursion, requiring vaccinations, the acquisition of antimalarials, and multiple airport stopovers. I started off in Nairobi, which I took an immediate, probably unfair, dislike to, finding it somewhat oppressive, and quite grim. I have to stress, however, that I am not a city person at all - I don't like crowds; I don't like noise; and I can get quite stressed by all of the above. In the interests of being unbiased, Nairobi is possibly lovely and should definitely be experienced by everyone!
While in Kenya I went on safari to the Masai Mara, which is the Kenyan and northern continuation of the Serengeti in Tanzania. This was AMAZING! My most vivid memories are being unceremoniously woken before dawn to be herded into a little white jeep with no roof, and setting off to explore the plains. Even though it was over 10 years ago, I can still smell the early-morning air and recollect the sense of wonder at the sheer openness of the landscape; its silence; the light; and the feeling that we were the only people on the entire planet. We also got to see various cool safari-type animals (my favourites were the giraffes; so awkward and knobbly!), but for me, the early-morning smell of vegetation, the earth, and sheer, unadulterated nature, is the abiding memory of my safari.
Heading south...
Following our safari adventure, we flew south to South Africa. Cape Town was our base for a week, while we travelled all over, including a trip to the wine area of Stellenbosch (where we were the only people given a tour of a family-run vineyard in Simonsberg, as it was winter and most definitely not the tourist season), and a drive down the coast to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. We also hauled ourselves to the top of Table Mountain (ok, we took the cable car) and visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned. We then spent a couple of days in Johannesburg, taking in a tour of the township Soweto, before flying back to Kenya. I thought South Africa was spectacularly beautiful, but the atmosphere was still quite electric in 2000 when we visited. It was only six years since the apartheid regime had been dismantled, and we found a country very much in flux. I would like to return now, to see how things have changed since then - it's such a fascinating country, with a wealth of history and stunning natural beauty.
Ngorongoro crater...
Finally, we spent a week in Tanzania, and visited Ngorongoro crater, which is located about 100 miles west of the capital Arusha. This crater is a wildlife conservation area (encompassing about 100 square miles), and UNESCO World Heritage site that was formed from a volcano that collapsed on itself several million years ago. Due to its inclined perimeter, it's been described as a natural enclosure and is thus very popular as a safari location, hosting the Big Five (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros) of the African safari world. One of its most prominent features is a very pretty lake in the centre, which was my favourite spot to hang out. Here, it was possible to flamingo-watch all day long. (I love flamingos; they always remind me of cocktails and the tropics for some reason. Maybe it's all the pink. And I love the way they can stand on one leg for AGES and not move an inch. Amazing.) We could also hippo-watch at the lake, but I was a bit more nervous of the hippos and didn't like to get too close: apparently they're the biggest killers on safari and can run extremely fast, despite all their bulk. Consequently, I admired them warily from a distance.