Cape town

What is more beautiful about a city is the variety of people of it but not the huge buildings or clean roads. Cape Town in South Africa is such a city with other beauties like its harbour and many multi cultural people. Cape Town serves as the provincial capital and seat of National Parliament. It is only second to Johannesburg in population but largest in size in South Africa. In earlier times Cape Town was the way station of Dutch East India Company which monitored ships. Origins of native people of Cape Town is believed to be from Indonesia and Madagascar due to slave labour immigrants at that time. 

Cape Town is part of Cape Peninsula accompanied by Table Mountain, Devil's Peak and Lion's Head. It has a typical Mediterranean climate with warm summers and winters and Cape Town shares striking similarities in weather with San Francisco. It is with great pleasure that is to say Cape Town has one of the highest levels of Biodiversity in the world. Which is to determine that it has many verities of flora and fauna and it is located in a CI Biodiversity Hotspot. Among many there are 19 different vegetation types and few are endemic. There are about hundreds of species and a lot of them are indigenous too. But at the same time it has become the world's number one area with largest number of threatened species. This is because of the rapid growth of population and urbanization that results in loss of the forest areas and grasslands. However most of the threatened species are protected in national parks and sanctuaries.

Cape Town has other interesting values too. Naturally tourists are attracted to Cape Town because of its good weather, developed infrastructure and beauty of course. Cape Town's main attraction is Table Mountain and Table Mountain National Park. Chapman's Peak Drive, Signal Hill, Cape Town beaches, Surfing and boating, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town Harbour, Robben Island, Cape of Good Hope etc include other attractions. Over all it is to say that every inch of this city has a different experience to provide to its visitors.

Travellers' Guide

A good vacation in Cape Town is not complete without a good stay. Here are some of the best hotel deals you can get in Cape Town. Don't forget that you can enjoy sun bathing and wild life in the same place so get prepared for the adventure.

2Inn1 Kensington
21 Kensington Crescent | Oranjezicht, Cape Town Central 8001, South Africa
+27 (0)21 4231707
Blackheath Lodge 
6 Blackheath Road | Sea Point, Cape Town Central 8005, South Africa
+27214392541
Derwent House Boutique Hotel
14 Derwent Road | Tamboerskloof, Cape Town Central 8001, South Africa
Four Rosmead 
4 Rosmead Avenue, Cape Town, 8001 | Oranjezicht, Cape Town Central 8001, South Africa
+270214803810
An African Villa
19 Carstens St. | Tamboerskloof, Cape Town Central 0881, South Africa
+27 214232162
Kensington Place  
38 Kensington Crescent | Higgovale, Cape Town Central 8001, South Africa
+27 (0)214244744
Cape Grace
West Quay Rd, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town Central 8002, South Africa
0027 21 410 7100

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Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Ngorongoro is a conservation site found in Tanzania, with various attractions and natural creations such as Ngorongoro crater, Olduvai Gorge and many flora and fauna.  Based on fossil evidence, the area was home to many hominid species for 3 million years. Hunter-gatherers were replaced by pastorialists a few thousand years ago. The Mbulu came to the area about 2,000 years ago, and were joined by the Datooga around the year 1700. Both groups were driven from the area by the Maasai in the 1800s. Massive fig trees in the northwest of the Lerai Forest are sacred to the Maasai and Datooga people. Some of them may have been planted on the grave of a Datago leader who died in battle with the Maasai around 1840.

The Ngorongoro area originally was part of the Serengeti National Park when it was created by the British in 1951. Maasai continued to live in the newly created park until 1959, when repeated conflicts with park authorities over land use led the British to evict them to the newly declared Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Ngorongoro area is supposed to be the only place that provides protection for wild life as well as that allows human habitation. Anyhow several limitations are posed in order to protect wild life such as prohibition of cultivation except at subsistence levels. 

The area is part of the Serengeti ecosystem, and to the north-west, it adjoins the Serengeti National Park and is contiguous with the southern Serengeti plains, these plains also extend to the north into unprotected Loliondo division and are kept open to wildlife through trans-human pastoralism practiced by Maasai. The south and west of the area are volcanic highlands, including the famous Ngorongoro Crater and the lesser known Empakai. The southern and eastern boundaries are approximately defined by the rim of the Great Rift Valley wall, which also prevents animal migration in these directions. 

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Serengeti National Park

The name “Serengeti” is from Maasai language standing for the meaning- extended place or endless plains. Most famous for its annual migration of over one and a half million white bearded (or brindled) wildebeest and 250,000 zebra, Serengeti National Park is widely regarded as the best wildlife reserve in Tanzania, Africa due to its density of predators and prey. Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, smaller groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle. The National Park, with an area of 12,950 square kilometres, is as big as Northern Ireland, but its ecosystem, which includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maswa Game Reserve and the Maasai Mara Game reserve (in Kenya), is roughly the size of Kuwait. It lies between the shores of Lake Victoria in the west, Lake Eyasi in the south, and the Great Rift Valley to the east. As such, it offers the most complex and least disturbed ecosystem on earth.
The Park is divided into three parts as Serengeti Plains, Western Corridor and Northern Serengeti. Serengeti plains: the endless, almost treeless grassland of the south is the most emblematic scenery of the park. This is where the wildebeest breed, as they remain in the plains from December to May. Other hoofed animals- zebra, gazelle, impala, hartebeest, topi, buffalo, waterbuck- also occur in huge numbers during the wet season. Kopjes are granite florations which are very common in the region, and they are great observation posts for predators, as well as a refuge for hyrax and pythons. Western corridor: the "black cotton" (actually black clay) soil covers the swampy savannah of this region. Grumeti River is home to enormous Nile crocodiles, colobus monkey, and the martial eagle. The migration passes through from May to July. Northern Serengeti: the landscape is dominated by open woodlands (predominantly Commiphora) and hills, ranging from Seronera in the South, to the Mara river in the limit with Kenya. Apart from the migratory wildebeest and zebra (which occur from July to August, and in November), the bushy savannah is the best place to find elephant, giraffe and dik dik.

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