words from the world

How to reconcile the visual hunt of terrestrial sometimes antediluvian-looking animals with the urge of putting on a mask and a snorkel to spy on the submarine critters and all of that within the same day? South Africa possesses the answer and haven't finished to surprise us on its diversity.
We arrive in the village of St Lucia where we land up in a great guest house called Blou house backpacker. At the bottom of the garden, mongooses argue over the passion fruits the vervet monkeys have wasted.
St Lucia and the eponymous lake draw a large estuary – the largest one in Africa – propitious for wildlife. Birds and mammals live in this park, encircling the lake. The savannah vanished and trees grew up. In spite of the change of habitat, a variety of animals succeeded in adapting. Rhinoceros, kudus, leopards, zebras and wildebeests took up residence in this luxuriant land. The avowed goal of the park's managers is to recreate the former waves of animals migrations when wildebeests and the others ran away the Lebombo mountains to move towards the wetland of St Lucia.
Before getting in the park, at the end of the estuary, the owner of the guest house has promised us hippopotamuses. Better to trust local people than the paper guides, he wasn't wrong.






following this starter, we dash off to cape Vidal, 35km from the village. The owner, him again, announced this thing to us: « on the way to cape Vidal, you'll see every kind of animals including rhinos, as soon as you arrive at the end of the road, you slip mask and snorkel on to see colourful reef fish before driving back to St Lucia ». His speech sounded like the tempting caption of a tourist brochure. And yet, he was right again.
Underwater:











and a few hours later, on the earth:





St Lucia, one of the good finds of our South African journey.