It’s been weeks since we came back from the road. With so much to do in Cape Town, including flash training sessions for the Argus Cycle Tour, I’ve only had moderate amounts of time to sort out the many pictures taken and throw a few ideas on paper. But it is all taking shape.

Some might remember that in early 2009, Marie and I set out for a memorable road trip up the West Coast of South Africa, into Namibia’s incredible Namib Desert, across to southern Kalahari and back to Cape Town. I then wrote a series of 9 stories around the common theme Roasted in the Namib; they are regrouped here for sequential reading (yes, I thought of everything…)

Similarly, this year’s upcoming trip report should feature some 10 stories along with plenty of supporting photography. My current theme Cartwheels over Lesotho was inspired by the acrobatic driving style required for such expedition and also by the sobering fact that our Lesotho experience remained fast and superficial but was quite aerial.

In the coming weeks, look for tales of dirt roads and torrential rains, of camping kleptomaniacs and good-hearted traffic cops, of wine bottles hidden by a riverside, of game grazing freely on rolling hills and on wonderfully lush lands, of stars and satellites drawing perfect skies, of solitude and silence and peace, of unsettling poverty and proud herders, of hairy mountain passes and differential lock, and of all the small traveling links that glue all these together.

For now, though, here are a few simple panoramas to illustrate the many faces of the land we explored. At times hot and dry and harsh, later lush and green and soft, the South African landscape never ceases to amaze me. Voyez plutôt:

«Cartwheels Over Lesotho» Series

Want to read the entire series of stories? Start here

Already reading sequentially?
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Marie’s recount: Kruger National Park