A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog

The many faces of Cape Town
Cape Town could be Vancouver's long lost sister. Separated at birth, they would have grown independently, unaware of each other yet obeying instincts far greater than just their own. They both are tucked in the most intricate way between mountain and ocean. A ride through town is a threat to the neck as eyes are drawn in all directions, each vista rivaling the next. Like Vancouver, Cape Town is a scene in which many micro-climates compete to surprise you. Strong winds fro...
Pictures from the road
There's something to be said for road trips - small adventures within a larger one, little lives of their own, precious and forever remembered like each kiss of a love story. They are my favorite way to travel. I enjoy the absolute freedom bordering anarchy, the long, cozy hours at the wheel, rocked gently by the rhythm of speed and hypnotized by the flickering of passing poles and changing scenery. I crave the symbiotic relationship established with the road, becomi...
The Chronicles of Knysna
The Garden Route is Cape Town's vacation playground. Located a few hours east of the city, it's a coastal paradise of little towns bordered by flowers and lush vegetation reminiscent of the Mediterranean, which then turns into the semi-arid region of the Karoo to the north, where we arrived from. First driving through Wilderness and Sedgefield, I had assumed that Knysna would be alike, small, narrow and sandwiched between gentle hills and a rough ocean. Far from it. The to...
Meaner pets
March 1, 2008
For local hazards, Americans have pit bulls and bears. South Africans, because they think like National Geographic editors, have baboons and ostriches. Don't be fooled. These aren't cute and they aren't sweet. They're mean, dangerous and moody creatures. Or so I was told. Take the case of baboons, for instance: driving around Cape Town, Cape Point and the Karoo, one would be hard pressed to ignore the presence of these odd primates. There are signs everywhere reminding mo...
A very sweet day
Something just came up, tonight, which reminded me of the Little Prince; what's essential might be temporarily invisible to the eyes but is always seen quite well with one's heart. And this too: roses are proud flowers, self-aware and more critical of themselves then anybody could ever be. And then I noticed I hadn't written yet about the following. Maybe I should've started with this post, when I came home over a week ago, since it mattered to me most. I've been very diso...
Next stop: Ronnie's Sex Shop
Picture a long, hypnotically desert stretch of dryness leading to Barrydale, Little Karoo. The landscape is arid and flattened by an immense sky, modest rolling hills only beginning in the far distance. Yellow is the predominant tint and colors are warm but washed out. You're driving 120 km/h on a single lane road as is often the case in South Africa. Then, up ahead appears a white speck, which soon turns out to be a low lying house with bleached walls and a red sign paint...
From Porterville to the Map of Africa
February 27, 2008
For reasons far out of one's control, the paragliding side of this SA trip was rather thin. While the weather was mostly stunning, it was rarely flyable and we frankly had so much to do that choices had to be made. As a first attempt, we went on a short road trip to Porterville, north, the local cross-country Mecca. The plan was to sleep in a... well, we'll call it a bungalow, at the Beaverlac campground located by a water source behind the ridge where the flying is don...
Picnic on the Lion's Head
It was late afternoon. We packed up a picnic - Marie being the absolute queen and ruler of such things - hopped in the Kombi and hit the road, bound for Lion's Head. We were not going to scale it, it was too late for that. We would do the easy thing: walk up the service road for a while, find a spot to sit down, and enjoy the sunset while we feasted. Lion's Head, a small pyramid-shaped hump located to the northwest of Table Mountain just against the sea, is a strange comp...
Penguins!
February 23, 2008
South Africa, in the mind of most people, is synonymous with game. Not poker. Not soccer. Game. As in big animals. No, not B'ush. Animals that are hunted down. And go on four legs. Oh, wait a minute, ok, maybe there are animals that go on two. Well, B'ush actually goes on all four when it comes to political games. But that's not the kind of game I'm talking about. Or the kind of animal. My animals are much more human. And by game I meant the African kind. But it's still hu...
Best view of Table Mountain: the insider's guide
First, you must hire the best tour guide in town. I had. Then you should make sure that your guide has the picnic angle covered. She did. As always. You'll drive north for a while, out of Cape Town and around Table Bay to Blouberg, preferably at the friendly purr of an old Volkswagen Kombi. Parking there by the seaside as a hot afternoon reluctantly turns into dusk, you might be shocked – almost literally – by the incredible wind sweeping the coastline into your eyes and...
Die Hel
The edge of the Little Karoo, an arid semi-desert region northeast of Cape Town, is where one finds, not far from the small town of Prince Albert, Hell. To go to Hell (Hel in Afrikaans), you must drive through a steeply climbing section of the stunning Swartberg mountain pass, some of it quite narrow and unpaved. But that's nothing. You are still on a road from A to Z. Somewhere around C or D, however, the civilized dirt road branches off to the right as a laconic sign...
African sands
February 21, 2008
Very little remains to be said about the fascinating views of the Sahara one gets from the air. Here are more images, the RAW files having been processed with better tools this time. They are not all perfectly crisp but keep in mind that they were shot through a plane window in manual focus. Still, our planet leaves me in awe.