Swaziland, a nice looking lizard

A nice looking lizard from Swaziland.

these guys are not small.

Johannesburg - Thorn Tree

A while back I blogged about a tree I like which I called "mystery thorn tree" but was really a Chorisa Speciosa.

Here are some more pictures of those trees. This one does not have any thorns but is wonderful and tall and when in bloom can be seen quite a ways away. It is in the huge garden of a super fancy house and since it is quite far from the fence I asked the gardener if I could go in to take photos of the tree. He couldn't let me in so I had to "buzz" the main house from the gate and asked to be let in. Nicely enough them did let me in.

Just the wall you see next to the tree trunk is taller than me, to give you a sense of how tall the tree is.

Further along another of those trees is already bearing fruits...also a very tall tree so I cannot get a close up, but this is what the fruits look like.

Johannesburg, Dog at the Gate

I just love that shot.

Johannesburg Coptic Church

I haven't seen the inside but presumably it is quite fancy inside regardless of what the outside looks like.

Nelson Mandela Square - Johannesburg

Nelson Mandela Square is part of a big complex which includes very fancy hotels and a huge shopping mall, Sandton City.

On the square there are mostly fancy and expensive restaurants but there is also one of the branches of Johannesburg Public Library.

The library is the building with the pyramid shaped window on top of the entrance way. It is quite a big branch of the library, it  might be the biggest one but I am not sure.

 I cannot imagine how many pictures are being taken everyday of Nelson Mandela's statue. To be honest the statue unfortunately has no artistic value, but then again it really does not need to, it stands for something else all together.

Zebras of Mlilwane in Swaziland

Not a great photos but it shows the hills behind

See the front of his body their is a seam in the pattern.

I love the pattern of zebras skins and you can buy skins at the market. I would love to have one but at the same time cannot possibly stand the idea of having the skin of a zebra in my house. They might be beautiful but they still are skin of something which was alive. I know I wear leather shoes etc etc but I can't do the zebra skin. I am not even trying to be logical about it.

Look at them in the mountains. Could you have a skin of one of those in your house?  I can't.

Ancestor Vessels from Nigeria

I have two clay pots that I really like. I never really knew much about them and just started to find some information on them because Kim Sack Gallery has one of them and has a label to go with it.
At Kim Sack Gallery (here in Johannesburg) the piece is labelled as "Jungur Culture - Nigeria / Chad - Wiiso vessel". From this thanks to the internet I found that they are Ancestor Vessels.
The Primitive Gallery in the Us has some good photos of the many ancestor vessels they have. They place them as being from the Mambila People in Cameroon.

 Anyway here are my two little guys as they stand in my garden.(That's my photo of the day)

Stone Grinders - show at Circa Gallery

Recently Circa Gallery had a show on Stone Grinders. To be honest I thought it was a bit disappointing. The light wasn't great. There was really very little text or anything to put them into context. I think for me the worse was that there was no history on any of the stone grinders, where they had been found, where they are now kept and things like this so that they all blended into an anonymous mass which is a shame because stone grinders of South Africa are beautiful things. My Landlady has a few in her garden and outdoors in the rain and sun they have "personality". But anyway here they are.

Swaziland - the crocodiles

On the same island on another day the crocodiles had the spot.
Same island so you can compare the size with that of the hippopotamuses.

and just very close to the best spot to take photos was another croc, not a small one either.

Swaziland - Hippopotamus at Mlilwane Nature Reserve

While I was in Swaziland I spent most of my time at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary.
Because they do not have the Big Fives and in particular no lions, you can walk all over the property. That was GREAT! I did a lot of walking, went to the top of Execution Peak and basically walked all over the property. I had a fantastic time. Mlilwane is very reasonably priced and if you are on a budget I cannot recommend Mlilwane enough.
On the property there is a dam and in the dam a small island. This little piece of land turned out a great spot for wild life watching. One day in particular three hippos (the dadd, the mum and the "baby") were sleeping on the island. As the island is a little too small for the three of them I spent a long time watching the poor "baby" trying to find a way to lie comfortably.

The "baby" is smaller and hidden behind mum in this photo.

Here he is lying down but slowly he was sliding off and the little tree behind him is just not enough to hold him in place.

He looks for another spot......

....Tries to wake up mum to his problem but she totally ignores him .....

...Tries to back up into another spot....

...and after a very difficult turn around find a way to lie down.

.

As evening came, pretty much as soon as the island was out of the sun mum and "baby" started moving. The dadd slept the longest

 

Hippopotamuses are actually nocturnal creatures, they sleep most of the day and feed at night when they come out of the water. In winter they also spend some days out of the water to keep warm in the sun. 

I waited until it was late enough for them to decide to get off the island so they could go and feed, by then it was really too dark to take photos with my simple camera but here is one blurry photo anyway.

As soon as dadd was up though he went into the water.

Mountainous Swaziland with zebras

Here are some photos from a hike to the top of Execution Peak.

See if you can spot the zebras in this second photo.

Oops, here they run away.

Swaziland a few words

I guess I am back to doing "a Photo a day" but got out of "Johannesburg" sort of theme I had. I think I will just do "a photo a day" of what ever I want with no theme even though I really enjoyed when Amira did hers with a theme. I just don't have the discipline to stick to it.

I just want to say a few things about Swaziland.

First here is a map from Google Maps to locate Swaziland.

 

It is land locked between South Africa and Mozambique.
It is a small kingdom (the present king is King Mswati III). To give you a sense of the size of Swaziland, if it was a square it would be 130 km wide - meaning of course that you can easily go from one side of the kingdom to the other and back in a day.
English is widely spoken but the true language of Swaziland is siSwati, a somewhat difficult language which makes Zulu with its 6 genders etc seem easy.
The currency is the Lilangeni (plural Emalangeni) which is on par with the South African Rand (as is the Namibian dollar).
The climate changes wildly from one side of the country to the other based on elevation.
In fact the country can be divided into 4 belts running parallel to each other from east to west.The west side of the country is mountainous with an elevation around 1800m.
As you travel eastward each belt has a lower elevation than the previous one. And the Eastern most belt is subtropical with a mean elevation of 200m. Its climate allows sugar canes to be widely and successfully grown commercially.

Obviously as I was looking for warm weather I just drove through the 2 western belts and went right through to the good weather. This took me less than 50 kms from the western border!

Anyway here is the photo of the day: A view of Swaziland plains just 40 kilometres east of Mbabane (the Capital city which is in the Highveld and so was quite cold this time of year)

Birds of paradise now in seeds

You've see the flowers.

I am sure you had seen them before.


Now the seeds:

Orange Grove - Johannesburg

One of the many shops of Orange Grove (a neighborhood of Johannesburg).
This is just across the street from the biggest Hospice store I have ever seen. (Hospice stores are second hand charity stores in South Africa just like Oxfam in the UK, Salvation Army in Canada etc etc). There is nothing special about the store apart from the fact that it is big and colourful and I thought it would be a good picture for the day.

African Shoe Surgery - Johannesburg

The store is the shack at the back with the smoke.

Johannesburg - Crested Barbet

Barbets are related to woodpeckers (or so says my bird book). There are 10 kinds of barbets in South Africa and 4 in Johannesburg. My favourite is the crested barbet who is actually not a very elegant bird. In a way it is so weird/ugly that it is cute. My landlady calls them "the tutti fruity birds" because of their colouring which is a bit all over the place. There is a spot at the top of the hill where I often see them but they are not easy to photograph. This is the best I could do.

i do realize that they are not great photos but I have been trying for days to photograph those guys and today is the first day I even came close. I have a regular (and somewhat old) digital camera ...which, to me seems to be taking photos which are more and more faded...especially as far as blues are concerned.