Author: Traveling Rockhopper

Many years ago, a friend told me a story about South Africa, that was hard to believe in. To make it short, it was about men raping babies and small children (virgins) to be cured for AIDS or to prevent from getting AIDS. It sounds like a horror, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, this kind of sexual violence is quite common, because many people have these false beliefs about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention. I feel speechless how horrible it is… And, it actually spreads the disease even more…

HIV and AIDS are huge problems in South Africa. And sadly, there are probably more people with HIV and AIDS in South Africa than in any other country in the world.

The mining sector is very important in South Africa. Diamonds and gold made South Africa a rich country. However, everything has its own price…

I’ll quote this short text from Wikipedia and leave it without a comment:
“The mining and distribution of natural diamonds are subjects of frequent controversy such as concerns over the sale of blood diamonds or conflict diamonds by African paramilitary groups. The diamond supply chain is controlled by a limited number of powerful businesses, and is also highly concentrated in a small number of locations around the world.”

If you haven’t watched it yet, I can recommend here a movie from 2006 – Blood Diamond.

I wanted to write a few words about Nelson Mandela, because he was a very important person (“a hero”) in a recent history of South Africa. However, it’s quite a difficult task, so I’ll just mention some facts.

-Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a first black President of South Africa.
(Doesn’t it sound strange in an African country?)
-He was a president from 1994 to 1999.
-Mandela was against apartheid.
-He spent 27 years in prison!
-Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
-He died in 2013.

p.s. As you may realized, I put a “random” picture when I don’t have any appropriate one. Hopefully, you don’t mind it! (On the other hand, sometimes I have something particular in mind, e.g., “orange” animal in a post about Dutch Colonization or here a lighthouse while thinking about “bright” future, etc.)

Apartheid is defined as a racial segregation and discrimination that lasted in South Africa between 1948 and 1991. However the racial segregation in South Africa has much longer history, and even these days is not completely gone…

“The white minority controlled the much larger black majority.” – Is it already the past or still the current situation?

As a tourists in South Africa, you may have an impression, that’s a rich and modern country with many extremely poor people.

A few facts:
-An unemployment rate is very high and many South Africans live on less than 1 USD a day.
-There are many immigrants from poorer neighboring countries who came to South Africa hoping to improve their situation, but usually they are as poor as they were before leaving their own countries.
-The material status, is unfortunately often connected with the skin color.

More or less after the period of Dutch colonization, South Africa was colonized by the British Empire (during that time, there were a few years of Dutch occupation).
That period also influenced the language of South Africa, so these days, English is one of the official languages. The South African English sounds a bit like English from New Zealand, so it’s completely different from e.g., English from India.

In the ~17th century, South Africa was a Dutch colony. It was quite a short period in the history of South Africa.
However, it’s not forgotten from at least two main reasons:
-Many places in South Africa have names of Dutch origin.
-One of the official languages of South Africa (called Afrikaans) was derived from Dutch (more about it on 11th of July 2017).

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, borders Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe; and completely surrounds the Kingdom of Lesotho.
The southern part of South Africa stretches along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

July on my blog, is going to be about beautiful South Africa.

My friend wanted to know what country I’m going to show in July, so she asked for a hint to guess by herself. I said, that I took there a direct flight from the Netherlands. Do you know what I meant by this? If not, I’ll explain it very soon (3rd of July 2017)! 🙂

Let’s start the journey! 🙂

And June is almost over, so I’m showing you the last picture from Ukraine.
How did you like to travel with me in June?
I hope, I managed to show you some interesting places in Ukraine. 🙂

If you think about visiting Ukraine, especially Kiev, have a look at this nice guide.
It was made by Vladyslav Tieriekhov for Eurovision 2017 (that took place in Kiev).

p.s. See you tomorrow in other exciting place! 🙂

Eupatoria (or Yevpatoria) is an interesting city with a long history.
It’s located in Crimea and it’s one of the main Black Sea resorts.

There are two places you cannot miss while being in Eupatoria:
– The Juma-Jami Mosque, from 1522;
and
– The wonderful Karaite Kenassa, seen in today’s picture.
Karaite Kenassa is the temple complex of Crimean Karaites. I was mostly impressed by its courtyards – simply beautiful! 🙂

Bakhchysarai is a nice town in central Crimea.
It’s lovely located in a valley, nearby mountains, so no wonder the region was inspiring for many; even for Russian poet Alexander Pushkin’s or Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.

When you go to Bakhchysarai – you have to visit the impressive Khan’s Palace (then you understand my first impression about Crimea).

My visit to Ukraine was connected with my job. I went to the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO) that is located in Nauchnyj, in Crimea.
I spent a few days in Crimea, so I had a chance for sightseeing nearby places.
It’s always nice when you can combine pleasure with work. 🙂

I come from a country where not so many poisonous animals live, I mean wild animals, people are excluded. 😉 So the idea of meeting a snake in a garden is more like a fantasy to me. Knowing that, you can imagine how “unhappy” I was while seeing a snake, when I was hiking in Crimea… Well, I didn’t scream, but was slightly surprised…

The fact is – in Crimean mountains you can find a snake or a viper.

I don’t know what kind of spices I saw, I rather remember a bird…
So, I was hiking and taking pictures. At some point, I heard a bird kind of “shouting” sound. The bird was flying close to the ground – looked like jumping – up and down, up and down, etc… From my perspective, it looked like this tiny bird was shouting-informing that there is a snake coming; and bird was jumping above this snake. I was frozen…
p.s. That snake looked quite big to me, but I may be not the best person for describing the snake’s size. 😉

Black Sea is surrounded by six countries, i.e., Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It’s quite famous destination for people who like resting at the beach; especially Bulgaria is getting more and more popular.

As you see in today’s picture, the color of the Black Sea is not black. 😉 So why is it called like that?
Well, it’s not really clear and there are many theories about its name. One of them says, that color “black” in some languages refers to the direction “north”, so it’s connected with the location of the Black Sea. But it’s only one of the possibilities.

When I was visiting Crimea, I had the impression that I’m in Turkey, well, kind of Turkey. It’s probably because of some buildings, mosques, people, everything looked to me more Turkish than Ukrainian (it was just my first impression). And there is some sense in it! E.g., there are Tatars living in Crimea.

Crimean Tatars (sometimes called Crimean Turkish) are a Turkish ethnic group that formed in the Crimean Peninsula during the 13th – 17th centuries.

Crimea is a peninsula almost completely surrounded by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
It’s located at the south part of Ukraine; currently it’s controlled by Russia (see post from 11.06.2017).

As I already mentioned, when I was visiting Ukraine, Crimea was considered as a part of Ukraine. These days, the political situation is complicated and also visiting Crimea is quite problematic.
Anyway, I liked Crimea a lot, so I want to show you some of my pictures.
Hopefully, one day the situation will be better and you can easily enjoy the beauty of Crimea.

The history of Lviv is closely related with Poland. E.g., for a few centuries, Lviv was a part of the Kingdom of Poland.
There are still Polish people living in Lviv. When I was visiting the city, I thought, there were quite many of Poles, but it’s apparently only 1 % of the Lviv population.

Lviv used to be the center of Polish culture. Many notable Polish people were born in Lviv and also many were buried there. When I was in Lviv, I visited the Lychakiv Cemetery and found there many (famous) Polish names. That’s the reason for today’s picture.

Lviv is my favorite city in Ukraine.
And, I’m not saying it because I’m Polish (Lviv used to belong to Poland). The historic center of Lviv is really lovely and it’s even listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

These days, Lviv is considered as one of the most touristic destination in Ukraine. And it’s well prepared for it by having many hotels and restaurants.

What to visit in Lviv?
– Take a long walk in the old town and look at beautiful old buildings or churches (many of them date back the Polish rule 🙂 ).
-I can also recommend to go to the Lviv High Castle.

Have you heard about the Chernobyl disaster?
– Maybe it’s a silly question, but I come from Poland, that borders Ukraine, so I heard the name “Chernobyl” thousand times. It may be not so obvious for people from outside Europe.

In 1986, in Chernobyl, a catastrophic nuclear accident happened.
One of the reactors at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during some tests and the consequences were horrible; probably they’ll be seen for thousands of years… 🙁
Currently, Chernobyl (or nearby Pripyat, but I’ll just write Chernobyl) is a ghost town with a few people living there (they came back after the evacuation, despite the pollution, they wanted to live their old life in their houses…).

Chernobyl is located 90 km from Kiev. From the Ukrainian capital you can take a trip and visit Chernobyl. I didn’t go there and I’m so so sure about visiting the place; maybe as a scientist, otherwise, I don’t’ know… Would you like to go there?

p.s. Today’s picture is not from Chernobyl, I even didn’t take it nearby Chernobyl. As I said, I didn’t go to Chernobyl. This picture somehow fitted the best for today’s topic, because it shows a wreck (and water – water was actually one of the reasons of the disaster).