It’s blue. It’s incredibly blue. It’s unbelievably blue. Crater Lake formed about 6700 years ago, within human memory, when a great volcano erupted so forcibly that it emptied it’s magma chamber then collapsed upon itself leaving a great empty crater. Eventually the hole in the earth filled with rain and melted snow. Nothing flows into this lake, nothing flows out. It’s deep enough for the Statue of Liberty to stand on top of the Washington Monument standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and there would still be 100 feet to spare. The surface of the lake is 700 feet below the rim of the crater and the only way down is to hike it, which we did. That was the easy part. Then we had to hike back up again! The equivalent of a 65 story building. We stayed to watch the sunset then drove through what seemed like an enchanted forest to Medford, Oregon for the night.
Queen Mary 2’s arrival in the Port of Dakar, Senegal was heralded in the local press and greeted with ceremony. Our own excursion took us on a coach journey through the streets of the capital city to visit a Wolof village and the shore of Lake Retba, the salty lake famed for an intense pink color.
Today’s safari adventure transported us out into the Dorob National Park to have up close encounters with little creatures that are well adapted to the extreme heat and lack of water in the Namib Desert.
With a UNESCO World Heritage Site, two national parks, dozens of museums, and hundreds of tours offered in the Cape Town area there is more than plenty to do. For our two day visit we opted to concentrate on African wildlife visiting the Aquila Private Game Reserve and the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony for a wonderful chance to these fabulous animals in their own habitat.
Sounds like an AWESOME way to spend the day! I know you guys loved every minute of it:-)