I Don’t Have a Photographic Memory, but I Have Photos to Remind Me
Images of nature from the St Lucia wetlands
One day I’ll have a quality camera again, like when we holidayed twelve years ago at the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a huge protected area along the coast of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province.
The park’s centerpiece is the vast Lake St. Lucia, home to large numbers of hippos, crocodiles, pelicans and flamingos. The nearby town bears the same name, and South Africans refer to the wetlands as St. Lucia as well.
The town of St Lucia is the hub from which one can venture out to explore the lake. We rented a self-contained cabin for our seven-day vacation and spent the first two days exploring the town on foot.
I was pleased to find a street vendor who repaired shoes. The stitching on straps of my leather strap sandals was coming loose, as were the velcro tabs.
I left them with him in the morning and collected them that same afternoon. I paid him twice the asking price as he did such a perfect job and I would have paid a far greater amount back in Jozi (Johannesburg).
We also walked on the beach and took dips in the warm Indian Ocean.
Unfortunately, in those days I suffered from migraine headaches, so we stayed put at the resort a lot of the time relaxing on a lounger by the pool under the shade of an umbrella, or sitting on our little veranda.
Nature came to visit even when we didn’t venture out, such as this cheeky vervet monkey who came to lap rainwater off the table!
One night, a hippo came to graze on the lawn at the resort. Visitors are warned not to venture out when hippos are around — you cannot run faster than them if they decide to charge you. They sometimes wander through town at dusk!
We enjoyed watching the solitary creature munching away. Who needs a lawnmower when natures provides?
The highlight of our vacation was taking a late afternoon boat tour on St. Lucia Lake.
I leave you with a selection of photos from that excursion — mostly hippos as they forage at night, and fascinate me.
We didn’t spot any crocodiles in the lake but the tour guide pointed us to these sleepy fellow. We stayed very quiet so that we didn’t disturb him and the boat’s engine was idling, ready to escape as they move very swiftly. My heart was pumping seeing a crocodile in the flesh!
And for the final act, here are the hippo’s!
I hope you enjoyed these photos. I’m looking forward to a miracle that will enable my to purchase a quality camera again, but at least I have a library of images from my past.
Thank you for being here.
A big thank you to Sahil Patel for this Reciprocal Nature Prompt — Pleasant Photography.
