Joe Benning Photography

Travel & Photo Blog

  •   Reston, VA

The West African Coast: Namibia

Walvis Bay, Namibia May 11, 2023 We arrived at Walvis Bay in Namibia which is bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean.To the north it shares land borders with Zambia and Angola, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. But the capital […]

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Maputo, Mozambique

Bob Dylan immortalized the place in his song “Mozambique” in 1976.     Well, times change. We spent a short time in the Mozambique city of Maputo, but there is not much to see. Mozambique does have beautiful beaches, but they are about 3 hours away from Maputo.  A colony of Portugal, Mozambique gained its […]

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Another Safari Day

Out in the Bush   When you head out to the bush country you just don’t know what you are going to find. For the second (of three) Safari days out in the bush, the plan was to find some elephants in the morning, and maybe more lions in the afternoon. That meant getting a […]

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On Safari–Part 1

Here we are at Thanda Game Reserve to go on a Safari. Thanda is our “base camp” in the same way the Ritz-Carlton is a base camp. The place is just spectacular. (See the photo below of our villa). After we arrived we got settled in and went for our first game drive, lasting from […]

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Mossel Bay & Port Elizabeth

We have left Mossel Bay and Port Elizabeth and are now sailing in the Indian Ocean, headed for Durban. From Durban we will head inland to the Thanda Game Reserve in the heart of the Zulu homelands where we will go on Safari, tracking (and hopefully photographing) the “Big 5”–Elephants, Lions, Cape buffalo, Black rhinos and […]

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Cape Town, South Africa

We spent a few days tooling around Cape Town, South Africa after beating the East coast storm by a day.  17 hours in the air is a lot of flight time, but it was well worth it. Cape Town is hopping in our neighborhood but once you get outside the upmarket areas, it’s a bit […]

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