When my sister first asked me to visit her in South Africa I was not sure if I wanted to go there. Africa in general has never really been on my focus and I just do not know much about the continent. So I also did not know anything about South Africa.

I sort of imagined South Africa as a boring desert with poor people and nothing interesting to see. But I did not know how wrong I was…

My sister did a semester abroad to study at the university in Durban and from the first moment she was in love with the country. So finally she convinced me to come and we spent one of our greatest holidays there.

Well there are a lot of poor people, there is a lot of criminality and black and white people are still separated. These are definitely big disadvantages that kind of destroy the beauty of the country.

But the landscape is the most beautiful I have ever seen.

In the eastern area there is a subtropical climate where you can find rain forests with waterfalls. While there is desert in the north west.

In the Stellenbosch area (close to Cape Town) there is a mediterranean climate where all the vineyards are. Besides you see mountains and wonderful trees, which reminded me of North Italy.

But there is not only a great diversity of different landscapes, you will also a find a lot of rare animals in a huge variety. You can see pinguins and ostriches at the Cape of good hope. If you do a safari in the east you will see lions, elephants, rhinos, zebras, crocodiles, hippos and dangerous snakes. And the greatness does not stop here.

In addition South Africa is supposed to have the most beautiful sunsets of the world – and as far as I can tell this is definitely true!

Watching the sunset on the coast around Cape Town is just stunning. This picture has been taken at Camps Bay.

I went there with no expectations and came back with very unique and great impressions.

If you do not have any expectations you can never get disappointed.