Travel Quote Tuesday | Thebo Mbeki

I am a city girl born and bred. I love living in London, even though I don’t take full advantage of all the pleasures on my doorstep – just knowing they are there whenever I want them is a gift indeed. Even when I’m gritting my teeth at endless delays and rude people on the Tube, or bemoaning the price of anything and everything, or grumbling about how long it takes to get from one place to another, it’s a toothless anger born out of love and familiarity and home.

I travel to see and experience something different.

And what could be more different than the incredible open spaces of our planet’s most wild places? The sense of space, of being a tiny insignificant being in a huge wide world, of awe at the natural beauty of places and wild things is indescribably uplifting and addictive.

(c) Kavita Favelle - Thabo Mbeki - Kenya

I love this quote by Thabo Mbeki, the second post-apartheid President of South Africa, from 1999 to 2008.

Another photo of the Maasai Mara in Kenya, with that wonderful luminescent light that makes the grass look like it’s glowing. The rain-laden clouds will soon drop their water, in a mad torrential downpour. But it won’t last long and then the golden sun will light up the huge open space again.

More Kavey Eats Travel Quotes.

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30 Comments to "Travel Quote Tuesday | Thebo Mbeki"

  1. kaveyeats

    Sometimes I think about living in the country, with some wistfulness but it’s usually because I’ve had a shitty commute that day, and I realise that I’d feel too isolated out in the countryside. 🙂

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  2. Emma @ Supper in the Suburbs

    Beautiful quote Kavey. I saw this on Facebook the other day and it totally made me smile. I am a woman of two halves – a bit of a jackle and hyde if you will! I love the City and right now it’s where I want and NEED to be. Like you I don’t always make the most of it but the comfort and reassurance I get of knowing I COULD do whatever I want at any time of day is immense. I’m always, always never more than a tube or a taxi from home which helps. BUT on the other hand I adore the countryside. We not only travel for new experiences like you (I’m just back from China, one word, AMAZING) but we always take a holiday to country to escape. I think I got my closest to understanding what Thabo Mbeki meant this year when we stayed in the Welsh countryside. We sat next to our yurt and couldn’t hear a thing. It was the dead of night and not even the insects were making a noise. Just us and the stars. Beautiful!

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    kaveyeats

    Now and then over the years Pete and I have discussed the idea of moving to a rural spot in the UK, or more likely France. We’d find a large enough property to have spaces for various projects, maybe a little training school, or a brewery (and these days a pottery) plus a large kitchen garden and lots more land. But the reality is I’d miss the city, not to mention that right now I need to be here to be able to find the right kind of contract work. But we do like to get out into the quiet places to relax. Namibia is particularly incredible for the open spaces and vast skies and I remember looking up to the sky the first night we spent in the Namib Desert (see last TravelQuoteTuesday) the first night and being astonished at how many stars there were, how we could see galaxies. It was profoundly incredible!

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  3. kaveyeats

    Thank you. The cities are like cities everywhere but the natural spaces, they are where the sky is so enormous!

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  4. Elizabeth

    Such a beautiful quote. I’ve not yet had the privilege of visiting Africa (one day!) but where I live we’re all about the big sky too. So much sky!

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  5. Anne

    I definitely think travel can be about escaping. I’ve done a number of retreats to India simply to escape the rat race a few times

    Reply
  6. Vicki Louise

    I totally agree with this quote. There is so much space in Africa – the silence there is deafening and profound and absolutely wonderful!

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    For me, on safari, it’s the silence at first, compared to the noises we know and expect as city dwellers, but then you tune in to the noises of the wild, the wind through the trees, the birds, the calls of the wildlife…

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  7. melody pittman

    Lovely quote and a great choice of picture to go with it. I had the same situation of the sky opening up and then turning back within minutes in Turks & Caicos. The pictures were worth the torrential downpour which only lasted minutes

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    kaveyeats

    We’ve experienced a few crazy downpours in Africa, but yes, worth it for the beauty and experience!

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  8. Jo

    I love the Mara grasslands and I can see why this quote resonates to you – or anyone who has experienced the vastness of the African savannah.

    Reply
  9. Chrysoula

    Africa is exactly how the quote describes it! Traveling is experiencing something different from what you are used to.

    Reply

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