Cote d'Ivoire

Cote d'Ivoire is a west African country, and it's french name remains unchanged in English. Litterly meaning "Ivory Coast" you can guess what the country used to be famous for. Now it has mainly coffee and cocoa as agricultural export products. It is claimed that any chocolatier worth his salt should have Ivorian cocoa in his mix. If you walk in the container yard in Abidjan,the capital, you will watermouth as you can smell cocoa everywhere. Cote d'Ivoire was one of the first African countries to achieve independance from their colonisers - the French. Their inspirational leader Felix Houphouet-Boigny was a great thinker and lead his country to certain prosperity. To such an extend that it was called the Ivorian miracle. It is currently stil one of the upcoming African countries. Currently the country holds 19 million inhabitants, with Didier Drogba probably the best known of all of them - being a top scoring soccer player

A big garden

The Garden Route is probably the most famous destination of South Africa. Not so much a Garden as a Route, it refers to the stretch of coast between Plettenberg and Port Elisabeth. Along the roughly 200 kms, you will see mountains, valleys and lakes, rivers and forests, a paradise for nature lovers.
It is one of South Africa's richest botanical treasures, with giant Yellowwood or Milkwood trees in one of the indigenous forests. And between July and December each year, you can witness a multitude of blooms, such as the Proteas, Ericas, Vygies, Bluebells, Pin-Cushions, Aloes, Tubers and various other species of Fynbos, as it is a matter of record that the floral kingdom of this area is the most varied in the world.
If you stick to the N2, the highway along the garden route, you might not be so impressed. The trick lies in exploring the areas along the highway.