Saul and San-Marié are a married couple who usually live in Cape Town, South Africa. They quit their long-term corporate jobs in early 2015 and are presently treating their savings in a wonderfully juvenile and irresponsible manner by indulging a long-standing obsession for travel with an open-ended trip. While they have previously covered a reasonable amount of ground (for South Africans travelling on the ZAR and the Green Mamba anyway), they felt that annual leave was too limiting and travel too important to do part-time. They somehow manage to combine a liking for wild and cold places, skiing, landscapes and birds with not being particularly outdoorsy people (before this trip San-Marié last camped when she was still in primary school). Both of them are voracious readers and when not standing outside in sub-zero temperatures photographing eagles or tumbling down ski slopes in the fashion of late starters, they are comfortable sitting at a fireplace with a good book and a glass of red wine.
Saul is a wistful but dedicated Liverpool fan (Istanbul has kept him going for the past decade or two) and a keen but slow-learning amateur photographer. He does not care for clothes or cosmetics (he is a Liverpool fan) but loves all electronic toys including, of course, camera equipment. He is currently using an Olympus OMD-EM5, accompanied by a rather heavy carry-on backpack filled with lenses, filters, approximately 7 microfibre towels (he likes photographing waterfalls and seascapes) and a tripod.
San-Marié also likes taking photos but dislikes heavy carry-on luggage, so she shoots with a compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60, a recent replacement for her previous 6-year old Lumix. She also uses her Samsung Galaxy S5 when she wants a different aspect ratio, because she never figured out how to change the aspect ratio setting on either of her Lumixes. She is an avid foodie for whom sampling and cooking, if possible, local cuisines is an important element of travel. She eats (almost) anything, provided that it tastes good, although she does routinely carry medication for an annoying and most unfoodie-like chilli allergy.
