What's with the flamingo?

Once upon a time, there lived a girl in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg who longed for something tacky to adorn her lawn. If she journeyed into the East Rand, Garden Gnomes were in abundance. If she went to the West, there were wagon wheel fences. And, in both one can find letter boxes made to look like wooden barrels. Throughout her city, though, lawn flamingos remained rare and elusive.

One day, she journeyed to North America to sail one of the seven seas and there, while swimming off the quiet Island of Cozumel, Mexico, she met a scuba-diving instructor with crazy blue eyes named Rodrigo, who gave her some snorkelling advice and then tried to convince her that his future happiness was based on the hope that she would one day return to the island and allow him to drive her into the sunset on his scooter. Terrified that she had stepped into a bad bad romance novel, the girl fled the quiet seaside bar never to return again (on that contract), unaware of the fact that she was leaving her beloved SPF 50 (and the secret to her non-tan) behind.

Upon her return to the home port of Mobile, Alabama, the girl set off to replace her much needed sunscreen and there, in the discount section of Target, she found the Lawn Flamingo she had always wanted. She named him after the creepy Mexican guy, and the pair set off across the sea to the Bahamas and inland through the USA in search of adventure and the two-storey Barbie house at the Toys R Us in Times Square.

They then travelled throughout Europe, held up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, watched the sunset from the Eiffel Tower, crossed the London Bridge, visited the Vatican and befriended obscene gnomes in Germany. Their tamer adventures in South Africa consisted mostly of surviving a particularly wild house cat. 

Apart from visiting six of the seven continents (bypassing Antarctica, it's cold, no one needs to go there), Sharon intends to take Rodrigo to Cozumel, to find that creepy scuba-diving instructor, allow him to drive them around the island on his scooter and see if he remembers her after all.

You can read more about his adventures here, and you can follow him on Instagram here.

Countries and territories visited so far:

1. The USA
2. The Bahamas
3. The Turks and Caicos
4. South Africa
5. England
6. France
7. Switzerland
8. Austria
9. Germany
10. Italy
11. The Vatican City
12. Greece
13. Slovakia
14. Slovenia
15. Czech Republic
16. Belgium
17. The Netherlands
18. Mozambique
19. St. Maarten (The Netherlands / France)
20. U.S Virgin Islands (USA)
21. Anguilla (Britain)
22. Mexico
23. Jamaica
24. Honduras
25. Belize
26. Colombia
27. Costa Rica
28. The Azores (Portugal)
29. Denmark
30. Estonia
31. Russia
32. Finland
33. Sweden
34. Norway
35. Ireland
36. Northern Ireland
37. Scotland
38. The British Virgin Islands
39. Zimbabwe
40. Bermuda
41. Canada
42. Antigua & Barbuda
43. St. Lucia
44. Martinique (France)
45. Puerto Rico (USA)
46. Barbados
47. St. Kitts & Nevis
48. Aruba
49. Curacao
50. Bonaire
51. Grenada
52. Guadalupe
53. Cuba

See his photo gallery here.