As I’ve said, loads of photos and videos to come, but better/easier to do so when we’re back on the ship. We’ve done 2 game drives every day, the morning ones start an hour before dawn. Tomorrow we do the last one, fly to Walvis Bay on a light plane to rejoin the ship. There I’ll be able to revert to lazy self-indulgent-mode, recharge the batteries, heal the land-cruiser-inflicted lower back issues, and begin to edit and compress the 3.2 trillion MB of photos and video from the last 10 days/2 weeks. And we then set sail for the sub-Saharan countries of Benin, Togo, and Ghana. Rumor has it that Captain Kyriakos will endeavor to sail us through the so-called “Null Island” area of the ocean, where the Equator and the Grand Meridian intersect, thus producing all 0.00 numbers in latitude and longitude. Apparently serious sea-faring types regard this experience as a very nice feather in one’s cap.

Bit of a family argument or sibling rivalry going on. Video is better but….well, you know.

This was a particularly memorable moment. Sunset over the Chobe River, with elephant silhouette reflections in the water.

Victoria Falls was awesome. Video (especially from our helicopter ride over) is much more spectacular, but file sizes too big to upload, will need to wait until we’re back on the ship.

I’ll take advantage of the Cape Town airport Wi-Fi to post a few appetizers from the last 5 days.

Right now we’re in the Cape Town airport before dawn, waiting to fly to Windhoek, Namibia, for four more days of safari action. Will report as I can.

So, relative radio silence is not due to lack of anything to report - we’ve been off the ship in Botswana and Wi-Fi was too weak for photo and vid posting. Have loads of great safari stuff to post, but will need to wait until time and tech allow.

Just figured out that we are less than 200 miles from the “antipode” of the Big Island of Hawaii, i.e., if you drilled straight down through the center of the earth, you’d come out at Maun, Botswana, a stone’s throw away.

Likely wifi issues again at this new lodge - we are, after all, pretty much in the middle of nowhere (and I mean that in the nicest possible way). If I’m able to post pix I will, but may have to wait until we’re back on the ship.

This morning we disembarked the ship at Durban (South Africa) and flew to Johannesburg. We toured Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto and a general drive-around of the city - tomorrow morning we fly to Kasane in Botswana, for a multi-day safari in Chobe National Park.

 

Yep, juveniles all right.

 

This group of a dozen or so may have been the same ones we encountered the day before, dozing under the tree. Females….if there were any males, they were juveniles.

 

We watched a group of kopis, they were all staring intently in the same direction. They suddenly decided to relocate, for obvious reasons.

 

Either 11 or 12 of them - we couldn’t get close enough to be sure, and didn’t exactly want to. Probably dined earlier in the day, and were content to just flake out in the heat, under tree shade.

Just after sunrise - thus the balloon. This ol’ guy, well, you got the feeling that he’s been around for a while and has seen a few things.

African buffalo, at sunrise.

A couple of cheetahs, eyeing tonight’s menu.

Wart hog & African buffalo. These two kept their distance, so photos are not sharp. Apparently, even if you’re a wart hog who doesn’t star in a Disney movie, you can be pretty aloof.

Can’t really tell because of the glass-reflection, but there was a great deal of enthusiastic hand-waving. We waved back.

This is Kichwa Tembo airport, at the Maasai Mara. As you can see, the rental car area does not require a shuttle to get there. That’s Terminal A on the right. There is a Terminal B, it’s behind me as I take the photo. Terminal B is identical to Terminal A.

The first half of Day 1 was mostly spent in airports - the slow-moving line for security and the slow-moving line for immigration and the slow-moving line for customs and the slow-moving line to get to the next slow-moving line. And that was in both directions, to leave Tanzania and then all over again to enter Kenya. And…..HOT. No a/c, of course. Anyway, such annoyances melted away once the main event was underway.

We flew out of Zanzibar, to Nairobi and then on to Kichwa Tembo in Kenya. It was a whirlwind 48 hours, and I’ll post some of the better pix, from our game drives. Right now, it’s nearly 11:00p on the ship, so zzzzzzz, but here’s an amuse-bouche of our experience.

Hasn’t been a lot of downtime in the last 48 hours, but we’re abou to sail away from Dar Es Salaam, and we’ll have four days at sea, so there will be plenty of time to recap. Lots of safari game drive pix to come.

Don’t pay the ransom, I’ve escaped.

Exhausted, but a grand day. Quick one-photo preview - this was just on the drive from the airstrip to the lodge. Need to be up at 5:30a tomorrow. zzzzzzzzzzzz

So, long day, almost over. In short - flew from Tanzania to Nairobi and on to Kichwa Tembo airstrip. In long….time is a little crunched right now, and I’’ll need to assemble/compress/edit some visuals, so give me time to do so, may not be until we’re back on the ship.

Also presented without comment. (ok, maybe just a little bit: eat your heart out, Bagpipe Boy. inside joke)

In a gift shop. Presented without comment.

The marketplace in Zanzibar is wall-to-wall chaos. And heat.

So, we have sailed away from the Seychelles, and we dock in Zanzibar tomorrow. And from here on, it’s all-Africa, all-the-time. wooohooo!

I may hurl myself overboard.

Porcini raviolo. Not at all rich.

Re last post: “everybody have fun tonight. everybody wang chung tonight”. (I don’t know what it means either)

 

Second day in the Seychelles was even better. Sailed past the famous Cocos Island and did snorkeling at Grand Seour Island - probably the best of the trip. Loads of tangs and parrotfish and angelfish, and I floated around for 4-5 minutes watching a turtle just do his thing.

These gorgeous blossoms were strewn around - our guide said they were from an “African magnolia tree”, although I’m pretty sure the good ol’ “language/translation” thing might be at play here. I googled “African magnolia” and got several hundred hits about a Liberian cargo ship.

Seychelles also have giant tortoises, a la Galapagos. What a mug.