July 17, 2014 

Just over two weeks until I take flight.  Perhaps not as gracefully as a Broad-Billed Roller that we will be trying to spot near the Okavango Delta.  We may hear it first with its “snarling k-k-k-k-k-r-r-r-r-r sound,” especially since they seem to perch high up in the trees in families of a 100 or so!  I am learning this from another Amazon purchase, The African Safari Journal.  It is the companion to the guidebook I bought a year ago. 

This trip is the most expensive investment I have made in travel.  Therefore I want to maximize both the enjoyment and the possible educational enhancement by buying even more stuff!  I needed a wardrobe consisting of lightweight long sleeved shirts and convertible pants.  I couldn't find the kind that zip off but did find ones that roll up and button.  Everything is in tan or the Army green shade of khaki.  I want to blend into the background. 

Susie advised that I take comfortable stretchy corduroys to do double duty.  She recommend a style from Land's End that I got on sale at the end of the season.  They will work as lightweight but warm slacks for sitting around the campfire and then tucking ourselves in beneath the mosquito netting to sleep.  We may even need them when we leave camp for the first game drive of the day - the Sunrise Drive.  Hard to believe that corduroys would be needed in Africa but we will be way south as they are coming out of winter and going into spring.  Remember February in Atlanta!

Today I started breaking in new boots.  Someone that I know who has done a similar trip advised on boots as the best footwear for jumping into and out of Safari vehicles.  The only boots I had that were not fashion footwear were my steel toed boots from my Horticulture days.  Super heavy, and with a total baggage allowance of only 44 pounds including carry on, I searched for weeks for a sturdy but lighter weight version. 

I also bought two new cameras, a DSLR that isn’t going to really work well for the trip.  Advice from the experts was that if you brought a camera with interchangeable lenses you would need to change them inside of plastic bags.  Since I  mostly used an auto setting I decided the heavy, bulky, unfamiliar camera was not a good choice.  As a matter of fact, I may sell it.  So if you need a good camera at a good bargain, let me know.   So the Nikon S9700 was the next big ticket item on the shopping list.  I am learning to use it now and I think it will be really effective. 

There are three books added to my travel bookshelf.   Two are pictured above.  I would have bought a fourth – DK Top10 Johannesburg – but it doesn’t exist.  Actually, there are no guides to what, henceforth, I shall call Jo-Burg, like the locals do.  Apparently, even though it is perhaps one of the best known cities in the world, there is not much to make it a genuine tourist destination.  It is, however, the jumping off place for one of the three capitols of South Africa, Cape Town.   

We do land at Jo-Burg as our first stop and then move right on again to keep going out to the first of the lodges and camps.  We  return there toward the end of the trip to go to the place of greatest interest in the city – Soweto.  The name of this district is an abbreviation for South West Township.  We are going on the optional day excursion to visit this place and to walk along Vilakazi Street.  This ordinary street has a remarkable claim to fame!  I learned about it playing trivia and find it fascinating!   

From Jo-Burg we also venture on to Cape Town, S.A. at the very end of our trip.  The African Penguins will be here and the tip of Africa – the Cape of Good Hope!  I will have been, during the course of 17 months, to the southern most points of each hemisphere!  I am so very lucky to have these opportunities and to not be afraid to claim them!   

Our last day in Africa before we fly home is also going to be filled with an optional full day excursion to the Stellenbosch Wine Region where we will enjoy some tastings and then lunch at a winery.  If I sample enough perhaps I will sleep well on the very long flight home!