London - 1/2 Way Home

OK - so we have made it to London.  An 11 hour flight from Cape Town to London that went by pretty quickly (primarily becuase we slept).  We have a 6 hour layover in London but the lounge is pretty nice and has free wifi.  They also have showers which was a nice refresher.

I have uploaded pictures from the island (just a couple).  The picture with this post is from the sailboat during sunset.  The boat ride was a rough as a SS Napolitano cruise but a lot more work for the crew (everything is manual and no pullies).

So only 2 legs left.  London to Vancouver and Vanvouver to LAX.

Bethe and I decided we are tired and need a vacation!

And So We Have to Head Home

Today starts the relectant long journey home. We woke up today at 5am DAR time and have a 7:30 am flight to JNB. From there we have a 1PM flight to Cape Town where we have a 5 hour layover.

In Cape Town we switch back to British Air and have an 8pm flight from CPT to London (at least we are back to first class). We have a 6.5 hour layover in London and than we fly to Vanvouver (leave at 1pm and get into Van at 2:30 same day (crazy).

Not done yet - we than take a flight from Vancouver to LAX arriving at 8:30 pm Saturday.

2 days 5 countries and back home

See you all soon

Mnemba Island - What an Amazing Place

So to end it all we were told by the travel agent to spend a couple of days on this island called Mnemba off of Zanzibar.  I guess all we can say at this point in time is what an amazing place, probably one of the most amazing islands we have stayed on.

The picture on this post is from a traditional Zanzibar sailboat that they put us on for sunset on our last night.

The island only had 12 rooms, it had a million red doves which were in mating season and it also had antelopes (suni antelope) which were the smallest antelope we have seen.  The diving was amazing as well.

The funniest story is that on the second day Bethe and I went for a snorkel trip with the dolphins with other guests.  On the boat was an older guy named Jeff from the US (he introduced himself to Bethe and I as Jeff).  I sat on the boat across from him and could not stop staring because I thought I recognized him and I was right.  The guys name was Jeff Lurie (you should google it) and once you figure out who it is you will wonder how on a 12 room hotel in Africa 2 people associated with the city of Philadelphia can be on the same island.  Needless to say I was pretty excited and I got an autograph from him (actually Bethe did) for me and my dad - Yes dad I got you an autograph. 

A hint for eveyrone as to who Jeff Lurie is - GO EAGLES!!

Bethe and I reluctantly start our journey back home tomorrow morning.  We will post some pictures once we get to London as we have a 5 hour layover.

Ngorongoro Crater - Vinnie, Bethe and Lori

Craziness!  Like Vince said a pinchable experience.  How the three of us ended up on the same continent at the same time is beyond me!!! Surreal!  But I must say we had an awesome time.  The Crater is an amazing place....but being there with Vince and Bethe made it one of those unforgettable experience.  As for the Crater, it is basically this massive hole in the ground where tons of animals live (that explanation is certainly not the geological definition but hopefully you get the idea).  Animals like lions, elephants, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, zebras...you name it, they live there!!!  I think the movie Lion King is based off the Crater.

The lodge that we stayed at was absolutely gorgeous.  It was a massive two room hut (if you can call it that) with a rain forest shower, a huge soaking tub, a fireplace and tons of windows (there was even one in front of the toilet).  I must say I think the two room hut was bigger than my condo in DC!!!!

Okay, on to the important stuff.  Since there was a bit of snag with my travel (oh you know nobody there to pick me up at the airport in the middle of nowhere in Africa) Vince, Bethe and I were not able to go into the crater the first day. But the hotel did make up for it by treating us to a sundowner (basically a happy hour) on this cliff overlooking the crater.  It was AMAZING!!!  I uploaded pictures of Vince, Bethe, me and the amazing view!!! The next day we all woke up at the crack of early to drive down into the crater.  After a bit of a bumpy road, we immediately saw a whole crew of hyenas eating a wildebeest!!!  I don't think we saw as many animals as Vince and Bethe saw on their other game drives but we did get to see about 7 lions including some adorable cubs that were about a month old.  They were so cute looking!!!

As Vince said before it was an amazing experience with some spectacular company.  But I must admit I am quite jealous.  I caught a flight to Nairobi to go back to work and they are sitting on their tooshies on a gorgeous beach staring at the Indian Ocean!!!

Lions, Leopards, Spiders and More in Kleins Camp and Serengeti

First thanks to my sister Lori – she is posting this blog from Nairobi as we still have not had internet access.  She met Bethe and me at the Crater – more on that later in the post she will actually write.
Well it has been a while since we have updated the blog.  After Manyara we went to Kleins Camp which was a private game reserve (so not a national park) and therefore you did not have to stay on the trails, which was very cool.  At Kleins Camp we had absolutely no cell coverage which was kind of neat.  We had some amazing experiences at Kleins.  It was our first real safari game drive and we saw lots of amazing stuff.  My sister is going to upload our safari highlight photos (74 pictures of the 1000 we took) so you can see some of the amazing stuff.  The highlights of Kleins were a group of elephants at least a 100 plus strong, 2 leopards in a tree (some amazing photos) and an actual lion hunt and kill (some amazing photo’s of that but please note they are graphic).  We also had a spider explosion in our room the 1st night and when we came back from dinner there were 500+ spiders in our room.  They moved us and said they have never seen that but wow what a lot of spiders.  We also watched the World Cup finals with the staff at Kleins camp.  That was amazing – watching the game in the middle of nowhere in Africa with the staff who all were passionate and speaking languages we could not understand amazing.
Then we went to the Serengeti.  We spent three nights there in tents (amazing tents but still tents).  The staff there was amazing.  We spotted lion cubs, saw a lion mother drag a wildebeest 300 yards to a spot where her 2 cubs could actually eat in a hidden location, saw monster crocs and hippos and took a hot air balloon ride.  Not to mention the migration which was just amazing (some photos from ground and hot air balloon).  At the Serengeti we had hippos walking 10 feet from our tent every night (very loud eaters) and had impalas, baboons, buffalo and even some elephants not more than 30 feet from our tent – very neat to watch especially at night.
Next post will be done by my sister – she flew down and joined us for the weekend in the Crater.  It was an adventure for her as there was a big screw up by &Beyond with her arrival.  Once we got past that we had a great time and it was beyond incredible to be able to share such an adventure with her 12,500KM from home.  Sometimes I needed to pinch myself to make sure I remembered we were in Africa together!

Back from the Bush - Kind Of

Well back to a little bit of civilization (at same airport that sent last post from)

My sister met Bethe and I at the crater and we spent 2 nights together in Africa (one of those unique moments in life). She had some big challenges getting her more on that later.

Lori is going to publish 2 posts tonight as well as pictures when she gets back to Nairobi.

So check back later and there will be safari highlight pictures as well as updates from Safari and Crater.

My sister heads back to work in Kenya and Bethe and I are off to an island for a couple days. Sorry she is leaving us.

Lake Manyara

This is from blackberry at airport waiting for flight to Kliens Camp. No cell service at lodge last night - we will see what next one has.

Amazing but short. We stayed in a tree house with a bathtub (Bethe was happy). We saw our first animals (Girafees, Bamboos, Impalas, Elephants and more). We slept under a mosquito net and heard bush babies all night.

Not sure when we will be able to upload pictures but we have lots.

Service blows us away. Puts any hotel to shame.

Bethe survived her first (and second and third) small plane flight. It was a 12 seater so a big plane.

Have no clue day of week or time - it is great