Africa: Swaziland May 2019

We flew to Durbin, northeast, and drove through farming country into Swaziland. We started visiting game parks and seeing animals. This was our longest bus ride and we saw miles of sugarcane fields. The flight was included in our trip price. Total we took 3 domestic flights. Not bad....  We first visited St Lucia Estuary where we enjoyed hippos. We visited in May so Late Fall for the Southern Hemisphere. We spent the night at a lodge then continued through the country exiting near Kruger National Park.  Gate 1 has a non-profit mission that works in several countries. One of their missions is support for an elementary school in Swaziland, and we got to visit. The company also supports local craftsmen and artists by stopping and letting us shop still we dropped. 

Our tour group 

Hluhuwe game reserve is where we saw our first Rhino!. We saw  Elephant, Cape Buffalo and Rhino, three of the Big 5.  Some on our tour saw a large male Lion, but we did not.

Cape Buffalo

Black Buffalo

Kudu

Baby Rhino

Dust Bath

I see you

We visited the local school. The children were adorable. Gate 1 os putting in flush toilets, these will be the only flush toilets these kids have ever seen! 

watch out!

We visited a local village and they sang for us. The group is world famous and is performing in Brazil  for a world choir competition. Their music is very moving.

Africa: Capetown May 2019

May 2019 marked our 40th anniversary!  We felt like this was a milestone and decided to do something BIG.  Who knows if we will be around in another 10 years, so we decided to do a tour of South Africa and surrounding area.
Over the years I have talked to many people who have been to Africa and they all describe the continent as a life changing trip.   We wanted to know what "that"was......
We did 16 days in 4 countries. South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana. After a 16 hour flight from LA to Doha, Qatar and another 8 hours to Capetown, SA we began our adventure. I started printing photobooks to showcase out trips. I am going to publish this blog in the same format, photos.

Touching both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic
The first time I touched the Atlantic, amazing since I'm a diver ???

We toured with Gate 1, the same company we took the European River Cruise with. It was a busy trip, we saw penguins, the Cape of good Hope, botanical gardens and Table Mountian. This was just one day.

South African penguins AKA "Jackass Penguins" known for their calls

An interesting perspective

We spent several days exploring, shopping and eating our way through Capetown.  I love this city and could easily return. Probably my favorite city I have visited.

View from the Cape Lighthouse 

Table Mountian looms over the city... it really is the most dominate feature.

View from the plane

It is very high and as a geologist on our trip explained; its a very old formation from the beginning, Gondwanaland 

The views from the top were other worldly...... it was windy and cold!

"Dassies" they are pretty cute

We spent several days exploring, shopping and eating our way through the city

Capetown

Rene and me

V&A warf.... Mega shopping and food

We visited the botanical Gardens at the foot of Table Mt. I could live in this city, I loved everything I came across.