Monday, January 28, 2008

LESS THAN SIX MONTHS

(TOM) Over the last couple of months we've done a good bit of organizing work and the trip is coming together nicely:
- Six days at Zulu Nyala, with safari drives in the morning and evening.
- A day trip (between safaris) to St. Lucia Wetlands to take a guided day hike through the coastal sand dunes and beaches and Indian Ocean (SEE LINK)
- Another day trip to go whale watching on a small boat that has to pass from lagoon to Indian Ocean through the breakwater to get to one of the best whale watching areas in the world (SEE LINK)
- We are going to then spend a day at Phinda (an amazing game reserve) to find out just how many lions and cheetahs (and possibly leopards) we can see at one of the best big cat reserves in Africa (SEE LINK)

- Then we go toward Durban and up to the Drakensbergs where we will stay for five days with a host family in the small, very rural village of Impendle. There we will spend time living and working in the community as volunteers. We will help build or repair some, work and play with orphans orphans, etc. - whatever needs to be done to make as much difference as we can. We found this opportunity through the small but very active Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Durban (SEE LINK), which is very special since Miranda is going through her Coming of Age year at our local UU congregation in Atlanta.

- When we are done, since we are so close to the Drakensbergs, we are going to take a tour up Sani Pass to the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho (SEE LINK).
This will be our second UN World Heritage Site in less than a week!

- Then we fly to Cape Town for about five days. This was Sukutai's (Miranda's) big idea. She really wanted to go and has worked hard to gather information and plan our time there. She also saved money to pay for her part of the extra cost of flying there. She has been great, and I'll let her tell you about it in another post.