Tales from the Road

Our last day with the tour we went wine tasting. It was actually really fun, even though I happen to absolutley HATE wine. But I was a trooper and tried anyway. The countryside was beautiful and we went to two vineyards. We had the afternoon free and then we went to the diamond store to see how diamonds are cut and all of that fun stuff. They had beautiful jewelry but there was a bit of sticker shock. One woman in our group looked at a pair of diamond earings (I think that they were a carat each) and they cost $23,000 ... that's U.S. A little out of my price range! But I've always wanted diamond earings and had been asking for them for my birthday and Christmas for years, so Matt bought me some genuine South African diamonds (NOT blood diamonds...they are certified as such) over at the waterfront. So they are an early birthday present. I try to get a piece of nice jewelry whenever I travel somewhere...something that is special to the area ( I have my gold cartuche (SP?) from Egypt and my saphire, get well soon, necklace from Thailand (and I don't think that Costa Rica had anything special there)...so this is my special South African diamonds.http://mycheckedbaggage.blogspot.com/2008/07/south-africa-good-and-bad-of-our-final.html

We found out that we couldn't go to the township in Knysna because of the fighting going on there. Apparently people were setting fires and arond 600 people were homeless because of it. The company that would have brought us around offered to still do it, however we would have had to have a police escort. Our tour guide decided that we weren't going to go because of that. They also thought that bringing a tour bus in would have created more problems...so, we didn't get to do that, but that gave us some extra time to roam around the town.

The next day we drove to the Ostrich farm and we both got to ride an ostrich (video to come). We saw a bunch of ostriches including babies...!! We also were able to stand on one of their eggs which was pretty cool. We have some pictures of it.http://mycheckedbaggage.blogspot.com/2008/07/south-africa-knysna-on.html

We left Johannesburg and made the long drive to Kruger Park. It was nearly a 6 hour drive with stops. We stoped at God's Window and some a gourge and the "pot holes". Pictures to come, but they were incredible. Words can't describe any of it, so updates when the pictures are uploaded!

We arrived at the Kruger Gate Lodge in the early evening and had some dinner. The property was very nice and abuted Kruger National Park. It even had a viewing area where we saw an impala. The next morning we were up at 5:30 for an early morning game drive....think Jurassic Park but with South African Animals. We were in open air jeeps and to get out of our hotel area, you have to have a guard move the security fence that keeps the animals out of our hotel! One couple had a money get into their room and rough the place up (I think he spilled a glass of milk and moved stuff around).

http://mycheckedbaggage.blogspot.com/2008/07/south-africa-days-3-6.html

We have finally made it to South Africa after about 24 hours in the air. We got in yesterday at 6pm South African time (noon eastern). That gave us just enough time to take a quick shower (mind you neither of us was ablet to have one for over 24 hours!!) and then go down to the welcome meeting. We get down there and there are 30 of us or so, we are by far the youngest on the trip. The next youngest people would be in their 50's or so. So, our tour guide has everyone say their name and where they are from and then he starts talking about what we're going to be doing...While he is talking, one of our group members comes in and the first thing he says is how sorry he is for being late. He then goes on to say that he is embarassed to say this, but he had an "accident" and had to clean himself up, and that this could happen to anyone. (Which I actually really disagree with). He then goes on to tell us everything about himself, ranging from his age, occupation as an EEO person for the army (We do EEO reporting but it doens't take a full time person to do it!! ) and his email address. So, that was a fun way to start the trip!!

http://mycheckedbaggage.blogspot.com/2008/07/tales-from-road-south-africa-days-1-and.html