Are we there yet?

My trip from my hotel in Cape Town to the time I land at home will take 44 hours total, 26 hours in the air, four flights and five airports...I'm about half-way through that ordeal, although it has gone smoothly thus far. I'm now in London with a five-hour layover. Survived the Johannesburg 7-hour layover. Actually slept on the 11-hour flight between there and here, thanks to a somewhat comfy business class seat/bed.

Unfortunately, the reality of catching up on 25-days worth of work in the office and being back into reality is now weighing on me. Would like to be on a permanent vacation and am grateful for what I've experienced in the last 25 days.

Cape Tour

I was told by almost everyone that if you only have one day in Cape Town, you should do the Cape Tour. So that's what I did. Here are just a few photos from this great day. I saw spectacular coastline, animals, birds and plant life. If I had more time I would have taken hundreds of photos besides these.

Sundowner Event

On the night we arrived in Cape Town the cruise line took us up to the top of Signal Hill, one of the local mountains. From there we could see our ship and a great view of the stadium they are building for the 2010 World Cup. We also witnessed a spectacular sunset.

All good things must come to an end...

On our final day, we cruised around the Cape of Good Hope. You can see a photo of it from the sea here. Later I will be posting another photo as I visited it on land.

Our sail-in to Cape Town was picture perfect. The seals and other sea life jumped in the water below us, the sun was shining and the water was calm. I was jubilant at the view yet melancholy as I knew my great trip was coming to an end.

Cape Town is even more picturesque than what I had imagined. In some of the photos you can see the famous Table Mountain. You can also see Lion's Head.

In one photo you can see the small gap through which our captain maneuvered the ship so we could dock literally in the heart of the Cape Town Waterfront. What a great place! I was able to spend one night on the Voyager and disembark the next morning.

St. Lucia Wetlands

This morning, we went on a different kind of game viewing event. We did this one by boat in the St. Lucia Wetlands, known for its hippopotami and crocodiles. There were also hundreds of bird species. These photos just don’t do justice to show the number of hippos, crocodiles and birds we saw. This was a great event with spectacular weather.

Zulu Nyala Park

Because I didn’t see much on the morning game drive in Hluhluwe, I decided to sign up for the evening game drive at another park named Zulu Nyala. It was a good experience, but again, not anything like the Maasai Mara. This was a smaller park with no lions and a total of three elephants which you see here.

You can also see the type of vehicles we used on most of the game drives. Our driver asked if I wanted a photo with a rhino outside of the jeep…so, yes, that is a real rhino behind me. It was dusk so he does not show up very well. This was a nice evening with a buffet dinner at the resort and a dance show by some of the Zulu people.

Hluhluwe Game Reserve

This morning we went on another game drive. We just spent three full days at sea and are now at Richards Bay, on the east shoreline of South Africa. I enjoyed the days at sea but am also glad to be back on land.

The Maasai Mara spoiled me. It would be difficult to outdo the experiences I had there. Because of that, our game drive at Hluhluwe was somewhat disappointing. We did see a few animals and I’ve included a few photos here. We also got some rain at the game reserve today so the photography is not as brilliant as was the case in Maasai Mara.

This is a great park…in fact it is the second oldest national park in the world…second only to Yellowstone. We just didn’t have much luck here. Note the photo of the warthog with her babies...likely just two to three days old.

...from Zanzibar to Barkley Square...

Wonder how I came up with the title of this blog entry? You know how a song goes through your head until it reached the annoying point? Well, every time the ship mentions that we are going to Zanzibar, the theme song from the 1960’s TV sitcom, “The Patty Duke Show” goes through my head.

“Where Cathy has been most everywhere from Zanzibar to Barkley Square…but Patty’s only seen the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights…” You get the picture. (If you can't remember the song, here is a link: http://www.playlist.com/playlist/additem/543972881 )

Anyway…we were in Zanzibar yesterday. One of my roles as the Ensemble host was to lead the clients from the “Ensemble Traveler” group on a private shore excursion. To be honest with you, when I saw that we were doing a “spice tour” when others I’d met on board were going snorkeling and going to an island to feed giant tortoises, I was a little disappointed. But it ended up being a great tour! And, the people in our group are very nice people. (About half of the Ensemble group participated in the shore excursion. I’ve enclosed a group shot.

In addition to a lunch in a seaside resort, we went into the hills for our spice tour. Zanzibar is known for its spices. We took a walk through a forest where our guide and his three assistants (shown in the red shirts), picked leaves, dug up roots, scraped off bark and climbed coconut trees to show us all the different spices which were harvested there.

In the end they gave us each a hat made of leaves…many of the group are wearing their hats in the photo I’ve enclosed. All in all a great day in Zanzibar.

Our next three days will be sea days so there will not be many photos to share. But who knows what might happen during our sea days.