Returning Home

Well I'm slowly getting back in to the "swing" of actually WORKING again!  It took me about a week to "regroup" as I ended up "traveling over 36+ hrs at one clip.  The plane ride back was exhausting as I flew Jo'burg (left at 11:30pm)  to Amsterdam (11 hr flight with a 2 hr layover) on to  Dulles  (10 hr + flight with a 7 hr layover)  to Atlanta (where I had to catch the MARTA at 1am to my hotel!).   Way toooo long a trip.!!! Later I found out about a direct flight from Atlanta to Jo'burg which I would highly recommend to anyone thinking about traveling to Africa - only  10 hrs.

I managed to see a few sites during my stop over in Atlanta before heading home to AZ.  While there I was able to tour the Coca Cola museum and see their Aquarium (interestedly the layout was very similar to the one in Cape Town).  I also managed to negotiate the MARTA system enough to locate and visit a neat museum (Michael C. Carlos Museum) on the campus of Emory University.  Lots of neat ancient Greek, Roman and African art  along with Egyptian Mummies!   
Now all is slowly returning to "normal" as I prepare for the Fall Semester teaching.  Catch you all later when I end up doing something "interesting" enough to write about!  Ciao til then!

Mummy Room in Michael Carlos Museum

Just Before Leaving

Sun City's "beach"

The TALL water slide!!!

King Kong Gates!!!

Part of casino

My last week and a half in Pretoria I managed to see the local school (college) attached to the estate and go out for "tea" with some local ladies courtesy of a new friend named Kerrie from Britain.  On Saturday my friend C.  drove us 2 hours north of Pretoria, to see a "nifty" resort called Sun City.  Quite amazing and well done.  Although we didn't get to enjoy all of the the resort's fun things such as going swimming or playing in the casino, we did manage to get in a game ride and saw some more animals.  I could just imagine my two sons would have had a great time there!

During my last week, not only did my new friend Kerrie manage to have us over for dinner, but she also took me to a local museum (Voortrekker Museum - tells story of over 10,000 people that left Cape Town in 1835 to resettle in northern areas of South Africa - like our pioneers). 

Voortrekker Museum

Joan in front of reliefs

Shows where the different groups ended up

 

One of many tapestries depicting journey

AND... I was also invited to her birthday party on the day I left.  It was fun getting together with some "girls" at a local tearoom / restaurant.

Ok... that's it... heading out of South Africa back to AZ... bye!!

After Kruger

I was sad to leave Kruger, but arranged to have one last fun thing before I hopped the plane back to Pretoria. I had mentioned to my tour guide on the way there that I wanted the thrill of "touching" an elephant and he managed to find an Elephant Sanctuary (Kwa Madwala) on the way back.  There were 2 elephants, 1 male and 1 female.  She ended up kicking a football back and forth to me and the male was the one that let me touch him.  Then I ended up getting a ride into the bush on the female while the male followed behind and even reached up with his trunk to me to give me a present of a twig he'd gotten for me!  I managed to take it even though I was holding on very tightly!  What a great way to end my trip!

Kruger continued

I so enjoyed the game rides in Kruger.  The guides were great and we all kept a close lookout for animals.  Being able to be so close to the animals without them seeming very perturbed was remarkable.   Above is the shot I got from the vehicle of a giraffe munching.  You can see the mirror in lower right corner.  Also watching a small herd of elephants crossing the road was amazing.  They hardly made a sound!  Apparently the herds break off into smaller ones once they reach 19.  The babies were so cute!

We ended up getting close to lions twice.  Once we found two males just sitting in the grass.   We were all looking at a bunch of hippos off shore and then looked a bit closer to the left and there they were.  See if you can spot one?!!

Later one night we found a small pride of lions relaxing in the grass close to the road.  Four females with 3 young cubs.  Our guide called on the radio to the other tours and as we were leaving, they were dashing up the dirt roads to see them.   Below is a Cape Buffalo... not a usually "happy camper" but he seemed OK with us nearby.