Bill and I have begun our adventure to South Africa. We have been planning this trip for several years now. Originally it was to be Bill’s Senior Trip. Each of the kids got to take a nice trip after high school graduation. We decided that retirement after 34 years of working warranted a special trip for Dad. He comes from a long line of hunters so a hunting trip in Africa was at the top of his list. Bill did the initial research during his many early morning hours surfing the Internet and talking to his buddies at Gulf Breeze Firearms. He chose South Africa and found an outfitter/professional hunter on the Eastern Cape not far from Port Elizabeth. Apparently winter (our summer) is the prime hunting seasons so we chose late June/early July.
Delta has a nonstop flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg which takes about 14 hours. Frankly I thought the whole trip door to door was much easier than our trips to Europe – only one change of planes makes a big difference. And a little blue sleeping pill doesn’t hurt either. There was a young family seated nearby with a 5 week old and a 3 year old, headed to Africa for a two year work assignment.
It was a crazy busy last couple of weeks getting ready to leave – not so much the packing and preparations – but getting all my projects to a point where I could turn them over to someone else while I was gone – Greek Festival preparations, iTenWired Summit, DOP, and my CED projects of course. But I feel good about where things are and I do have some connectivity tools along. You’d think being all the way on the other side of the world I would/could unplug but I doubt it.
Brought two cameras, an ipad with a camera connector and a mac keyboard so I can blog using the WordPress app. I am using an international SIM card in my smartphone which allows me to recieve and make phone calls with a US number (not my regular number) as well as text messages and data/internet. All for a lot less than ATT would charge for internation roaming. I’ll let you know how it works after a few days. Anyone who needs to get hold of me check with Lorrie Berry as she has the the number.
We arrived in Johannesburg airport and were met by two fellows – one to shepherd hunters through customs and the other to drive us to the Afton Guest house. Jo’burg is not a very safe city so every house in this neighborhood has large gates with electric wires. We had a nice dinner at the guest house and visited with the other guests – all hunters. So Bill got all kinds of advice on hunting in Africa. I had enough when they got to the stories about shooting an problem giraffe and found this computer to play on.
It is winter here so we didn’t get to experience the longest day of the year with a late sunset on Pensacola Beach. Instead its 55 degrees F and chilly. It was hard to pack for winter this week…
Tomorrow we will fly to Capetown where we stay at a Bed and Breakfast for 3 nights. Then we rent a car and will tour the winelands and drive the Garden Route. We’ll end up in Grahamstown where they are holding the South Africa National Arts Festival (nationalartsfestival.co.za) – music, performing arts, visual arts, lectures, dance, comedy, and films. Just the program is 240 pages long. After that we head to Port Elizabeth to get picked up by BlueClif Safaris for hunting adventure.
