these are a couple of the best pictures from Kruger. I have a bunch more and as soon as time permits, i will get them up. i am also gonna make a slide show so if anyone wants to see that, let me know. it will probably be a few weeks before it is done since i am leaving for CA in a few days.

home again, home again.

Ok, the trip’s over. Almost 24 hours of traveling and I am back in PA. It’s hard to believe that about a day ago I was on a reserve in South Africa watching a herd of zebra. Talk about culture shock.
I am BEAT. The trip home was fairly uneventful. We had a little turbulence from Ophelia but nothing too bad. I almost missed my flight from Atlanta to Philly - they had changed the time of my flight and didn’t bother to tell me. Luckily I showed up at the gate just as they were closing the flight.
I am gonna grab some sleep real soon. Check back in a few days...now that I am back in the states and have access to a decent hook up, I will through some of my pics up here when I have a chance.

do i have to leave already?

It’s my last night in Africa. I easily recall my entry just before I headed to the airport in Philly. I really had no idea what to expect; and, now that I have experienced it, I have no idea how to really tell anyone about it. All of the descriptions of my trips and the things I saw don’t really do it any justice. I am going to miss this place and these people a lot.

Somewhere back a couple of weeks ago, I think I was ready to come home. As much as I want to see people and have a little American culture, that desire almost undetectable now.

Anyway, we are back from Pilanesberg. The trip was enjoyable but the group this time saw many fewer animals. The Revel In was awesome to get back to though. It was kinda nice to be greeted by people who remembered who I was. They’re having a big music festival the end of the month. They wondered if I was able to come. I think I may fly back for it. ;-)

Oh yea, we did some fire breaks the end of last week. I got to be the fire setter on the veld. Man, you should have seen it burn and felt the heat! I bet there were about 40 of us out there working on it for a few ours. Pretty cool.

I think this may be my last entry before I get on a plane tomorrow night (2 PM EDT) and I get back on Tuesday afternoon. Most of my day tomorrow will be spent packing and trying to figure out how to get my stuff from here home. Then somewhere around 20 hours of flying.

Later!

a week left

Tuesday afternoon, about 5. The new group is really a lot of fun. They are pretty easy going and most of them are interested in traveling to the places I wanted to go. One of the guys is planning to head to Chobe and then the Onenvango (sp?) wetlands (both in Botswana).

I have decided to push my return back one day so that I have a full weekend here and can go away one more time. I have decided to head back to Pilanesberg. Not sure if we will stay at the Revel In (hostel) again or not. We may instead camp at the park. 3 of the new folks are going to come along. I will be arriving home (wherever the hell THAT is) on Tuesday afternoon. Home as in Philly…not Klipkop Game Reserve and not CA (yet).

The DeWildt center was pretty cool, but I think I like seeing my cheetahs outside rather than in cages. They had some brown hyenas too. I know I have seen them before in zoos, but somehow knowing those big freakin’ ugly things are living about a mile away on the preserve I paid more attention. I don’t think I wanna run into one of those anytime….ok, I would like to but it would scare the crap outa me.

I think it is Labor Day weekend at home? I am guessing there was a trip to maybe Seneca Rocks. I miss you guys, bad.

One of the dogs has decided that I am her best bud. She is asleep on my lap right now. “Piggly.” She is some sort of little Jack Russell type mutt. I am not sure what I did to deserve the attention, but it is kinda nice. She looks for me when she walks in the room and is by my side most of the rest of the day.

peaceful day

Not really a whole lot more to add today. I am back at Klipkop and the new volunteers are here. One guy from Ireland, Conner; A married couple British and Thai; a couple girls from the states and a girl from Ecuador. They are a lot of fun. Right now they are all on the way to the Apartheid Museum so I am really the only one at the reserve – me and 8 dogs and about 6 cats along with all the other things out on the reserve itself. Yesterday some new antelopes were released onto the reserve. I drove the new group out to watch the release but we were too late. The good news though is that we came across the new animals on the way out. It was 4 female waterbuck. It was pretty cool… As we’re driving out I see these four antelope and was pretty quickly able to tell they were waterbuck, which are not animals that were on the reserve. I felt like I knew a little bit about a little bit.

I think I will pretty much spend the day reading and relaxing, maybe a walk. I’m looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I am spending the afternoon at De Wildt Cheetah Research Centre.
www.dewildt.org.za

This is a pic I took of Vic Falls from the Ultralight.

"home" again

I am not sure if you may have heard the news out of Zimbabwe, but I made it out without incident, almost. Vic Falls was so unbelievably fantastic. I have no idea what to give top billing. I did a full day of whitewater rafting on the Zambezi (class 5). 6 in our raft: me. a kiwi, 2 from Zambia, one from London and one from Bombay. The river is as good if not better than the Gauley. 21 rapids. Even more interesting were the crocs that dotted the shore as we made our way. I am not sure I stopped laughing the whole time. At one point we had the opportunity to get out of the raft and do a set of rapids in just our life jacket. I, of course, ended up finding the only whirlpool in the rapids. After it spun me in a few circles, it pulled me under. Once I calmed down and went with it, I was spit out not far down river.

I did an ultralight over the falls too. I am not sure if I have ever been more scared. What I can actually remember seeing was beautiful. I had to go back and look at the pictures just to remember it. We were tossed around like a kite.

then there was the herd of elephants that I watched cross the Zambezi during the sunset cruise. We watched them push each other into the water then about all you could see was heads as they crossed.

The falls were beyond words. One of the Zim guys asked me before I left this morning how they compared to Niagara. LOLOLOL. There is no comparison. Wait til you see the pics!

Oh, I probably should mention that I was picked up by the police. They didn't think I should be where I was. It was enough to make me a little nervous with everything going on in the country, but in the end they basically just turned me over to the tourist police who escorted most of the way back to my hotel.

One afternoon I was walking and a very little girl and her brother said hello to me. I walked a few more steps and the next thing I know she has run up beside me and put her and put her hand in mine. We walked a few "blocks" until she and her brother had to make a turn to go to the curio market. They were adorable and were pretty proud of themselves for being so bold. We were not able to communicate really but it was pretty cool.

I had not planned on getting more "stuff" but I felt so bad - people were trying to trade their carvings for my clothes and shoes. I traded my old sneakers for 2 very nice carvings, my shirt I traded for 5 Nyamenyami necklaces (the river god - I figured I should have him). Another guy wanted to give me a stone carving for my jeans. I just gave them to him. If I had taken a few more thigns with me I would have given them away. Oh, I also bought a hippo stone carving for what comes to 3 dollars. Things are really really bad there. Many many people without homes. Villages have been burned. I heard that Kofee Annan is supposed to be coming in from the UN. I think things are gonna get worse before better. There is no economy to speak of. I traded some rand for Zim dollars. A pizza and a coke cost me $225,000.00 (zim dollars). Yes, those zeros are accurate.

I did hear the news about New Orleans. It is one of the top stories both in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It looks pretty bad.

Anyway, the trip, I am sure I am forgetting alot, was so so so so amazing... Oh! my room - from the balcony (yes, I splurged for a very nice place) you could see the vapors from the falls rising through the trees. I fell asleep at night to their rumble.

I need to catch a ride so I gotta bail. I still have a little time left here but I can feel the return home approaching with mixed feelings.

I hope you all are well and really wish you could see all this!