jwg

In our two houses in Cambridge and Gloucester

Morgan Hotel in London
Bannister Hotel in Johannesburg
Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town
Courtyard Hotel Arcadia in Pretoria
Rovos Rail from Pretoria to Victoria Falls
Zambezi River Lodge in Zimbabwe
Imbabala Zambezi Safari Lodge in Zimbabwe
BritishAir Johannesburg to London

Guana Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands
Hampton Inn in Saratoga Springs for the Dance Flurry

Of course we missed a lot that were planned: SanFrancisco; Dance Camps in Aptos, Woodstock, and Becket; Finland; Dublin; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia; and perhaps more. But we did get two international trips to Southern Africa with a couple of days in London and the British Virgin Islands.

It's hard to believe that it was 5 months ago when we returned from our Southern Africa trip. It was a Road Scholars trip, our first one, with a bit of time on our own on the way.

We started out with two days/one night in London and went to some museums and popular sites.

Then we flew to Johannesburg and spent a couple of days there - visiting among other places, the Apartheid Museum and Constitution Hill - some very interesting history explained there - especially with what is happening here now.

The we flew to CapeTown to join the tour. We had an excellent very knowledgable guide for the trip - a native Southern African (white) who gave us lots of information in small spurts and a few formal lectures. After several days we flew to Pretoria, spent a short time there and then embarked on a 3 day luxury train trip to Victoria Falls. I've always wanted to see it. There were various short safaris in vans and boats sprinkled througouht the trip. We got to see lots of animals - some in the distance and some up close - we did go to an elephant spot where we got to touch them.

We'll definitely do more Road Scholar trips when it is possible to travel again - just got a new catalog - mostly US trips.

So we got to add three countries to our list: South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. (On previous trips we were in Egypt, Kenya, and Tanzania.)

The cabin we stayed in for the last two nights of the trip at the Zambezi River Lodge

And something?

Chobe Narional Park in Botswana had lots of fine birds and animals.

Some more creatures in Botswana

In our last full day of our Southern Africa trip (in January) we went into Botswana and among other things we saw lots of elephants.

And Bartholomew who is one of ours.

We took a river safari cruise along the Zambezi River and saw lots of birds including some interesing nests.

We stayed two nights at the Imbabala Safari Lodge . It is on the Zambezi River about 70km from Victoria Falls. It had many thatched roofed cabins with one room each. They are scattered about on a large campus with no fencing to keep animals out. At night they have armed guards to escort you from the main house to your cabin and if you want to leave your cabin you summon one. There are lots of safari opportunities nearby and we went on several. We were there on a Road Scholar tour but if you go there on your own they arrange trips.

There were some other guests there. Especially at night.

For the last several days of the trip we stayed at the Zambezi Safari Lodge and went on a bunch of Safaris: elephants, giraffes, zebras, Impalas, buffalo among others.