Africa and Spain

I’m assuming most of you have travelled somewhere, sometime, and had great plans for documenting your trip. As I write this, it is 8:53 AM Thursday morning local time here in Munich, Germany (11:53 PM Wednesday night PDT in Oregon). I see that my last entry was from Kenya at the end of last week. So much for a running commentary.

Suffice it to say that we have been busy. Since Kenya, we have been in Sevilla, Spain going gangbusters from morning dark to bedtime dark every day. We have had adventures that I don’t have time to recount this morning, but that we will regale you with in the days and months to come. Some may even appear here on this site.

I can say that Sevilla exceeded my already high expectations. It is (like many European cities) a curious blend of very old and very new. To be able to feel a sense of place for a location that has appeared in some of my readings over the years was very satisfying (I’m looking at you, Columbus, and you, Suleiman I). To be able to see the Seville orange trees that provide the foundation of my favorite marmalade lining the streets throughout the city was a bonus surprise.

And now on to the flight home. We will be in the air from Munich to San Francisco for nearly 12 hours, and then another two hours to Eugene. We leave Munich at 11:40 AM, and arrive in SF at 2:30 PM, stuffing into the flight the 9 hours of time zones that we have to make up from our trip here.

Best wishes to all, and I believe our next communication will be originating from the US. Take care.

It is currently about 8:30 AM your time on Friday morning. We are in a short term hotel by the Nairobi international airport. We traveled this morning with our good friend Rinca, who is our guide for five days, to the small north Mara Conservancy airport.

We flew to Nairobi, took a trip to a National Park in the city, and got treated to a Nigerian storyteller and drummer who performed while we ate lunch.

We are now reorganizing all our luggage, moving our urban wardrobe to our main bags. The switch-over is proving to be a challenge and somewhat chaotic, but we’re nearly done.

We will leave here on an overnighter to Frankfurt on the way to Spain about 12:30 PM Friday your time (PDT).

Love to all, and we will be in touch!

We are going to bed after the last full day of our time on the Mara in Kenya. We were asked by the camp host what our most memorable experience was. There is no question: it is the lovely, kind and caring people here that we will remember most.

[Note: this is from Thursday. It got hung up on the camp Internet inconsistencies. ]

We got to go for a 90 minute walk through the Mara this morning. Unlike our walks at home, we had one guide in front with a rifle, and one guide behind with a spear. But it was a beautiful walk. The wildlife was far more wary of us on foot than they were when we were in the Land Cruiser.

I had a wonderful time looking at Lions this morning. – Barb

While getting to know the animals is exciting, the food is incredible. – Dave

From sitting among the lions and elephants this morning, and dancing with the Maasai people at a village; an amazing day! – Carleen

We set out this morning to visit a Maasi Village, and just by serendipity, ended up running into a large pride of the lions that we hadn’t seen before, right next to a very large family of elephants. And this was even before we got to what was supposed to be the beginning of our day! -Mike

I’m starting writing this on Tuesday evening, as we’re sitting at a beautifully dressed table in what is referred to as a “tent” in the middle of the Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve in Kenya. We left South Africa this last Sunday morning and flew to Nairobi Kenya where we landed in a different time zone (an hour further East) very late at night. We were transported by our Kenya tour company to the most elegant hotel we’ve ever stayed in. We packed for our Safari trip and got to bed sometime after 2AM local time here, followed by a 6AM wake up.

The next morning we ate breakfast, had our bags moved to the lobby, and met our tour company rep and driver who took us to a smaller Nairobi airport, from which we departed for the Masai Mara, where we landed mid-day. We were welcomed to Elephant Pepper Camp after a brief drive in a Toyota Land Cruiser with our new friend and guide, Rinca. We got settled into the odd combination of 5-star hotel and camp that is the EPC.

The time since then has been a whirlwind that I can’t adequately describe in my current sleepy state (we’re back in our tent after another fabulous dinner), but it has been life changing. Photos and details to follow.

Our driver, Ronnie, took us for a trip along the coastline south of Cape Town. We got to see some beautiful scenery. One of our stops was Betty’s Bay, where we got to see the resident flock of penguins. A bit further down the road, in Hermanus, we were able to watch three whales for a while before having lunch.

From there, we headed back to our home base in Stellenbosch, driving through the Franschhoek Valley. It is one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever been in. The town of Franschhoek itself is incredibly beautiful as well, though very touristy. It is a key wine center for this part of the country. Almost every other driveway is another beautiful winery.

Carleen had the opportunity to do a lunge-line lesson on a Lipizzaner Stallion at Mistico Farm out of Stellenbosch, South Africa.