What an amazing trip. I doubt very much I will ever be back here and I couldn’t have asked for more. From seeing lions eating their kill, to leopards, to a hyena nursing her young, elephants, elephants, elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, birds aplenty, jackals, baboons, baboons, baboons, cape buffalo, kudus, impala, wild dogs, I’m sure I’m missing something. The lovely people of Africa who made our stay comfortable and made sure we all came home ten pounds heavier. But we weren’t done yet.

After leaving Okavanga Delta via flights to Maun and Johannesburg after final safari experience on the way to the airstrip, we arrived exhausted in Cape Town. The next morning everyone but me got up early for the city tour (ugh) and the Desmond Tutu Museum. I would have liked that but I had hit the wall. When they were dropped off for the traditional Gate One Tours local family home lunch, I was picked up by the bus driver and declared myself Queen Mary for this special treatment. Unlike most Gate One local experiences this was rather unexpected because it was a Muslim family who hosted us and the food was more like Morocco than what we thought we would have. Anyway, the neighborhood is mostly Muslim and since I didn’t go on the city tour I don’t know much about it except that the whole neighborhood was slave quarters a long time ago for a guy who lived on the hill. It is painted bright colors now and that’s all I know.

After lunch we were free to wander and took a shuttle to the Waterfront, which is the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf of Cape Town. There’s a real live shopping mall and some small souvenir shops. We opted to take a sunset cruise with some of our fellow travelers and it was well worth it, with lovely views of the city, Table Top Mountain and the headlands. Speaking of the SF Bay Area it is similar in topography and I really thought I had a house somewhere on the other side of the headlands.

Afterwards, John, Larry, Al and I had dinner. As usual when I travel, my gut is beginning to revolt, so the next day when everyone went on the winery tour, I stayed in and wrote. The verdict:” You didn’t miss much”. Al did say it looked a lot like Napa Valley, again with the SF Bay Area topography.

Yesterday we hopped on the bus early and when to the end of the African continent: The Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. I have now been to the southernmost tip of South America and the southernmost tip of Africa. I ask myself how I ended up living this life and I have no answer. A lot of luck, some hard work, perhaps, but mostly luck.

On the way out to the Cape we saw an ostrich doing a mating dancee photo. More stuff-I-never-thought-about-seeing and if I DID think about seeing it, I never thought I would actually see it. After hiking up almost to the lighthouse – I really did my best and had we more time I would have made it all the way, but the 120 steps just seemed more than I could do at one time after already hiking straight up for 20 minutes to where the steps began, at least in the time I had left to do so. Regardless it was all a glorious view.

We then went on to see the African penguin colony. A fellow traveler pointed out another animal lounging in the sun. It was about the size of an otter but looked very rat-like. Turns out Belinda told me it was a hydrax and – get ready for this and you can look it up, I certainly did- it’s closest relative is an ELEPHANT! Crazy. She also told us it is an animal that can look directly at the sun without damaging its eyes and it loves to lounge in the sun. As you can see in the photo that was exactly what it was doing!

After that we rode back to the hotel, spent the afternoon at the Waterfront getting last minute souvenirs and relaxing. Then our goodbye dinner which is always a bit sad despite our mutual desires to get home and back to normal eating and sleeping and exercise routines. Most of us are still on the same flight back to Newark and at least six of us have traveled together before, so it’s not really goodbye…

However, I think this is goodbye from me for this trip. Thanks for reading. I write this blog for you, family and friends and of course to document the trip, but it is much more fun for me to write for an audience! Love always…

PS if you want videos let me know. Otherwise these are the last of the photos, even some of people!