Sign In
Matt Long
My name is Matt and I live in the Hill Country of Texas. My brother, Vance, his 11 year old son, Rush, and myself are getting ready to make a whirlwind run through London, Paris, Cairo, Kruger Nat. Park in S. Africa and Madagascar. We will be on the road for most of July. We are travelling light with just a couple of changes in small backpacks. FbgMatt
Travel Blog Posts
Home Again - The last blog
Published: July 29th 2008North America » United States » Texas » Fredericksburg
July 29th 2008
From Matt - Have been back home for several days now, gone through lots of pictures and added over 50 to the pages where there were none before. If you are still interested I have added pics to the following blog entries : Catch Up; Amber Mountains; 3 Amigos...; Waiting in Joburg and Paris at last... . Vance and Rush have the best safari pics so there will be more animal pictures when I get them from Vance. This will probably be the last blog and I had a few things still to say about our last stop - Paris. Still expensive but oh so worth it. Contrary to popular belief Paris is a very friendly place! Even with our lousy Tex-French we got along with everyone. This was my second visit to Paris and both ... read more
July 24th 2008
From Matt - Hey yall, We are in Paris and on a QWERTY keyboard. Isn't that ironic! We landed tuesday morning from Joburg and hit the ground running. Vance found a laundromat while I took Rush up to Sacre Cour. We are staying in Montmartre. Everything is either up or down. Lots of stairs and our legs are in good shape now. Paris is just as expensive as London so we are looking forward to getting home where prices are much better. Better bring your big cash if you plan on visiting Europe this year. Simple lunch is 12 - 15 US. Coffee 6 US Coke 4 -7 US. !!! After vance got our clothes clean we went to Notre Dame. Rush said he would never find his bible class in that church! then to The ... read more
July 20th 2008
From Matt- Last night we went on a quest for the leopard. (not a jaguar as we said in the last blog) We just passed by all the other critters we had seen before. We found tracks of a mating pair and there were several trackers going through the bush helping. The mating pair were being very discreet! Close to dark we got a call on the radio that a leopard had been spotted several km from where we were, so we took off at breakneck speed bouncing all over the road. We slowed as we got closer and sure enough we came upon a lone male leopard! He came within about 10 feet of our vehicle and the camera was snapping away. Unfortunately I had the wrong settings on the camera! Darn these new fangled ... read more
July 19th 2008
From Rush - Nana I hope you are not mad but we saw 2 White Rhinos! We already seen 4 of the big 5. We just need to see the leopard. e have 1 and 1/2 days left. I'm pretty sure we will see a jaguar in the time we have left. We saw a cheetah today while we were looking for an elephant herd. While we were out on safari we stopped to have tea, hot chocolate and coffee. Weve already seen Imalas. they are a striped Impala. They will let you pet them because they are so tame. There have been multiple monkey sightings in the camp, but no baboons. There have also been warthogs in the camp. Thats all I have to say for the middle of the day. BYE !!!! From Matt ... read more
July 17th 2008
From Rush - We had a long plane trip here, but we had a good conversation with a friend who lives here in Africa. He told us about a creature called the Tokoloshi who takes people who are asleep that don't have bricks under their bed to make the bed higher. They are just like gremlins even if you lock your door they still can get in. The people who have seen them have been lost. So we will ask if there are bricks under the bed at the photo safari hotel. The hotel we are staying in right now is awesome. The ant lions that are in the cone shapped sand holes are bigger than your thumb nail! Thats all I have to say. BYE !!!! From Matt - We are laying over in Joburg ... read more
July 16th 2008
From Matt - Just sent nana, karl and assany to the airport. They should be back in the motherland in 24 hours. Vance Rush and I will fly to Joburg in the morn and will have a 22 hour layover before leaving for Kruger Nat. Park. We will be staying at a very plush photo safari resort called Manwana. Look it up on the internet. I feel certain they will have satellite internet but they may not. If we drop of the net for 4 days you'll know why. I'm on a french keyboard again tonite and it is really hard to compose what i want to say and hunt and peck at the same time!! Vance and Rush are passed out upstairs and so I had hoped to upload a bunch of pics but these ... read more
July 14th 2008
From Rush - We got to eat cow yesterday. Karl, Assany and i got to swim in a bay. We found lots of sea shells and two of them had hermit crabs in them. Karl and I caught two sandcrabs while we were looking for shells. Today we went to a national forest. We saw lots of lemurs. We also saw flowers that Uncle Gayle had on her wedding. We saw about three waterfalls. We also saw a 30 mm long Chamellion. Thats a little bit bigger than an inch. We saw a chamellion that was about one half foot long. And we saw a gekko that was about 8 inches long. That was my day - BYE!!!! From Matt - I am on a french keyboard with dial up, so probably no pics and a ... read more
July 12th 2008
From Matt - As you will see below the rest of my family arrived in 'Tana last night. Very strange to be sitting around in Madagascar so far from home with all my brothers and my mother! I really wish our wives were here too! It's hard to even think about them without getting soggy eyes. I figure we are laying the groundwork for a future visit here with them included. We had to scoot out of Cairo without time to really make a good entry about our last day there so here is what I had left to say about Cairo. After all the hassle with our driver and the extortion at the Pyramids we assumed it would be the same in Old Cairo at Khan-Al-Kahllili. (sp?) We were pleasantly surprised when just the opposite ... read more
July 9th 2008
From Rush - Today we went to the market place in Old Cairo. I did not feel so well. The toilets were in the ground at the Mosque whenever I went to the bathroom because I was sick. Then we had tea after that. And so I started feeling better then we went shopping. We bought Jett a little camel and a Egyptian shirt. For Mom we bought her an Egyptian shirt. While we were there uncle Matt bought me 4 scarabs and one red pyramid. We looked for more after that and then I started feeling worse then we went back to the hotel. Whenever we got back to the hotel we went swimming for about an hour. And now we are doing our blog. The market was so crowded that I had to hold ... read more
July 8th 2008
From Rush - Today we went to the pyramids. They were collosul. Dad , Uncle Matt and I went INTO the Great Pyramid and saw one of the kings burial chambers. It was small - Dad he had to bend down to where he was as tall as Jett! Before that we ate right in front of the new Pyramid and The Sphinx. While we were there I made a little video documentary that you will laugh when you see the end. When we got back we swam in the pool for like two hours. Bye From Vance - running out of adjectives...amazing place, more scams than the oil business...i am very confused as to how a place can be so rich in culture and so poor in integrity...the pyramids are humbling, the tombs are incredible....the ... read more
Tot: 0.152s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 14; qc: 78; dbt: 0.0542s; 1; s:apollo w:www (50.28.60.10); sld: 1; ; mem: 6.5mb
© 2013 TravelBlog.org & Bloggers