Wednesday May 23 was an epic. We left our last safari camp at 7 AM expecting to arrive back in Maun before supper time. It’s about 100 km of soft sand in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, followed by another 150 km on paved pothole road between Rakops and Maun. The donkeys eat the pavement if it has too much salt, resulting in very deep potholes, not to mention the animals that are constantly in the road. Our travelling partners (5 Italians) were unusually quiet as they had not seen any predators during our 8 day safari and were obviously disappointed. However after 3 hours of 4WD on sandy track we sighted two lions mating right near the road. Then Willem spotted 3 cheetah brothers sniffing around a termite mound, and suddenly our travelling partners began ... read more

Up at 4:30 am for a 5 am start. It is a 2-hour drive to the South Entrance from Maun. It was very cold in the open safari vehicle on the highway out of Maun, even with lots of clothes on and a blanket provided by our driver. As we approached Moremi, the sun rose, lighting up the few clouds on the horizon with a gold colour. After a quick stop for a breakfast snack, we start a much slower game drive. The sun quickly warms up and we shed layers. Right away we notice how dry everything is, and although we see animals and birds, they are much fewer than when we were there 3 years ago. Lots of impala and elephants. Some hippos crowded into a very small pool. A small herd of red ... read more

Well, here we go again. Botswana and Namibia 2012. Last trip we were not able to upload any photos along the way, so for those of you that haven't seen those yet, they are located on Kayla's Flickr page at the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaylastevenson/sets/72157627731001908/ For this trip, we will likely run into the same problem, and what you will receive is just a quick blog about where we are and what we're doing, followed by photos later this summer. Maybe a photo or two, maybe not. This trip is all about the desert. First a mobile camping safari into the Central Kalahari Desert in Botswana with Penduka Safaris (http://www.pendukasafaris.com/), and then a photography safari in Namibia with photographer Jim Zuckerman (url=http://... read more

Cape Town Day 3 & Home Cape Town like Vancouver has a sight seeing double decker bus system where for 120 Rand ($17) you can get on and off as you like all day. Our first stop was to be the Gold Museum but instead we opted for an outdoor day so we got of at the Table Mountain cable car to the top. It was a beautiful blue sky day with no wind and 25 C. However since yesterday the cable car was not operating because of high winds, today there was a 2 hour line up. So we hopped back on the same bus and rode out the the suburbs and marine walk way. The walkway offered whales tail up very near shore. The world cup stadium is along our route but access to ... read more

Trawal to Cape Town This was another easy travel day, around 300 km again on paved road, through Citrusdal (the name says it all - many citrus groves full of oranges and lemons), up and over a high pass in the mountains, wide fertile valleys growing wheat.  We still can't believe the huge contrast from the countries visited earlier on this tour, where mechanized farming just doesn't exist and people till the soil with hand made hoes. We see Cape Towns Table Mountain about 50 km away and then finally arrive in Table Bay with a great view of the city, beach, surfers, and surrounding mountains. Unfortunately it is raining for the first time in 45 days. Our accommodation is the Cape Diamond Hotel in central Cape Town. Excellent service, clean, quiet, hot showers and with a ... read more