Italy August 17 - 27 After a short stay in Madrid on our return from Morocco we flew to Rome to meet up with our son, daughter in law and grand daughter for a few weeks of travelling in Italy and Southern France. They had enjoyed a week in Italy before our arrival and we spent 2 days in Rome with them exploring and getting to know our grand daughter again. Our adventure then took us all to Florence and the Tuscany Region of Italy with a short stop in the medieval city of Orvieto on the way. We stayed in [View Full Entry]

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CENTRAL MOROCCO Our travels continued with the drive to Ourika and the beautiful valley that is inhabited mostly by Berber people that live in many small villages scattered about the valley. Berbers have there own language, traditions and a different lifestyle in the mountains. Monday morning we went to the local market for a very interesting visit to a traditional Berber village market. Our timing was great as these markets are not open everyday. You can buy pretty much anything you can imagine at this market. Food for animals and people, a haircut, every part of the cow and sheep you [View Full Entry]

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NORTHERN MOROCCO We travelled from Livingstone to Johannesburg and then connected overnight to Madrid and on to Casablanca, Morocco. Very long trip. We were met by our driver for the next week and drove from Casablanca through Meknes and on to Fez for the start of our Morocco adventure. Our accommodation in Fes was at a Ryad. These are former very large houses for rich families that are now being operated as tourist accommodation. What a beautiful place. Total of eight suites and our first night we were the only guests in the place. The resident chef prepared a Moroccan Tajine [View Full Entry]

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Southern / Eastern Africa General Comments This was certainly one of the highlights of our world trip with some very interesting things to do and places to see. With some proper planning, a very nice trip can be organized including Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater in Kenya and Tanzania. We suspect there are some equally interesting adventures in Kruger Park in South Africa. Johannesburg turned out to be our “home base” for most of our travel here. Quite frankly there is not a lot for tourists in Joburg and in fact there are some security issues they have to dea [View Full Entry]

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July 1 - 5, 2008 LIVINGSTONE, Zambia ( Victoria Falls ) The flight from Johannesburg is a fast 1.5 hours and we arrived in another country, Zambia, for the usual passport, visa hassles. ( should be getting used to that by now ) Our hotel is the very nice Royal Livingstone Hotel that sits right on the banks of the Zambezi River. ( with resident monkeys, Zebras, a Giraffe, and a lot of Elephants in the adjacent parks and a family of hippos in the river in front of the hotel ) It is a short ( 15 min. ) walk [View Full Entry]

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July 25 - July 31 SEYCHELLES Following our relatively painless 4 hour flight from Johannesburg we arrived late evening in the Seychelles, a group of tropical islands in the Indian Ocean south of Dubai and between India and Africa. This is a complicated and expensive place to get to if you are not in the area and are coming just for a holiday in Seychelles. This is a very small country of about 84,000 people total. We are booked into the Le Meridien Barbarons for the next six nights for some relaxing in the sun. Sun ??? What is that ??? [View Full Entry]

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July 21 - 24, 2008 Cape Town, Wine District We spent Monday with a quiet day in Cape Town and the usual “Hop On - Hop Off” city bus tour. Today was a rather cold and cloudy day and sightseeing was not great but we did get a good overview of this beautiful city. Cape Town reminds us of Vancouver, Canada as it has the mountains, the sea and a great downtown on the waterfront. Winter is not warm in South Africa and we were surprised at the cool days and cold nights. The views from Table Mountain are spectacular as [View Full Entry]

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July 19, 20, 2008 Garden Route, South Africa “ The Garden Route “ is a favorite travel route in South Africa that basically follows the coast starting east of Cape Town at Mussel Bay and ending at Tsitsikamma National Park east of Plettenberg Bay. This is a beautiful part of the country and there are great camping, hotel and lodge facilities along the route. The countryside is mostly coastal with mountains to the north. This day started with ride out into the bay on a great boat to maybe see Southern Right Whales, Humpback Whales and Dolphins that inhabit these waters [View Full Entry]

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July 18, 2008 PLETTENBERG BAY, S.A. Our adventures in South Africa continued today with a drive from Oudtshoorn to Plettenberg bay on the Indian Ocean coast of southern South Africa. This was an easy day on the road passing from the Ostrich farms and sheep and goats ( Mohair Goats ) farms through the mountains and back to the coast on a beautiful road through the mountain passes. We enjoyed some interesting discussions, with our very knowledgeable tour guide, about the history of South Africa and some of the trials and tribulations the people have gone through for the past few [View Full Entry]

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July 16, 17, 2008 CAPE TOWN - OUDTSHOORN, S.A. Wednesday morning we began our exploring of the Cape area of South Africa. We met our guide, Carles, and drove today north and east to Oudtshoorn. This is a very nice drive through some beautiful mountains to an area of farms and past many small vineyards and fruit growing areas. The landscape changes to semi-desert ( very similar to Arizona ) and a few beautiful green valleys in the mountains. There are big sheep farms and as we approached Oudtshoorn many more farms. Our stay in Oudtshoorn was at a very, very [View Full Entry]

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