We had promised that Barcelona would be a relaxing stop-over before the final leg of the journey home, so there was no rushing anyone in the morning. John was happy to get out of the hotel. After a walk down Las Ramblas to the harbor, he returned to la Boquería and procured pastries and fruit juice to bring back for the family. Our objective for the day was to visit Gaudi’s unfinished Sagrada Família church. Having sorted out how to use the Metro the night before, we were rapidly on our way. The church rivals the great cathedrals of Europe in its scale and grandeur, but stylistically is unlike anything we have seen anywhere. While following many of the overall patterns common to cathedrals, his modern and organic spires, facades, staircases and columns combine to make ... read more

After many days with events starting early in the day, we were all happy to have a chance to sleep in. We showered, packed, and enjoyed the internet for a while and in the end were rushing to get down to breakfast before they closed up at 10AM. We enjoyed another lovely buffet breakfast overlooking the river. Back in the room we apparently had underestimated how much packing was left and were quite flustered getting finished in time for our ride to the airport. The small Livingstone airport has only one waiting area, which was quite crowded and hot (even though the temperature outside was quite pleasant). We had been delivered with plenty of time to wait and amused ourselves by withdrawing 50,000 kwacha (as a single bill, worth about $10) and then finding an inexpensive ... read more

Our wake-up call at 6:30 was actually later than we had been rising for morning game drives, but it didn’t exactly feel like sleeping in. We had one last lovely breakfast on the deck, watching a beautiful kudu grazing down near the river. Although we were hoping to see the lion cubs, the baboon is about the only species we can think of that we hoped to see but haven’t. (To be fair, the only cheetahs we saw were in captivity and it would have been cool to see a wild one). The drive to the airport was shared with a couple from Florida who had stayed at another lodge. We enjoyed comparing notes about South Africa as well as other travel destinations during the two hour drive to the airport. Lauren’s summer-camp friend (also Lauren) ... read more

Lots of photos from today - be sure to scroll down past the ads to see them all. As expected, we were awoken at 6am, by a knock at our door pleasantly alerting us that it was time to get up for the game drive. We fumbled about for a bit, but eventually got ourselves dressed, cameras and binoculars packed, and out of the room in about thirty minutes. We had coffee and a few light snacks and were off for another drive. We chatted briefly with another American family and compared our lives in the US and our experiences in Africa. After we left for our game drive Lauren confided that she was pretty certain that she knew the daughter in the family from camp a few years back, and we later confirmed that she ... read more

For our last day in Cape Town we were again with Karl for the day. After a quick breakfast in the hotel, we were off in the comfortable van. Our main agenda item for the day was Cheetah Outreach, which is located out in the wine country east of Cape Town. However, since they don’t open until 11AM, we took the opportunity to have an early morning stroll in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Karl dropped us at the upper entrance, making it convenient for us to meander through the gardens and then meet him at the lower entrance. The lush gardens show off some of the incredible botanical diversity of South Africa and the Cape Peninsula in particular. Sonia, being the plant lover in the family, enjoyed the exotic species throughout our walk through the meticulously ... read more