More Pictures...Finally

Sorry for the delay. Here are some more pictures of the wildlife in Africa:























I'll try to post some other pictures soon.

Teaser Photo

Here is a teaser of the pictures. This is of the leopard chasing the baby wildebeest in the Serengeti. The leopard won.

I'll post more pictures later today.

It's All Over

The trip is over and I'm home.

Pictures to be posted over the next few days.

Easter in Scotland

Back in London after spending the last 5 days in Scotland. It was colder and there was more rain than in London, but the Scottish Highlands, the Isle of Sky and Edinburgh were spectacular none the less. It lived up to every expectation that I had going in to the trip. Edinburgh is what you want it to be: a very relaxed town with a myriad of really old structures. It may be a bit touristy, but that didn't really take away from the experience. After spending a day in Edinburgh, we headed north into the Highlands and the dramatic scenery. I spent the night in a castle turned hostel, Carbisdale Castle, a little north of Inverness. It isn't a particularly old castle (OK, as far as castles go it is brand new, having been built in the early 1900's), but it still had all the makings of a castle: ornate decoration and several ghosts. I didn't have any encounters with the ghosts, but it added to the experience to hear the stories.

The next day we went to Loch Ness to try and find the Loch Ness Monster. First off, that is one very cold body of water. It is a relatively constant 42 degrees. There was no sun when we were there and the wind was just whipping in off the water, chilling us to the bone. And alas, there were no sightings of Nessie, save for the countless T-shirts and stuffed toys that were available right across the street. From there we headed to Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye. More dramatic scenery and fantastic stories.

The final day was the opportunity to visit some notable sights. The first stop was to the railway bridge that is depicted in the Harry Potter movies. It is amazing what they can do with special effects, because the bridge looked very ordinary. After a quick photo we headed to the William Wallace Monument in Stirling. The monument was built in the 1800's and is very dramatically set on the top of a hill overlooking the Sterling Bridge and Sterling Castle. Aside from the really bad statue in the parking lot of William Wallace as portrayed by Mel Gibson it was really quite amazing.

After spending another day in Edinburgh, we headed back to London. Two more days for me here and then I head home on Wednesday.

Just Another Day

My walk around London today brought me to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, to name a few sites I trod past. I didn't stick around to watch the changing of the guard at the Palace, but to be honest I was a bit bored staring at the building. It isn't all that interesting, and she's not my queen, so it seemed pointless to hang around. Big Ben was nice, but again, after seeing it in pictures and movies for the entirety of my life it seemed very familiar...and again boring. I think that I have hit a period of travel fatigue, which makes it all the better that I will be going home next week. I booked a flight for Wednesday the 19th, so I have less than 1 week to go on the trip. Unfortunately I haven't heard from my travel agent about the mix up, but I'll surely give them a call next week and open up very nice set of discussions.

Tomorrow I head to Edinburgh and an Easter weekend in the Highlands of Scotland. It should be a good time, although I think I booked the trip that is geared towards the 18-22 year olds. Oh well, I'll just have to make the best of it.

Out of Africa, Into England

I arrived in London this morning after a 12 hour flight, which was actually very easy on me as far as jet lag (there is only a 1 hour time difference between London and Cape Town) but not as far as weather. Africa was hot, and my body got very used to sunshine and 80 degree days, as evidenced by the wonderful tan I have (accompanied, though, by the horrendous tan lines on my arms, legs and feet). England, on the other hand, is cold and blustery and the sun came out for 5 minutes this morning and, from what I understand, I shouldn't expect to see it again any time soon.

The weather isn't the only thing that has turned sour lately, though. I have hit 2 fairly large, unexpected bumps in the road in the last few weeks. First, my ATM info was swiped at some point, which led my bank to freeze the account. That is all well and good, and the thieves only got a few hundred bucks out of my account. Unfortunately, even though it is a Visa card, they are not able to send the card to any other address other than the one registered to the account. From there, if I wanted to I could courier the card to where I am, but that would be at my expense and it just seems like a bit of a hassle. That has led me to basically figure out when I run out of cash (I still have a credit card, so all is not lost) and then try to change my flights to fit that schedule. That brings me to the second big problem: the flights that I was told were booked on Aer Lingus from London to Dublin and then Dublin to New York were not actually ever booked. I found that out this morning when I rocked up at the Aer Lingus counter at Heathrow to try to change the dates of the flights. The girl behind the counter told me that I didn't have any reservations with them because those flights had been cancelled last July, and that they had notified my ticketing agent of that fact at the time. All this is news to me, but it actually will work out for the best, since now I will just book a direct flight from London to Newark and then go after the travel agent I booked with to try and recoup the money I paid for the non-existent Aer Lingus tickets.

But it isn't all bad. I visited the British Museum already today, and man is that an amazing place. They have unbelievable Egyptian, Roman and Greek exhibits that are simply amazing. They have mummies, the Rosetta Stone, enormous Roman statues and wonderful Greek art work. They also have a special exhibit of Michelangelo's sketches from different periods of his life, including his early mock ups for the Sistine Chapel.

Tomorrow I will play my part as super-tourist and head to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament. After that I head to Scotland for the holiday weekend, then back to London before heading home sometime next week (I am targetting next Wednesday or Thursday at this point).

Relaxing in Cape Town

The time in Cape Town is really flying by. I have done a lot, but I still have a lot of things to do in the next few days before I fly out on Monday. The highlights so far:

• We went to a concert at Kirstenbosch Gardens, located in the shadows of Table Mountain. The band was Flat Stanley, they sounded like Creed and have just been on tour with Metallica and Collective Soul. It was a good show, with good music and a great setting.
• I went up to the top of Table Mountain in the cable car, which covers the ascent to 1000+ meters rather quickly. The floor of the round cars rotate, allowing each of the 40 people on board the opportunity to see the great sights. On the top of the mountain, the vistas of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Town were amazing, although it was very windy. I thought I was over my fear of heights after the microlight experience over Vic Falls, but it returned with a vengeance on the way down in the cable car. The first part of the descent is straight down and very fast. I was terrified and mumbling incoherently for several minutes. The people I was with had a good laugh, though.
• Yesterday I went shark cage diving in Gansbaai to see the great white sharks. Within 10 minutes of our boat setting anchor and starting to chum a great white paid us a visit. I spent some time in the cage, which was amazing to see these huge sharks within feet or inches of where you are. My only fear was that at times I noticed that my feet were sticking outside of the cage and might entice the sharks to take a bite. We saw a dozen or so sharks, ranging in size from 6 feet to 18+ feet long, including a smaller shark try to take a seagull off of the surface of the water (it looked as if its tail feathers were in the sharks mouth as it flew away). It was another amazing experience to add to the list of amazing experiences that I have had in the last few months.

I still have to visit Robben Island and go on a tour of one of the local townships, but I should have plenty of time for those activities.

Cape Town, At Last

We pulled into Cape Town this morning, completing the 63 day trip down from Nairobi. It was a quiet trip, mostly due to the fact that the wine tasting yesterday took its toll on people. It started out nicely at Simonsig and Fairview, but after lunch it took a bit of a different direction. The niceties of swirling the wine in your mouth and sniffing the bouquet were replaced with gargling the wine and contests to see who could drink 6 glasses of wine the quickest (it wasn't me, if you were wondering). But it was a really good time and a nice way to end the trip.

Now for the tough part: filling my days while I am here in Cape Town. I don't fly out until April 10th, and I really only need 3 or 4 days to do the activities that I want to do: snorkelling with the great white sharks, going to Robben Island and ascending Table Mountain.