« A Slight Variation | Main | At the University of the Western Cape »
January 27, 2005
Safe in South Africa!
After spending 10 days in northern South Africa, I have finally found internet access! It's an incredibly slow dial-up connection that I'm paying a rand a minute for, so I won't elaborate on the way-too-action-packed days I've been having. To make a long adventure sound much shorter, then, I arrived in Johannesburg in one piece and spent the next few (remarkably jet-lag free) days visiting too many museums and attempting to retain too much information.
After a few days we drove north-west to the province of Mpumalanga, where we saw some of the most amazingly beautiful places on earth. After a few days sightseeing there, we drove further north to Kruger National Park where we saw four of the Big Five (elephants, lions, buffalo, and rhinos...the leopards managed to evade us). One lion walked directly in front of our open vehicle, and it was so amazing because he was completely wild. Today we left Kruger and drove back to Johannesburg, where we'll spend the next day at a hostel in the city and then fly to Cape Town on Saturday.
I miss all of you, but I'm having a great time here and seeing some amazing things. I'll tell you more about what's been going on when I get to UWC and encounter a less-primitive and less-expensive form of internet access. I took a lot of pictures of the 30 or so giraffe we saw in the park, and I'll post those as soon as I can. Let me know how you're all doing, and I'll write to you soon!
Posted by rgutwin at January 27, 2005 02:53 PM
Comments
woo hoo, I'm the first to post!!! we miss you too, tell us more!
Glad you're safe, take care.
Posted by: Beth at January 27, 2005 11:49 PM
Good to hear from you - I *was* beginning to worry. Sounds like you're having the best time. It's ~10 below zero here; enjoy the sun.
Posted by: Paul Gutwin at January 27, 2005 11:56 PM
Glad you made it safely - will look for further posts.
By the way, they are still alive and swimming briskly.
Posted by: Gram & Gramps at January 28, 2005 11:44 AM
That sounds awesome. Thanks for telling us about it.
More time in game reserves, less time on the Internet -- sounds like a good trade! I hope it's a good start to a great semsester.
Posted by: Diana at January 28, 2005 12:16 PM
Yey! I don't suppose you got to watch alias on the reserve....oh well, stinks to be you :P you didnt miss much, only the fact that sid and vaughn are both dead, just kidding. Glad to hear from you and NY is definitly not as cozy as I bet SA is!
Posted by: the coolests sister on the planet at January 29, 2005 01:05 PM
Sounds like you're off to great start - at least having fun, that is! Chad thinks he wants to study abroad in New Zealand, so I'm curious to find out if you actually learn something on this trips or just chase wild animals around all the time ;)
I like the quote you have on your home page. It reminds me of a quote of another Lewis -
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. C. S. Lewis
Posted by: Uncle Mark at January 29, 2005 11:57 PM