AFRICA - DAY ONE to THREE - The Road to Pretoria

Previous Blogs: Day 1 Pretoria | Day 4 Dinokeng | Day 5 New Years | Day 6+7 Umdloti | Day 8 - DumaZulu | Day 9 Hluhluwe | Day 10+11 PE to Knysna | Day 12 Ostrich Farm | Day 13 Hermanus | Day 14 Hout Bay | Day 15 Cape Point | Day 16 Table Mountain | Day 17+18 Namib Desert | Day 19 Sossusvlei | Day 20+21 To Swakopmund | Day 22 Cape Cross | Day 23 Luderitz | Day 24 Walvis Bay | Day 26 To Windhoek | Day 27 Katatura | Day 28+29 Zambezi | Day 30 The Falls | Day 31 Chobe | Day 32+33 Going Home

Click photos for a larger image...

Welcome to our first Africa blog. This one is a little different for two reasons:

1. I am originally from South Africa, so this is more like going home for me than our usual adventures going to strange and wonderful places we have not been to before. Wendy too has been to South Africa once before.

2. We are taking Wendy's Mom with us, so it will be her first trip to Africa, something that has been on her bucket list for a very long time.

However, having said that, the last time I was in Africa was 20 years ago, so it is all new to me too!

We left on Christmas day for Houston where we spent a couple days with my daughter Carla and her husband, Damon.

Good time was had by all with some excellent eats and fellowship.

Then the three of us jetted to NY with JetBlue (LOVE that airline) where we spent the night before heading out to JFK for our international flight.

The flight to Johannesburg direct was with South African Airways in an Airbus 340-600 Quad (TMI? Sorry, I like airplanes!).

The flight was supposedly 14 hours (which is bad enough) but we got delayed at JFK for almost 2 hours on the tarmac! ARGH!

Otherwise uneventful, the food was mediocre along with the service. Wine however, was plentiful and that's the way we roll on a long haul flight!

We landed the following morning at 10 am and picked up our Hertz rental car and drove directly to Pretoria 50 miles away where my sister lives.

The new few days are more about seeing family than touristing.

Of course Hertz did not have a GPS availble, and even though I downloaded all of Southern Africa maps into my tablet, I discovered that my brand new tablet does not have a GPS receiver built in??? WTF??

So using the maps on the tablet the old fashioned way we finally made it to my sister's house!

I have not seen my sister since 2001 and my nieces and nephews since 1999. I also now have 4 great-nieces and great-nephews that I met for the first time.

Too awesome!

On the left is the Bed and Breakfast we are staying at less than a mile away from my sister's home.

Absolutely delightful!

Our comfortable room

My new office for the new couple days!

The hotel has several ponds with a wide variety of wild ducks and other birds

They also have gardens with walkways on multiple levels (the whole place is built on the side of a mountain).