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| When capturing this hippo and cattle egret in the bright sun from quite a distance, we didn’t realize there was a croc in the photo until we loaded the photo on my laptop. |
“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”
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| A new warthog visitor with an injured left wart. He’s since been back a few times in the past two days. It didn’t appear to be bleeding or oozing. There are several ways this injury could have transpired. |
Today, we’d tentatively planned to go to Kruger. Still, when deciding on what to cook for tonight’s dinner, I realized a trip to Komatipoort to shop was more critical when we ran out of fresh vegetables and other household goods.
Instead, weather permitting, we’ll head to Kruger tomorrow after getting a head start on the day’s post early in the morning. That’s the magic of this life we lead…we can do whatever we’d like, whenever we’d like, and change plans at the last minute if we’d like.
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| Mom and baby are on the banks of the Crocodile River with the remainder of their parade nearby. |
But changing BIG plans in this life presents several obstacles, mainly due to money with deposits (or full fares) paid for holiday homes, flights, hotels, and cruises we’ve already booked.
Having control over the smaller daily plans is a beautiful part of being retired and free. Often, we awake with a project in mind we’d discussed the previous day or evening to find ourselves simply “not in the mood” to do what we’d discussed.
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| Elephants are frequently found by the river when viewing from Marloth Park. |
Fortunately, neither of us minds the other suggestions. We change plans for the day, even for no reason at all, if we so choose. Of course, we don’t change the social plans we’ve made with friends, always adhering strictly to the date, time, and location.
As we look to the future, we realize it’s imperative we make plans for several time slots and events arising after we left Kenya in March 2019. This sounds like a long time away, but in fact, it’s only a mere eight months from now.
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| This giraffe was on the opposite side of the river, far from view without zooming in or viewing through Tom’s binoculars. |
The two of us are always counting on our fingers to figure out how long it is until the next adventure, not because we want the time to fly quickly but more to gain a perspective of how much time we have left wherever we are at any given time.
Recently, when Tom was perusing CruiseCritic.com, which he does quite frequently, he noticed a posting from a booked passenger for the Baltic cruise we’d booked for August 11, 2019, from Amsterdam to Amsterdam on Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas.
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| Two waterbucks on a sandbar in the river. |
The passenger couple sought participants for an upcoming two-day tour (not overnight) when in port overnight in St. Petersburg, Russia. We’ll sleep on the ship but head out each of two days for the nine-hour tours both days of the majestic city.
We jumped at the opportunity to participate in the tours, which will include a maximum of 16 people, which is a lot better and less costly than the tours offered by the cruise line.
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| A short time later, an elephant leisurely walks past the two waterbucks. |
Most cruise-line-arranged tours are on huge buses, often with as many as 60 passengers per bus, hardly our cup-of-tea making this smaller group option much more appealing.
We committed to participating in the two-day tour from what appears to be a highly reputable company based on reviews, telling the passenger/organizer to let us know when and how to pay the combined around ZAR 7994 (US $600) plus tips for the tour guide.
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| Zooming in for this scene with many elephants on the river. |
After conducting some of our research, we felt this pricing was reasonable for the two nine-hour tours, especially after reviewing the itinerary on the tour company’s website here.
Here’s the itinerary for the St. Petersburg Russia tour:
2-day Deluxe Tour
Guided Visits:
We’re excited about seeing all of these venues but also in having this arranged in advance by a generous passenger who’s chosen to take on the task of organizing it, instead of trying to figure out tours during the cruise itself when WiFi is sketchy and many of the best options are sold out.
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| The mom to the right climbed atop a big rock, and the baby tried to follow suit. |
In this case, we wouldn’t care to venture off on our own, as we often do, taking a taxi or finding a driver. Also, it’s an excellent opportunity to meet other passengers we may not have met on this 2500 passenger ship.
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| Mom and baby crossing the shallow water in the river. |
We do realize we need to spend more time fine-tuning our itinerary for 2019-2020 and are conducting some online research now. But, it’s pretty hard to tear ourselves away from living in the moment, thoroughly treasuring the gifts Mother Nature presents to us each day.
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| Another mom and baby as they reached the river bank. |
May you experience those gifts of nature as well, whether it be a bird, a flower, or a sunset.
Photo from one year ago today, July 18, 2017:
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| Dust storm gathering in the desert in Las Vegas. For more photos, please click here. |