Another “day in the life”…

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Usually, there are dozens of helmeted guinea-fowl in the garden, also searching for pellets. They swallow them whole!

As I sit here on the veranda on Monday morning, coffee in hand, the day is sunny, cool, slightly windy, and Frank is on the floor next to me pecking at his seeds and drinking from his little container of water. He makes cute little chirping sounds when eating, illustrating how happy he is.

I can see four bushbucks in the bush who gingerly approach, looking for another handout of pellets. We comply. There’s Thick Neck, Mom and Baby, Stingy and Spikey. Earlier this morning, Tom had seen four or five more bushbucks, Lonely Girl (warthog), Broken Horn (wildebeest), and more.

I stumbled across this old photo of Tiny, with his hair fluffed up when other warthogs were in the vicinity, stealing his pellets.

Today, the last of the holidaymakers will leave Marloth Park now that the school holidays have ended. The vehicles on the road have thinned to barely any activity. The parking lots at the Marlothi Centre and the Bush Centre will no longer be nearly impossible to enter. The stores in Komatipoort will have their usual local Monday shoppers.

Soon, Tom will drop me at Louise‘s Info Centre, where Kathy will be waiting for Rita and me for the three of us to head to Stoep’s Cafe in Komati for “girl talk” and breakfast. Tom has a dentist appointment at 11:00 with Dr. Luzaan to have his teeth cleaned. I’ll do the same in a month or more after my extraction heals a little more (it’s on the mend).

Two hornbills were banging on the kitchen window, an almost daily occurrence.

Rita and Gerhard leave on Friday to return to Washington for the holiday season. Kathy will be leaving Marloth Park in November for Hawaii, and Don will also go for Hawaii in early December. We’ll miss them all and hope they will be able to be here when we return in December 2022, only 14 months from now. My 75th birthday party will be three months later, and we’re hoping, if it works out for them, that they will be able to attend. It’s a long way from the US, and we’d understand if they can’t make it.

In the meantime, we’ll cultivate relationships with other locals we’ve come to know and enjoy and spend the holiday season right here in Marloth Park. It will be hot, humid and the bush will be rife with snakes and insects. But we’ve experienced these issues in the past, and we’ve come to expect them.

Load shedding will continue twice a day for a total of 5 hours each day without power. It is expected to stop by Thursday, but we’ll experience the upcoming awful heat during the night when it occurs between 3:00 am and 5:30 am. Hopefully, it does stop as described, since on Thursday,  Friday, and Saturday, the temperatures will range from 99F to 104F, 37C to 40C. It certainly gets hot during the night without aircon for almost three hours.

Zebras on the road while on our way to the market.

Kathy, Rita, and I had a great time during girl talk at Stoep Cafe this morning. Suddenly, I realized it was 11, 00 and I needed to walk over to Dr. Luzaan’s office while Tom was getting his teeth cleaned. Once he was done, after a great chat with the dentist, we headed to the pharmacy and Spar Market, down the road in Komatipoort.

By the time we returned to the house, load shedding had an hour to go. We put away the groceries, and soon the power returned, as expected. I did a little chopping and dicing for tonight’s dinner of homemade taco salads with seasoned ground meat for Tom and seasoned chicken and prawns for me.

I had made the taco seasoning spices myself since those at the market in the little packets are loaded with sugar, flour, and chemicals, making them high in carbs and undesirable for either of us.

All is well. We are as content as we could be. Yesterday, they finally won a game! Go Vikings!

Have a fabulous Monday!

Photo from one year ago today, October 11, 2020:

This photo was posted one year ago while in lockdown in Mumbai, India, on day #202. The cubs took a break to relax. For more photos, please click here.

Nature can be cruel..Heartbreaking photos…Thanksgiving dinner in the bush…A startling revelation from last year…

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This heartbreaking photo of a precious little duiker who encountered a porcupine, who responded by releasing quills, makes us cringe in horror. How can she possibly survive these massive injuries? (Not our photo). From this site: “Porcupines are solitary, slow-moving animals that largely keep to themselves unless threatened. The quills usually lie flat against the porcupine’s body until they encounter a threat, at which point they “puff up” and erect their quills, swinging their spiny tails until the threat either leave them alone or gets a sharp whack and a face, hand, or paw full of quills.  Quills are stiff, hollow hairs with microscopic, backward-facing barbs at the tip (kind of like tiny fish hooks), so when they come into contact with flesh—human or animal—they get stuck and pull free from the porcupine’s skin.”

When we saw today’s photos on Facebook and Kathy sent them to me via Whatsapp, we were both heartsick over the devastation caused by a porcupine to this precious duiker. Hopefully, he’ll be found by the rangers and treated by the Marloth Park vet. Some of the quills appear to be deeply penetrated. We can only imagine how painful this is.

We hesitated to post these photos, but as we always say, we tell “it like it is,” and when 99% of our images can put a smile on ours and our reader’s faces. The bush isn’t always pretty. As we’ve always mentioned, we aren’t those people who may nonchalantly say, “Well, it’s all a part of nature.”

We feel deep sorrow for animals in pain as we do when humans are suffering. Animals are no less important in our world, and without them, we wouldn’t be on this planet. We are all integral players in the ecosystem.

When we hear of humans losing a pet, we certainly understand their grief and sorrow. Some may say, “It was just a dog or a cat.” But, those pets play a huge part in our joy in daily lives which are often riddled with challenges. The relationships and love of pets can provide great comfort.

Over the years we’ve spent in Africa, we witnessed many heartbreaking wildlife injuries. Sadly today’s photos sit at the top of this list, and we only hope this poor little duiker gets some help soon. Unfortunately, with the extent of the damage the quills may have caused, euthanasia might be the only option.

On a more positive note, last night, we attended a Thanksgiving dinner celebration at Kathy and Don’s lovely home overlooking the Crocodile River. As mentioned in yesterday’s post here, we brought the two pies I’d made, Rita brought the green beans, and Kathy made the balance of the delicious meal: turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a delicious salad.

Of course, I only ate turkey, green beans, and salad which was perfectly satisfying. I couldn’t help but drool a little when everyone was eating the cherry pie with ice cream and whipped cream and pumpkin pies, also topped with whipped cream, both of which I loved in my old life.

Please, if any Marloth Park residents or visitors see this duiker, report it immediately to the rangers. (Not our photo)

But, I didn’t take even a bite when the others did a little coaxing, encouraging me to try a taste. For me, after all these years of strict low carb, even a small portion could set me on a destructive path. One bite would never be enough when I’ve always had a sweet tooth.

Load shedding began during the dinner party and lasted for two hours while we dined at their big dining room table, drinking wine (except Tom, who drinks brandy and Sprite Zero) in the dark. There were plenty of candles on the table, allowing us to see what we were eating. The night had cooled down considerably from a sweltering day, with heavy wind and rain with the windows open in the dining room, and we were all comfortable. It was a great night indeed.

In today’s heading, we wrote: “A startling revelation from last year.” Yesterday, while working on corrections, I realized it would be one more month until I’d be done. I came across this post from January 23, 2020, while we were still in Arizona, preparing to leave for India in less than a week.

Contained in the post was our first mention of Covid-19. We were sharing details of our upcoming cruise from Mumbai, scheduled to sail away on April 3, 2020, shortly after the end of our private tour of India. As it turned out, the cruise was canceled due to Covid, and we had to cut our tour of India short by many weeks, again due to Covid. It was on March 24 that our 10-month isolation in lockdown began at the Marriott Hotel in Mumbai. Wow! That seems like a long time ago!

It’s still with us. Be careful. Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, October 10, 2020:

This photo was posted one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #201. The veranda to our tent at Camp Olonono in the Maasai Mara in Kenya.  Approaching, it took our breath away. For more photos, please click here.

Another pie making day from hell…Thanksgiving dinner tonight with friends…

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    The cherry pie crust ended up thick due to the awful heat and humidity today. Hopefully, it will taste good.

Kathy and Don are hosting an early Thanksgiving dinner for their American friends, Rita and Gerhard, and the two of us. Kathy managed to find a small turkey in Nelspruit. Turkey isn’t often consumed in South Africa and is usually purchased only for visitors from the USA.

The last time we all had Thanksgiving dinner together was in 2018 when we lived in the Orange house. The day before the event, I made eight pumpkin pies, which I described in this post. It was a hot day, with temperatures running at 102F, 40C, and pie crust dough. See that post here.

Pie crust dough should not get above 70F, 21C and although I got up to make the crusts at 6:00 am this morning, it was already above 80C, 27C in the kitchen. Here is an interesting article about making pie crusts in too cold or too hot temperatures.

Of course, I waited to turn on the oven until I’d made and rolled all the dough and placed it in the tins. But, like in November in 2018, once again, it was challenging, and my crusts had to be thick to put them in the pan without them falling apart.

On top of that, I was making Don’s favorite cherry pie, which requires a lattice top. Rolling and cutting those strips to keep them from breaking apart as I placed them on the pie was, once again, very tricky. Finally, I resigned myself, again, that the strips would have to be thick to prevent them from breaking. Fortunately, the crust is flakey and delicious, so eating big strips of dough won’t be so bad.

The pumpkin pie’s crust wasn’t perfect in appearance, but we’re expecting the flavor to be good.

If we had planned this Thanksgiving dinner for Sunday instead of today (my fault when Kathy asked which day was better), the temperature would only be a high of 70F, 21C, which would have been perfect pie-making weather. Oh, well, history certainly does repeat itself.

Right now, the pumpkin pie is baking after Tom helped me get the cherry pie out of the oven. With no regular pie tins, I am using tinfoil pans, which are flimsy in South Africa. I used two tins for each pie to make them slightly sturdier. We’ll see how that works out when we drive the pies to Kathy and Don’s later today on the very bumpy dirt roads in Marloth Park.

We’re scheduled to arrive at Kathy and Don’s home at 5:15 pm, 1715 hrs. At 7:00 pm 1900 hrs, Eskom, the electric company, will be instituting the second load shedding (power outage) since last night at 9:00 pm, 2100 hrs, which started right after we got home from Jabula. We’ll be dining in the dark.

Luckily, last night, we still had WiFi when the power went out and could stream a show in the dark. Before we dozed off, the power had come back on, 2½ hours later. Once again, tonight, it will be out until 11:30 pm, 2330 hrs. Depending on how late we stay at Kathy and Don, tonight might repeat last night.

Last night we had a fun time at Jabula. A lovely couple from Scotland in Marloth Park approached us while we sat at the bar before dinner with Rita and Gerhard. This couple greeted us warmly to tell us they’d been reading our posts for a long time.

They felt like they knew us after our detailed daily exposes. We all laughed at the irony of being at Jabula on the same night. We’ve experienced this many times as we’ve traveled worldwide, especially on cruise ships when people recognize us from our photos. It is these memorable interactions that make our travels all the more enjoyable.

There we sat with dear friends Rita and Gerhard, whom we also met due to our posts who stumbled across us on the web years ago. We love this! How lucky we are!!!

We’re hoping you’ll have a delightful weekend too. Be well. Be healthy. Be happy.

Photo from one year ago today, October 8, 2020:

This photo was posted while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #200. While in Bali in 2016, the two Ketuts, our cooks, walked in bare feet in the rain-flooded road to the villa to make our dinner, leaving their motorbikes elsewhere on higher ground. For more photos, please click here.

Hoping it was Tiny!…Photo comparison…

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Yesterday afternoon, when this warthog stopped by, we were hopeful that it was Tiny. After careful examination of the photo of Tiny shown below, we were certain he was not Tiny.

Since we returned from the US at the end of July, we haven’t seen Tiny, who, along with Little, was our favorite warthog. Expressive faces, eye contact, and response to the names we’ve given them, these two warthogs always make me smile. On the other hand, Tom isn’t quite as attached for me but has kept an eye out for Tiny when we haven’t seen him since we’d returned.

This is a photo of Tiny we posted on February 21, 2021. The differences between him and the pig we saw yesterday are distinct.  Note the eye bags, the size and shape of the facial and temple warts, and of course, the size and shape of the tusks.

Little often visits two or three times a day, seldom missing a day. If we don’t see him during any day, we can always count on him stopping by around 4:00 pm, 1600 hrs. He loves to appear when we are sitting on the veranda, ensuring he gets our attention to toss him pellets. This always makes us laugh.

Day after day, we continually check every giant tusked warthog to see if it’s Tiny, keeping in mind many such animals look very similar. But over the years we’ve spent in Marloth Park, we have learned to 0observe identifying characteristics that distinguish one animal of a particular species from one another.

Such characteristics on warthogs include:

  • Size of tusks and variance in each tusk’s size
  • Size of facial warts on males on both their cheeks and temples. Females don’t have facial warts and small temple warts but have white whiskers in varying sizes that aid in identifying them.
  • Body size can vary considerably, but, along with the above, it helps identify warthogs.
  • Bags under the eyes, most prominent in older males
  • Personality – it’s easy to detect a particular warthog when they are overly timid or bossy (Little is bossy and persistent while Tiny was not) along with the other identifying characteristics
  • They appeared alone, as a twosome or with more warthogs, with “sounders” as small as three, as large as ten or more. Often males are “friends” and graze the bush together and groom each other. It’s a rarity to see females together without piglets. Moms will often hang out with another mom and her young, supporting each other and even going as far as nursing each other’s piglets.

We must admit we are more interested in male warthogs based on their seemingly more quirky behavior. As I write this, there is a lone female in the garden, whom we call Lonely Girl. She is shy without much of a distinctive personality.  And yet, there are many male warthogs we see over a week that we can easily identify as a regular or new visitors.

We only observe one or two new male visitors each week. They eat and wander off, never to return. Daily, we see “regulars,” all of whom we enjoy and seem to respond to their various names and the sounds of our voices. Tom isn’t as excited about warthogs as I am, but as mentioned above, when I am busy indoors, he keeps an out watchful eye, always looking for Tiny.

Regardless of what I am doing, when he tells me there’s a large, sizeable-tusked warthog with huge, droopy warts on his face on the premises, I come running outside with the camera to see if it’s Tiny. Sadly, time after time, we’ve been disappointed.

Was he culled while we were away? We haven’t heard that warthogs have been culled in the past few months. Most impalas and kudus were taken to Lionspruit to thin out the huge populations in Marloth Park and provide food for the lions, Fluffy and Desi, who reside in Lionspruit, henceforth the name.

Yesterday, Tom hollered out to me when I was in the house, “Hurry,” he said, “There’s a large pig with big tusks in the garden.” I grabbed my phone to quickly bring up a photo of Tiny I have on my home screen. I was extremely excited that it was him upon first inspection.

However, when comparing the photo of Tiny with the new visitor, we both sadly realized it wasn’t him. Now, we wonder if we’ll ever see him again in our remaining three and a half months in Marloth Park. It’s hard to say. He was huge, and he looked very old. He could easily have died from old age or illness, been hit by a car, or made his way under the fence into Kruger National Park, never to return. We’ll never know. He, like Little, was a loner.

On occasion, Little appears with the same female and two fast-growing female piglets. We referred to them as his “family” since the otherwise greedy pig doesn’t share food with anyone but them. Like many animals in the wild, generally, fathers don’t participate in the upbringing of their young. It’s always fun to see ostriches, who can remain as a mating pair for life, and the dad is equally responsible for rearing the chicks.

In any case, we’ll continue to keep an eye out for Tiny and hope we’ll be able to post a new photo of him if and when he returns.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Photo from one year ago today, October 8, 2020:

This photo was posted one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #199. Like all animals in the wild, this female lion is constantly on the lookout for the next meal to feed her cubs, who were lying under this tree. For more photos, please click here.

Whew!…Lots of paperwork to go on a boat…

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Once again, the male bushbuck in the background might be this baby’s dad since he is often with the mom, as shown at the forefront of this photo.

When we started booking the houseboat tour on the Chobe/Zambezi River, we expected a certain amount of paperwork. But, little did we realize how time-consuming it would be for both Louise and ultimately for us. With Covid-19 issues addressing entering into three countries on this one trip, it’s a paperwork nightmare, and bless her heart, Louise has done everything she can to make it as seamless as possible for us. We appreciate her hard work.

Then, we ran into the issue of payment. Not only is there a comprehensive contract for the three-night houseboat tour, but it was accompanied by a lengthy questionnaire we had to complete and submit. On the forms, they requested payment by bank transfer.

If you’ve been reading our posts over the past several years, you know we are adamantly opposed to bank transfers. But, as it turns out, our bank refuses to allow bank transfers to certain countries, including most of those on the African continent, due to excessive amounts of fraud. Thus, we always pay with credit cards. Plus, we get lots of points when we use certain cards.

Louise worked it out, and the company agreed to accept a credit card, although they are charging us a 4% fee of the total price, which resulted in a total cost for the boat of ZAR 31585, US $2114. However, transportation from our hotel in Zambia to the various borders and then returning to the hotel four days later is included. We paid a premium for that service, but undoubtedly, there is less risk of timing errors and confusion.

A one-month-old baby bushbuck is behind her mom in this photo. We tried for a better photo, but she was timid and wouldn’t stay still for a moment.

Also, the cost of the four Covid tests is included. We’ll need the only additional Covid test from the hotel on October 25th, when we return from the boat, to be used for our return entry into South Africa. Whew! What a lot of monkey business Covid has created for travel.

We run the risk that the entire thing could be called off at the last minute if new Covid restrictions are implemented or changed between now and then.

Our round-trip flight from Nelspruit to Livingstone, Zambia, is ZAR 19274, US $1289. In total, with tips, two nights’ meals when at the hotel;  the small amounts we paid for the two nights in the hotel, using our points; transportation to and from the airport, should be, at most ZAR 58809, US $4000.

Although this is expensive for a total of five nights away, it’s a whole lot less than it would have cost us to return to the US for three months, instead of living here in South Africa, where it cost so much less. At least we’ll get our visas stamped and can relax over the remaining three months we’ll spend here.

This morning, nine bushbucks stopped by. We gave them carrots, cabbage, and pellets.

Travel planning is always time-consuming in one way or another, as you travelers out there so well know. Planning one trip can take days, let alone planning for an entire life of world travel, such as we do. But, if we had a house and lived in one location, we’d be mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, painting and making repairs around the house, getting cars serviced, sending Christmas cards, decorating for Christmas, and other holidays, baking, cooking, house cleaning and more.

Life is filled with trade-offs. For us, the simplicity of those times allows us to kick back and relax without a care in the world, while at the same time, we’re embracing other cultures, other scenery, wildlife, oceans, mountains, plains, and savannahs, we couldn’t be more content. And…grateful.

May your bliss and ours continue.

Photo from one year ago today, October 7, 2020:

Oxpeckers can dig into the flesh of animals to extract parasites
This photo was posted one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #198. Oxpeckers can dig into the flesh of animals to extract parasites, ticks, and other insects that may burrow under their skin, as is the case of this kudu. Sadly once the insect is extracted, the oxpecker may continue to peck at the injured site, making matters worse. The photo was taken in Marloth Park, South Africa, in 2018. For more photos, please click here.

Moving right along…Exercise, a must!…Fantastic night out with friends!..

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Our friends Alan and Fiona at her birthday celebration at Bucklers on the Crocodile River.

Today, we’ll be wrapping up the plans for our trip to Zambia. It’s hard to believe we will be flying away in 15 days. Louise has done a fantastic job arranging and overseeing this for us, and we couldn’t be more grateful. No doubt, at times when we’re booking a new itinerary requiring so much time and work, it’s been wonderful to have her handle this part.

Of course, this process has required us to research our options and decide what we’d like to do, as in the case when using a travel agent, which we seldom do. We’d rather have a tight rein on what we’re booking and all the nuances that go with it. But, in this case, Louise insisted on working on this for us, and we couldn’t resist the offer with so much on our minds with the recent change in plans.

On another note, a few days ago, when I had an appointment with Dr. Theo, he prescribed a comprehensive set of stretching exercises, neatly and clearly defined in a booklet, similar to that which is used by physical therapists. He suggested that doing these each day may help improve my ability to walk with more stability.

I couldn’t wait to start the exercises and have decided to do them in two-time slots each day, stopping twice while doing the daily post. I was pleased today to notice I am a little bit sore after my first time, reminding me of how much more I need to move.

A small band of our mongoose friends.

During this casual, lazy lifestyle in the bush, I didn’t get enough exercise since walking on uneven dirt roads is precarious. We returned the treadmill we’d borrowed months ago, from a kindly local, when we thought we were leaving. So now, these exercises come at the perfect time to entice me to get to exercising at home.

Although I burn a lot of steps each day according to my FitBit, it’s not nearly enough to provide the activity that I need. Tom says he gets exercise by getting up from his chair on the veranda every 10 minutes to feed the visiting animals and then vigorously tossing countless handfuls of pellets their way. I don’t know if you’d call this exercise, but at least he’s getting up out of his chair.

Last night, we had dinner at Buckler’s to celebrate Fiona’s birthday.  Alan’s son, Nick, and daughter-in-law, Joan,  joined us, and we loved meeting them. We had such a great evening! We arrived at 4:30 pm (1630 hrs) and didn’t leave until 10:00 pm (2200 hrs). The conversation was lively and animated, the food good (although small portions), and the views over the river were spectacular as usual, although it was a cloudy evening.

This main photo of Alan and Fiona was taken with my phone since I forgot to bring the camera any significant sightings on the Crocodile River. My phone’s camera could zoom to shoot, but we were so busy in conversation that we never paid much attention to the minimal activity on the river.

Impalas are hungry and dare to close us for pellets. They are typically skittish around humans.

Back home, we settled in for the night, and after a good night’s sleep, we’re both contents as we could be. Today, when Louise receives the final contract for our upcoming river cruise, we’ll head over to her office, The Info Centre, to pay for the charges. In tomorrow’s post, we will report the costs for the upcoming trip with the contract in hand.

Today is otherwise a low-key day. I’ve already prepared most of the food for tonight’s dinner, finished my exercises, did a few loads of laundry, and did some work on financial stuff online. My dry socket has finally stopped hurting, much to my relief, and life is good.

Happy day to all

                                       Photo from one year ago today, October 6, 2020:

One year ago, this photo was posted in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #197. We realize that this gruesome photo may be difficult for some to see. But, it’s a part of the food chain which we decided we would accept such scenes as a reality of the life cycle in the wild. This crocodile was consuming either an impala or gazelle. For more, please click here.

Further planning for trip to Zambia…

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This is Mom and Baby. They visit many times each day.
This tiny bushbuck is most likely only a few weeks old. Mom keeps her young hidden in the bush for a few weeks to protect them from predators. She visits her young daily to nurse and to eat her excrement to prevent predators from finding her. Once the baby is grown enough, she’ll be introduced to the wild, where she’ll learn to forage for food. Even a youngster such as this enjoys eating pellets but is very skittish around humans and other wildlife.

Louise, our dear friend, property manager, and travel and event planner, is busy getting us the best possible price for our exciting upcoming event once we arrive in Zambia on October 21st. By the end of today, we will have booked a three-night cruise on a fantastic upscale houseboat on the beautiful, wildlife-rich Chobe River.

We’ll stay in the familiar-to-us hotel on the first night, the Protea Hotel in Livingstone, and again on the last night on October 25th. We’ll return to South Africa the following day after our 5-night trip for our visa stamps.  The Chobe River is located in Botswana, a short distance from the hotel.

Today, we’re awaiting a quote from Chris, the same driver/tour company operator we used on our previous two trips to Zambia, to provide transportation to and from the Livingstone Airport and back and forth from the boat landing. Once again, we’ll embark on a small boat to get across the Zambezi River to our houseboat.

These three bushbucks visited together and shared pellets. Could this be Mom, Dad, and Baby? Dads don’t usually don’t participate in the raising of the young.

While making this crossing, we’ll be at what is called a quadripoint as indicated below:

A quadripoint is a point that touches the border of four distinct territories. Also known as the “four corners of Africa,” these four countries meet at the eastern end of the Caprivi Strip – Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. There are more than 150 tripoints in the world but only ONE international quadripoint.

I should mention the Chobe River runs into the Zambezi River, the largest river in Africa. However, based on where we can fly from Nelspruit, it makes sense for us to sail on the Chobe hundreds of miles (km) further upstream. Thus, we’ll experience this interesting scenario that fascinated us the last two times we visited this unique point on the river for the third time.

We are trying to keep our costs down and accomplish this goal of getting our visa stamps. Why not have a great adventure in the process?

Stringy, who arrived months ago with vines hanging from his horns, has become quite a regular, even responding to his name.

This morning Tom booked our hotel reservations on either end, two nights at the Protea Hotel in Livingstone, where we’d stayed previously. It is a lovely property, and the price includes a king-sized bed, free WiFi, and a lovely breakfast. We had two remaining free nights to use from Hotels.com (the link on our site) that covered most of the cost. We only had the pay the shortfall of about US $70, ZAR 1052 for both nights combined.

While we were in lockdown in India for ten months, we continued to use our free nights toward the bill, leaving us with a handful of free nights for the upscale hotel in Henderson, Nevada, in July when we used in part we visited the US. With only these two free nights left, we decided to use these now.

With this plan, we’re excited to travel for our visa stamps. There was no way either of us was willing to sit in a hotel room in Livingstone for five days and nights. Going on the water, which we always love to do, seemed to be the most exciting and adventurous for us when we’ll see plenty of many unique sites and take fascinating side trips on a smaller boat.

Wildebeests, who have small eyes and poor vision, love to hang out with zebras whose stripes tend to confuse predators and thus provide some protection for the gnu.

That’s all on that trip for now. We’re also busy planning our trip to Florida at the end of January. We both are very busy with all these plans. By the end of this month, after we return from Zambia, we’ve decided to prepare and post our new itinerary for the first time in a few years on the day of our ninth world travel anniversary on October 31, 2021.

Many of our readers have inquired about our itinerary, and as we’ve begun to book more and more into the future, we realize the time has come to put together this essential part of our world travels. Please stay tuned for more.

Be healthy. Be safe. Be content.

Photo from one year ago today, October 5, 2020:

We posted this photo one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #196. This appeared to be some horse far as we made our way to the Maasai Mara in Kenya in 2013. Look at the reflection of our plane on the ground! What a sight! I couldn’t believe we were inside that tiny thing! For more photos, please click here.

Short post today…Busy, busy, busy….

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Frank’s and The Misses’ chicks have come to call!

What a productive past 24 hours we’ve had! Yesterday, we changed our flight from Nelspruit/Mpumalanga/Kruger to Phoenix to Tampa, Florida, on January 23, 2022, the day we will have to leave South Africa. There were no charges or penalties, and as a matter of fact, we ended up with a credit with Delta Airlines for around US $250, ZAR 3726 that we’ll use sometime in the future.

As it turns out, we’re planning to spend time with friends Karen and Rich in Apollo Beach and then take off and visit many friends we have that have full-time or winter homes nearby. We’ve contacted some of those friends already and have received enthusiastic responses. Most have offered that we stay with them, but we’ll see how that all rolls out. We don’t expect to be invited to visit and are fully prepared to stay in nearby hotels.

This will be a real “road trip” for us, something we haven’t done much of during our almost nine years of world travel. On this occasion, with stops for a day or two, it won’t be constant driving. Tom just booked a car in Florida for 74 days at the cost of US $3638.68, ZAR 54409, which averages to about US $49, ZAR 733 per day. (Here in South Africa, we pay about 70% less for a similar car with no mileage restrictions).

There is a mileage limit of 5600 miles, but with time spent with Karen and Rich and not driving much, plus staying put for several days while visiting friends, we should be fine on the mileage restriction. We won’t worry about that now and will keep an eye on the mileage at the time.

The chicks are more colorful now. But I will look like Frank in the future.

In any case, we feel enthused about our new plan and look forward to the time we need to occupy while awaiting our upcoming cruise on April 8th.

As for today, Tom dropped me off at Louise’s parking lot to meet up with Kathy and Rita for the three of us to head to Stoep Cafe for “girl talk” and breakfast. Since I had an appointment to see Dr. Theo for my prescription refills (planned before we decided to stay here another three months), it was great to see the fine doctor who saved my life back in 2019 by discovering I had blocked arteries and would need open-heart surgery.

The warm hug from him, coupled with his diligent medical care, left me smiling on my way out the door. I sent Tom a text explaining he could pick me up at the lab across the street where I’d gone for a few blood tests Dr. Theo suggested. Afterward, Tom drove me to the pharmacy to drop off a six-month supply of my three low-dose prescription drugs. I told the pharmacist we’d be back in an hour to collect them.

Frank and The Misses, two chicks now know to come to the veranda for seeds and freshwater. So cute!

In the interim, we shopped at Spar with a revised grocery list that had significantly changed now that we aren’t leaving in a few weeks. We stocked up on every item on the grocery app on my phone, picked up the meds, and headed home. Once we put everything away, I knew that I would prefer to do a shorter post in time for our usual evening on the veranda with our animal friends before darkness falls. It has all worked out well.

Louise has been busy checking into options for our Zambia trip, for which we depart in 17 days. By tomorrow, we’ll have a plan in place and share what we’ve decided. We’re pretty excited about the options.

That’s the latest here, folks. Be well. Be safe and be happy.

Photo from one year ago today, October 4, 2020:

This photo was posted one year ago while in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #195. Pretty scenery at Liliuokalani Gardens in 2014. For more, please click here.

A sad event impacts our future travels…Changing plans…Changing lives…

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It’s Sunday morning at 11:00. We’re going out to dinner on Tuesday with Alan and Fiona for her birthday. I just spent two hours in the kitchen making Tom’s favorite low-carb, grain-free pizza, which we’ll bake at dinnertime, and a three-night portion of sauteed chicken breast tenders with mushrooms, onions, and garlic for me. We’ll enjoy these main dishes Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. I won’t have to cook for days. I don’t eat the pizza when it’s too fattening for me since I dropped a few more kilos.

But, of course, you don’t care to read about my morning in the kitchen, do you? What is happening with no post yesterday and some arbitrary change in plans?

On Friday afternoon, Minnesota-time, our dear brother-in-law, Gene, husband of Tom’s sister Colleen, sadly passed away after a long and challenging illness exacerbated by a brain injury that occurred years ago when he fell on ice and snow in Minnesota. We often hear of injuries seniors suffer from falling in the long winter months in Minnesota, which is certainly one reason we don’t want to visit Minnesota in the winter, especially with my unstable legs.

Multiple species in the garden.

When Colleen wrote to tell Tom the sad news, it was 11:30 pm here, and I was sound asleep. He didn’t want to awaken me, knowing this information could keep me awake all night, wondering what we’d do when we leave here on October 21st, less than three weeks away.

As it turned out, I awoke at 4:00 am, unable to go back to sleep, almost anticipating something had happened. At 5:30, Tom asked me if I was awake and told me the news. We were sad to hear about this, but it also significantly impacted our upcoming plans.

Colleen is Tom’s sister, whose home we planned to stay in for three months in Apache Junction, Arizona. With Gene’s passing, Colleen wanted to get out of Minnesota for the winter and spend time with her sisters in warm, sunny Arizona.

I ran out onto the road to take this giraffe photo.

She hadn’t been able to go to her home in Apache Junction due to Covid-19 and Gene’s poor health since 2019, when we were last there with them before we took off for India in January 2020. We could not prevent her from going to her property by staying in it for three months during the winter.

Lying there in bed at 5:30 am, discussing this, we considered a few options. We could rent a holiday home somewhere in the US. But, before deciding on Arizona, we’d extensively searched for holiday homes in the US states with warm winters. Since the onset of Covid-19 and losses incurred by holiday homeowners, prices for long-term rentals have gone through the roof.

In suitable locations, even without being overly picky, any properties we may have considered were three times the cost of our rent here in South Africa. Of course, after India, we’re not willing to stay long-term in a hotel. The handwriting was on the wall. We needed to stay in Marloth Park and fly to a non-bordering country in Africa to get our visas stamped.

At a decent hour, I contacted Louise, who we know is an early bird, to see when we could stop by to discuss our possible living arrangements if we did decide to stay another three months. We met up with her at 10:00 am.

When I walked back up the driveway toward the house, Tom distracted Broken Horn with pellets to ensure my safety. This vast animal could be startled and gore an unsuspecting human.

An important fact remained in our minds. Recently, we booked several cruises, a few of which are expensive compared to our average day-to-day expenses. We figured if we could live inexpensively for several months, we could stay within our budget for the year with the costs of these cruises.

But, if we had to pay enormous rent over the following months, we may have to reconsider what we’ve booked. Let’s face it. We’re not getting any younger. I am approaching 74, and Tom will be 69 sooner than later. When we return to South Africa by a cruise in December  2022, we will celebrate Tom’s 70th and, two months later, my 75th birthday during those first three months we are here.

We’ve decided to budget to the best of our ability to ensure we can visit new places we’ve longed to see throughout the world for whatever time we have left that we can do so. Traveling like this isn’t easy. It requires a lot of careful planning and physical energy on travel days and a lot of work necessary to pack and move all the time. Many seniors would find this simply too exhausting and too much work, which we understand. But for now, we still have the stamina to do it. For us, it’s not a chore. It’s an adventure every single time.

Lots of kudus this morning, including Bad Eye, whose torn eyelid looks much better.

It appears we can move our original flight to Arizona without penalty from Delta Airlines due to Covid-19 changes, and thus, we won’t incur any losses by changing our flights. Louise can let us stay in this same house until January 23, 2022, when we’ll leave for Florida, where we’ll stay with friends Karen and Rich before and after their February wedding.

We booked round-trip direct flights to Zambia on October 21st and returned on October 26th for our visa stamps. Louise is helping us book some events in Zambia, which we won’t wrap up for a few days when the tourist offices reopen on Monday.

We called Colleen, offering her our heartfelt sympathies, and told her she could now go to Arizona for the winter since we’ve made other plans and won’t tie up her one-bedroom property. She was so sweet and more than willing to let us stay. But we knew her going there would suit her during this grief and sorrow.

We’ll report with definitive plans for Zambia to stay in the next few days, one of the few countries we can fly to on a direct flight from Nelspruit. There was no way we were interested in booking an expensive trip with long flights going through Johannesburg. Nelspruit is a 75-minute drive from here, and the flight is less than two hours to Livingstone.

We’re good. We were not worried. Not stressed. It was the right thing to do.

Happy day!

Photo from one year ago today, October 3, 2020:

One year ago, this photo was posted in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India, on day #194. In Bali, a dragonfly fluttered around the two koi ponds by either side of the front entryway. Much to my delight, it returned almost every day to the exact location. For more, please click here.

We understand that many seniors would find this simply too exhausting and too much work

, physical energy on travel days, and a lot of work necessary to pack and move

We’re not willing to stay long-term in a hotel after India