Bookings for the near future…Still, lots more to do…

This is Basket, the Bully, who scares off all the other warthogs, including Little and Little’s Friend.

“Sighting of the Day in the Bush”

Mr. & Mrs. Hornbill are very noisy around us, asking for seeds. They sure have us trained, says Tom.

Lately, we’ve been lazy about arranging bookings for the future. I can only attribute this fact to the heat and power outages which surely have had a bearing on our desire to spend hours online researching suitable arrangements.

Add all the activities and social events over the holiday season, and we hardly had the time or inclination to take the hours required to book hotels, flights, and holiday homes.

This has nothing to do with any lack of interest or passion for future travels. We’re as committed and excited for the future as ever. But, the time required researching for flights and hotels is not our favorite pastime, although we both enjoy searching for holiday homes for a new location.

The mongooses are back! Not as large as our usual band, but a good start.

Next week, we have another final cruise payment due for the upcoming cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 26, 2019, ending on May 12, 2019. At this point, we’ll fly from Copenhagen to Dublin, which we’ve yet to arrange.

In reviewing the post from December 5, 2018, we copied and pasted the list we’d made over a month ago of what we’ve yet to accomplish in booking and posted it here today, illustrating what we’ve achieved thus far.

Not only does this give our readers a realistic perspective of how challenging making all these arrangements can be, but it also reminds us of what we’ve yet to tackle over the next month or so. We have a long way to go to be able to stop researching for a while.

Mom and Babies stopped by this morning for the first time in weeks. The babies sure are growing fast.

While in Ireland from May to August, we’ll have a huge task ahead to book well into the future since the house in Ireland is the only holiday house we have booked at this time. We know where we want to go and have listed those locations on our itinerary, but we’ve yet to tackle the daunting task.

When we first began booking travel arrangements, we often booked holiday homes two years in advance for fear we wouldn’t find suitable houses. We don’t care for apartments and prefer single-family homes when possible.

Now, with years of experience under our belts, we realize we can book homes closer to the periods we want them (although not last minute) and can still get reasonable pricing when property owners are willing to give us long-term rental discounts.

The piglets love to lounge and play in what’s left of the lucerne.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve made a firm commitment to one another that we’ll never rent a holiday home for longer than 90 days due to visa issues unless, of course, we’re required to stay longer for medical reasons, which could well transpire down the road.

Finally, this morning we booked the flight from Nairobi, Kenya to Santiago, Chile, and a hotel for 16 nights in Santiago. The process was thorough when hotels were pricey, even when combined with flights using the link on our site to Expedia.com.

We ended up booking the flight separately on Expedia and the hotel from our link for Hotels.com for the 16-night stay. In this particular case, we ended up saving hundreds of dollars booking these separately, which is not always the case.

She was napping piglet.

The cost per night for the modern hotel, in a great location with aircon, free wifi, and buffet breakfast, rated 8.2 (out of 10) (details will follow when we’re there in less than 60 days) was under ZAR 1394 (US $100) per night. Plus, we receive one free night for every 10 nights we book using Hotels.com. This works well for us with several upcoming hotel bookings.

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Following from the above mentioned prior post, we have completed the bookings listed below as indicated in bold type:

DONE: Hotel in Kenya for seven nights, arriving February 15, 2019, and departing for the booked photography tour on February 22, 2019 (tour ended on March 7, 2019
DONE: Flight from Nairobi to Santiago, Chile on March 8, 2019
Transportation from Santiago, Chile to San Antonio, Chile (the location of the cruise port)
DONE: Hotel in Santiago, Chile from March 8, 2019, to March 24, 2019, when our 15-night cruise departs from San Antonio, Chile, and sails to San Diego, California
DONE: Flight from San Diego, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 8, 2019
Rental car in Minnesota from April 8, 2019, to April 25, 2019
Flight from Minnesota to Fort Lauderdale to board the next cruise to Copenhagen on April 25, 2019, cruise departed on April 26, 2019
Flight from Copenhagen to Dublin, Ireland on May 12, 2019
Rental car in Dublin, Ireland on May 12, 2019, and drive to Connemara, Ireland, where we’ll stay in a holiday home until August 9, 2019 (booked and deposit paid)

Two snoozing piglets.

In the next 60 to 90 days, we’ll book the balance of the listed items and then be free to start booking holiday homes into the future, beyond the time we’ll spend in Ireland. We have no worries or concerns that all future bookings will work out well.

Today, the high heat and humidity have returned, and as we sit on the veranda, feeding the visitors, we’re drenched in sweat. We can only hope we’ll have power tonight to get a good night’s sleep.

This evening, we’re headed to Nwenya with Rita and Gerhard for the Thursday night buffet, seeing them for the first time in a week. It will be such fun to catch up on our mutual experiences over this past week.

Ms. Kudu is pregnant and very hungry. She hovers in the garden and bush for hours, waiting for more to eat. We comply, but when we stop, she wanders into the bush and eats the new greenery from recent rains.

Have a spectacular evening, wherever you may be, staying warm or cool as you’d prefer.

Photo from one year ago today, January 10, 2018:

An artist’s rendition on a wall on a side street as we made our way back to Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, during an hour-long walk. For more details, please click here.

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