Swaziland and Dipping of Toe in the Indian Ocean!
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2004
1
12
18
Trip End
May 11, 2004
St. Lucia, South Africa
Sunday, April 11, 2004
First stop Swaziland - a most magical kingdom. A tiny place so spent just 2 nights there, but nonetheless managed to take in a lot.
LOTS of yummy crafts and especially lucious batiks. Needless to say I went a tad nuts and snagged a most wondrous assortment of fabric swatches. The plan is to collect fabric all along the way, and then create a wowzer wall quilt as a memento of my Africa trip.
Also went on a great all day tour that included a traditional Swazi cultural village, along with a hike to a waterfall and swimming in the river.
Then it was off south to the coast and my first tootsie-dip in the INDIAN OCEAN! Am here at St. Lucia on the far north eastern coast of RSA (not too very far from the Mozambique border). St. Lucia is a vast area of game reserves and wetlands that is protected as a designated "World Heritage" site.
Yesterday I did a full day of kayaking on an inland lake - infested with both crocodiles and hippos! Suffice that we paddled verrrrrry carefully (grin), but it was very kewl to see and hear the hippos bellow. After, we went to Point Vidal for snorkeling. No comparison to the fabulous fish and corals of Belize of course, but nonetheless interesting to snorkel this part of the world.
Oh, and I also was able to toss one of my itty-bitty "message-in-a-bottle" in the Indian Ocean. Who knows? One day someone may stumble across it and email me for g-knows where in the world.
After that (as we were returning through the St. Lucia game reserve) we spotted a most wondrous sight - a rhino w/ her baby - within 20 feet of us, just munching on grass along the road!
Mom Rhino was HUGE and baby so cute. Truly a remarkable sight to see these animals roaming freely here in the wild.
This morning I'm off to points south again - tonight will stay at a place called "Eshowe" in Zululand where they have a 100 meter arial bridge amid the Dlinza Forest. Supposed to be great birdwatching and lots of things to do. We'll see...
Love to All, and hoping all is well there...Dyanne
P.S. to my dear Pops: The camera is working beautifully. Had a bit of trouble recharging the batteries at first 'cuz the "universal" plug adaptors I bought back home were NOT the right configuration for here in South Africa. But managed to get the proper plug adaptor at Kruger NP for just 20 rand and now we're in business! Have already run through a full 128MB card (i.e. near 400 pics and - this is with scrupulous EDITING!) So hopefully will find a place (probably in Durban, a farily large town further down the coast) to burn them all onto a CD.
