Grand Finale

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Trip Start Jan 20, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Mar 24, 2006

  Cape Town, South Africa
Tuesday, March 21, 2006

And so to my final entry - and possibly my finest day so far! I didn't tell you before, as I knew some amongst you would be worried, but today I went shark-cage diving. Rose at an ungodly hour for a 2 hour transfer to Gansbaai, east along the coast from Cape Town. I went out in an alarmingly orange boat (it reminded me of Easyjet!) with White Shark Projects - reputedly the best in the business for conservation and education about the Great White sharks. As it's low season, we had only 7 divers, and so had plenty of space on the boat and time in the cage. We were so lucky - 6 different great whites ranging from 2 1/4m to about 4m in length. I made it into the cage second, just after Dave from the UK who was possibly just slightly more mad about sharks than I am, although I was trembling terribly! That all went when I caught my first sight of a shark underwater. They are so beautiful and graceful, yet menacing too....one female later eyed us up in a spine-chilling manner. We also had an exuberant shark crash into the cage in full flight having nicked the chunk of bait at the end of our line - we got a faceful of teeth and tuna! Amazing!!! Great way to end a fantastic trip.

I do have two days left, but plan to doze on the beach and perouse the shops, so will have little left to say I reckon. So to wrap up, some of my highlights and lowlights...

Highlights - meeting the gorilla family, cheetah and leopard kills in the Serengeti, bargaining with the local market-sellers, monopoly money in Zimbabwe, friendly people in Malawi, the landscapes of Namibia, the less opulent areas of Cape Town and of course the sharks of Gansbaai.

Lowlights - bed bugs and jellyfish in Zanzibar, dry-wretch-inducing long drop toilets, hangovers in Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia...well, pretty much every country, I guess ;-), Victoria Wharf shopping centre in Cape Town (so like Bluewater its unbelievable!) and unfortunately coming home (sorry, but I have and do miss you all....but i don't like the sound of 2 degrees centigrade!)

Thanks so much for keeping up with me - its been great reading your comments (well, those I understood). See you back in the UK soon
Love Bex xxx

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02 Final lunch

03 Final supper

And so we come to the end....literally!

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