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rendevouz
October 2009 
ZAadzfari
:franc
OK, so many of you have asked me about South Africa, and some have expressed their intent on visiting sometime in the future.
This got me thinking, and I have talked to some people and got some interesting plans.
I'm going to host a South African Tour, especially for Zaadzsters. - that's right, if you're not on Zaadz, you won't get to come along. I have talked to a tour operator that will get some serious discounts in terms of accomodation etc at various locations throughout South Africa. I have a leading yoga instructor signed-up to accompany the tour for daily or bi-daily yoga sessions - to keep everyone relaxed.
The tour would look something like this - in broad terms (to be defined to precision later depending on your interests):
Arrive in Cape Town, spend a couple of days doing wine tours and sightseeing in the Cape winelands (centered around Stellenbosch - my home town). We'll also use this time to get everyone setup with everything they would need during the rest of the trip - foreign exchange etc.
then we take the coastal drive through the Garden Route making stops for various activities and sights along the way - like going sailing out the Knysna estuary, and hiking in the Rainforest.
More activities - which could include anything from scuba to zulu traditional dancing awaits us in and around Durban on the South African east coast.
We'll then head north through the rolling grass hills along the majestic Drakensberge (translated as dragons mountains) through the heart of Zululand to the Kruger National Park (the most famous conservation area in the world, a park as big as Israel), where we'll spend a number of days on safari - you'll see the big 5, wonderful birdlife and countless other wild animals, in their natural environment, going about their daily lives like their ancestors have done for millions of years before them.
From there we can head towards Pretoria and Johannesburg, spend some time in Soweto, maybe drive up to Sun City...
You'll have the option of leaving the tour at Johannesburg if you want to get a flight out of South Africa from there. - or join us for the drive back to Cape Town through the heartland of South Africa - the semi desert known as the Karoo, with its awesome feeling of space.
Along the way you'll experience South Africa alongside an excellent and experienced tour guide and my wife and I who will be able to give you inside info most Tourist miss out on. We'll be able to show you things and take you places which would be overlooked otherwize.
For those with laptops there should be highspeed wireless internet throughout most of the tour, and crappy slow wireless everywhere else. :) So we'll all be able to keep our Zaadz blogs and photo albums up to date.
We'll spend late nights around fires in the bush, with lions moaning in the distance and hyenas laughing nearby, debating philosophy - everything from Ken Wilber through Brian Johnson (both of you are very welcome to join of course! :) - , exchanging stories and sipping good wine.
I'll work out the tour in more detail when there are actually people interested in joining - then i can also sculpt it around your interests.
We're looking at around 15 people to join us for about 2 weeks and i'm guessing the cost would be about a couple of thousand US dollars per person excl flights.
We can have the tour whenever we get 15 to decide on a similar date. The most beautiful time of the year is probably between September and January.
so let me know if you are intersted, and I'll set something up :)
Access: Public
nice! sweet! count me in, whenever! i’ll just knock on your door. great pics too!
Nice! you're always welcome to knock on my door!
~ hey cool… the best place on earth of course (nyc is out of competition)
check my baobab tree from kruger park… taken by me personally… click ~; ;~
i should be there for the summer (nov-feb)…. see u then ~
Hectic Princess! upon close inspection i think that that might actually be the same baobab!
Hello - this sounds excellent. For all the times I've said I want to actually travel outside the US I think you might just get me to do it … and it's a great time to get away from the snows of Minnesota.
trust me - you will most probably forget what snow looks like.
How exciting!!! If I could afford to go anywhere but work and back home……it would definetly be Africa.
I have been reading alot about Africa as of late…….as I am fascinated by the “Out of Africa” theory, archeology, anthropology of human origins. Of course I read alot in my National Geographics, but I also finished “In the Footsteps of Eve” which gave some great background info on South Africa. Now I have started on “Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings”, very thick book though over 600 pages.
One day I will step off the land of the great USA and head for Africa…………..
I would love to hear of your experiences over there…….is the archeology that the Leakey's have done over the years (East Africa)….is it well known over there? Is it a good topic or do the locals resent it because of religious reasons …..as some cultures do not like the raising of the dead?
I guess what I found most fascinating is the theory that the jungles at some point millions of years ago, became desert and forced early man to the shores of Africa. Mass fishing theoretically began and the protein in the fish caused early man's brain to increase……..leading us to be the more intellectual being that we are today.
Heidi
~ hey :franc i think u right… cuz its the biggest and the most famous one at the kruger
….u know what i love the most… when few of cars are there and we all walk out in that wild and open area and get around to hug the baobab with hands joined together (ahhh crying now)…
its been always my favorite memory since i first went there when i was 6….
~
Harticulate: there are some seriously kewl archeological sites in South Africa. some of the oldest human remains and tools etc . We also have the San, or Bushmen, that untill recently still lived as hunter-gatherers, culturally and practically the same as they have for the past 10 000 years - just like all our ancestors. And you can visit with them and observe or join in some trance dances etc. I'm sure the Leakeys' research in East Africa is beter known than the Leakeys themselves. I don't have first hand knowledge of East African culture, so I can't say if it is a good topic or not. I assume it is fine. You'll probably find a lot of people anywhere that would be offended by archeological digs, but I don't think that that is the norm.
Lee Berger author or coauthor perhaps of “In the Footsteps of Eve” (the mitochondrial Eve that is)……..is at “The University of Witswatersrand”…..which I believe is in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the above book he spoke of many of those archeological sites in South Africa.
Reading the above book is what set me on fire to know more. I am amazed at the competition in the sciences over this issue. This is also how I found out about The Leakey's, because apparently The Leakey's are at odds with Berger. Did man come out of South Africa or East Africa I guess is the argument? So like I said …..now I am reading about the Leakey's so I can get both sides of the debate. Either way it is exciting and I have no freakin idea why it is so exciting to me. I guess I am a big geek!
But I will have to leave that at that…..cuz I could bore you guys all day with this stuff…..perhaps I will at least give some feedback on the Leakey book.
Heidi
Wow! This sounds awesome. I wish I could go. If I can manifest a few grand then you can count me in.
(from my home page)
i love to travel and one of my goals is to fill up my passport. not with vacation spots, but REAL travel where you get to know the culture and people of the place you're visiting.
in other words… count me in… late december or january would be ideal, but we'll see what the consensus is when the group is complete.
thank you, franc, for doing this!! you're creating an opportunity to explore a wonderful part of the world in a safe, personal and wonderful way. WELL DONE, YOU!
exciting stuff! look, if it turns out we don't have enough time to get a bunch of people together this year, we can alswys do it next year! or do a small trip this year and a big one next. either way - I'm getting more and more excited about this.
Next year works better for me, and I do want to do this!
shall we organize this for next year? then we have plenty of time to get everyone sorted and and excited?
Yeah Peggy is here. Next year is cool too… time to water and prune the money tree. I've been daydreaming about this off and on since you first posted franc. It's time for these world eyes to see some of the world and all the things in it/ on it. :)
sounds divine………….