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Sunday, August 11, 2013

South Africa Saga: The Tour Begins As A Lousy Night's Sleep Ends

Last night we attended an orientation meeting in the hotel with a whole bunch of others on this tour - either 37 or 47 on a 52-passenger coach. It's going to be a mob compared to our previous trip. We're also feeling a little lonely without Tom and Ellyn, our travel partners.

The guide, one Craig Oliver, seems well on top of things and shared quite a bit of useful information. As for interesting but trivial statistics, he told us we would be passing through 144 towns, five of the nine provinces, and three countries (South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland).

Our wakeup call is at 6:00 a.m. Jet Lag on our first two nights has resulted in our sleeping from 9 to midnight, and falling back asleep around 6:00 a.m. (9 p.m. at home), dozing until 9:00 a..m. Last night we didn't do quite as well.

We've been awake for some hours and it's about 4:30 a.m. Let's hope the seats on the "luxurious coach" Craig described are good for dozing.

Our tour details can be found here. Craig was wearing "Ikapa" gear (our tour company last time), but the information handed bore the name Thompson Tours. There appears to be a lot of mingling among companies and guides.

It's shaping up to be quite a different experience from last time. Yes, we're a little disappointed about the size of the group, but Craig seems to be knowledgeable, friendly, and well organized, and we intend to enjoy the next couple of weeks.

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