The Pull of Africa...

 The Pull of Africa

Back for the animal encounters

   After three '100 day' self driving safaris across 10 countries in Africa over the past 10 years I still havn't seen enough of this beautiful continent. I have taught baseball in Kenya, slept under a baobab tree in Tanzania, hiked with the gorillas in Uganda, and fell through a tree in Zambia. I've surfed at Jeffrey's Bay, scuba dove off Zanzibar Island, listened to lions roar outside my tent at night, and watched the sunrise from the summit of Kilimanjaro. Yet I still havn't seen enough of this continent.
  So I'm back. This time I have nearly six weeks to spend which means big decisions to be made. I was lucky enough that my girlfriend Heidi also managed to get this time off which makes the decision a little easier because now it must include diving for nudibranchs!

Always looking for a good camping spot

   To narrow things down we first decided to focus on Southern Africa instead of East Africa. For ease of driving and ease of budget South Africa has the edge on the wilder, more untamed East Africa. The roads connecting the national parks and game reserves of Kenya and Tanzania have received some improvements over this last decade but still leave a lot to be desired as far as potholes, lighting at night, and all around crazy divers. The roads in the parks themselves are more 4X4, washboard. You do however get the true "out of africa' wild experience still in Kenya and Tanzania. But for the daily expense of the parks it is hard to see where the money actually goes. If you can afford to fly between the parks however this may tip the scales. But we are sticking to a budget so we look South.
  

My kind of traffic jams

    The ease of South Africa comes from multiple sources. With a normal economy rental car you can tackled the amazing road system that crisscrosses the country as well as the roads inside parks like Kruger National Park. You can also pick up a WILD card which gives you access to all the National Parks. An annual pass for 2 here in South Africa costs us about the same as 2 days entrance fee for a park in Tanzania. I was able to sign up online and have the WILD card sent to me before I even left the states, although if you are staying less than a month it is even easier to pick one up at the entrance gate to your first national park. Then once you are in the parks the road systems are a breeze and you can see just about any animal you can think of. At night you have to stay inside these small, fenced in camping villages...complete with a general store, restaurant, bungalows, campsites, and quite often a view over a river or flood plain. South African's love to camp and cook out so its a good idea to plan ahead when booking a trip as even the numerous campsites can fill up at these parks long before you arrive.

Surfing in Reunion Island

   So after careful planning we have come up with something like this: Fly in and out of Johannesburg, S. Africa, a quick visit to Kruger before spending 10 days diving and surfing in Reunion Island, then back to Cape Town for a one way car rental to Joburg. Stops along the way will include diving in Cape Town, Great White Shark cage diving in Gansbaii, surfing supertubes at J-Bay, Addo Elephant Park, Mountain Zebra National Park, diving with shark south of Durban at the famous Aliwal Shoals, tropical diving in Sodwana near the Mozambique border, and then a full week back in Kruger National Park to finish.

So many great smiles

  Find pictures of my Africa travels here at www.daimarsphotos.com