South Africa - most amazing place

A couple of years ago my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I have everything I want material wise - I have my own money so I can buy it on my own. So I had asked him to surprise me with a great vacation...boy did he do a good job.


On Christmas morning we always head over to his parents house that is about 2 hours away and leave our gifts under the tree for just us to open later. We spend most of the day with his parents exchanging gifts and having dinner than we head back to our house. He first had me open a poster - it was a bunch of animals and I thought am I 5? And then he handed me a bunch of books on South Africa. I was so excited.


We used miles to get to London from Seattle so we could do the first class thing and get some sleep on the way. We stayed in London for a few days to get our bodies adjusted to the time difference and to take in some of the atmosphere. It is funny I hadn't been there in about 7 years and everything seemed exactly the same. Although I dragged my husband to some of the "IT" restaurants that I would go to in my 20s and they were just expensive NOT good. The best meal we had was in the international district for some real Chinese food - my husband still talks about that meal.


From London, we took a 12 hour flight to Cape Town. We used all of our miles to get to London so we had to pay for these tickets. I looked at first class and they were $5K a piece and nothing was available in business class. I told my husband, I am not spending $10K on two plane tickets. Well, I think this was the smallest plane in history and my poor husband is NOT a small man (tall wise) and he was absolutely miserable for the entire flight - and he had two seats because the plane was somewhat empty. Let's just say on the way back we ate some money and upgraded.


I wasn't looking forward to Cape Town - I just thought it would be some dirty city with nothing to do - I was so wrong. I think it was one of my favorite places I've ever been to. There is Table Mountain - our hotel room window faced it and it was so magnificent and beautiful. There are great beaches and wineries that we visited, swimming with the sharks (cages, but um - no way for me) and AMAZING food. And I think some people say or think it is unsafe but we took the train out to see the Penguins at this cute little town and took the train back with no problems. Yes, we were in bed by 10 because of the time difference but never did I feel unsafe. I think one of the best things we did was hop on one of those red buses to do a tour because we got to see the other side of the mountain which was even more beautiful. I really can't say enough about Cape Town - I would go again in a heartbeat.


We then went to Mauritius - I am a beach girl and wanted the beach, actually begged for the beach. We couldn't afford Seychelles so we read this was very close to it. We rented a car thinking, oh we will drive around the island and take it all in. We landed at night and to this day I have no clue how we got to the resort and so thankful we didn't end upside down in a sugar cane field. We tried to venture out one day and my husband drove for 10 minutes in complete misery and turned to me and said "I can't do this!" He's a big tough guy so you can only imagine how bad it was. People walking everywhere, cars making it 3 lanes opposed to 2, wild dogs running every where and driving on the wrong side of the road with round-abouts every 5 minutes. So we were stuck on a resort for 5 days - and I had to admit was my least favorite part of the trip.


We then flew into Johannesburg for one day/one night - seemed quite nice opposed to what I had been told but we did not stay out after dark. The food we had was wonderful and the people seemed friendly as well.


Then came the best part of the trip - our safari at Londolozi - I still cannot believe I got to go do this - the place was out of a dream and the food, people, hospitality - superb. My husband and I ended up with a great couple the first couple of days - and we got to see the big 5 within 24 hours. I will always recommend this place to my friends and family and will forever be grateful to my husband for the best surprise.

I just hope with Ebola that people will still dare to travel to S. Africa and see what this place has to offer. One day I hope to travel back with my son to show him what a big world we do live in and how many different creatures exist.