Well,

Here is a quickie.
Flew from Italy, where I am working this spring, to Johannesburg. We used a travel agent because neither one of us had the time to do all the research. My friend and I have both been working a ton. She flew in from the States and met me there.

Stayed overnight at the Southern Sun hotel, right at Tombo airport. A nice glass of SA wine at reception was a cool touch. Great place and very nice staff. I came down for breakfast at eight, and 30 or so staff were gathered in the lobby singing a Zulu chanting song. What a great way to say welcome to Africa.

We flew to Inhambane Mozambique the next morning and stayed at the Bali Hai lodge, up on the point. Great place with really nice staff and pretty good food, for Mozambique.

We dove with Barra Reef Divers and our DM was the best. The numbers and variety of fish there are astounding. So is the devastation of the local fishermen on the reefs. They fill empty 1 litre water bottles with sand to weight down their nets, which they then drag across the reef. The ones that stay on the nets break things off and the ones that become entangled, well, they stay on the reef. We dragged back about 20 or 30 of them in one dive alone.

The ocean safaris are about the coolest thing ever. Forget a gnashing, pissed off Great White, swim with a Whale Shark. They are massive, docile and beautiful. I will post more pics of them later.

We had a quad bike to get around the area, which is the only way to go. That and a few rides in the back of a bakki, which we call a pickup truck.

The Barra Lodge is the largest operator in the area and we did a couple of trips with them as well. I was surprised that they thought out-of-shape, very large people should do an ocean safari that involved climbing in and out of a rubber boat with no ladders. Two of their guests had to literally be dragged back on the boat by several of us. Otherwise, their programs were pretty good although a bit commercial.

We dove, rode and played in Barra Reef area for 6 days. Perfect.

Our next stop was the Kapama Game Reserve, not far from Kruger. Although it was only about 200 km away, we had to go back to JoBurg, overnight, then fly to the local airport the next day.

Great place, with early morning and late afternoon game drives. We saw everything, elephants, giraffe, zebra, cape buffalo, lions, etc. and- a leopard.

There is also a cheetah breeding and research facility nearby, hich was very informative and extremely well run.
One of their rescue animals was a young zebra that had assimilated into the local sheep herd.

Poaching and land encroachment are still the two biggest problems the animals face.

A couple of days in Cape Town to see friends after that completed the trip.