Well, after a long hiatus, we have booked our next big adventure in Africa. We leave home on July 27 and expect to return on September 5, 2016. We will be stopping in Dubai for a couple of nights to acclimate and get a quick look at that modernistic city in the desert. The we fly to Khartoum to spend 8 days in Sudan. We have read some exciting information about the history and people and want to see for ourselves. It will be very hot, so am glad it is not longer than 8 days. From there we will fly to Uganda to spend a week with our Kellermann Foundation friends next to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the South Western corner of the country. This will be our third visit there and we know we will be seeing an incredible hospital facility, nursing school, volunteer residences and other buildings in the area, none of which existed when we first visited Scott and Carol Kellermann in 2002. Then, we helped them administer drugs to people suffering from malaria, by hanging IVs from a large tree while the sick lay around the tree on blankets with their families next to them. I have somehow agreed to be on the KF board and this will be an official trip with several other board members visiting as well. We will finish off our Uganda leg with a stay in a high mountain rain forest lodge.
From Uganda we will have a driver take us to Kigali, Rwanda. Should be an interesting ride. We will have only one night in Rwanda so we will see what we can in the allotted time. My primary goal is to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial and learn about the Hutu and Tutsi mass killings that took place in April-July, 1994 and what is happening in the country since then.
From Kigali, we will fly south, across the equator to Zambia, where we will visit two game parks for several days each. What is different about safaris in Zambia is that they are often walking safaris, which should be interesting and adventurous. Finally, we will fly into Milawi for several days of adventures on and near Lake Malawi, the ninth largest lake in the world. Interestingly, it also contains the greater diversity of fish in the world. Maybe I will even try fishing……
….which reminds me about my mother who loved to fish and keeps asking me when will I go fishing for her. For those of you who are interested, LaVonne, still with us at the age of 94, resides happily in an assisted living facility in Grass Valley. She has been under Hospice Care for 10+ months since she suffered a mild stroke. She is growing weaker in both mind and body, but is not ready to leave yet. Mark and I had paid for a trip to Africa just before her stroke and decided to cancel, believing she would not last long. Almost a year later, she is still walking and talking and smiling at anyone who comes near. We have given up waiting. So this time we are paid up again and determined to go. Hopefully she will still be here when we get back.
So I am sending this to you as a warm up for the trip and a chance to see if I can still blog. It has been a long time. Next I will try to send some images and see how that goes.
So until then, Happy Adventuring,
Julia
Adventures with Julia 