more travel plans

For a girl who has never before paid any attention to new year's resolutions, I seem to be living up to at least one of mine.

I went to Namibia over Easter. It was gorgeous beyond belief. (I did not take my camera. Why I did not take it is a long story not worth telling here.) Suffice it to say: Go. It was worth the ten-hour drive there and the ten-hour drive back, nevermind all the driving around Namibia itself. I'll try to point the way to some pictures when I can.

In the meantime:

1. One friend is trying to talk me into going to Maputo, Mozambique next weekend. We would leave on Friday and come back on Sunday. It's a 10-hour drive, but I've never been to Mozambique, and I don't want to pass up this opportunity. Also, I may be spending a good portion of next week with a lot of people between the ages of 9 and 13. I may need to get away.
   
   
2. A few other friends and I are planning a camping trip to Khutse for the last weekend in April. We'll leave mid-day on Friday, and return on Sunday.
   
   
3. Two lovely friends of mine arrive from the US on 2 May. We are spending: 2 nights in Johannesburg; one night at Tau Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve; 3 nights at Planet Baobab (see map), up on the salt pans; and 3 nights at Tuli Wilderness in the Tuli Block, the eastern part of Botswana bordering Zimbabwe. (If you look at this map, look way over to the right where a corner of Botswana pokes out with Zim to the north and South Africa to the south. Here's a bit on the history and geography of Tuli.) We'll come back to Gabs for a night, and then head down to Cape Town for 4 nights. We'll stay at Belmont House, the B&B where I stayed the first time I went to Cape Town in 2004.
   
   
4. My lovely parents are coming in early June. The plan is to do a mobile safari up on the Kwai River, above the Moremi Game Reserve. (Again, look at this map, and look in the northwest corner of Botswana where all the water is.) We'll then go to Chobe (look at the top where Botswana meets Zambia) and stay at a lodge inside the park. Then we'll head east to Victoria Falls. (To get to the Falls proper, one must go into either Zimbabwe or Zambia. We are headed to Zim, not Zam.) Then it's back to Gabs, and off my parents go, back to the US.

My plan is to collapse when this is all over.