Zip-lining and Cheese

Busses departed One&Only at 9:00 in the morning. Five people headed for the wine country for wine, cheese and chocolate tastings while the other 11 had chosen zip lining as the activity for the day. 

About half of the zip lining group had already tried speeding across valleys and forest on a thin metal wire. Some in Hawaii, some in Costa Rica. The rest was not quite sure what to expect, but after the first ride all felt comfortable and couldn’t wait for more. There was a total of 13 legs and it took almost three hours from start until we were at the pickup spot for the 4×4 to take us back to camp.

The scenery was amazing and a big part of us enjoying every minute. 

Both busses were back at the hotel at 5:30 and we walked in just as Chris and Kara arrived from Santa Barbara. Despite a delayed start from Los Angeles they had found time to tour Dubai with the same guide as the rest of the family, and cruised around the city until 2:00 in the morning. 

Dinner was enjoyed at Gibson Burgers. Lively, hopping, loud and fairly expensive but the casual meal hit the spot and the walk back to the hotel made sure at least some of the calories stayed behind in Cape Town.

Family Summer Trip ’17 – Leaving Home

We’re writing this having just crossed over the border between Yemen to Somalia. Emirates is taking good care of us, and some of the family members are enjoying the possibility to spread out in a place that isn’t full.

A total of 16 of us left San Francisco airport yesterday and landed in Dubai Tuesday evening. The 15 hours of planned flight time seemed very long prior to taking off, but once underway none of us found the flight excessively long. That’s likely to change on the way back…
 
The final four family members – completing the list of the 20 of us going this time around – Chris, Kara, Chloe, and Colton are leaving Los Angeles Wednesday evening and will join us in Cape Town Friday at dinner time.  As always it’s exciting to see how much trouble we run into with the weight of our luggage and size of our suitcases. Three weeks is a long time to pack for, and there’s heavy camera gear onboard as well. This obviously is more of an issue on the smaller planes that will take us to the three camps we’re visiting. 

For now, we’re onboard a Boeing 777 after we enjoyed the quietness of the Airbus 380 yesterday.  Emirates has been great and just celebrated Robert who got to celebrate this birthday in the air.  Just this last week Emirates changed their policy on free wi-fi, but nobody seems to mind too much and might even be enjoying a bit of time disconnected from the grid. 

We’ll be back with updates underway and post as wireless coverage permits.

Our 2017 Schedule
June 19 – Depart SFO
June 20 – Dubai
June 21 – Arrival in Cape Town
June 22 – Cape Town
June 23- Cape Town
June 24 – Depart Cape Town / Arrival at Sossusvlei, Namibia
June 25 – Sossusvlei, Namibia
June 26 – Sossusvlei, Namibia
June 27 – Depart for Matetse, Zimbabwe
June 28 – Matetse, Zimbabwe
June 29 – Matetse, Zimbabwe
June 30 – Matetse, Zimbabwe
July 1 — Matetse, Zimbabwe
July 2 — Matetse, Zimbabwe
July 3 – Depart for Singita, South Africa
July 4 – Singita, South Africa
July 5 – Singita, South Africa
July 6 – Depart Singita for Johannesburg and California
July 7 – Back home