ingridandleotravels

Day 69 – LINK - Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park Chased by an elephant in must as our driver/guide drove backward down the winding road about 2 kilometers trying to stay ahead of the advancing brute. He picked up speed on the downhill stretches and the 5 cars behind us were all attempting to back down the road, some more successful than others.   Ingrid really got nervous when our guide went slightly off the road and had to stop as the elephant got within about 30 feet!   A charging male elephant in must smells terrible at 30 feet! Infinity pool at the Rhino Ridge Lodge overlooking the park from where I am updating the blog between safari rides. This bad boy chased us backwards down the road flaring his ears and raising his trunk. Yikes! Light safari snacks included gin and tonics! No lyin (get it?); these are two pictures I took right before sunset tonight. She walked right by our truck and left her cubs playing in the grass. This g...

Plan for days 68 – 71. – Safari in South Africa. They will pick us up at the ship in Durban, South Africa and whisk us off to a private game preserve for 4 nights.   Each day will consist of morning and evening animal watching. Not sure what, if any internet we will have the next four days.   Then we fly from Durban to Cape Town to rejoin the Pacific Princess. Should be fun!

Day 63 – Mauritius – Two dives. Dove on another sunken ship and saw a large moray eel slithering along the deck of the ship. He was probably about 6 feet long and swam about 50 feet along the deck until disappearing into a hole in the deck. Creepy and beautiful at the same time. It is wild to look at all the holes and ports of a sunken ship and see inside a dark and mysterious world inhabited by all kinds of interesting creatures.   These sunken ships attract all kinds of coral growth and then millions of creatures populate surroundings. Day 64 – Wonderful Island bus tour of Reunion Island into the interior of this beautiful volcanic island. We passed an engineering marvel, a 7-mile long elevated highway suspended over the coastline. This construction was necessitated because the sheer and crumbling cliffs kept closing the current road because of falling rock. The massive project, costing 4 billion dollars, is supposed to be done in 2020 and will be a toll road. The aforement...

Day 60 – Nosy Be, Madagascar - As near as I could tell by the way that our guide said it, Nosy Be is pronounced "noocy bay". A short boat ride took us from Nosy Be, (Big Island) to Nosy Komba (Lemur Island).   After wading ashore in water that was more like a hot tub than bath water, we were taken through the village to the National Park, which was more like an animal exhibition path. From the path, the Lemurs came down from the trees to accept the bananas that the guides provided.   This allowed us to take all kinds of nice pictures, as the gentle Lemurs would jump on your shoulders to get to the bananas that you were holding. The Lemur that jumped on Ingrid’s shoulders was a little more aggressive and quickly snatched the whole banana that I was holding and sprung for the safety of the trees! We also saw green geckos, tortoises, chameleons, and the boa constrictor that Ingrid agreed to “hold”! Yikes! One of the highlights of the trip was our l...

Day 57 – Seychelles (2 dives) – Beautiful islands south of the Maldives. The topography of these tropical islands, just south of the equator is very similar to Tahiti, with lush jungle following steep, high cliffs into beautiful waters.   We were a little surprised when the dive master in our boat announced that our first dive would be a sunken ship! This sounded a little ominous, but it quickly became obvious that this long-sunken barge was just a harbor for coral and sea life about 60 feet below the surface. What an amazing time exploring the exterior of this ill-fated barge. You quickly forgot that you were exploring a wreck as you were lured to watch the dance of coral and sea life everywhere. That is until the green sea turtle wanted to seduce you into exploring parts of the wreck that were meant for only sea creatures, as the spooky nature of the wreck became evident when you looked into dark crevices! The diversity and behaviors of the sea life is contin...

Half Way!   At some point today we will be half way, day-wise, around the world. Sometimes it seems like we just left yesterday and then sometimes it seems like we have been gone a LONG time and are in another world. One more day at sea on the way to the Seychelles.

Day 53 at Mal é – 35 minute boat ride to beautiful Bandos Island. Good luck on your test Katherine! After the short boat ride to Bandos Island, passing one of the more impressive yachts we have ever seen, anchored just offshore, we arrived at this island paradise. The yacht we passed was named the Ocean Victory.   George looked it up and found out it is 140 meters long with 7 decks and cost the Russian oligarch $300 million dollars, so you know we were at a nice island! The four hours we spent there were some of the most pleasant we have had on the trip.   From the little table we found in the shade on the beach right next to the showers to the amazing snorkeling, this place had everything.   We stopped in the Dive Bandos shop just to see if we could dive and all trips had been booked for the day, but this was one of the nicest dive shops ever.   Everything was neat and tidy and wonderfully organized. We “settled” for snorkeling and ...