A Totally New Adventure A Safari At Last 23 March 2014

I promised I would write a blog about the plans I had for a Safari to Africa, so here goes. I had been talking for years about a trip to go on Safari, whilst at Disney, I did go on their imitation Safari, it did have Lions, elephants, giraffes and all sorts of other animals and even had imitation poachers firing guns, but the animals seemed totally disinterested, so I thought the other thing to do is the real thing.

I started to look at holidays and the first problem was to do with medication and travel insurance because of my health issues, in particular, malaria and and malarial medication and its effects on me, the other problem was I was still being investigated for various health issues so was unable to go at that particular time. Last year, I looked again, but unfortunately needed an operation and then something else came up which would have prevented me from travelling that sort of distance, so again the trip was cancelled.

At long last, my health seems to be not too bad at present, I feel my back with the help of painkillers if needed will cope with the holiday so all I had to do them was book it. Not quite so easy as I thought it would be, it seems most people, book their holiday a year or two in advance for this sort of thing, so with only a few options with Saga who given my age and health seem to be the safest option as travel agent, as I was travelling on my own. I contacted them and discovered they had the sort of holiday, I wanted this year. In June, it would be in South Africa for nine nights (two nights flying there and back) so effectively only seven nights, this wasn’t a problem as I felt I would not be able to do a Safari every day and could rest in between.Also I decided to upgrade for the very long flight as it is 10 hours, so now in Economy Plus, bigger better seats,

I also wanted to visit Cape Town on the advice of my physio, so I mentioned this when making the booking as it seemed an exciting add-on to the holiday. The company was able to accommodate me, but the cost for three nights would have come to £1000, I did explore through the website, The Man in Seat 61 travelling from Johannesburg to Cape Town by train which would have been a 24-hour journey, but what a fantastic experience to see, unfortunately the dates did not fit in with the holiday, so in the end I decided to discard the Cape Town element maybe to look at that another year if I have enough money.

The holiday will be in the month of July, originally was going to be June, but it appears they did not have enough people, then came the next shock in the letter confirming the holiday, when it explained this is this areas winter period, so don’t forget to bring winter woollies, but also not to bring bright, white, or black clothes, so that was my wardrobe of outdoor gear totally unsuitable, but never mind. It was an excuse to buy some more clothes, while mentioning about buying it has also been a good excuse to buy a new very clever camcorder for the trip. (Still trying to work out how to use it, it’s me not it) I have made an appointment to see the nurse at the GP surgery about any inoculations etc, so I will be ready for the trip.

Well that’s a taster of the planning, I’ve paid my deposit just need to pay the balance, and wait for July to arrive, well actually, maybe not. I am sure there are other things I’m going to have to deal with between now and then to do with the holiday so will keep you up-to-date over the coming months, as usual I hope you enjoyed the read.