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Stephen, Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to wait a while to give a more thought out opinion... South Africa was a blast! Ultimately, two weeks simply wasn't enough time to do what we wanted... we're going to have to come back. Sorry about the payment issue we had to call you for... glad we had your number! The B&Bs you booked for us were mixed... we mostly got what we paid for. Queensplace - 2.5/5.0, sorry again about the payment issue. Nicely decorated, in not so nice a lot. Nature's Retreat - 1.0/5.0, hostel was heavily under construction and quite far from downtown Durban. Abbey Manor - 4.5/5.0, simply outstanding, perfect downtown location, save for a sewage water smell issue at the end. At Home - 2.0/5.0, way far, but Benoni was a nicer area Buhala Game Lodge - 4.0/5.0, beautiful lodge, south side location of kruger wasn't exactly the "happening" area of the park. Ghost Mountain Inn - 3.5/5.0, should be higher, except it was a mosquito haven (not inside but outside). Overall, however, everyone gave us great hospitality and courtesy, with "pleasure"s all around. The owners of all the B&B's were very attentive and helpful. We had an incident at Tambo Airport pulling out of the car rental. Police were stopping all the rental cars and giving an "inspection" - officer wanted to ticket us for not having an international drivers license.
Some general comments and lessons learned: 1. Metered taxis are bleeping expensive! More expensive than most cities in the U.S. 2. We definitely needed to rent a car -- can't stress this enough. We took it upon ourselves to get one for Durban and Cape Town and it was well worth it (otherwise we would have missed the lovely drive to Cape Point). Fortunately I could drive a standard and adjusting to driving on the left wasn't so bad. 3. The drive through Swaziland was worth it, although going through the border posts was an unexpected paperwork headache. 4. Kruger is _way_ big! Interior lodging would have been much better. Although we enjoyed our stay at Buhala -- we never made it beyond the southern 20% of Kruger on the Buhala full day guided safari. I kept getting the impression that I was missing the better parts of Kruger... 5. Spend more days in Cape Town and Kruger... less elsewhere... 6. Bring lots and lots of money! And did we say we're going to have to come back? Thanks a bunch, Stephen! Sincerely, Conrad and Diane Stephens response Conrad Hi,
The lodging was determined by your budget, and so was the safari we choose, as well as the Inventory available during the world cup time period, and it seems that in all it worked out well.
To answer your question, you cant do all of kruger in any 2N stay, so you saw what you where meant to see as the animals move...unless one takes a good chunk of time say 6 or 7N and does a meander 2N is the norm for a Safari stay in Kruger
I would disagree with you on one point..doing the cape town area for most of the tours as a independent self drive as you did it, prevents you from seeing so much as the guides who know the area well show a lot more than any guide book can direct you, just food for thought ..that is why I offered all my clients the option of tours in cape town
I was very surprised to read about the police at the Joburg airport as Int d/l are for countries that do not have a English speaking background.
Glad it all worked out that you enjoy it so much.
Remember www.go2southafrica.com to friend, family and coworkers
Thanks.
Stephen A
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