Hi Stephen. I hope that you got our postcard from Africa. I'd hoped that it would let you know more immediately how much we enjoyed our month in Africa, thanks to your thoughtful planning. Every part of our trip was perfect. You chose a wonderful combination of memorable experiences, rich sites to see and kind competent people to provided us comfort, assistance and adventure. In particular we were absolutely delighted with Frank, our guide in Botswana. He had to manage a change of plan due to a flooding condition, and the change became quite complicated. We loved what he substituted for that change. We highly respect Frank as a guide and we adore him as a friend. Additionally Mike and I were delighted with Gomo Gomo: the site, guides, accommodations and food. Knysna, also, was perfect in every way. Nice people, lovely part of the world. Our car and our flights worked out perfectly.

 

The only snag was in Cape Town when we needed to transfer early one a.m. from the delightful Cape Diamond Hotel to the airport and the fellow who was to pick us up had a snag that made him very tardy in picking us up. No one phoned to let us know about a delay and so Mike had to do the detective work to solve the problem. We JUST made it to a flight (not the one on the itinerary, which did not exist) that connected with our next flight. The driver was 25 min. late for us but got us to the ticket desk pronto and they kindly made the necessary changes and accompanied us to the gate so we could be boarded. Having this problem early in the trip made us wonder what other problems might follow. None did!

 

I had a panicky problem in the tent camp my first night and worked my way out of it, with a little help from Frank. He consoled me and kept a lantern burning outside our tent so I wasn't in the dark. As you know I was concerned about this segment of the trip. Phobias are unfortunate real imagined problems. I'm glad that mine is not too disabling.

 

We saw the Big 5! Mike was the guide for seeing the rhinoceros when we were visiting Kruger one day. Our view was mostly of their backsides and not as close as what we'd have liked. The other 4 we saw with Frank and at Gomo. Of course we saw far more than the 5, including Wild Dogs.

 

We arrived home yesterday late afternoon and are digging out from under 3 months of mail. Forgive my brevity. Please know how much we appreciate all you did to to create a balance of experiences fine tuned to meet our desires and needs and priced to meet our budget.