South Africa

As the subject says, today was our last full day in South Africa. It has been a really relaxing couple of weeks. We had originally planned on visiting Kruger National Park and Mozambique, but threw those plans out after feeling worn out by Kenya and Tanzania. We’ve just wanted some chill and recharge time, and…

Our first stop this morning was to pick up our passports with their new shiny 10-year Chinese visas in them. This was our fourth time in the bizarre office building that sits atop a suburban Cape Town mall, but the first time we didn’t leave confused and/or nervous. What a relief! We had planned on…

Really really not much to report today. We packed up and left Knysna at 10AM, and then drove almost the whole 5.5 hours through to Cape Town, stopping only for gas and some lunch. On the first half of the drive Nick and I discussed fairly seriously if we should move out of the US,…

Another pleasantly lazy morning. Millie is finally understanding our family culture of laying around and doing nothing. This morning she got into bed with us and scratched my back until it was time to get up. We have come so far from her previous habit of waking up and yelling at our sleeping corpses “I…

We lounged around all morning in our Airbnb. Millie listened to stories while we got ready. At about 10 we started walking through the island to find a place for breakfast. We walked past the manicured gardens and lawns. There were older white couples walking their purebred golden retrievers and moms with strollers. The service…

Boring update today because we were in the car most of the day. We packed up and left the beautiful Franschhoek at 10:30. We rarely return to places we’ve visited but I know we’ll be back in Franschhoek some day. I love it. We begun our 5+ hour drive west along the garden route. It…

We had been told we could spend the whole day at Babylonstoren, a winery / farm on steroids, but we didn’t quite believe it. We were wrong. We left the house this morning at 10AM and got home at 10PM – by all accounts a whole day! We arrived and bought our tickets to Soetmelksvlei,…

We started the 1hr drive out to Karoo at about 10:30. We have really become “lazy morning” people. The drive was, once again, breathtaking. We listened to the audiobook of Little House on the Prairie, which has NOT aged well. Along with hangman, someone needs to make the “woke 2025” version. We arrived and started…

Another blissful lazy day today. We “slept in” until 8 and then putzed around the cabin. We played tic-tac-toe, hangman (dark for a child, how has this not been rebranded yet?), and drew pictures. Millie drew this instant classic of me wiping her butt. I’ve been trying to get her to do it herself recently…

I think I mentioned in yesterday’s post that we decided against the drive along the coast and instead to stay nearby. This area has plenty to do, why move on if we are enjoying it here? We checked out of our Airbnb at 10 and went to brunch in downtown Stellenbosch. For a seemingly tiny…