Plans

The bitterness of my last post notwithstanding, I'm muchly looking forward to my Christmas plans. Work finished for the holidays as of yesterday, and now I have two and a half weeks to wander around Southern Africa. Joy! Alas, I have but four minutes of web time left, so I'll have to be brief and will hopefully post more details at the beginning of next week.

Mozambique just wasn't panning out in any non-suicidal way. Being a relatively inexperienced traveller, I decided against wandering solo (my schedule being incompatible with the other Maputo-bound groups of expats). On Monday morning at sunrise, I catch a bus from Gabs to Johannesburg, about six hours away. Then I mill about in Joburg for about 5 hours (hopefully finding a broadband web cafe from which to tell more) and then catch the 18-hour overnight Greyhound to Cape Town. Cape Town is supposedly almost Vancouverian in its beauty and cosmopolitan nature, so I'll spend a week or so seeing the highlights (including Nelson Mandela's prison cell!!!) and eating SEAFOOD! Then I'll catch a bus to Bloemfontein, South Africa, where I'll detour into the tiny alpine kingdom of Lesotho (pronounced Less-oo-too, apparently) and spend a few days in some truly remote and rugged terrain, hiking, mountain horseback-riding, and seeing some dinosaur digs.

Crud, outta time. Merry Christmas, all, but I'm sure I'll be online with more information and a message of cheer before the 25th! Hotmail's been out, but I think that'll be fixed soon too.