So much to say, so litle time......

Day 17 (and now it's already day 19) of our South African travels, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to write. My computer has spent the bulk of the last two weeks tucked neatly away in my bag, as every minute of every day has been fully scheduled. Most days have started at 5:30 a.m., and my head rarely hit the pillow before 10:00 p.m. During the few free times that our fellow travelers had, Rory and I were busy filming with William or others in the group.

Today, we are flying from Jonhannasburg (east side of South Africa), to Cape Town (the south West side of South Africa). The “soul Safari” portion of our travels with William finished this morning with a quick breakfast with many of our traveling companions, and we are now “on our own”. I am excited for the change, and will miss all the folks we’ve spent the last two weeks with. I’m now looking forward to having interactions with some actual South African folks. I’ve gotten to know lot’s about Australians in the past two weeks, but very little about the locals.

We’ve stayed at four different places along the way. 1) The casino-like hotel, 2) Malendelas/Willows Lodge, 3) The Farm (where William was born and grew up), 4) Idube Game Reserve, located in Kruger National Park. This is the largest National Park in the world is situated “next door” to Richard Branson’s outrageously-oppulent Game Reserve for all the fancy/famous folk. We actually flew into the Game Reserve by landing our tiny little 10-seater plane on Richard Brandson’s private air strip.

During our time at Malendelas we loaded into a van with a tour guide for a day of a “cultural tour”. These tours are planned based on whatever is going on that day in the area. On this particular day we visited a Chief’s homestead where a group of girls and women were practicing for the upcoming Reed Dance. This is an annual event where all of the girls/women in Swaziland (well, not “all”….. just the virgins) come together to dance for the King so that he may choose his next wife. At the same time, everyone brings with them reeds to repair the large windbreaks that surround the King’s property. The King often times has upward of 500 off spring from his large pool of wives. This country is the last truly “Living Monarchy”, and is actually run by the King (he is not just a figure head or royal family, he runs the place). They have also had the longest living King in all history. He was said to be 103ish when he died. We missed the actual Reed Dance by a week, but they expected upwards of 40,000 women. They said it’s the largest womens gathering on the planet. The girls we watched dance also had us join them, their joy and exuberance was contagious, but the highlight was a 20 something young man from the homestead named Nelson who dressed up in the Reed Dance garb and came out and danced with us.

Our guide answered all the questions we could throw his way….. how marriage works here, how homes are built a brick at a time, how chickens live in the hanging baskets to keep them safe from predators, and how religion and tradition plays in their lives.

The area was full of agriculture. Their top crop and economic commodity is timber, I think sugar cane is number 2, and number 3 is tourism. He was sure to let us know we are an important commodity.

We were also taken to a cane fire. We are here towards the end of the cane season (ends in November) and so harvest is underway. Before the fields are harvested, they are set on fire to burn away the “brushy” parts of the cane. The fires were huge and spectacular, and we had one of the cane workers hang out with us to explain the whole procedure. I wish I could tell you his name, but it was long and complicated and I don’t think I really fully understood it, even though he repeated it many times for me.

Next, we piled back into our vans and drove a couple hours to “The Farm” where William grew up. This is a HUGE area that has, since his childhood, been parceled off and developed into part agricultural areas, and part game reserve. We stayed in the Mbuluzi Game Reserve and were given two large Range Rovers to drive around. I LOVED driving those bumpy rutty roads, and finding all the beautiful giraffe, zebras, impalas, baboons, genets, kudus, wart hogs, nyala and we even spotted a rare red diker.

They call giraffes the “dolphins of the land”. We could drive up along side them and they would give us an inquisitive look and continue eating from the tops of the trees. I could feel their deep calm and gentle nature, in their enormous and powerful bodies.

The zebras had a feeling of shy and skittery. They danced and pranced around when we found them, and didn’t stay long.

Each night ended with a beautifully catered dinner alongside the beautiful setting sun and large gentle river around a big fire. And each evening was capped by a “group heart” meditation, grounding us deep into the land and into the hearts of one another, and joining us back to our homes, to our loved ones and to our purpose.

Soon we were packing up again and heading back to the airport for a catered flight to the Game Reserve. I loved seeing the reserve from the air, and seeing the towns and villages below.

We arrived at Idube after dark and were told that we are not to walk alone at night. We were only to walk with a guide as there are large game cats around. Later along the tour, we saw a leopard right at the gate of our lodge, and the driver says he often wanders into the camp. They weren’t kidding.

Adding photos with our current internet connections is taking far too long, so I imagine I'll just send along a load later........

More later, as we are off to the Roiboos farms today. Yesterday was spent high above Cape Town as we hiked up Lions Head. AMAZING!!