Oh, the Places We'll Go

Here are some interesting figures from our 2nd continent:

• 3 – Months we spent in Africa
• 46 – Number of beds we slept in
• 8 – Countries Visited (South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania, Kenya)
• 39 – Days we spent in South Africa
• 3 – Hours we spent in Lesotho
• 7 – Cars we rented in South Africa
• 5900 – Kilometers we drove in South Africa (3600 miles)

• 30 – Number of deeply discounted or comp’d hotel nights through Ted’s tourism connections
• 26 – Days spent with family in Africa
• 35 – Percentage of nights we paid for accommodation (thanks Moms and Dads, and tourism connections!)
• 38 – Hours on a bus (nothing compared to the 182.5 in South America)
• 14 – Beaches visited
• 45 – Number of game drives
• 50 – Number of lions seen on game drives
• 2200 – Photos taken (and kept)
• 12 – Number of guides and porters assigned only to us for our Kili hike
• 13,393 – Vertical feet climbed on our summit hike of Kilimanjaro
• 19,341 – Highest altitude in feet we’ve ever climbed to
• 6 – Flights on big airplanes
• 6 – Flights on small airplanes
• 10 – Visits to the Johannesburg airport
• 1 – Number of police reports filed

Check out our Best of pics from Southern Africa, East Africa, and African Mega-Fauna for some visual highlights.  Now, on to the Indian Subcontinent…

If you talked to us before we went on our trip, we would have told you that we had a month to spend traveling between Tanzania and Kenya. However, what actually happened is that we spent 30 days in Tanzania and just one in Kenya on our way out of the continent.

That’s not to say there isn’t loads to do in Kenya, however, the country highlights are very similar to what we had just experienced in Tanzania. For island paradise, Kenya has Lamu where Tanzania has Zanzibar. For mountain climbing, Kenya has Mt. Kenya (the second biggest mountain in Africa) and Tanzania has Mt. Kilimanjaro. And for the ultimate in safari, Kenya’s Masaai Mara National Park borders Tanzania’s Serengeti. Though we would have loved the opportunity to compare and contrast these country highlights, our timing and our budget simply didn’t allow it.

As a result, we had just one night in Kenya and we spent it in the notoriously unsafe capital of Nairobi. Nairobi is up there with Johannesburg as one of the most dangerous cities in Africa and though I’m sure it has earned that title for a reason, we were pleasantly surprised by the place. We comfortably and easily walked from our hotel into downtown. The buildings were proper sky-scrapers and thousands of business professionals, as well as the to-be-expected touts were out on the street going about their business. It was the most urban city we had visited outside of South Africa and we were happy to see that it felt modern and we felt safe.

We don’t have a lot to say about Kenya (nor do we have any pictures to share), but it is certainly worth a much longer visit when we can give it the time that it deserves.