Checking in from the Johannesburg airport - we are cooling our heels in the South African Airways lounge waiting for our next flight.

This morning we took our 2 charter planes from the Singita air strip and then a quick ride over to the international terminal. The group split and we had our tearful, hugging goodbyes as most head for Victoria Falls and some people home. Brad and I are on to Namibia where I'm sure we'll run into Brad and Angelina as they await the birth of their baby there.... :eek:

I'm amazed how many people posted from Singita - the connection was slowwwwwwwwwww.

You've heard a lot of details already, but everyone could have stayed on at Singita for a few more days. Unfortunately they had a new group coming in so it wasn't an option. Still waiting to hear from Ngaire about the "onboard booking" deal for the next time.... :)

The service at Singita was just amazing, food fabulous and both lodges were just gorgeous. The pictures on the web site look great but you don't have a sense of the incredible amount of space to the "rooms" until you experience them.

The game drives were just fantastic. We'd head out in the morning from about 6:00 to 9:30 and then in the afternoon from 3:30 to 7:00 or so, depending on what we found. We each got an ecoguide, or species checklist, to record our observations. In our jeep Andi was the designated recorder - last night we all filled in the blanks in our books from her master copy. I was amazed at how close to the animals we were - lions sauntering right next to the jeep, a leopard posing on a tree branch about 10 ft away, elephants a few feet away, curious baby hyenas coming over for a look, warthogs sashaying by. Sometimes the ranger and tracker would hop out of the jeep (with a gun) to look for tracks or other evidence - how they can locate the leopards and lions in the grass is quite remarkable. Marilyn could be a tracker in training - there were a few times she saw an animal before our ranger did.

Several of the jeeps had "close encounters" with male elephants in musth (sp?)who were not at all pleased to have company, including one group who were having sundowners outside the jeep when the bug guy came by. Muchele will have to fill in the details, but it sounded very scary.

We were escorted to and from our rooms first thing in the morning and after dark - we heard quite a few stories of guests making the mistake of venturing out alone and meeting up with a leopard or lion. Lots of great stories were exchanged at dinner from the day's adventures - the guides at with us most nights and shared their experiences as well.

Will report in from Namibia upon our return.