Leaving Rwanda and on to South Africa

As we took the three hour drive from the volcanoes area back to Kigali, I reflected on this amazing little country. Consider - plastic bags are outlawed here and there are none of them seen trashing the highways or the countryside - anywhere. In over 72 hours here, I saw a total of one plastic bottle littering the highway! One. (Some of my fellow passengers had their plastic bags taken from them as they went through customs on arrival at the airport). When we saw work crews on the highway, they had just as many women in the crew as men. Finally, recall from a previous posting about Umuganda, the national day of cleaning that all citizens participate in. The irony is that this place was so "dark" just 18 years ago but is now a happy, vibrant "light" in the heart of Africa. Go Rwanda!

A final look at the volcano's west of our lodge. Th rugged one on the right is located entirely within the boundary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is called Mikeno.

A white-backed raven at our lodge. They are about 20% larger than our common raven.

But they behave the same way....

Flight monitor on our jet while flying to South Africa. I am sitting in Row 1 and have a great view out the port side of the jet.

Today we flew into summer! Great thunderheads billowed around us over Zambia.

This was taken with a very wide angle lens and the anvil head on this boomer was well above the jet. We circled around this huge storm.

I'm fairly sure this is the Luangwa River in Zambia's Eastern Province

Ah, summer!

After arrival in Nilspritz, South Africa, we took a 20 minute charter flight to Sabi Sand Reserve and took an afternoon game drive

A small elephant herd checks out our Land Rover. That is the spotter sitting in a special seat near the headlights. He looks for animal tracks in the road and other game.

A baby elephant

Impala chased from the bush

And stopping to look at us

Sunset in the southern hemisphere. We were out until well after dark and saw the Southern Cross and Magellanic Clouds in the night sky.

The Sand River flooded huge on January 19 of this year

At fhe end of the game drive, it's time for a Gin and Tonic!