Photos From Hike form Garden Castle

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Final Preparation

 We are less than 48 hours away from our departure from Huntsville, heading to Jo'Burg.  Our bags are packed.  Travel documents are in order.  We've struggled to find a source of anti-malarial prophylaxis, but that problem seems to be solved. Today we enjoyed watching video from a recent trip to Lesotho taken by Pat Halladay, John Kelly and Bob Swanson.  These 3 served with me in Peace Corps Lesotho back in the early 1980s.  Seeing the 3 of them walk and drive around Maseru really got me excited. My Peace Corps class had a healthy turn out for a reunion, our first, in August of 2023.  We met at Cave Creek Ranch in Portal, AZ for 3 nights to get reacquainted and tell stories from back in the day.  I'm sure the memories will come flooding back once back in country.   I can't wait.
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Llandudno Beach, Cape Town

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We're definitely out of our element here.  This is a very posh beach community on the Atlantic side of Cape Town.  Table Mountain National Park abuts our neighborhood.  There are stunning views of the coastline.  Off shore, cargo ships bypassing the Suez Canal have been passing constantly since we arrived.  It quite impressive to see this amount of global shipping in action. Today we visited the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, one of the world's most prominent garden.  It was built on land donated by Cecil Rhodes who bought it so that he wouldn't get any unwanted neighbors beside his farm. Some of the plants are so rare and valuable to collectors that there have been nighttime heists, a la Ocean's Eleven, resulting in theft.  The most prizes plants are not micro chipped and protected by drones and laser sensors. Cape Town has long been the most progress city in South Africa, and things are much more integrated here than in some areas.  We listenes ...
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A long time friend who went to Africa with me in 1982 has never left except for a few postings by the State Department on other continents.  Years ago he bought a dilapidated farm because it was cheap and he has no knowledge of farming. In the meantime he's turned it into an oasis.  He is completely off the South African utility grid.  He has 5 wells and excess solar power.  He raises cattle and has done very well. He was telling us stories of his days in the State Department which were extremely entertaining.  One in particular is noteworthy.  President Obama was flying into on country, maybe Malawi, and the stairs used to descend from Air Force One were somehow not available.  There was the prospect that POTUS would land and not be able to disembark from the plane.  He was given the job of solving the problem.  Which he did.  It takes a special knowledge and live of how things work in this part of the world to be able to pu...
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