seeing the land, meeting some people and peeing in diapers

We got back from our trek through 3 southern African countries. I think we saw everything we wanted to see and then some...
Swaziland was beautiful, with it's rolling hills, quiet nights and kind people. We took a bike safari, Bob and Jacob did some hikes and Michelle and I spent some money on some local art. Swaziland was also great because of our accomodations... We had a huge home, situated in the hills of Swaziland with a huge yard for the kids to run around.... There were monkeys, donkeys and goats to play with as well as 3 women who jumped on the beds with Maura and the twins.. Gugu, Bonsile and Tuli.

South Africa was just as beautiful. St. Lucia sports a beautiful dune filled shore, with hippos and crocodiles wading in water right next to the beach,as well as elephants, Rhino and other animals living near the shore. The kids went whale watching, croc and hippo searching and snorkeling at Cape Vidal. We stayed in probably the worst "Safari Lodge" I've ever experienced, with the sink hanging over the top of the bed, brick walls surrounding the whole place and an overall depressing ambience.... In St. Lucia, they told us to be careful walking the streets at night, because hippos and crocs walk the streets and take dips in the pools of the local lodges... That was comforting. We left our lodge and found a much better place to stay, with no sinks over the bed, some grass and a deck overlooking the estuary. The town was very nice, with shops and restaurants and felt very safe. With that said, our experience is South Africa was much more of the same in the past... Very difficult to feel comfortable, simply b/c the disparity between blacks and whites is so great... It's a country in a sad state and as many people there told us, it's going to get worse before it gets better. It's unfortunate, because the place is absolutely beautiful..
We spent five nights in south africa and headed to Lesotho, which I think was the highlight of the whole trip.
We had a setback in or trip because we left our camera on the side of the road..
Jude was putting on a show peeing on the side of the road near the Lesotho border and we wanted to capture the moment(of course). In all the hustle and bustle of the scene, and the changing of diapers, etc.... we left the camera on the side of the road. We didn't realize it until we reached the border, and by the time we drove 45 minutes back to the "pee location", it was gone. So I don't have many photos to share of the trip.
This set us back in time and we had to drive through the mountains of Lesotho in the dark.. The are no lights, no electric, no nothing through these hills and the directions we were given were a bit shotty.

Needless to say, it was a little scary, but we made it.... In order to save time, stay safe and let the babies sleep through the drive.. Kte and Maura relearned the art of peeing in diapers...
Kate, who seems to have liquids go through her as soon as she drinks it, had to pee 24/7 and always at the most inopportune times... Right after we would get the twins to sleep, Kate would yell out.... "I have to pee!" Michelle would tell her to put on a diaper and we would continue on our way.

In Lesotho, we stayed at an unbelievable place, called the Malealea lodge.. It had no electric, ran on generators for a few hours during the evening and then they shut it off at 10pm. After that,the sky was amazing. We slept by candlelight and bundled up under layers and layres of blankets. Everyone got chapped lips, cheeks, foreheads, eyeballs.... etc..
The lodge hd ping pog tables, a great bar and dining hall... Each evening before dinner 2 local bands performed. there was a traditional choir and then the "malealea junk funk band". this was comprised of a few local men(and one woman) who played hand made instruments using junk, and they performed some traditional Sasotho songs as well as songs they had written themselves.. When I asked about the significance of the songs, a local told me that last year they took a trip to England for a music festival, and the song was about the plane ride... The music was awesome, I'll have some video of both performances up in the next few days.

We didn't do too much in Lesotho, but each day we did some pony trekking through the mountains.... It was amazing....the hills were quiet, scattered with local shepherds, and small villages... It felt like the "real Africa"... Very poor, very beautiful and very friendly.. A guide (Lucky)took us to buy local blankets and to see a waterfall, and held Jude the whole way..(photo included).
We were literally in the middle of nowhere, and the guides had not stepped out of this region of the world their whole lives.. they didn't know any of the names of the wild animals that lived there, nor the names of the mountain ranges... just that beyond that hill, there's a village.. and beyone that hill is a river... and the snakes that live here " are black and very dangerous.." One guide told us that he knew they were cobras that spit, and they were very scary because they hid in pumpkins... so when you cut open a pumpkin, you had to be careful, because a cobra could be there...

Kate celebrated her 7th birthday in Lesotho, with a full day of pony trekking.... Picani, her guide took her and Jacob for a 4 hour ride to a waterfall, where we met them... We took a group of 4 local kids for a ride on the top of our truck, and they "guarded" our truck from any thieves in the area..

The lodge was a great place, supporting the local people and giving back to the community.. The pony trekking was run by locals, and gave the people who owned the horses an opportuniy to make money... there was a development trust set upfor the local village and was run from the lodge.. they knew we lost our camera and let us borrow theirs for the time we were there...Then they gave us a CD and a laptop to burn them to before we left..

I think all in all, Lesotho is a country worth exploring and we hope to go back sometime in the future... It was beautiful and the people were awesome....and as Michelle and i talked about where we would like to come back to do more work in Africa, I made it known that Lesotho is tops on my list.

My photos are limited and don't do the place justice... I'll post video of our pony trekking and the music we saw when i get the chance...

Now we are back in Botswana and the kids have destroyed the home yet again... School starts back up in ten days and Michelle is back at work...
I must admit, with as wonderful as our trip was, it was a great way to wrap things up here. I think we all realize that our time here is coming to an end, and the trip helped put it in perspective... We left, I think ready to start thinking about coming home.... Maura kept asking in Lesotho, when pointing at the stars... " Is that Kentucky?" It might as well have been, since we were in the middle of nowhere.

I think coming home is in the forefront of our minds now, but we have a few more debt causing adventures up our sleeves before December...

For now, it's just trying to figure out how the hell we are going to get all the things we've purchased back home...

One last note about the trip.... We had to stay over near Jo'burg on our journey home and stayed in a hotel with some good ole' boys from Stubbenville, Ohio...
They were awesome!!! They were there doing some work with batteries or something..It was like being at home, with talk about Montgomery Inn ribs, and if I had seen the Ohio High School state football games. I told them I didn't, but they continue to roll off names like... Kettering and Alter, and that Kettering had a linebacker or something that was the sister of Bobby Briscoe or something like that.... a girl linebacker? this was after the gentleman from Stubbenville had had 24 Castle Lagers.. and 8 packs of smokes. But, they were a breath of fresh air, considering we were surrounded by other whites, who I'd rather not talk to... They stood out like sore thumbs, in this upper establishment, with their Marlboro packs, in each back pocket, Rick Flair hair, and Harley Davidson shirts.. Their foul mouths didn't help much either... It was like being at the WEBN fireworks.

All for now.. good to be back.. I'll have things posted of the kids soon.