We're really feeling South Africa now!

Sawubona! (Hello!)

Well, we're sorry we didn't post yesterday. It was a FULL day and with jetlag in full force, we were pretty exhausted at the end of the day.

So here we are now. We will attempt to compress what has been two truly incredible days into a few paragraphs and hopefully some photos.

Monday began with a trip to the Sterkfontein Caves and Marupeng, where we stood in "The Cradle of Humankind." These are the sites of the oldest human fossils ever found. The caves were very impressive in their beauty and history. Marupeng was very imformative about the formation of the Earth and the beginning of mankind. It was incredible to be there!

We then went to a village called Lesidi, which means "place of light." This turned out to be the highlight of our day, which says a lot considering what we had already seen. There, we were treated to much singing, drumming and dancing, and learned quite a bit about the Basotho, Xhosa, Pedi, and Zulu tribes. The afternoon went into the evening with conversation around a roaring fire while waiting for our host to prepare our meal of true South African fare, including (but not limited to) crocodile and ostrich. We tried dried caterpillars earlier in the day. The croc and ostrich were quite tasty - crocodile tasting seafoodish and ostrich tasting like a cross between beef and chicken, the caterpillar - not so great. (Are your mouths watering Anna and Justine?) The feast was in the Boma with an incredible array of art all around. It was delightful in every way!

-running out of time, so we will buy more time and update again...

We have arrived!!! Here we are in beautiful South Africa!! The 15.5 hour flight was pretty brutal. Mthandeni's smiling face was right there to greet us and welcome us into his country. We had a delicious dinner at a local restaurant called "The Spur."and now we are ready to rest. We are not sure when we will update again. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to take and post some photos. It seems we have pretty good internet access where we are right now.
Read & Jay

Taking Off

On Saturday, March 27th we arrived at the Roanoke Airport to begin our very long trip to South Africa. We're ready for the journey!

Well, we're packed and ready to go!!! Woohoo!!! :)

Our guide, Mthandeni Khumalo, will be at the airport Sunday evening to pick us up.
He said that it is custom for Jayanne to slaughter a chicken and make flour dumplings to take for him, and when we leave, he will slaughter a sheep for us to carry back. Somehow, we don't think the chicken will do very well on the 15.5 hour flight, so we have opted out of this custom. ha!ha! :)

We'll post whenever we can!