I knew it had been a while since I updated the blog but life has a way of making us very busy at times. Between a trip to Germany for work, two weeks of meetings (with a trip to Seoul over a weekend breaking up the week), a mileage run to Portland, OR to use up a voucher, and Memorial Day with the family in upstate NY for my niece's christening, it's been a very busy month or so.
A few days after the last post, I got an e-mail from South African Airways Vacations with the title "UPGRADE for your trip". Of course I got all excited thinking that they upgraded me to Business Class for the flight to and from Johannesburg from JFK. Well, I was wrong. I've now been upgraded to the Thornybush Main Lodge.
The title of this post refers to the fact that I still haven't planned my second week of the vacation. I thought I had it pretty much figured out but the fact that I can redeem my United MileagePlus miles on Qatar Airways has thrown me for a bit of a loop. One of the places I was most curious about was the Seychelles islands. It originally didn't look like I would be able to get there but the Qatar availability has changed that. Now it looks like I'm going to try and do the following....
9/2 Fly from JFK to Johannesburg
9/3 Connect in Johannesburg to Cape Town & Robben Island/Table Mountain
9/4 Half Day Winelands Tour & Robben Island/Table Mountain
9/5 Fly from Cape Town to Livingstone, Zambia (through Johannesburg)/Victoria Falls
9/6 Victoria Falls then fly back to Cape Town from Livingstone (through JNB again)
9/7 Fly from Cape Town to Hoedspruit through Johannesburg then arrive at Thornybush Game Reserve
9/8 Thornybush
9/9 Thornybush
9/10 Fly to Johannesburg then pick up the final week on my own...
The trip could be something like this..
9/10 Fly Johannesburg to Gaborone, Botswana
9/11 Fly Gaborone to Doha, Qatar through Johannesburg
9/12 Doha, Qatar
9/13 Doha to Seychelles
9/14 Seychelles to Addis Ababa, Ethiopis
9/15 Addis Ababa to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
9/16 Dar Es Salaam to Johannesburg then connecting to the flight back to JFK
What has to be balanced is the costs for the flights and the visas required. The biggest "deal" for me is that I'll have to be carrying a lot of USD which I don't normally do even in the US. I typically have more EUR in my wallet than USD. However, a lot of the visas and accomodations will need to be paid in USD.
Hope to be making a decision on the itinerary soon. Will keep updating this blog as decisions get made...
