We were also fortunate with most of the sightings we were hoping for , of wild animals previously as real to me only as the illustrations in a kid’s animal alphabet book coming to life :a crash of rhinos, a herd of impalas, a sitting giraffe, necking giraffes, not really “necking” as in estrus or non-estrus from Footloose’s account, but their way of fighting whipping their long necks against each other, nesting eagles, a vulture finishing off a monitor lizard, a warthog feeding while on its knees ,a leopard descending from a tree, hippos too numerous to count submerged in the river while digesting food with an occasional rising of their heads to surface as if to yawn, a pride of lions our ranger diligently pursued by the river, a frightful encounter with wild buffaloes, grazing elephants wrecking trees, four beautiful cheetahs under a tree, baboons chasing after each other, etc. scenes that will forever be etched in my memory.

Most of all to be walking in the streets of Soweto, the hotbed of social uprisings during apartheid was a highlight of the trip for a one time political activist. One of the streets is probably the only one in the world that shares the homes of two of Nobel laureates ( President Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu). And then there is Graca Machel, the only woman in the world to have been first lady twice , first of Mozambique and then of South Africa when she married President Mandela.

A sweet and touching ending to the trip was a memorable experience with a cabdriver of Malaysian descent who was without bitterness recounting the experiences under apartheid and who took us as if we were his personal guests. When he dropped us off at our Bed and Breakfast just at the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town, he asked only to be paid the fare we felt we would like to give him. Where in the world?