After a very tiring day trekking gorillas we took it easy the next day got up late and had a casual breakfast on the porch of Virunga Lodge. Kendall had brought 30 pairs of kids tennis shoes to give to a local school. It turns out the Virunga Lodge has adopted Mwimba Primary School on the side of the mountain near the lodge. Our driver along with a lodge guy drove over for a visit. We found many happy children attending this school (all 6-12 year olds must...

So, our driver, Charles, is picking us up at 4:30 tomorrow morning (really!) and transporting us to the airport - Ngorongoro Crater bound! If you have any interest, you should google it. It's really a spectacular place. Located in NE Tanzania it's a large volcanic caldera rich with wildlife and includes most of the species generally found in east Africa. This will be our first opportunity to view everything from rinos to lions. Really exciting. We can't seem to ...

We were awakened at 5am by a light knock at our door with a tray of coffee. We quickly dressed in our trekking gear (hiking boots, two layers of clothes to peel off with minimum skin exposed). Enjoyed a full breakfast then headed down the hill to our driver. They put "gators" or coverings around our boots to our knees before leaving then we headed down the other side of the mountain through some villages to the Volcanoes National Park. Gathered at the park...

The trip to the Virunga Mountains, a volcano range, was traveling over a high mountain through village after village with a stream of people always walking along the side of the roads. All walking with a determined look and gait to get somewhere. Some of the women have massive cargos balanced on their head while some of the men were pushing bicycles with massive cargos balanced about the two wheels. Because of the constant presence of people and never end...

We flew from Johannesburg to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, which meant we covered about 1/3 of Africa. The flight was 4 hours, which gives you some idea of the length of Africa. Kigali is a bustling city with lots of people walking but also many motorcycle taxis that Jim had never seen before. They carry a helmet for the passenger then zip in and out of traffic quite scarily. We were met by our driver, Charles, in a Safari style Land Rover which seemed...