A day of travel from Livingstone back to Pretoria. Andre, our driver/guide from African Sky met us at the airport and drove us back to our hotel in Pretoria (The Lombardy). Not sure why, but they upgraded us to a large suite -- need a map to find our way around. If we haven't mentioned it previously, our whole tour has been organized by African Sky (Andrew Harvey). They organize group and individualized tours so we were able to customize our whole month. It ...

The morning was spent driving to Cullinan, the site of the Cullinan Diamond Mine (about 1 hour from Pretoria). The mine is over 100 years old and one of the world's most prolific producers of gem quality large diamonds, including the Cullinan Diamond, 3106 carats in the rough (see photo in photos section). It operated as an open pit mine until about 1950. The pit measured 1 km. by 500 meters and to a depth of nearly 500 meters. Since 1050, it has operated as ...

Arrived safely in Johannesburg after a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong. Glad we stopped over in HK. We had a good 8 hour sleep prior to taking on the next leg. We were met by Andre who will be our guide for the entire trip. Since we were not tired we began touring immediately. The first stop was the Voortrekker Monument commemorating the Dutch settlers who in 1835 began moving inland from the coastal Cape area rather than submit to British rule. In doing so t...