Hope you're all doing well. Thanks for your e-mail notes - it was great to hear from many of you. Since our last e-mail, we've had many more great adventures. We went on a 12 day safari in Tanzania, visiting Tarangire National Park, Lake Eyasi, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti. We saw all the major animals including lion, rhino, elephant, leopard, buffalo, cheetah, wildebeast, zebra, hippos, crocodiles, and giraffes. One of the highlights was seeing a lion actually killing and eating a zebra. We also got to hunt with the Hadza tribe (commonly called bushmen) near Lake Eyasi. They are one of the few peoples left on Earth who still live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. We saw them kill an impalla with a poison arrow and butcher, cook, and eat it. Although we were camping on the safari, it was actually quite luxurious, and it was nice to have good food to eat.

After the safari we took a bus ride down to Dar es Salaam and then a boat ride to the beautiful and exotic island of Zanzibar, also known as the Spice Island. We explored the small winding streets of Stone Town, an area with a lot of history and Muslim, Arab, Indian, and Portugese influences. We sampled the many spices around the island, swam with Dolphins, went scuba diving and snorkelling (off tiny primitive dhows made from logs, rope, and rice sacks for sails). We also spent a couple days relaxing on some isolated and beautiful white sand beaches.

Next we caught a plane from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town South Africa. It was nice to be back in a developed country where we could finally do laundry, call home, buy supplies, and drink the water. Cape Town is a beautiful city, located at the base of a flat-topped mountain, appropriately named Table Mountain. We climbed Table Mountain and had some incredible views of the city and Cape Point (the Cape of Good Hope). We also visited Robben Island and saw the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for something like 14 of his many years in prison. The tour was very powerful and was led by a former political prisoner at the prison (it's now a museum). We also went wine tasting and hiked around the Cape of Good Hope. We visited a township, a former squatter community where many blacks still live in poverty and are trying to overcome the injustices of apartheid. The de facto segregation that still exists was striking. Finally, we went cliff jumping (even Wendi jumped from the small one!) and rappelled down a 65 meter waterfall.

After a week in Cape Town, we drove up the West coast to Namibia. On the way we stopped by a great windsurfing spot in South Africa where Steve got his butt kicked trying to windsurf in 36-40 knot winds. After that thrashing we continued on to Namibia where we visited Fish River Canyon (similar in appearance and 2nd in size only to the Grand Canyon) and the beautiful 300 meter high red sand dunes of the Namib Desert. Namibia is a beautiful country with one of the lowest population densities in the world - 1.5 people/square km. No need for traffic reports in this country! On our way back to Cape Town, we stopped in the Kalahari region in South Africa, near the Namibian border, where we did another game drive. Our Toyota Corolla (and us) survived all the unpaved and desolate roads in this region. Wendi even survived 4 nights of camping!

Now we're back in Cape Town and leave tomorrow for a 2 week trek in Nepal and then a month in India. We'll be checking e-mail, so send us notes to let us know how you're all doing. We'll probably send another update from India. Until then, all our best.

Steve and Wendi