Hi, Gunther here.

And by popular demand…I present you Neil for some important updates.

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Hi, Neil here. Just wanted to report what I’ve been up to in the past couple of weeks…and what I’ll be up to in the next few weeks.

I just got back…well, actually at 0100 Wednesday morning…from a basically 14 day trip to Botswana for another photo workshop with Steve Perry. Essentially 10 days in country at Botswana and 2 days flying to and fro to get there and back. While I have about 50,000 images…I just wanted to give you a few quick hitters on the trip before turning things back over to the bear.

Johannesburg, South Africa…it’s a long way away. 16 hour flight and another 6 hours time change and while I left Fort Myers at 1700 or so the overnight flight left at 2330 and got into Johannesburg at 2130 the next evening. Luckily…I had a reservation at a hotel literally 40 yards from the airport exit so I went there and crashed for the evening. Next day…we had a 1400 or so flight from there to Kasane, Botswana where the actual workshop would take place. 

While under the label of Steve Perry…Pangolin Safaris was responsible for the details. On arrival in Kasane which is right on the Chobe River…we went to the lodge where we spent 3 nights and had a total of 6 boat wildlife drives along the Chobe River. It’s the dry season there so animals come down to the river to drink and we saw a leopard the first night.

After 3 nights there we flew on a bush plane to the Kanana Bush Camp…which while labeled a bush camp is actually the nicest place I’ve ever stayed outside of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. While we were there we had a total of 8 game drives 3-4 hours in length and saw a whole passle of wildlife. 

Flying back to Kasane…we went across the Chobe River and entered Namibia where Pangolin has registered houseboat which we lived on for 3 days including 6 more boat rides. The first afternoon and morning were close to the same area we were in before but then the houseboat went about 15 miles upriver to a much less populated area for a couple rides then came back to the original mooring near Kasane. 

We then transferred back to the original lodge for lunch and then back to the airport for the flight to Johannesburg, arriving there about 1530. I stayed in the same hotel overnight and had a nice kudu (a herd hoofed animal about the size of a moose) dinner and then headed over to the airport again the next day for the flight home.

A 11 hour flight to Amsterdam, 4 hour layover, 9 hour flight to Atlanta, 6 hour layover, and 2 hour flight to Fort Myers got me home about 0100 2 days later…and I gotta admit I was pretty toasted.

Of the three places we stayed…the lodge was pretty nice…the camp at Kanana was not only the best safari camp I’ve stayed at but when evaluating it as hotel it’s in second place all time after the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. The food at all three venues was excellent but Camp Kanana was the winner of the three.

Ok, that’s a few quick hitters, I’ve got 50,000 images to go through so I’ll have them up…eventually.

Back to the bear here.

Ok…lemme talk about the schedule a bit. Neil’s going to work on photos but to be honest it’s pretty low on the priority list, Lemme look at what is on the list.

-Connie’s breast cancer surgery on Tuesday, this would normally be top of the list but has been bumped #2 based on schedule.

We got new iPad Pros today…and since we have trade ins they only have 2 weeks. So…Neil work on them over the weekend and get the returns ready to go back.

Then she has her surgery on Tuesday.

In the meantime…he has the following on his priority list.

We’re in the middle of a tech upgrade at home…new wifi…new iPads, new printer (our old one died)…and then finally we’ll be able to work on photos. Neil’s going to try a new culling regime this time…but to be realistic you probably won’t see those photos until September.

Cyas.