Daydreaming about Africa...

So as I mentioned in my second blog post, I am flying off to southern Africa at the end of next month to visit a close friend.  This will actually be my second time on that continent, as I studied abroad (with this same friend, I might add) in the fall of my junior year at NYU in Ghana (2009).  If you'd like more details about that experience, I actually have an old blog that I kept while I was there: http://katianajones.blogspot.com/
I have to apologize in advance for my writing in that one, as I was usually in a hurry (we had very limited internet) and most of it came out in stream-of-consciousness. 

What's funny is that before going to Ghana, I had this idea in my head of what most of Africa was like.  I pictured going on a safari, visiting ancient archaeological sites, and living out in a hut in the wilderness.  But of course what I experienced was completely different, and something I still have a hard time explaining.  I am aware of what most people imagine when I do describe particular places or events, since- and I know I'm using a cliche here- you really have to have been there to know what it was like.  Let me just share with you some highlights:

  

Canopy walk in Kakum National Park

Seeing people carry things like this every time I walked down the street, like it was no big deal.

   

Seeing these awesome lizards running around!

Swimming under a 70 meter high
waterfall (the tallest in West Africa)

Learning an ancient warrior dance

Getting bit by a monkey at a zoo

View on the beach at sunset

And now that I'm going to Botswana and South Africa, I will finally get to do what I had dreamed about my entire life.  I will get to see some of the wildlife that is unique to the African continent.  That's not all, of course; I plan to visit some archaeologically significant sites, museums, and whatever else my friend Daniella has in store for us.  Although we have not settled on a schedule yet, I have a basic idea of what I hope to do:

1. Spend time in Maun, the capital city of Botswana, where Daniella currently lives
2.  Take a canoe trip along the Okavango Delta 
3. Visit Chobe National Park, home of hundreds of elephants as well as other wildlife
3.  Travel to Johannesburg and stay with another of our friends from the NYU Ghana program who happens to live there
4. Visit Nelson Mandela's house, the Apartheid museum, and whatever else is recommended in that city
5. Take a day trip to the Cradle of Humankind, home of some of the oldest hominin fossils ever found
6.  Possibly travel down to Lesotho, the Switzerland of Africa, to go hiking
7. Visit Cape Town (where dwell the only penguins on the African continent!)

I leave San Francisco on Saturday August 24th, arriving in Johannesburg on Sunday evening.  I then leave Johannesburg on Tuesday, September 10, arriving back in San Francisco on Wednesday morning.  :)