Traveler’s Journal: One Month in Africa, Top to Bottom
Published 5:30 pm Tuesday, March 3, 2026
We have been very lucky to travel a lot, but this is the rare trip we want to do again. We designed our own itinerary for four of us, through Mo at Traveldiscounters.us in Toronto.
Cairo was massive, noisy, chaotic, jammed with history, cars, motorcycles, trucks and donkey carts piled twice their height with garbage, produce, building materials, etc. You can buy almost anything in the huge ancient bazaar, or they will quickly run down the streets and get it. There are four-thousand-year-old pyramids, sphinxes, and also the immense new museum the size of 75 football fields.
There was a Nile River cruise; The Valley of the Kings; ancient temples; tombs; a 3 a.m. sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Luxor temple; and the 5-10-mile-wide swath of irrigated green fields along the river, with desert stretching to the horizons beyond. The Aswan Dam flooded many villages and led to moving entire immense temples, such as Abu Simbel, to higher ground.
Kenya: the Great Rift Valley, Lake Naivasha, Masai Mara with cheetahs, warring herds of buffalo, elephants, giraffes, lions, leopards, etc. We visited the very basic home of the chief and competed with the warriors hopping as high as possible with an entire fox head and fur on our heads.
We were lucky to have optimal water flow at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and see them well up close, thundering and beautiful. Sweating men push mountain bikes loaded with hundreds of pounds of copper ingots across the crowded border crossings.
Chobe National Park/River, Botswana: many elephants, hippos, crocodiles, all kinds of birds, etc. Amazing guides explained local politics, culture, economy, conservation efforts, and the controversy over charging hunters to kill elderly animals, so that money could support many others.
South Africa: Johannesburg, Shiduli Private Game Lodge. We saw lion and jaguar pairs mating. Elephant herds approached our jeep, a huge bull pushed down a 3-foot-diameter tree to get to the tender roots, and a female came very close, as if offering us the large root in her trunk. A baby ran as fast as it could towards us, until a mature female ran to cut it off, and glared at us from about 50 feet away. Staring into the eyes of an elephant a few feet away is a mind-blowing experience.
Capetown: A beautiful, interesting, safe city. Our accommodations were under Tabletop Mountain, a block from the ocean, and tandem hang-gliders often flew overhead. Easy transport with Hop On/Off buses and Uber to wonderful wineries, penguin colonies, etc. Uber trips with intelligent, fun young men from “Zim,” with very clean cars, great music and conversation, who thought it was the greatest job ever. Sunset on Tabletop Mountain is a popular and awesome event. And watching from below as the clouds roll off of it like a monumental surfing wave is simply magnificent.
About the presenters
Residents of Sequim since 2008, Steve and Mirja Wilson volunteer with Sequim Wheelers and are frequent travelers. They research and design their own trips, whether biking through France, going on safaris or kicking back and enjoying a cruise.
About the series
Traveler’s Journal, a presentation of the Peninsula Trails Coalition, raises funds to buy project supplies and food for volunteers working on Olympic Discovery Trail projects. Shows start at 7 p.m. Thursdays at the Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road.
Admission is a suggested donation of $10 for adults.
For more information, or to offer to be a future presenter, email Arvo Johnson at amjcgj@gmail.com.
