Preparing for the next expedition

It's been a while since our last post. We've been making preparations for our travels for the rest of 2006.

We head off to southern Africa at the end of June, going to South Africa, Zambia, and Botswana. We bought a couple of safari vests to hold our camera gear during our game drives/hikes. The vests make us look like dorks, but who cares? Taking along a lot of old khaki clothes as well. Do the animals really care what we look like?

It's going to be winter down there, so we expect something like LA's winter when we're in Cape Town and then cool, dry weather everywhere else.

The fellow from Southern Hemisphere Wines gave us some useful suggestions about wineries to visit in the Cape Town area and wines to order with meals while there.

In October, we're still planning to do a B&R bike trip thru Puglia, Italy and include a pre-trip for four days in Tuscany and a post-trip for two days in Rome. We've been bicycling along the South Bay beach trail for 20+ miles every week to keep our rear ends in shape.

Then in late November we're taking the kids to Peru for eight days and visiting Lima, Cusco, Arequipa (Colca Canyon), and Machu Picchu. First time the family will take a trip together since we went to Hawaii when the kids were still in high school.