Around the Southern World or RTSW or better yet "The endless summer tour" Part 3

If you haven't noticed there is a lot of ocean below the Equator and by the time we get to Africa we will have crossed the Equator 3 times with another crossing at the end of our travels.

So just like the airport dance to arrive at Puerto Iguazu we need to do something similar to get to the Serengeti. Dick does not want to go to any airport near the Middle East nor Kenya so we will fly from Singapore to Johannesburg then fly to Dar es Salaam before heading to Arusha.   

During this trip there were a number of decisions to be made like do we go to Zanzibar and Madagascar. Unfortunately, we opted to not do either but Madagascar is on a future trip and maybe Zanzibar.  

We get to fly into the Kilimanjaro airport where we will be picked up before going on our safari in the Serengeti.  It appears that most of the safaris go to the same places and one is to include visiting a Masai village.

After the safari we will spend a full day exploring Dar es Salaam. Dar as the locals like to call it is similar to Frankfurt in that  it is the banking center of Tanzania. From there we will again fly to Johannesburg before catching a train to Capetown.   

I really like to travel by train whenever possible and we get a chance in South Africa. The Shosholoza Meyl Tourist Class train is a long distance, city to city, economy sleeper class passenger train travel in South Africa where we will travel to Cape Town. From other reports it is a great way to see the scenery and an excellent way to see Table Mountain when entering Cape Town. 

Unfortunately, there is not a similar train between Cape Town and our next stop in Durban.

Durban is on the Indian Ocean so the beaches in early February should be nice and warm. Remember this is part of the endless summer tour.

I had thought we would take the train back to Johannesburg from Durban but outside of the stop in Pietermaritzburg where Gandhi was removed from a train, this was where he decided to perform his first act of civil disobedience, there is not as much to see. So we will fly to Paris (via Johannesburg)  then onto SFO. We are hoping that the airport will have their new policies in place that will allow us to change planes easily.  I had hoped we would go to Amsterdam as there are number of people I would like to see again and to see the reopened Rijksmuseum. Well there is another trip to Europe in the plans so maybe then.