Playing Catch-Up

I’ve been remiss in updating the blog, so here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to in the past year or so.

We got the remainder of our Africa trip posted on the web site:

We stayed at the beautiful Kambi ya Tembo tented camp near Sinya in Tanzania. From there, we went on wildlife drives and a bush walk. The highlight was visiting two authentic Maasai villages and being a part of their ceremonial celebrations.

This was the real deal. Craig drank some of their home-brew and we ate freshly slaughtered beef. I danced with the women. We also visited a Maasai market. We learned so much through the experience.

In Rwanda, we did some trekking to see mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. We visited Group 13 (which at the time had the youngest baby gorilla in Virungas National Park, at just 2 weeks old)

and the Sabyinyo Group, which had the largest silverback male, at 220 kg (around 450 pounds).

We got very close to the gorillas and they were amazing. A juvenile even touched me as he ran past! It was a very humbling experience.

We also visited the Kigali Memorial Centre. Through its exhibits and frank discussions with our guide Johnson, we learned a lot about the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in terms of political events and anecdotal accounts of the tragedy suffered by residents. The emotions it elicited were in stark contrast to the gorilla experience, but it was very interesting and educational. We felt that we could not in good conscience visit this country without paying respect to its recent tragic past.

At Thanksgiving, we visited our pal Marty in St Thomas for the 7^th year in a row. We all enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner made by Carly, Sean, and Ann.

We enjoyed the traditional Cap’n Marty’s Island Hop, which we hadn’t been able to do the previous year due to uncooperative weather. And Marty introduced us to the fabulous Schnitzel Haus. Mmmmm…veal!

In December of 2006, we visited St Lucia for the wedding of our dear friends Tom and Karen. The ceremony was beautiful, and we were so happy to be able to be there for their special day.

We stayed in Rodney Bay Village, and befriended some local Rastas. One of them (Ania) went on a day trip with us, showing us around the island. We really enjoyed the local flavor. Our nightly hangout was a Chinese restaurant called Double Happiness, and we capped off the trip with a scuba dive.

Over 4^th of July, 2007, we visited our friend Humberto in Panajachel, Guatemala. We stayed with him and his lovely family – his wife Paulina and their 5 daughters between the ages of 2 and 12.

Humberto took us on some tours of the villages surrounding Lake Atitlan (tours which are available to the public through his family business, Lago Aventura Tours), and we got to spend a lot of quality time with the family. They gave us the honor of asking us to be godparents to 2 year old Aracely, so we are quite happy to be going back to visit in November for her baptism.

Then, over Labor Day, we visited Tom and Karen in Fort Myers. We had a great time hanging out and visiting Sanibel Island. We haven’t had a chance to get this trip onto the site yet, but we will soon!

As always, see our main site http://www.craigandstephsvacations.com
for full details of these trips!