REFLECTIONS

The tour has ended, but there isn’t a day that goes by without some thoughts of the places I’ve seen and the experiences I’ve had.  I didn’t think it would be so hard to put it all into perspective, but it is. 

The best I can do is approach my reflections in levels.

First, there’s just the sheer breadth and depth of all the places we went to.   By my count, we traveled to twenty-six sites – and that’s not counting the places we stayed, or the many excellent restaurants we experienced or the several stops we made to shop!   I searched for a way to condense these sites into some sort of frame of reference and I think I found it.  The map below is from a site called Tripline.  By plugging in the locations of each site, Tripline plotted our tour stops on a map.  By adding dates, the tool sequenced the stops to give a sense of where we traveled and how far we journeyed.  Add to all that an awesome soundtrack and the ability to add narrative text and images, and you have the following multimedia experience:

So, in a little over two minutes, you got just a taste of our 14-day countrywide tour.

Now, consider that at each and every one of those sites I came away with new knowledge that helped me fill in some pieces of this complex puzzle that is South Africa.  At the same time, every one of these sites raised questions and gave me something more to consider.  More on this to follow...