This week was a little bit miserable for me after getting sick and having it linger for the entire week. We definitely were not able to maximize our first week in South Africa, but we did get some activity in. The Knysna waterfront was our first stop (day 255), followed by the Knysna Heads and Coney Glen Beach (day 257). After that I had two days of feeling even worse (days 258-259), but then rallied back and we made a trip to Wilderness for kayaking and other activities (day 259).

Travel Log: Day 255 (3/9), South Africa

I slept pretty good last night and got an 84 sleep score. The effort to adjust our schedule before traveling here has really paid off. I did wake up just a bit early around 4:30, but that’s pretty normal for me anymore.

We started school at 8:30am after letting the kids sleep in. AC is working on systems of equations problems and needed my help. The first problem I figured out with no issue and I was able to get her on the right path towards finding the solution herself. The second problem though took me the entire morning up until lunch time to work through.

After lunch I started feeling kind of crappy, like I am getting a cold. JC and AC are also feeling the same way, but BC is better now after only a couple days of a runny nose. I’m hoping that’s how it goes for the rest of us, and that we don’t end up with something worse from that dick who was sick on our flights.

We walked down to the water front area and checked out the shops and restaurants down there. The walk matched my expectations; asked for money one time, saw one guy pissing on the sidewalk, but overall uneventful. I’m glad we have a car because it’s not good for us to be walking very far anywhere around here.

I was able to observe the “parking attendant” situation by the water front. It will be easy enough, with some officially unofficial guys waving you into spots who you then tip to keep an eye on your car. It’s a game I don’t mind playing, and it sounds like these guys are actually useful and do watch your car.

On the way back to our condo we stopped at Checkers to get another round of groceries, and this time it was only $41.33. We ate at home and had Fajitas. The good quality at-home food is really appreciated after the lack of options in Sri Lankan grocery stores.

Travel Log: Day 256 (3/10), South Africa

I slept good last night, and felt pretty good this morning in terms of energy. AC and I are still sick though, so we didn’t go anywhere today except a small grocery run. JC made us chicken noodle (nochi) soup for dinner which is always nice to have when sick.

School was the usual today, and I worked on getting caught up on things as time allowed.

I sent a followup email to Air Seychelles about reimbursement for delay related costs. This weekend I’ll submit the claim to Chase if I don’t hear from them.

JC and I booked our safari trip to Addo Elephant National Park. We will spend one night in an Airbnb near the park, since it will take 4 hours to drive there.

I also got in a fair amount of Spanish today between Duolingo and Dreaming Spanish, and I wrote my Thailand reflections.

Travel Log: Day 257 (3/11), South Africa

JC and I both slept great last night. I didn’t wake up until almost 6am and I got an 88 score. I felt pretty good the first half of the day, but in the afternoon I was getting pretty wiped out again.

In the afternoon we went to the Knysna Heads overlook, sort of accidentally with the intention of going to Coney Glen Beach. Google maps navigated us to a lookout point which turned out to be one of the heads. We talked to the parking attendant, which was our first experience with one of these guys. He told us what we would find over at the lookout, and it would have been cool but it was fogged over. That’s apparently very unusual according to a local woman who was escorting some people from England.

After we came back the lot guy told us how to get to the beach. I tipped him 20 ZAR and he seemed appreciative of it. We drove down to the beach, and there was another parking lot and another attendant. This one wasn’t in the official red vest and there are signs saying only the red vest guys can accept tips. I played the game and treated him as official since he was the only guy there. He pointed us to the very obvious trail, and we went to the beach. The beach was incredible which large jagged rock formations, really nice sand and water, and just great scenery with the heads towering above. For much of the time we had the beach to ourselves as well.

In the evening we had tacos for dinner and stayed around the condo.

Travel Log: Day 258 (3/12), South Africa

Today I felt worse than I did the past couple, and my nose was running all day. I didn’t feel up to doing much of anything today, and besides helping with math and doing some Spanish I didn’t do a lot. Later in the evening I felt motivated to wrap up our taxes so we filed those. I was only hesitating thinking about what might go wrong filing those away from home, but whether that is done now or in April doesn’t matter much.

JC and BC took the trash out in the afternoon and a lady outside the gate asked if she could go through our trash to look for food. She was already digging in a trash bag someone had left out of the locked trash area, and eating out of it. JC said no because there honestly is nothing in there since we don’t throw away food. JC took her a bag of food from the house containing a couple hard boiled eggs, two bananas, a bag of potato chips, and two cans of tuna.

Travel Log: Day 259 (3/13), South Africa

I’m still pretty sick today, although I feel a little better than yesterday. This cold has been relatively low grade, but it’s hanging in there for the full length of time. We were considering going back to the beach but I wasn’t up for it.

We started school a little late as we all slept in. I was pretty busy during math helping both AC and BC, as has been the case all week. Typically they rarely need my help but it’s all hitting at once now.

I did a fair amount of Duo and Dreaming Spanish but didn’t do anything else productive.

Travel Log: Day 260 (3/14), South Africa

I’m still feeling kind of crappy today, but felt the urge to get out and do something. We went to Wilderness and spent the day doing things around there. In the evening the kids did screen time, and JC and I watched a really bad documentary about the Marines on Netflix.

Travel Log: Day 261 (3/15), South Africa

I slept good last night and I’m starting to feel better. This illness hasn’t turned out to be settling into my chest very deeply which is great. My cough is already getting much better and I think I’ll be back to 100% for our trip to Addo.

We were mostly around the condo today. I got the travel delay reimbursement documentation together to submit to Chase. I’m not sure when I’ll submit that, but I think I want to give Air Seychelles one more week to respond to my request for reimbursement. Aside from that I did an hour of Duolingo, and asked Claude to make me practice materials for the most common phrases we’ll encounter in Spanish.

At this point, I know that no matter what I do I’ll still be working toward A2 when Barcelona rolls around. I won’t be able to hear and respond to everything I could possibly encounter, so I’m going to cheat and give myself a bunch of memorized and practiced phrases. The encouraging thing is that I could mostly come up with these sentences given enough time to think. That doesn’t work in the real world though, and I need statements I can fire off without thinking.

We did some school planning and additional planning for our Addo trip in the evening. We are going to maximize our time there by entering a different part of the park for a hike the day we drive up, and then go up to the main park and do a self drive safari that same day. This will give us two full days in the park.