SOUTH AFRICA - PART 1

We are extremely grateful to be in this magnificent country.  It's our third time touring South Africa and yet, sometimes it still feels like it's our first.  I get that feeling every time I come to Africa.  We've only spent about 13 months in the Motherland. Mostly in Kenya and South Africa, but also Botswana, Uganda and Egypt.  Africa is so big and so diverse it doesn't even feel like we scratched the surface. 

​The more time I spend here, the more I see how much I don't know. 

This tour is more regional than the previous cross country tours we did in 2013 and 2017.  Instead of living backpackers to backpackers, we are going to base ourselves between the Garden Route and Cape Town. 

The Garden Route is a beautiful drive that reminds me of the Pacific Coast Highway in California or HWY 101 in Oregon Country.  The Garden Route goes east to west starting in Cape Town all the way to Port Elizabeth. ​

Our first AirBnb is located in Wilderness, which is right in the middle of the Garden Route.

Katie and the baby are doing great.  The pregnancy is normal and we are so happy to be here right now.  We are both nesting pretty hard right now.  It still doesn't feel real that we're going to live in a house for 5 months...  Our bodies are still slowly winding down from the road. 

Last month we had a midwife appointment at our house.  I walked out to greet our midwife and immediately heard (not just her American accent) but a mid-western accent.  An American accent is easily identifiable to a lot of people around the world (mostly because of pop culture).  When she told me she was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin - living and working in South Africa, I knew there was a good chance we might have some things in common.

Our midwife told us about how her her best friend saved up some money, quit their jobs and flipped a coin to decide where they were going to spend the next year of their lives.  Heads is Vietnam, tails in South Africa.  Tails is was.  It didn't even take the full year for them to realize that they wanted to live in (the Garden Route of) South Africa so they went home, saved more money, came back out here and bought a beautiful plot of land on top of a mountain.  Her and her husband grow their own food and live in  one of the many communities that are rooted in African village life. 

Our midwife was one of the few people who totally understood why we came to South Africa to have our baby.  She understood so much that she didn't even ask any questions.  She laughed because she said she would do the same thing too. 

It's been nice playing shows along this beautiful coast.  I love the South African music scene.  I'm blessed to feel welcomed here.  The music and story lines go deep here.  Those lines of communication run through the veins that travel the length of this vast continent.

We are blessed to be a witness.

To be continued...