Sandy and I are now flying at 37,000 feet and have we have just crossed the coast of Africa between the border of Tunisia and Libya. The turquoise water is in stark contrast with the desert city of Tripoli.
Traveling across the USA by train is an unique way to see and experience the variety and scale of the country. We broke up the journey, stretching it into a 17 day trip in August / September 2004, by stopping at Glacier National Park for five days and visiting Chicago before reaching New York City.
After spending time in national parks, arriving in a big city like Chicago was a big change. During the three days we spent here we visited several museums and saw a Chicago Cubs baseball game.
We spent three days in New York CIty seeing the major attractions, including Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Staten Island Ferry, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Times Square and the Empire State Building.
We landed in Southampton and took a short train trip to London. We spent four days there and visited Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the Cabinet War Rooms, Imperial War Museum, British Museum and the town of Greenwich.
Today, we visited the Royal Observatory in the town of Greenwich (as in “Greenwich Mean Time”) just outside of London. This is the location of the Prime Meridian or Longitude 0 degrees.
When we went on a walking tour in London, we saw some interesting things. We saw the Rosetta Stone and many cool old works of ancient times.
We are now in route from South Africa to Namibia (about 4 hours into a 21-hour bus trip). It is a fairly comfortable vehicle with 2 stories, air-conditioning, a bathroom and fairly frequent stops to stretch one’s legs.
To get to Zambia, we crossed the Zambezi River by public ferry and walked across the border.
The highlight of the second part of our Costa Rica trip was a day trip to Corcovado National Park, which provided some great hiking and nature viewing opportunities amidst the rain forest and ocean beaches.
