I haven't been blogging lately because I've just been exhausted. This trip to Edmonton started out as what I thought would be a two week visit to get myself reacquainted here (I thought I would fly home on Valentine's Day), and it ended up a whole lot more. I've made a lot of big decisions and choices about my future, changed my mind thirty or forty times, stayed at a friend's house, then stayed at my cousin's house, then moved back to my friend's house, and oh yah....booked and planned a trip to Africa for a month.
It started as me researching a trip to Oman to Israel. Then I realized that would be shaking up my boat too much. I was too unfamiliar and although it would be an amazing experience, I need something that I was at least partially familiar with. And Johannesburg and Cape Town are both places I have frequented enough to know the dos and don'ts. Zimbabwe...is a country I'm a bit nervous about, but I will have a greeter at the Vic Falls airport from my hotel, have two nights solo at my hotel and from there on, it's guided tour for 21 nights, and then 5 nights solo in Cape Town. I'm thinking of taking a few days tours with the same company because they are affordable and reliable.
It feels equally as surreal to be typing this - that I'm spending a month in Africa, as it does to be in Edmonton. There are days were I feel like I have this heartbreak handled, but in the last couple of weeks, I don't. I know that there are phases of breakups, and I'm certainly in the depression phase. I am very sad. I am very tired. I know that things will be ok. I know that I will be ok. But right now, I'm in mourning and just sad. And I'm tired, because for the first three weeks I was here, I was doing a lot and going through a lot and now it caught up to me. I went to my doctor who assured me this is normal. And I hope being back in Africa, and being in the fresh air, and seeing the wildlife, and camping, will have a positive effect on me. I'm quite tired of being sad. I want to look forward to something. So I will look forward to my first sight of Victoria Falls. And I will look forward to that first shower after long days of travelling to get there.
Until then...here's one last map of my road to be traveled. Yep. Africa was calling really, really hard.
