The Indian Ocean & South Africa

 We recently put down a deposit on a cruise from the Seychelles to Sri Lanka.  It will truly be a unique 'bucket list' experience.  When you get to Sri Lanka, you are halfway around the world from Colorado.  To get home, you can either fly east or west.

First stop will be Washington, DC, to visit family.  Second leg of the trip goes from DC to Dubai.  A direct flight from the US East coast is about 13 hours.  I hoped to break that up into two segments, but the other choices did not work out.  More stops would make it more interesting, but we don't have time for that with a fixed cruise date, so the 13-hour flight is it.  We have time for three days in Dubai and four days at Mahe Island before the cruise.  Dubai should be an amazing city.

Crossing the equator by air, we will arrive at the town of Victoria, capital of the Seychelles, and explore Mahe Island by rental car; then we embark on a small ship cruise through the Seychelles and Maldives, arriving at Colombo, Sri Lanka, fifteen days later.

Disembarking at Colombo, we spend the next eleven nights on the island nation of Sri Lanka (1/4 the size of Colorado) checking out the central hill country with tea plantations and also the southern beaches.  We have had difficulty getting detailed information on the train system; taxis have been recommended instead.  Then it is time to fly again.  We have decided to head south, instead of east toward Singapore.  We originally were going to do Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, and San Francisco on our way home, but those are all big cities, not our favorite destinations.

Dawn has become interested in Cape Town; thus, we redirected our trip in that direction. We fly back to Dubai for one night, re-cross the equator, and fly to Cape Town, South Africa.  While there we plan to visit the sights around Cape Town, tour the wine country, and fly to Port Elizabeth and enjoy game drives from a safari lodge. Safari lodges need to be booked well in advance.  We will be there thirteen days total.  Reservations for getting home to Colorado were paused to consider the choices.

How to get home?  The most obvious choice would be a sixteen-hour flight directly to the US East Coast, but 16 hours is so long!  I went to Kayak.com and other travel sites looking for other options.  No luck.  Then I went to our world globe and stretched a string (dental floss) from Cape Town to Denver.  The path shown stretches from southeast Atlantic Ocean to the northeast coast of Brazil, eastern edge of the West Indies, crossing the US coast at the Florida-Georgia border.  Dividing that distance to the US into halves puts us in Brazil.

I discovered that we could fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil, 8 1/2 hours and spend a few days there.  That flight only goes a few times per week.  From there we have choices: Fly to Miami 8 1/2 hours plus 4/1/2 hours to Denver.  Or fly to Panama City, Panama, 7 hours plus 6 hours further to Denver.    The Miami route is an overnight flight, leaving late in the evening, while the Panama City route is a 5 AM departure. Then I found a daytime 10AM flight: 10 hours to Atlanta plus 3 1/2 to Denver.  We choose the daytime route through Atlanta; easier to coordinate with our hotel stay and gets us home sooner.  Besides, Dawn never sleeps even on a nighttime flight.

For a trip like this, it is basically, now or never.  We are fortunate to be healthy enough for planning such a lengthy undertaking.  I picked the cruise; Dawn picked the South Africa destination.  It would be ridiculous to not spend time in Sri Lanka after the long haul to get there.  Eight weeks will be needed; now, can we get someone to pick up our mail while gone?

Total distance traveled will be just over 30,000 miles (not counting local travel); more than a round-the-world flight.  We do not fly economy at our ages. Seven currencies to be used:  US dollar, Emirati Dirham, Seychelles Euro, Maldivian Rufiyaa, Sri Lankan Rupee, South African Rand, and Brazilian Real.  Fortunately, a credit card will cover most of those expenses without requiring currency conversion.