Hi Joan, I enjoyed your earlier post , knowing that you are the MOST traveled member of our group, to the MOST exotic places … lucky you. 

 I guess I really wish I could be in the Havana of yesteryear, not the relic it is today. To be doing the mambo to Prez Prado  while watching Meyer Lansky and Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner at a nearby table … the decadence and fun, never to be repeated. But I like the idea of opening the country to Americans once again.

Oh my gosh - Dora!! Big hi’s .   .   . and from my own experience when life has dealt some cruel blows, start planning one of those journeys now as the reading, the planning is so much part of the whole experience.  It is also "the carrot" that we all need to fulfill our dreams.  Let me know if it will be the best of the best - Namibia/Botswana combination as so much of your enjoyment is in the guide who knows that you want to get into out-of-the-way almost "secret" places that only one born and raised there will know so well.  I know that person - a person who has written coffee table books on that piece of the world.  Down there you can travel close to animals in small open-topped cars - not like the zoo of Kenya experience.  YOU are alone in this wilderness and will see African animals that are not seen elsewhere.  Have you heard of the desert elephant that goes right to the Atlantic shore in Namibia?  The mountain zebra who is mostly seen in the heights?  I am a reptile afictionado as you know, and my goal was a spitting cobra close range.  The guide had never had anyone ask to search for one before - but my dreams were answered, letting a couple of us see him spit his venom at close range.  Incredible. 

And I have never ever seen or heard of a lion digging a cave at a water hole that drew all the the larger animals in Namibia — and yet we saw and photographed this phenomenom.  Lying hidden like a sniper in a fox hole, he observed the animal world in front of him, planning his move.  Well, off and running for prey several times and thank God he did not win out as I cannot stand death.  But our photos are of behavior rare in lions and in isolated Namibia we were alone for this event. 

In Botswana it is all tenting, with hippos coming out of the Okavango Delta at night to graze.  Looking out, we were always surrounded by hippos, some brushing against the tent in their quest for greenery.  The thrills never stopped, nor did our memories.

As for New Zealand, I always thought it might be wonderful to live with such gentility and in such beautiful surroundings with so much to see and do outdoors.  The South Island - and I love Christchurch as a city - is the greatest attraction but nothing is too far away.  But we all know on trips that the added plus is the "people element" - and sometimes, it is those moments when we connect so well with another in a faraway place that provides that flash of memory that causes us to smile long after.

Dora, your choices are such good ones that you can’t go wrong - and do read and plan, using that as the carrot taking your mind off now.  When you can, get going as the charge the change of scene give is priceless.  We only live once.