[Originally published: September 5, 2012] Exactly five years ago today, on September 4, 2007, I boarded a plane in Charleston, SC and ensued a 32 hour journey with the ultimate destination of Whittlesea, South Africa. What laid in South Africa was a friend and his family, who lived on a farm and took me in as one of their own. The Harrison Farm served as a home-base for my South African travels, and was the first stop on my southern hemisphere tour, which also included Australia and Chile, South America.
A trip that was at first a superfluous trip just to visit the other side of the world, turned into one of the most amazing experiences of my life. To this day, five years later, I am still realizing some of the experiences from my travels that forever changed me as a person.
During my trip, which lasted from Sept 4th thru November 13th, 2007, I kept a blog for all my family and friends back home. I did my best to update it often with info and photos of all I was experiencing so far away. My hope was to extend my adventures to everyone through my words and through my images. As you can only imagine, what I wrote and what I photographed paled in comparison to what I actually experienced.
Now, five years later, it seemed only fitting that I do a five year anniversary revisit and re-edit of this momentous event, a sort of 'redux.' I've come a long way in my photography, and although I cannot change the composition of the photos I took five years ago, I can edit them as I would now. I also hope that by going through thousands of old photos, I will be able to see them in some new light, and at the very least, remember the moments that I have forgotten.
I plan to do my best to match the dates that I posted blog posts back in 2007 and post new photos or re-edits from the same portions of my trip. And of course, I hope that maybe you'll take the time to read my words from so long (or not so long) ago.
Unfortunately, my first blog entry wasn't so exciting, as I was still traveling out of the country. But, a plan is a plan, right?
Here's to the kick off of a new blog series: 'The Big Trip Redux.'
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - Adios Chucktown
So exactly five years ago today, I was sitting in the Atlanta airport [ironic…] nervously/excitedly awaiting to board my transatlantic flight to South Africa. 18 hours (plus an hour-long pit stop to refuel in Dakar, Senegal) sounds painful on a flight, right?? Wrong. I somehow acquired a first class ticket for that flight. Yeah, that's really the only way to do it. Oh, but then there was another 2 hour flight from Jo'burg to East London, South Africa, and then a two hour car-ride to get us to Whittlesea, South Africa, my final destination for the moment. Whew… I do remember that being a long day.
So, my re-edit comes from my farewell photo to Chucktown (Charleston,) the (at the time) less than a year old Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge. Oh, it was so pretty… (And yes, the sky really was red that night.)
