This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Details of a dream safari holiday enjoyed by the Van Assouw family before the fatal plane crash that killed all 103 passengers except nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw emerged today in his father's travel blog.

Ruben is recovering in hospital, surrounded by flowers with a stuffed orange Tigger under his arm, not knowing his parents and brother died in the disaster on Wednesday as the family returned to the Netherlands from South Africa.

Ruben has spoken briefly to his aunt and uncle, who flew to his bedside after he was found, still strapped to his seat, semiconscious and bleeding from wounds to his legs, about half a mile from the tail section of the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330-200 which came down short of the runway in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

"He's awake. He's talking. He is listening," a Dutch foreign ministry official, Ed Kronenburg, told Associated Press after visiting the boy. "Of course he also sleeps quite a lot because he got anaesthesia and is still a bit dizzy."

Ruben and his 11-year-old brother, Enzo, had travelled with their parents, Trudy and Patrick, who were celebrating their 12-and-a-half-year wedding anniversary, a Dutch tradition.

Patrick van Assouw, 40, set up his blog before the family holiday began. "The boys have been counting the days and minutes and can't wait. Just three more nights' sleep, boys!," he wrote in an entry dated 23 April.

The trip began on a rough note. Ruben was sick on the plane to South Africa, and on the first day of the safari he "puked the car full", Patrick wrote on his blog.

But the family soon made their way through South Africa, across the border into Swaziland, and finally into the mountainous nation of Lesotho before they turned for home.

"We ran into a very large number of impalas, which we nicknamed deers," Patrick wrote. "Enzo's second find was the elephant. Also saw buffalo, gnu, fox, zebra, more deer, ostrich, a lot of birds, turtle, giraffe, apes, boar, more deer."

The family also encountered two rhinoceroses and the day before they boarded the ill-fated return flight Patrick wrote that they had seen a hippopotamus.

After changing a flat tyre at a desolate spot near Sani Pass, which connects South Africa and Lesotho, the family stood on a remote bluff overlooking a stunning panorama of Lesotho. It was 9 May, the final day of the safari. "Beautiful Mother's Day gift," Patrick wrote in his final entry.

Ruben is said to be recovering well after four and a half hours of surgery to repair multiple fractures to his legs. Dutch officials said he could be flown back to the Netherlands this weekend.

A bouquet of white flowers wrapped in pink tissue was propped against the door of the Van Assouw's home in Tilburg, south of Amsterdam.

At the crash site, the debris included a romance novel, Zoete Tranen – or Sweet Tears – open at page 225, a charred boot, a black high-heeled shoe and a motorcycle jacket with Marlboro and Ferrari logos.

Dutch officials helping to identify victims of the crash say 70 of their citizens are among the dead.

Two Britons with dual nationality are known to have died. One was Nigel Peter, a senior manager with AirQuarius Aviation, a Johannesburg-based charter company, who was married with one son. The other has not been identified.

A third UK casualty, Priscilla Collick, a 52-year-old mother of two from Swansea who had lived in Britain for nearly 30 years, is reported to have been a South African national.