The day to depart for our Africa vacation! Bob and I drive my car from Corvallis to Megan’s home in Sandy to leave in her driveway during our trip. Lunch at the house with Megan (Bob’s daughter) and Ridder (Bob’s grandson). Megan drives us to the Portland airport.
We are flying United Airlines to San Francisco. Waiting in the airport gate area are several men who are part of the Cody Johnson country band. They have finished performing locally in a nearby town called Sweet Home. We load the airplane, and the group is in first class with me. I sit next to Cody himself and Joey, the bass guitarist. They are heading for New Zealand to perform for 28 days. They are the intro band for Luke Combs who is currently very famous for performing Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Fast Car”. (Even I had heard of that piece of information, which means he is uber famous.) Internet research reports Tracy has recently earned about 500K in royalties. Not bad!
Land in SFO. Board United flight to Frankfurt. I am in business class. I have my own cubicle, movie screen and lay-down flat bed. Flight is about 11 hours. This will be comfortable! We land in Frankfurt for a seven-hour layover. We head to the business class lounge. I make several attempts to bring Bob into the lounge with me. He is flying coach and neither of us has an airline credit card that would result in a guest pass. They won’t even let him buy a day pass. He is banished to troll the airport hallways.
I connected with him in the airport before the next flight by locating him with an Apple airtag placed in his backpack. Surprised him that I found him tucked away in a corner watching a movie! Next flight will be an extra hour long because airspace over Niger is closed due to their current civil war. Business class is not as private on Lufthansa as the United flight. Still have a flatbed for this 12-hour flight. We land in Johannesburg. No forms to fill out for customs, just submit your passport to be scanned. Easy peazy. We are met by Jacob who will transport us from the airport to the Peech Hotel. It is time to nap and start adjusting to the time change. The 34 hours of total travel time takes a toll even when able to sleep on a flat bed.
Breakfast at the hotel. Meet in the lobby at 9am for a tour in the Johannesburg Art district, Maboneng Precinct. The host takes us past Mandela’s home near our hotel. He lived here towards the end of his life. Homes in the area are very large and surrounded by high stucco walls, gates, and razor wire on top of the walls.
We met up with our guide, a young artist who supports his art income by hosting tours. We begin in the downtown area by looking at “street art” – murals commissioned to be painted on buildings. Messages are hidden in the art for those who are in the know. The second location is in an art district with an artist hotel, studios, and retail shops. Our guide chats with retail store owners and explains their art and the process. The third stop is at 44 Stanley, an upscale alley way with chic high end retail shops and restaurants. Today is “Women’s Day” holiday and the restaurants are packed. Back to the hotel for lunch and a nap.
Everyone in our group has arrived at the Peech and we have dinner together. John, Larry, Cliff, Mary, and Nadia.
Breakfast at 6:30am at the hotel, van transfer to the airport at 7:30am. One hour flight to Hoedspruit. We spot baboons on and alongside the airstrip. The driver and van meet us at the airport to drive us to the Shindzela Tented Camp in the Timbavati Private Reserve. During the two-hour drive, we see wildebeest and impalas along the way.
Check in and we are assigned tent #4. 8 tents total at the camp. There is an open-air lodge for meals and lounging. Elephants are at the water hole just outside the electric fencing surrounding the camp. A good start to a good trip! We are called to lunch right away by a woman playing a drum. Then load into an open-air jeep for a 3:30pm safari ride that will last for 3-4 hours. On the lookout for animals! The jeep has heavy tires, 4-wheel drive, travels dirt and sandy roads, and cuts across the bush to get as close as possible to the animals.
Sam is the driver, and he has a tracker, Edward, that sits in a high seat located in front of the engine. No seat belt. Just hold on over the bumps and dips. They speak a tribal language between themselves and when using the radio. They communicate with other jeep drivers for alerts to find animals.
On our first drive we find elephants, hippos low in the water with their eyes and ears exposed, and a sleeping leopard. We watched the leopard for a long time. He then wakes and heads out to chase down a warthog for a meal. The three warthogs get away. The leopard walks away dejectedly. We found a pack of wild dogs right at dusk. Return to the camp in the dark. The tracker pans a floodlight back and forth across the road in the dark.
Dinner at the camp. Bed around 9pm. Milky Way is visible in the night sky. Hot water bottles tucked between the sheets to warm our feet. Lights out in the tent. It is pitch black. No smoke detector LED bulbs to give off any brightness.
Sam knocks on the door at 5:30am. Dark outside. Get ready for a 6:15am jeep ride. Hot water bottles and wool blankets on our seats. Cliff sits in the front with Sam. Bob and I are in the first tier of seats over the wheels and not as bouncy as upper rows. Spot elephants right away. We drive so close to them! One makes the trumpeting sound and widens his ears in a bluff approach.
Next, we spot a leopard in a tree with hyenas at the base. Leopard has his kill meat up in the tree and hyenas are looking for whatever drops.
A white rhino is spotted and again, we get so close. Also, a single giraffe. So tall! And several zebras. They move their tails constantly to keep flies from laying eggs on their skin.
Back to camp around 9:30am for breakfast. Retire to our tents to download photos and take a nap. Lunch at 2:30pm and the evening game drive starts at 3:30pm.
The big game drive score is seeing about 15 lions lying in the sand at the dam, sleeping after eating a kill, probably a wildebeest. We are several feet away from them. They don’t care, their bellies are full. Then, a short distance away is a male lion with part of the kill, eating and hiding the meat under the tree from the vultures sitting on a nearby tree.
We are looking for the Big 5 – called that because they are the most dangerous to hunt on foot. They are: rhinoceros, cape buffalo, leopard, lion, and elephant.
Back to camp in the dark. Dinner was served at the firepit area. Milky Way in view. Bed by 9pm.
5:30am wake up knock by Sam. Very cold this morning. Blankets and water bottles welcomed in the jeep.
Zebras, grey heron, vultures, birds, baboons, wild dogs, hyenas. Back to camp for breakfast. Then – cape buffalo come to our water hole. 6 of them. We have now seen all the Big 5 animals! Evening ride, we found 10 white rhinos!
There are no asphalt roads in the reserves. It would burn the animal’s feet in the hot summers. Dirt only.
5:30am morning wake up. Last morning ride at Shindzela. Saw various birds. A slow morning for seeing animals. Goodbye to Sam and Edward. Breakfast and then pack to leave. Pay the bill, give tips to the staff and board a van with a trailer for the luggage.
Two-and-a-half-hour drive on primarily rutted roads to Elephant Plains Lodge in Sabi Sands Reserves, adjacent to the Kruger National Park. I skip lunch and the evening ride to nap and recover from the rutted drive that made me car sick.
We are in the Lion Room. One of the worst designed rooms I’ve been in. No bathroom counter toe kick. Shower near the bed (?) puts water on the adjacent wood floor. No hooks for towel or robe next to the shower. Desk with chair that a few inches of room preventing you from scooting under the desk to work. Lighting pathetic. Lots of switches are low on the wall with small prints labels. Wardrobe cabinet next to the bed is too big and open doors catch in the mosquito netting. Toilet room at the front door. No ceiling in the small room, open to the larger high ceiling. Bathroom business reverberates throughout the entire bedroom. I could go on.
Dinner outside next to a smoky fire. Good food, but too much. We get fed about 5-6 times a day and sit for 6-7 hours of game drives. Looks like an opportunity to put on weight.
5:30 wakeup knock on the door. 6am sharp jeep departure. 7 of us, driver Darryn, and tracker in a Toyota jeep. I’m in the top tier with Mary. My camera bounced out onto the road. Luckily Mary heard it hit the ground and we stopped to recover it.
Saw kudos standing on a termite tower silhouetted in front of the rising sun. Amber warm color sky. Very pretty. Found a herd of cape buffalo. We drove into the middle of it and watched them head for the water hole. At least 100 animals, maybe more. At the water hole, the elephants departed when the buffalo arrived.
Found a small herd of elephants. Baby elephants teasing and playful with the older ones. They passed right alongside the jeep. Back to the lodge for breakfast.
Morning game drive off to a quick start. Saw 7 painted dogs on the road. “Cowboy” driver Darryn puts the pedal to the metal and heads off across the bush mowing down flimsy trees and hitting most of the bumps. Hold on for dear life! At some point, Darryn said enough and went back onto the dirt road. The tracker, Chris, heard a bleating cry nearby. Chris pointed to the left and we were off. We found four painted dogs taking down a small pregnant duiker, a small antelope. The four started devouring her and then two hyenas arrived a minute later to steal what they could. As Darryn said – it is not even 7am yet.
Found herds of antelope, kudos, a beautiful young leopard lounging by the side of the road, a giraffe and two large brother lions. 3 jeeps surrounded the brothers watching their lazy activities. They meandered around, rolled in buffalo dung to hide their scent. Nearby, a herd of impalas could smell the two lions and were skittish.
In addition to an impressive array of animals this morning, Darryn, having taken a Toyota jeep driving class: 1) Mows down trees, drives through the deep sand of a dry riverbed, drives over dead trees and breaks them up, drives along the water hole at a 30-degree slope angle (scary) and he drives with confidence. 2) There is a long-handled club with a golf club wood size head kept on the dash for safety. Darryn is a trained and certified tracker. 3) Our additional tracker, Chris. He sits on a seat forward of the engine with a metal arm rest. Somehow, he magically never falls out of that seat. He directs Darryn, the driver, by voice and hand signals. They also communicate by radio with other jeeps. They all speak a Zulu tribal language between themselves.
Back to the lodge for breakfast and a nap. This is also the only time to write in the journal. Nap? Or journal? Somedays it’s a tough choice!
Afternoon game drive. Quiet drive. A little windy and the animals are sheltering. Went back and found the brother lions again, sleeping. Darryn played animal sound from his iPhone. Nothing roused them from sleep.
Shortened animal drive this morning because of our 8:40am departure. Darryn drove the jeep in the riverbed of sand. Other radio drivers laughed that he might have to get towed out. We didn’t get stuck. Yeah Darryn!
Went in search of a female leopard who moved her newborn cubs to a den from the shower area of a local residence. Didn’t find her. We drove along the perimeter road where you can see the reserve fencing with electricity and heavy-duty wire to prevent local townies from cutting in to hunt for animals. Animals in the reserves are habituated to jeeps and people. Someone coming in to kill them would surprise them. On the road back to the hotel, we spotted a mother and baby giraffe. A sweet photo finish.
Load luggage into a van and head south to the Kruger Airport and a flight to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. I sat in the front of the van so I wouldn’t get carsick. Because we were apparently running late, the driver sped through the countryside adjacent to banana plantations to get us there in time. We did and the flight lasts 90 minutes. In Victoria Falls, we are met by Frank who drives us 20-30 minutes to Batonka Guest House. A small property with 24 rooms. Bob and I are in room #1. Dinner at the guest house dining room at 7pm.
We all took the hotel shuttle to Victoria Falls National Park. $50 entrance fee per person. We walked the designated path stopping at the 15 or so lookouts. The full width of the falls was revealed slowly with each stop. Mist rising from the gorge made 2-3 of the stops very drizzly and wet. You can rent ponchos for the walk, we didn’t. The amount of water moving over the falls is phenomenal. The last stop overlooked the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Lunch was at the Overlook Café. We got a table by the railing overlooking the deep gorge and bridge. Before ordering food, four of us (Bob, me, John, and Larry) rode the zipline across the gorge. When I stood on the platform to go, I looked down into the gorge and wondered why I was doing this. They hooked me on the line and was pushed off in tandem with Bob across the gorge. We went speeding down and back until coming to a stop. A man, whose job it is to slowly zip out across the gorge, reached us to tether us to a pulley to bring us back to the platform. Wow! Bob still can’t believe I did it. Time for lunch!
John, Larry, Mary and Nadia went for a helicopter ride above the falls. John took a few fabulous photos showing the immensity of the falls. Bob, Cliff, and I were dropped at the historic Victoria Falls Hotel, a classic 1910 British hotel. We wandered around the property. In the distance, we could see the mist of the falls rising above ground level. Poinsettia bushes are in full bloom – big red blossoms. We walked from the Victoria Falls Hotel to the Batonka Guest House through town, getting mildly lost. Back to the hotel to rest and then dinner at 7pm.
Pack our bags for 1.5-hour drive on good roads to get to Kasane, Botswana to cross borders. We left Zimbabwe, entered Botswana, exited Botswana, and entered Namibia. The soles of our shoes had to be dipped in an iodine solution in Botswana to prevent spread of hoof and mouth disease. The iodine bath looked filthy with dirt from many pairs of shoes preceding us. The many border crossings and passport stampings and transfer of luggage from one vehicle to another got tedious. Last transfer was to the Chobe Princess II for our 3-day river cruise on the Chobe River that separates Botswana from Namibia.
The five bedroom, 3 story houseboat is all ours! All bedrooms on the first level. We are in Room #2. Dining, lounge, deck, and small pool on second level. Viewing deck and captain’s wheelhouse on the third level. We were served lunch and then departed at 3:30pm for a flat-bottomed tender boat river cruise to see animals. Hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, elephants, one female lion and a wide assortment of birds were seen. The smooth ride of the boat is a whole lot different from the hang on for your life bumpy jeep rides!
We saw a group of elephants – young and old – walking and swimming across the river. They hold their trunks above the water line to breathe.
Cliff and I shared a small bottle of sparkling wine which is always placed in the room, his room, at the bow of the boat. The chef prepares very good meals. He introduces the menu before each meal. A nice tradition on this houseboat.
We docked in Elephant Bay for the night. Slept like a log. Bed is very comfortable. Can’t drink the water. Tap water has a green/brown color to it. Don’t even want to shower in that water. Very small shower has a center ceiling mount shower head – can’t avoid getting your hair wet.
Bob, John and Cliff take the 6:30am river cruise. Breakfast is at 9:30 in the open-air dining area. Group river cruise takes place 9:30am to 1pm. Our pilot is Allan Allen. He pilots the tender boat onto the shore nestling in the grasses. We are nearly face to face with a crocodile and many hippos sunning themselves in a mud pit. Makes me nervous. 3 cameras (me, Cliff, Bob) taking lots of photos. Larry, John, Mary, and Nadia using iPhones. Lots of great photos happening.
Lunch back on the houseboat.
Afternoon sunset cruise. Great sunset photos because of a smokey sky making the sun really orange. It is the season of burning off the fields, resulting in a lot of particulates in the air.
Dinner on the houseboat. A game of Jenga with Bob and Larry, who had never played it before.
Slept soundly again. The Milky Way is very visible due to no local ambient light. A partial moon is an upside-down crescent, pointed out by Bob that it is different from how we see it at home.
Bob and Cliff go on the 6:30am river cruise. They spotted a lot of baboons. Great breakfast again.
9:30am cruise – we traveled a long distance. Great viewing today. Larger herds of animals. A big group of hippos lying in the mud together. Elephant groups with very young babies. Babies are less than a year old if they can still stand under their mother’s bellies. Lots of herons and sacred ibis birds. I was working on getting a sharp focus photo of a bird in flight. And - I did!!
Lunch and then the afternoon boat ride. We found a large colony of baboons – young and old. Young ones were very frisky and chasing one another. Saw a female in estrus mounted by a male. After the event, she sat next to him and picked ticks from his fur. A crocodile walked on shore and no baboons seemed to care. He eventually slithered away.
We spotted a large group of elephants at water’s edge. Watched another dramatic sunset. Back to the houseboat for dinner and bed.
Bob and Cliff take the final morning river ride. Last breakfast. Cliff takes a group photo of the five men who work the houseboat. We collect tips from everyone, $150 minimum per person.
Pack suitcases, get on tender boat and go to the immigration office to exit Namibia. Fortunately, a short line. Back to boat to go to Botswana entry office. Stamp passport. A jeep takes us to Kasane airport for a 30-minute 12-person airplane flight to Savute. Key word, the plains viewed from the air are – VAST.
Land at an airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Airport infrastructure consists of a small shack and two portable toilets. We disembark while the duffle bag luggage is pulled from the belly of the plane. Camp jeep is waiting for us. 15-minute ride over a dirt road by our new guide, KT, to Savute Safari Lodge. We are greeted at the entrance by camp staff with big hellos and cool moist towels. First order of business is a tour of the community area and facilities and served lunch. All staff introduce themselves and then remembers your name later. Impressive!
We are in Room #3 facing the water hole. A really nice room with a big bed, mosquito netting, private bath, comfortable furnishings. Unpack and take a shower. Hadn’t had one in four days because of the green water on the houseboat. Back to the open-air dining area for 3pm tea and cake and onto a 3:30pm game drive. KT drives the jeep through a lot of fine sand. The landscape is dry, flat, and the air is hot with some cooling breezes. On the drive from the airport, we saw a pride of lions dining on a morning kill of an eland. We return to the site and watch 3 males, 3 females and 6 cubs. Males eat first. Cubs sneak in to feast. One was initially batted away by the male and eventually allowed to eat. When all males leave, the females can eat.
There is no additional tracker used for the Savute drives.
We continue the ride to see kudos, impalas, birds, giraffes, and a tawny eagle. Typical of all afternoon game drives, we are served our choice of cocktail and some snacks. Back to camp again receiving big hellos and moist towels. Are cleaning up, we are escorted from our rooms for dinner because it is dark and there is no electric fence surrounding the perimeter. Animals do stray into the grounds.
At our lodge water hole, we see a parade of animals – elephants, giraffe, cape buffalo and guinea fowl so far. Incredible!
All sodas, liquor and laundry are included in the room rate. Makes so much sense. Earlier camps had the drivers serving drinks and trying to keep track of what room was spending on what. Impossible to keep track of it all. Here, you are encouraged to take what you want. Go to the small refrigerators, go behind the bar – help yourself.
White tablecloths on the long family style dinner table. Staff member, Charity, sits with us for dinner. Before food is served, the staff performs 3 native songs for us. Music reminds me of Paul Simon’s "Rhythm of the Saints" album. A conga line forms around the dining room pulling guests (including Bob) with them. After the performance, the chef introduces the food for the evening meal, and another introduces the wines. (Staff can’t actually drink liquor on the job, so they don’t know what the wine tastes like. Only memorize the promotional material for the bottles to be served.) We are served soup, then select a plateful of food from a buffet line and then are served dessert. Wine glasses refilled as often as desired. We are escorted back to our room.
Love the room. White walls, black shutters, thatched brown ceiling, wood supports and accents. Electricity powered by solar and a back up generator. Big bathroom, laundry hamper, but not soft bath towels.
Heard elephant trumpeting in the night and something walking on the dry leaves next to our room. Camp is open to small animals passing through. Just close the sliding glass doors and you will be fine. An airhorn is next to the bed for emergencies. Turn a light on so they know what room is sounding the alarm. Also provided with bug repellent for personal use and another for room use. “For bugs in the room, shoot to kill” is the recommended procedure.
More animal bones lying in the sand, bleached white. Elephant dung is found more in general and a lot more visible in the sand and with fewer trees to hide it. Birds pick at dung for grass and insects. Drums played to summon us to dinner.
6am wakeup knock, 6:30 breakfast and 7am departure for game drive by KT. First stop at the lions still eating the eland. Carcass is getting cleaner. Lions lying around and sleeping with full bellies. They are conveniently near a water hole. Elephants come to the water hole; giraffes are skittish about being close to the lions. Guinea fowl is in abundance and scatter as the elephants approach.
Cliff and Mary ride in the rear seats teasing each other. Mary writes poems and makes us all laugh. Cliff also contributes to the poem writing and humor. Mary trades sides of the jeep so Cliff can get the best photographs. Then on the drive, she ends up being on the best side.
We drive a long way in the hunt to see two male cheetahs. We see an ostrich in the far distance. KT exchanges information with other drives and we do find two beautiful male cheetahs. Fur color is very different from the leopard. A warmer color. They recently had a kill and are lying around digesting the meal. Six jeeps surround them, and they barely move a muscle. Lots of pictures were taken by all.
Stop for the morning coffee break. KT will add the local liquor Amarula to your coffee if desired. He recommends it. The view is wide open plains of two predominant colors. Dry grasses are golden yellow against a smokey grey blue sky. Beautiful combination.
Kudos, elephants, birds seen on the way back to camp. Hellos and moist towels there at our arrival.
Drop our things in the room and return to the dining area for 11:30 lunch. Elephants at the water hole.
Lounging for the early afternoon. I nap, Bob goes to the pool. I skipped the afternoon drive to relax and catch up on the journal. See elephants and giraffes at the water hole view from our deck.
Morning game drive with KT to the Baobab Grove, a fair distance away. The grove is a collection of 7-10 trees. iPhone pano mode photos catch the full height of the trees. The trees can be 1000 years old.
We spotted a leopard stalking impalas.
Final morning game drive with KT. He wanted to go in the direction of a hyena den to see if they were active. No luck. We waited a while and then gave up. In some areas, the air is fragrant from the blossoms on the cooly caper bush. Reminds me of the fragrance of jasmine or honeysuckle.
The pride of lions has moved on from the eland leaving behind a ribcage. We found a single male lion nearby, sound asleep. The water hole is very active now that the lions are gone.
Back to camp to pack our bags and drive to the airstrip, 15 minutes away. KT dropped us off and picked up six new guests.
There were only 7 of us on the 12-seater airplane. From above we could see the dry Savute channel and many dried-up water holes. John pointed out how all trails lead to the water holes. We land 35 minutes later at Xugana airstrip. A thatched hut with benches and a bench for luggage constitutes the infrastructure. Desert and Delta Safaris met us at the strip. We took a 7 minute, very fast tender boat ride to the resort. This resort is all about the water. Papyrus lined narrow channels are our travel routes. Have no clue how they don’t get lost in the maze of channels that look the same.
Upon arrival, we are met with song, cheers, and cool moist washcloths. Again, they introduced themselves and memorized our names. Lunch on the expansive deck is served and rules of the camp are delivered by Emax. Biggest caution is to stay inside your room and be escorted at night by staff. Animals roam the grounds at night. We are in Room #2 which is disappointing. It is next to the kitchen. Voices, banging of pots, refrigerator motors are noisy.
They offer a 3pm snack and the 3:30 delta ride adventure. I’m really tired, but go. We zip through the channels lined with papyrus reeds. Cliff and Bob are photographing and documenting a new assortment of birds. Our guide is Gee. He motors the channels with expertise. I think of the “African Queen” movie where Bogart and Hepburn get lost in channels such as these, only one small strip of land separating them from freedom. To me, every channel looks the same.
We motor to the landing dock at the airstrip. There are parked fiberglass canoes, replicas of the wood canoes used by the natives. We are going for a 60-minute canoe ride. I let Bob sit in the front so he can take photos. The water is too shallow for hippos or crocs. Water is clear enough to see the Kalahari sand below. The ride was interesting, very quiet, the setting sun light warm, amber in color. Canoe back to the dock and waiting for us is a table full of drinks and snacks. The staff of 6 sang stanzas of songs starting with the word “beautiful”. Beautiful land. Beautiful Botswana. Beautiful sunset. Beautiful guests. Beautiful everyone. The harmony of the voices and creativity of the music is fun!
Back to the lodge. Escort required to go to our room, even though we are so close. Loooooong table for +/- 20 guests and 4 staff at dinner. Staff sang and chef presented the menu, and another presented the wines. Haven’t seen staff drink alcohol when dining with us. Soup is served, entrée is buffet, and dessert is served. Escorted to our rooms around 9pm. Time for bed. Mosquito netting surrounds the bed.
During the night we could hear hippo grunting. I slept in. Bob went with the group for a walking safari. They walked 3 miles or so. Gee carried a rifle.
Afternoon game boat ride. Several types of large birds in a cluster of trees. 10-15 hippos in a pod watching us with their eyes just above the water.
Bob and I moved from room #2 to room #5 – much quieter. Pleased they accommodated by request to change rooms. Dinner and then to bed.
6am wakeup. Good breakfast. Cliff, John, Bob and I take a safari walk. 30-minute boat ride to an island. Dock the boat in the reeds and sand. Instructed to walk single file, quietly, behind Gee with the loaded rifle and Zam protecting us from the rear. Head towards a tree where vultures are perched. Notice a small number of animals around. Finds the horns of a freshly killed antelope. Lions are nearby. Baboons call warning signs. Warthogs skitter around. Lion paw prints in the sand. Gee and Zam use binoculars to scan the horizon and they spot two male lions in the distance. We follow. Gee determines they have seen us. They move further away and retreat into a large brush area. Antelopes stand on alert. Warthogs leave. A lone zebra walks away. Our group and the other walking group watched together. It is decided to move on and leave the lions in peace. (Ya think!)
On our 3-mile walk, we find another set of horns on the ground. We see lion poop consisting of fur and hooves. They can eat it, but can’t digest it. A hippo skeleton bleached white and dried hide are on the ground from a kill a while ago. It was taken down by 6 lions. The hippo is killed by attacking the spine.
Most animals moved away from us. We saw antelopes, warthogs, baboons, zebra, and elephants. Back to the boat for our zippy ride through the channels lined with papyrus. Lunch on the deck.
Last afternoon ride. Last dinner. Pack for tomorrow’s departure to Capetown.
Boated to the small landing strip/airport and waited for the small plane. It arrived depositing six people and taking 12 of us to Maun. Easy 25-minute flight over dry delta terrain. In Maun, we are met by a young woman from Desert Delta and Sand who directed us to the check-in counter for our flight to Capetown. Got in line before a huge number of people arrived. A huge tour group hosted by Tauck was encouraged to pick out their piece of luggage from a huge pile of Tauck issued, green, safari bags that all looked alike. Good luck with that!
Lunch across the street at an open-air café and small retail shop called The Duck. Everyone ordered the tahini balls entrée, except Cliff. I browsed the retail and bought a strand of red glass beads for future décor at home.
Wait in the lounge for the flight, board the plane with three seats across (1+2). Served a box lunch. 2.75-hour flight to Cape Town. Clear immigration in South Africa after riding a tarmac bus from the plane. Get luggage and meet a driver to take us to the Bayflowers Guest Lodge, about 35 minutes away.
Bayflowers Guest Lodge is in an older residential area of very narrow streets. 4-story building, maybe a dozen guest rooms. Bob and I are in room #205. The sounds and activity of the city is very different from the past 3 weeks in the bush.
6pm dinner at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront area with a friend of Nadia’s. Restaurant is named Tang – a contemporary, darkly lit, chic, lots of black furnishings, and Asian food. Table set for 11 people. Trendy base driven music in the background making it hard to hear. Chic women at tables taking selfies. Very few chic men.
Nadia’s friend works with a “Save the Rhino” non-profit with her friend Nico. He flies helicopters to find the rhino. They trim off the tusk, so the animal won’t get poached/killed. She is retired and very passionate about the cause.
Good breakfast. Homemade yogurt, milk cake tart pastry, brie cheese, scrambled eggs.
9am departure for a wine country tour and tastings, about an hour away. First stop, Fairview Wine and Cheese for a master tasting in a semi-private room. 8 wines and 8 cheese pairings. An amazing cost of 100 rand – equal to $5.35. Most expensive wine on their list is about $50. Inexpensive compared to Napa and Sonoma in California.
Next stop is chocolate tasting, close by. DeVilliers Chocolate. Tasty. Purchase some chocolate bars as gifts.
Tasting and lunch at the 5-star Delaire Graff Estate. Absolutely gorgeous property in the Stellenbosch district. It is a Relias & Chateaux property. Exceptional service. Wine can be shipped to the US for $28 flat fee. Wow! The surrounding view is gorgeous - mountains, vineyards, greenery.
Last stop nearby at the Babylonstoren Wine Farm. An old Dutch farm and gardens open to tourists. We wandered through the property for an hour. Drive back to Capetown. Everyone crashed, skipped dinner, and went to bed early.
9am departure for the peninsula. Drive 1.5 hours south along the coast to one of the most southern points on the continent. Stop at the famous Twelve Apostles Mountain viewpoint. Continue south to Cape Point. Take a funicular ride to the top and walk around the area. There was a group of women who walk together and support each other from abuse. They were carrying a decorated Styrofoam frame for taking their pictures.
Next stop is nearby Cape of Good Hope for a group photo. Saw wild ostriches along the way. Stop nearby to see the colony of penguins. Lunch at a seafood restaurant in Glencairn. Went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the southern suburbs of Capetown. Spent one hour walking from the top at Gate 3 to the bottom at Gate 1. Protea in bloom.
Back to the Bayflowers for a 6pm wine and cheese meeting with Sian and Kara, our travel agents. They did a superb job for us. Arrangements were flawless.
Ordered in pizza from Uber Eats and dined in the dining room of the hotel. To bed and pack for tomorrow’s departure.
8:15 breakfast, 9:15 departure in two Ubers for Table Mountain. Got the fancy Black Uber. Our driver arrived in a black Mercedes sedan and smelled like he hadn’t bathed or changed shirts for several days. Gross ride.
John and Larry bought tickets for all of us to take the tram to the top. The tram floor rotated 360 degrees to give everyone an equal view. A little disconcerting to rotate and rise up at the same time. It is windy at the top. We took a long walk around the perimeter of the flat area. Big views in all directions. Clouds creeping in from the west. Mountain range view to the south goes down to Cape Point.
Take the tram back down. 2 Ubers to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Time for shopping. Group splits in two. Cliff, Bob, and I head for Cliff’s favorite store – The African Trading Port. 4 floors of shopping and a museum of African art. Tourist trinkets on the first floors. Fabrics, masks, pelts, spears, tables, baskets and more on the upper floors. I purchased a beaded round, red disk to hang in my office. Also, a small, beaded doll, monkeypod balls and porcupine quills.
Lunch at a small nearby restaurant. Continue browsing shops and then head to The Watershed. A large warehouse type building with 100+ boutique booths with artisan vendors. Bought machine stitched, free-form drawings on tea towels and 2 strands of buffalo bone beads and black and white.
Cliff secures an Uber for us (first time experience) back to the Bayflowers. Pack for departure to the airport at 6:30pm for 4 of us – Cliff, Mary, Bob and me. 3 of us get texts saying our Edelweiss Swiss Air/United flight has been cancelled. Mary gets a text saying she is rebooked on the KLM flight through Amsterdam with Cliff.
Bob and I arrive at the check-in counter to find a lot of people and general chaos. Luckily – the Business Class counter has two people in line. Let’s go over there! After 45 minutes of waiting, we received a text saying we have been rebooked on a Delta flight to Atlanta two days from now. The counter agent adds us to a list of people who will be transferred to a downtown hotel. Larger family groups are delayed as much as 5 days.
Pile into a van towing luggage to the 4-star Southern Sun hotel. Luckly I am sitting next to the van door. I jump out and head to the registration desk and Bob secures our luggage from the towed vehicle. Needless to say, there is a line of people and general chaos and frustration. It is getting late, and people are tired and hungry.
The front desk is waiting for the airline to fax over a list of people eligible for rooms before they can check them in. We get room #1017. Stash our bags and head downstairs to the special area where they are serving dinner late/after hours. There is now an even longer line of people at the reception counter waiting to be given room keys. We eat dinner at 10pm.
It is cloudy outside and rain is expected today. A day to stay inside and catch up on this journal. All meals comped by the airline. Pay for your own liquor.
Take a morning walk along Bree Street to Honest Chocolate to purchase chocolate bars – the same brand given to us by Sian in a farewell gift bag. Then walk back to the hotel passing by open air vendor booths at St. George’s Mall – a pedestrian street. Lunch at the hotel and take a 2pm free hotel shuttle to the Waterfront. Browse for the afternoon and take the shuttle back. A van takes us to the airport and our Delta flight home is on schedule. The flight is full. I am in 1B and Bob in 35E. It is a 16-hour flight. Loving Business Class! Capetown to Atlanta, to Denver, to Portland.
A Fantastic bucket list trip!
Barbed wire on wall in neighborhoods in Johannesburg.
And security cameras on all the corners of the houses.
Cowboy jeep driver, Darryn, drove crazy fast chasing animals.
We call it painted dog gear.
We exchanged no money for purchases. Used US dollars for tips.
Protea blossoms have unusual shapes.
Surprised to see a river otter on the Chobe River.
Eland ribcage remains from a lion kill.
I will have to go on a diet to lose the pounds gained from all the great food.
Early morning wakeup door knocks.
Dusty drives with sometimes little game spotted.
Bush baby hot water bottles on the jeep seats.
Business Class teasing of Larry.
Mary’s carrying of lots of items to keep track of.
Announcements from Cliff.
Huge hippos in mud pit, sleeping.
All the colorful birds we saw to photograph.
Airstrips in the middle of nowhere.
Hippo skin drying in the sun.
Milky Way and new moon dark skies.
Cliff’s expertise from 6 previous trips.