African Safari Journal

African safari journal: Homeward bound

Thursday, September 17, 2020

June 2019 Our final Africa safari stop was Little Kulala Desert Lodge, in Sossusvlei, the Namib-Naukluft Park, Namibia. We took another small charter flight, from Hoanib Valley Camp – or, rather the nearest airstrip from that camp, which was about two hours’s drive away from the camp itself. Sossusvlei Geluk Airstrip is the usual empty airstrip, just a cleared length of land with one or two sheds. As at our other camps, one of the staff picked us up in a Toyota truck converted for passengers, enclosed but not air conditioned.

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Our Africa journal – Saying goodbye to a new friend

Monday, September 7, 2020

June 23, 2019 — Yesterday, we left the camp for our next stop. Festus drove us two hours over those rough desert roads to the same airstrip we’d flown in to. We arrived 40 minutes early so we had time to spend with our new friend. We sat in the same shelter where we’d had our first lunch together three days earlier, and talked. Festus told us how he found his way when guiding people through through the bush.

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African safari journal – one year ago – we visit a tribal village

Monday, June 29, 2020

June 21, 2019 - Yesterday was busy even by the standards of this trip. Up at 6 and out at 6:30 to the main tent for breakfast and coffee. The coffee is not bad here; it’s not great, but drinkable black. I chatted with Jordanna, an Asian woman with a posh English accent. I asked where she is from; she said London. If she had said Singapore, I would not have been surprised – Crazy Rich Asians.

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African safari journal – one year ago – never get tired of the elephants

Sunday, June 28, 2020

June 19, 2019 — We got our cold weather yesterday, up at 5 am for the morning game drive. Camp Kipwe wasn’t cold. I’d assumed it might be at night, knowing the wide temperature fluctuations you get in the desert and judging by the heavy blankets the resort laid on the bed. But it remained warm all night and it felt like the mid-60s at breakfast and when we set out on the drive.

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More photos from our African safaris – one year ago

Thursday, June 25, 2020

These were taken June 18, 2019, in Namibia. Our cabin at Kipwe Lodge in Namibia. View from the cabin. View from the cabin toilet. The cabin bathroom. The cabin sitting room. Another view of the cabin sitting room. The cabin bedroom. Driving across the Namibian desert. Typical of the planes we used when flying between lodges in Botswana and Namibia. Plaque inside the passenger hut at a Namibian airfield. A passenger hut at a Namibian airfield.

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Africa journal – one year ago – spectacular leopard encounter

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

June 17, 2019 [Note from 2020: Overlap here with yesterday’s entry. I’m repeating myself.] We arrived at Windhoek in Namibia two days ago, after a commercial flight of less than two hours, and were greeted outside customs by Antone, who put us in an enclosed VW van with air conditioning and car seats. He drove us through Windhoek, a relatively new city 29 years old [Note from 2020: That’s what Antone said.

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Africa journal - one year ago today - Tswana language lesson

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Julie has picked up a few words of Tswana, one of the two major languages of Botswana. The other major language is English: Kealeboga =thank you Dumela mma= good morning - different ending if you’re talking with a man vs. talking with a woman. Re mono fela= we are just here Re kgobile= we are relaxed 📓 🌍

African safari journal – one year ago today – a visit to a local village

Saturday, June 13, 2020

In the morning at home, I look at the news. Here in Africa, in the morning I look at the gnus. A herd of wildebeest gathers on the plain outside our cabin as the sun rises. Last night, one of the guides gave us a brief five-minute tour of the African starscape. One thing I keep forgetting is that we are in the southern hemisphere now, so the stars are completely different.

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Safari journal – one year ago today – we learn the local language and speak it badly

Friday, June 12, 2020

Leroo La Tau, our current safari camp, is in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park in Botswana, on the banks of the Boteti River. The resort is on a cliff overlooking a river and plain. We can go out on a deck and see wildebeest and zebras and elephants and stuff. Last night when I woke in the middle of the night, I heard a terrible screeching. It sounded a little electronic.

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African safari journal – one year ago today – Camp Xakanaxa to Leroo La Tau

Thursday, June 11, 2020

We’re on a 12-seater Cessna now, on our way from Camp Xakanaxa, where we spent three lovely days, to our next stop, the name of which I cannot remember. TS, our guide at Camp X [Note from 2020: I’m not going to spell it out] is tall, thin and handsome, with dark black skin and a broad smile. He tells people his name stands for True Story, because he only speaks truth.

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Our African journal – One year ago today – At the Okavango Delta in Botswana

Monday, June 8, 2020

I literally squeed when I saw a mother baboon carrying her baby. “Oh my god it’s a baby baboon!” I exclaimed in a high pitched squeal like an 11 year old girl. The baby dropped off the mother, stood on his hind legs a wobbly moment, then looked puzzled and fell over. Who would not squee at that? =-=-=- Dawn river cruise. Instant coffee from metal camp cups at sunrise, mixed with hot water from a Stanley insulated bottle

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African travel journal – one year ago today – I complain like a Karen

Sunday, June 7, 2020

Yesterday was our first full day really in Africa, when we got out of the airport/hotel complex in Johannesburg to the Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana . This place is posh, with a vaguely colonial style and dozens of staff, smiling and jumping to attention. Indeed, service is both overly attentive and not quite what we wanted.Four or five people serve us at each meal, and yet service is slow and it can be difficult to find someone if you need something.

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African safari journal: One year ago today, Julie and I arrived in Africa

Friday, June 5, 2020

From my travel journal, lightly edited for typoes: We’ve been in transit nearly 2 days now. And we are almost there. We left the house at 8 AM on Monday. Our flight was more than four hours from San Diego to Atlanta. I barely remember it now so I guess it was fine. We had a 90 minute connection to Johannesburg. Julie was having a little bit of difficulty with baggage, so we grabbed one of those golf cart things and were chauffeured around the airport in style, coming apparently close to bowling over pedestrians a couple of times, which made the drive more enjoyable.

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