Trip Diaries
-
Transitions
It’s hard to believe that Nadine, the fantastic agent from Safari Specialists who has been helping me put together the nucleus of this trip for the last two and a half years, isn’t involved anymore. Her job is finished — I’ve gone all the places she arranged for me to go; I have had a…
-
Bushman’s Holiday
This morning at seven, I was called to the gate to find two men and three horses waiting for me. Two of the horses were Appaloosas; one was a very pretty bay whom I was later told was a celebrity horse: he had been featured in a Taylor Swift video. I felt that the two…
-
Soft Camp, Hard Landscape
After the excitement of leopards and hyenas and dead lions, I said goodbye to my friends at Splash Camp and caught a bush plane for the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, in the middle of the Kalahari desert. I was supposed to be headed for a modest place called Camp Kalahari — about the luxury level of…
-
Trip Diary: Red in Tooth and Claw
Our South African friends left us this morning, going to another camp not far from Splash Camp‘s territory. In keeping with their tendency to make a game drive out of everything, we all piled into the safari vehicle for our usual 6am start. But this time, the departing guests brought all their luggage with them.…
-
Trip Diary: How to Dodge a Hippo
For the first time this trip, I have company on my game drives; fellow guests who came here for the same experience as me. I really like it. There’s certainly something that feels privileged about having the whole production to myself, but it’s lonely too. Both the Swiss couple and the South African couple (I…
-
Trip Diary: Beastland
Meals at Splash Camp are timed around the game drives: breakfast at 5:30am, brunch at 11:30am when you return from the morning drive, no lunch because why bother, when you just had brunch at 11:30? Instead, tea is at 4pm, which feeds you enough to keep you going until dinner around 8:30pm after the evening…
-
Trip Diary: So This Is the Delta
The difference between Old Drift and Splash Camp can best be defined in two examples. First, Old Drift has a phone in the room, with a five digit number to reach the office if you need anything at all, at any time of the day or night. Splash Camp has no phones at all, including…
-
Trip Diary: Where Are All the Elephants?
The Lookout Cafe is the centerpiece of Wild Horizons’ empire of Victoria Falls tourist attractions. It’s a restaurant, but that’s a little bit like saying that Broadway-caliber dinner theater is a restaurant. At the Lookout Cafe, lunch is respectable, but it’s really all about the view.
-
Trip Diary: Paying Calls
The first visit we made today was to a nearby Zimbabwean village. But it began with a stop at the supermarket in town. Some village tours in this area compensate their hosts by way of a monetary payment to the village chief. That isn’t how Old Drift does it. Instead, they first help you buy…
-
Trip Diary: Tenderness in Warthogs
There’s a line in an old Robert Heinlein book, in which the main character muses about the perfections of female humans, and then adds, “No doubt a gentleman warthog feels the same way about a lady warthog. But if so, both of us are very sincere.”