Cynthia in Africa
Day 1 9/9/23 Saturday
I was headed for Africa, a dream trip. I made my plane reservations months ahead of time. For the trip to Cape Town, I settled on Ethiopian Air, business class, which cost me $3600 one way. The route was Chicago to Addis Ababa and Addis Ababa to Cape Town with a one hour layover in Addis.
As time went on, I kept getting notices making small changes to the itinerary. 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. I have been traveling long enough to know that small changes may eventually become big changes and that is what happened. One week before my departure, they moved the departure date ahead by one day and 1 hour so that in Addis, I would miss the connection that day and fly out the next day for a total delay of over 48 hours. I decided to cancel that flight. After an hour on the phone with Expedia, I was given a promise of my money back (in writing).
Next I searched and searched for a good alternative. I booked a Chicago- DC, DC-Cape Town flight with a 2 1/2 layover in DC. The flight to Cape Town was 15 hours, but I was on premium economy and I figured nothing could go wrong and I could tolerate 15 hours on the plane with all I would bring to do.
I got to OHare with more than enough time for my 1:23 flight. Everything went smoothly. I even qualified for pre check. I got to the gate and the plane was on time. But next, a stewardess was late and we had to wait for her. She got there, and we boarded the plane. When we got ready to take off, the pilot got word that there was weather in DC and we couldn’t take off. We sat on the tarmac for an hour and the next update was that DC was shut down and we had to return to the gate and deboard. There was a line as long as I have ever seen at O’Hare for United Customer Service. I didn’t dare stay in the line because if I didn’t board the plane, I would lose my money, there was still a chance I could make a connection in DC, since the connection was also departing late. I also didn’t think I could get my bag pulled, and that was my main motivation- I decided to follow my bag. We boarded the plane at 7 pm, but sat on the tarmac, because they couldn’t get an accurate count of people. We took off about 8 and landed close to 11 pm DC time. I missed the Cape Town connection.
The United Line was probably 4 hours long. It was very late and I just couldn’t deal with it. I called customer support and they told me they couldn’t help me and I needed international customer support. After 5 hours of waiting, I never spoke to them. At the same time, I reserved a flight on Ethiopian Airlines for the next day at 10:30, landing in Addis Ababa at 7:15 am with a plane leaving Addis for Cape Town
I went to fetch my bag and it was not there. The app said it was in route to the carousel. I waited 2 hours but it never came. My whole reason for flying to DC in the first place was to stay with my suitcase.
By now it was 1 am. I reserved a hotel near the airport, got an Über, but when I got there, it turned out I had not pushed the final button to reserve it and they were full. So I had to do another Über and another hotel reservation and finally was checked in at about 2 am. I was told that even if I had gotten ahold of them, that United would not pay for the hotel. I had no clothes to sleep in or to change into the next day.
Day 2 9/10/23 Sunday
I turned around and left the hotel at 5:45 am so I could get to the airport to sort out my bag. It was still not there, and they said there were 5,000 bags behind security and they couldn’t sort them all. They said I would have to make a claim in Cape Town.
I checked in at Ethiopian Airline and they said the short connection in Addis was fine, and that they would pull the bag and put it on my plane. Things were looking up.
I went to the gate with plenty of time. They said the plane would board at 9:30. At 10:00, they announced that the plane had a mechanical problem and would be delayed an hour (remember, my connection in Addis was one hour). Next they lined everyone up who was in rows 38-42 and said they couldn’t use those rows and those people (which did not include me) would be rebooked for the following day. Then we took off- almost 2 hours late.
Despite my best efforts, I spent 13.5 hours on a plane in economy class. My computer battery was almost dead, the internet I purchased didn’t work, the movies sucked, the charging station charged 5% an hour, I lost my Advil pm, I spilled water into my bag with my electronics.
I sat next to two very interesting people, one was a young Nigerian woman who was living in Houston, and was a businesswoman who was in the process of trying to start some hair salons all over the world. She was very lively and friendly. The other was an older man probably about my age, who lived part time in the US in Oregon and part time in Africa in Malawi, where he had bought a farm a number of years ago. He ended up running as he described it, some sort of an orphanage where the children went to school, worked and were provided what they needed. He loved Malawi and spent six months of the year there. His farm he said was on the river, and was very beautiful.
Day 3 9/11/23 Monday
We got to Addis and sure enough, we had missed our connection, we being most of the people on the plane. As opposed to United Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines met us at the airport with a boarding pass for the next morning, a voucher for a five-star hotel (the Ethiopian Skylight hotel), a voucher for three meals, and a ticket for the bus which would take us to the hotel, which was probably three minutes from the airport. The streets were absolutely teeming with people. I imagine they usually are pretty crowded, but it turned out that this was New Year’s Eve of the Ethiopian new year! This is based on the Ethiopian, Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian calendar. Everywhere you saw yellow and black balloons.
Things were looking up! I went and checked into my hotel room and then decided that I would like to see some of Addis Ababa. One of the personnel at the hotel found me a driver for $20 an hour for three hours and we drove all around Addis Ababa, downtown, the government buildings, on top of the hill where you had a view of the city and to a market which sold the native clothing and many other things. I saw a lot of poverty, but there was also a liveliness, colorfulness and a character to it that was attractive. The poverty took the form of crowded tin shacks along the road, probably without running water or electricity.
The area of the market seemed to go on forever with people putting their wares on the ground on a blanket of some sort. Many people were selling goats or chickens. You would see them kind of shepherding their goats, or the people that were selling chickens would have them by the legs in their hands. There were no native arts except in the building that housed aisles and aisles of native costumes, made out of white muslin with colorful decorations.
The Ethiopian people are exceptionally attractive, each woman being more attractive than the next, and the men were also very attractive. They seem to not suffer much from obesity. The driver told me that Ethiopia had never been a colony. They have their own language and their own script.
The most famous figure in Ethiopian history is Haile Selassie I, who was emperor from 1930 to 1974. Haile Selassie is widely considered a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history and the key figure of Rastafari, a religious movement in Jamaica that emerged shortly after he became emperor in the 1930s. He was descended from King Soloman and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
Haile Selassie attempted to modernize the country through a series of political and social reforms, including the introduction of the 1931 constitution, its first written constitution, and the abolition of Slavery.
Haile Selassie's internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations. In 1963, he presided over the formation of the Organization of African Unity, the precursor of the African Union and served as its first chairman. In 1974, he was overthrown in a military coup by a Marxist-Leninist Junta. Haile Selassie was assassinated on 27 August 1975.
Abraham brought me to a very nice Ethiopian coffee shop and bought me a strong coffee in a tiny cup. Then he brought me back to the hotel, and I ended up having dinner with the Nigerian woman, Abigail, who hugged me when we parted. The entire time we were there, I kept running into fellow passengers from the Washington to Addis Ababa flight, and we became very friendly and warm with each other.
The hotel was holding a concert to celebrate New Year’s Eve with someone named Rohan, who apparently is very famous. Many many young people came in to attend the concert. The security was very tight, and the guards had AK-47s. The driver told me that there is quite a bit of crime in Addis Ababa but no murders. I was not able to verify that, so perhaps he was correct. After dinner, I went out briefly to try to find some clothes to buy and had a little success. It was a tad scary being out by myself in the dark in a city I don’t know much about.
Day 4 9/12/23 Tuesday
The next morning the plane was at 7:30 so I took the shuttle at 5:30 from the hotel to the airport. Everything went smoothly, I had upgraded to business class, and the plane departed close to on time at about eight. It was one of the few flights I’ve ever been on that I actually enjoyed. Riding in comfort and knowing that I was going to finally arrive at my destination, and that someone would be meeting me there made me very relaxed and grateful.
All of the Ethiopian airlines personnel, who assured me that my suitcase would be on the plane were mistaken. It was not. I made a claim at Ethiopian airlines, and then the driver who had been sent by Welgelegen House, where we were staying, took me there.
The guest house was in a very nice area of Cape Town with lots of shops and restaurants. The place itself was lovely. The only negative was that for 4 to 6 hours a day they had what they called load shedding. We would call it a planned blackout. Apparently the utility companies cannot deliver enough electricity for people to have electricity all day long. They are told the day before what the hours that the electricity will be off and it is not the same every day. People in Cape Town are not very happy about this. I now had about seven hours to spend in Cape Town and I wanted to make the most of it. The tour company had hired a driver to take me around for about three hours, and he drove me all over. All of the drivers think that you want to see the government buildings. I do not care very much about that, but it is somewhat interesting. The famous mountain in Cape Town is called table Mountain because it is flat on the top like a table. There was some kind of accident, so he could not go up to Table Mountain, but he took me to other places that were high up, where I could take pictures of the city and see the view of the bay. Not far out into the bay is an island and on the island is Robbens prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 14 years.
He also took me to a 17th century Dutch castle called Castle of Good Hope and I got out and took a lot of pictures.
He then took me to a place that had been the place where the Dutch brought their slaves. The Dutch brought slaves from Portuguese Mozambique, French Madagascar, Portuguese Ceylon and Dutch India to South Africa. Eventually the three ethnic groups, Asian, native African, and Dutch mixed and that is the source of what they call the Colored people.
Next, he took me to St. George’s Cathedral, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu’s last church and the place where his funeral was held.
My favorite place in Cape Town was a heavily Muslim neighborhood where the houses were very brightly colored. The streets were often cobblestone, and the neighborhood, called Bo-Kaap, the Afrikaans phrase meaning “above the Cape” ,was perched on the side of a hill.
Most of the sites the tourists see in Cape Town are not actually in Cape Town but outside and I didn’t have time to do that. I didn’t feel badly though, I felt grateful that I was able to have the means to come to Africa at all.
When I got back, Daphne (my sister) and Bob had arrived, and it was wonderful to see them. They had made reservations at a small plates type restaurant in the neighborhood that was hopping. There were mostly young people, and there was a jazz band. I had Wagyu beef burgers, fried vegetables and ostrich, which was very good. I really felt like I was living the good life!
Day 5 9/13 Wednesday
After breakfast by the fire, Rudy, who had been Daph and Bob’s driver and guide the entire time they had been there, took us to the airport. We boarded a plane for Hoedspruit Airport. The flight was about 2 1/2 hours. I sat next to a white South African by the name of Leon. Leon and I conversed the entire time and covered all kinds of subjects. I would say I only talked to two or three white South Africans, but they are all very defensive about Apartheid. Leon informed me that he lives on the coast by Cape Town and makes about $240,000 a year, in the top 1% of all of earners in South Africa. He also owns a farm in Washington state. It is about 600 acres I believe. He spends about a month there twice a year. He showed me pictures of his home, his friends home, who had six lions lying on the patio of her house, and a picture of him with the wolf who he had rescued as a young man, nursed back to health for six months and released into the wild after camping with the wolf for several days, to acclimate him to being back in the wild again.
Leon absolutely hates the South African government. I asked him what was the best country in Africa and he said that Botswana and Namibia were with Ethiopia not far behind. He seems to kind of like Trump and he thinks that the Americans have lost their superiority and they need to get it back.
We landed at the airport, which was as primitive an airport, as I have ever seen with the luggage retrieval outside, and monkeys, running around and climbing on the roof. Kaizer was there to pick us up. Kaizer is a master tracker and guide and has studied a great deal in order to become certified as a guide.
After we settled in our rooms, we boarded the Toyota Land Cruiser driven by Kaizer, our guide and started off on our first game drive. There were eight of us in the vehicle, which has three rows of three seats, and a front seat next to the driver. In the very front is a seat for a tracker. Our tracker, whose name is Jeffrey is a master tracker. So the process is is that you start off as a tracker and then you can become a guide, but there is a lot of studying and testing that has to occur to become a guide. Kaizer had been a guide for 20 years and Jeffrey had been a tracker for nine so we had very experienced people and as time went on it showed.
I had tried to keep my expectations for what an African safari would be like very low. I had imagined that it would be sort of an open field where there were antelope and elephants and giraffes that were kind of confined to a certain area, and that there would be 40 or 50 people trying to look at the animals and photograph them.
It was nothing like that. Most of the time our vehicle was by itself, occasionally the other vehicle from our lodge would be near us. We never exited the vehicle, except for stretch breaks which included refreshments and drinks, but drove around the dirt roads in the African bush on the Klaserie Private Reserve, which is 60,000 hectares, or 230 Square miles. The Klaserie private reserve is part of the Kruger reserve of Africa, which is about 3,000,000 hectares or 12,000 square miles.
The first game drive was exceptional. We saw giraffes, zebras,impalas and a mother lion with four cubs eating an antelope she had killed. We also saw a leopard up in a tree at night with an impala she had killed and a chameleon at night. It was chilly, but thoroughly enjoyable, driving around the African bush, which consists of grasses, which are quite dry this time of year and small and medium trees, some of which are flowering. The shape of the trees against the sky is lovely. It is very beautiful. The roads are red dirt. At night Jeffrey constantly shines his flashlight back-and-forth looking for wildlife. We returned about 8 pm.
When we got back, we had dinner at about 8:30 sitting at tables that formed a semi-circle around a fire pit. It was cold, but we enjoyed it. Kaizer joined us for dinner.
Right after dinner, we went to bed
Day 6 9/14/23 Thursday
We got a wake up call from Kaiser at 5:30 to leave out at 6 am. This time it was chilly in the morning, but we had brought lots of warm clothes and the lodge provided blankets. We continued to drive around and saw the same leopard relaxing in the grass after eating his prey and the same mother lion with her cubs. We also saw Cape Buffalo, a Spotted hyena and a dwarf mongoose that ran in a hole in a termite mound. The termite mounds can be six or eight feet and are all over. We briefly saw a jackal and the Cape hares are all over at night.
It is common to see elephants, giraffes, impalas, water buck, kudus, steenboks, wildebeests and warthogs.
Dinner was under the stars in kind of a semi circle with all of us there – about 15. There were about 4 to 6 German couples, us, and a few BRITs. We got to like one of the German couples who ended up being with us throughout the time that we were there. I had a chance to try eland, which is a kind of very large antelope, which lives in Kruger National Park, but not in the reserve we were in.
Day 7 9/15/23 Friday
We got a wake up call from Kaizer at 5:30 AM to leave on the game Drive at 6 AM. We had coffee before we left and then we set off again in the Land Cruiser. This day I sat next to Kaizer, and he seemed to cater to me quite a bit, which I appreciated.
This day we saw the leopard we had seen the previous night during the day, just laying in the grass cooling out after being so full. I got great shots of him. We also saw the same mother lion with her four Cubs. They were still working on eating the water buck the mother had killed. Each morning and evening game drive we take a break for stretching and they set up a table with refreshments. It is all quite romantic an exciting and you can hardly believe that you are in Africa.
On the morning game drive, we also saw a herd of Cape Buffalo.
In the afternoon, Kaizer brought us into town so that I could buy some clothes, since my suitcase had still not arrived. Many people, including myself had worked on it, but it still seemed to be en route. I had bought a few clothes at the airport in Cape Town and bought a few more. On the way to the airport, we saw quite a few animals – zebras, giraffes, elephants, and antelope.
A bit about Kaizer: he is about 40, not married and lives about an hour and a half away with his mother and two younger siblings. A sister and his father both died about 10 years ago. He has been a guide/tracker for over 20 years. He seems to love his job and he makes the game drives even more exciting than they intrinsically are.
When we got back to Simbati waterside, the many varieties of animals were coming to the water hole to cool off.
At 4 o’clock we set out on our second game drive of the day.
Dinner was individual tables inside. It was a chilly day, so we were glad of that.
Day 8 9/16/23 Saturday
This day we also had two game drives morning and afternoon. So mornings the game drives would go from 6 AM till about 9 AM and then we would come back and have a very nice breakfast. Most people had lunch at about 12 which was way too soon for me so I generally skipped lunch. Then we had free time from after breakfast until the second game drive, which went from about 4 PM until 7 PM., followed by dinner. Kaizer was extremely enthusiastic so often times we stayed later. I think the first night we stayed out until about eight or 830. So sometimes by the time we finished dinner, it was 930 or so and time for bed since we had to get up so early the next morning. In our free time this day we partook of some of the spa activities. I had a mini facial, which was very nice.
This morning we saw Wild dogs. This was our first time seeing them. They had taken down an animal and were kind of in a frenzy about eating it. It was mostly gone, so we don’t know what animal it was, but their faces were all covered with blood. There were about 20 of them, with quite a few pups. They also look quite vicious. Wild dogs are endangered. There are only 5000 left in the world so we were very lucky to see them.
On the morning game drive, we also saw a white rhino for the first time and another herd of Cape buffalo
Back at the lodge, it was a hot day and many animals came down to the water hole to drink or swim – elephants, giraffes, zebras, impalas, warthogs, wildebeests.
This was also the day that my luggage arrived! We are in the middle of a game reserve, which is part of the larger Kruger Reserve, and somehow my luggage managed to make it from DC to Cape Town to Hoedspruit, and to the lodge we were at. It almost seemed like a miracle. It seemed like the worst was over. I was in room number 13 in Cape Town, which was very appropriate, and at the waterside reserve, I was in cabin seven, so my luck had clearly changed
We also saw a pride of lions this day- a large male and two females, and possibly several more that were out of sight. Kaiser claimed he had come on some property where he was not authorized to go and could be fined $50,000 and fired for doing it, but he wanted us to see a pride of lions.
A little about the animals:
Elephants - there are many elephants in Greater Kruger Park, in fact there are too many. They are African Elephants. They eat mostly grass and spend 20 hours a day eating. The females and babies, which they may have any time, are in herds, but the males are sometimes alone. On hot days, they would come to the watering hole and splash around and the juveniles would play. Occasionally a pride of lions may take down an elephant, But other than that, they have no predators.
Giraffes-It is not hard to spot a giraffe in the Klaserie private reserve. Sometimes we would see a lone bull male, other times, they would be in groups of various sizes. They eat leaves off the trees, leaves that other animals can’t reach because they don’t have long enough legs. Their tongues are about 23 cm long, which helps and them in eating. The darker in colour, they are the healthier they are. They would also come down to the watering hole, but would not go very far into the water. To drink they kind of spread their legs so that they’re not as tall. Giraffes also do not have predators in the wild, except occasionally a pride of lions may take a giraffe down.
Antelopes- We saw four or five types of antelopes. The largest ones were called waterbuck and the lions like to eat them because they have plenty of meat and they are not very good at dodging their predators. On the other hand, they run in huge herds and culling them is probably necessary. The next largest are called kudus, which are also prey for the lions. The kudus have curly horns. Next are the impalas, which are on the small size and very pretty- a light brown with white markings. The impalas are prey for the leopards. Lastly we saw steenboks, very small and short with big ears. Steenboks are solitary animals, interacting with other steenboks only to mate. All antelopes are herbivores, primarily eating grass.
Leopards- leopards are not extremely common, but they are around. They are solitary animals, except for mating. Leopards generally kill impalas, because they are not too large. They then drag them up in the tree to eat them. If they don’t drag them up in the tree, the hyenas, which are above them in terms of dominance in the bush, will take the impala away from them. The night that we saw a leopard with us kill, it was up in the tree, and there was a hyena down below, waiting for it to drop pieces.
Hyenas – hyenas seem to be fairly plentiful, because we saw them several times. The variety was a spotted hyena. They are quite ugly and menacing looking. They may be by themselves or in groups. They also eat antelopes. They are capable of taking down their own prey, or also at stealing the prey of others. Generally, they don’t have any predators.
Lions – Lions truly are king of the jungle. All of the other animals have to kowtow to them. They may take down any animal but they especially like large antelopes. lions run together in what are called prides. Prides are family units that may comprise anywhere from two to 40 lions—including up to to three or four males, a dozen or so females, and they’re young. All of a pride's lionesses are related, and female cubs typically stay with the group as they age. Young males eventually leave and establish their own prides by taking over a group headed by another male. Female lions are the pride's primary hunters and leaders. They often work together to prey upon antelopes, zebras, wildebeest, and other large animals of the open grasslands. Many of these animals are faster than lions, so teamwork pays off. Female lions also raise their cubs communally. We saw two prides of lions, and one lion with her cubs. Apparently lions always have four cubs with a very few having five.
Zebras- zebras in the wild are very beautiful, their stripes are striking. No two zebra stripes are the same. They move together in herds, and the lion is their main predator. The purpose of the stripes evolutionary is that the white stripes repel the heat when it is hot, and the brown stripes absorb the heat when it is cold. We saw many groups of zebras from one or two up to maybe 10. Zebras backs are very weak. In the beginning people who had not seen a zebra before i.e. colonists thought that they could ride the zebras, but they soon found out that the zebra could not support someone on its back.
Rhinoceros - seem to be alone or in groups of two or three. They are herbivores. We saw rhinoceroses at least three times. The type of rhinoceros we saw are called white rhinos. Actually a misnomer because originally they were called wide rhinos for their wide mouth and that was translated incorrectly to white rhinos. They are not white they are gray. Rhinoceroses in Africa are in danger because their horn can be made into an aphrodisiac which is very popular especially in China so people come and poach them. A rhinoceros horn is worth about $20,000 or more. A black rhino horn is worth $200,000 and black rhinos are almost gone in Africa. Rhinos do not have any predators except for humans, so there should be way more of them. The game reserves are working to stop the poachers by having an anti-poacher unit, and by having extremely heavy security at entrances to the game reserves. Some of the game reserves have decided to cut off the rhinos horn to protect them and that has been quite effective. Most of the rhinos that we saw did not have a horn.
Hippopotamus -are also herbivores and also do not have any predators. We saw hippos in quite a few places, but seldom did we see one that was out of water. They stay in the water all day long, especially when it is hot and you could only see either their nostrils and eyes or their back. We were told that at night they come out of the water when it is cooler and walk around and I think only one time did we see one walking around.
Wildebeest -a wildebeest is another type of antelope and we saw them from time to time, especially coming down to the water to drink. Wildebeest often graze in mixed herds with zebra, which gives heightened awareness of potential predators.
Cape buffalo- are big buffalo that look and act a lot like our cows. They have curved horns, big eyes are brown. We saw many large herds of them.
Warthog-Warthogs are members of the same family as domestic pigs, but present a much different appearance. Their large, flat heads are covered with "warts," which are actually protective bumps. Warthogs also sport four sharp tusks. They are mostly bald, but they do have some sparse hair and a thicker mane on their backs.
Though warthogs appear ferocious, they are basically grazers. They eat grasses and plants, and also use their snouts to dig or “root” for roots or bulbs. When startled or threatened, warthogs can be surprisingly fast, running at speeds of up to 30 miles an hour.
Big five - Kaizer talked about the big five- rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard. The term was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. We saw all five. Guides are permitted to go off-road chasing the big five and Kaizer loved that and so did we!
He also talked about the small five- leopard tortoise, which we saw, ant lion, elephant shrew, rhinoceros beetle, and the buffalo weaver, a bird we saw.
And the ugly five- wildebeest, baboon, warthog, vultures, and the spotted hyena, all of which we saw.
Birds- we saw many many birds, including the eagles, vultures, an owl, waterfowl, small birds, colorful birds. Since this was not a bird tour, it was hard to have time to take pictures, but the guys all knew their birds and their habits very well. This is the list of the birds that I wrote down as they were told to us but I think there were many more later on during the trip.:
Natal spurfowl
Ostrich
Little Grebe
African scops owl
Lilac-breasted Roller
Southern red-billed hornbill (Zazu)
Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill
Magpie Shrike
Burchell’s starling
Red-Billed Oxpeckers
Yellow billed Oxpeckers
Black-headed Oriole
Crested Francolin
African Hawk Eagle
Tawny eagle
Wahlberg eagle
Dark chanting goshawk
Blue waxbill
Miscellaneous- during the trip, we also saw chameleons, cape hares (we would yell out Haze, Haze when we saw one) jackels, dwarf mongooses and a small cat called a genet. These were brief sightings at night, and I was not able to get pictures of any of them, except for one of the chameleons.
Day 9 9/17/23 Sunday
I skipped the morning game drive, which started at 6 AM. I just felt I needed to get some sleep since I was starting to have difficulty recalling things. I slept till about eight and then got up and had breakfast with Bob and Daph. At the very end of breakfast when Daphne had already left, the staff brought a very nice chocolate cake for Bob for his birthday and sang for him in traditional African song. Bob seemed fairly embarrassed about the whole thing.
We departed at 11 from Simbivati, waterside in the Klaserie, Private Reserve, part of greater Kruger, bound for Simbivati, hilltop in the Timbavati private Reserve, also part of greater Kruger. The trip took about 45 minutes. Simbivati Hilltop was on a hill overlooking a river. It seemed even more remote than the previous lodge. This time we were in luxury tents, you would hardly know it was a tent if you weren’t told, but if you examined them, they certainly were tents. The lodge was quite beautiful nicely, arranged with various sitting areas and everything pretty much outside, although some areas were covered. The food was considerably better than at Simbivati Waterside. We got settled in our tents and then had lunch. We then had a few hours of free time and went out onto our first game drive. The lodge seem to be not very crowded, because on the game drive, there were just five of us, a very nice young British couple who had just gotten married and the three of us. They lived in Brighton, and the man was a police officer, and the woman was a horse groomer! Our guide was named Josiah.
He was much more low-key than Kaizer, who made the tracking of the animals. Very exciting. Josiah producedthe same results, but he wasn’t into off-roading unless necessary, whereas Kaizer seemed to look for any excuse to off-road. Josiah and the tracker seem to work together, whereas Kaizer was sort of the whole show.
We got back about seven and had dinner at 7:30. This allowed us a bit more of an evening than at waterside where we generally had dinner later, and it took longer.
When it was time to go back to our tents, we had to be walked by a staff member because of various animals, especially elephants and hippos have been known to find their way onto the hilltop property. So there was a bit of a scary aspect to it. During the night you would hear hippopotamuses or elephant trumpeting.
Day 10 9/18/23 Monday
We spent the whole day at Hilltop. In the morning we saw a pride of lions, Cape buffalo, wild dogs, a family of mother, father, baby rhinoceros, crocodiles, a hippopotamus out of water, two dwarf mongooses,, zebras, giraffes and many birds.
In the afternoon, we saw impalas, a leopard, which our group discovered and more elephants, zebras and giraffes. Every evening on the game drives, we would see the fiery sunset against the silhouette of African trees.
Day 11 9/19/23 Wednesday and day 12 Thursday 9/20/23 Victoria Falls
We got up fairly early and departed. Hilltop at about 7 AM bound for NelsPruitt airport.
The trip took about three hours. Our driver was very interesting. I sat up front and he told me about the sights we saw on the way. In the beginning we went through several highly populated areas. We would see a lot of unfinished concrete block houses. Our driver said that it may take people about five years to get a house built because they don’t have the money all in one lump sum. Sometimes they build a garage first and live in there, while they are finishing the house, which may cost about $5000 to build.
I asked him about the many white minivans you see. Those minivans are a form of transportation. According to him, they are run by crime syndicate. The drivers are told an amount that they must give to the crime syndicate and what they make after that, they keep. Most people do not have cars so this is the main means of transportation. The vans are loaded up with people, the fare is about $.75 and because they are so pressured to make money, they drive like bats out of hell.
We went through towns, like Bushbuckridge, Hazy View and White River. You see many people on the roads, but it is hard to tell what they are doing. All over South Africa people are selling things. We were puzzled as to where the people who buy the things get the money from. South Africa has the highest unemployment rate on the African continent and globally. As of 2021, the unemployment rate stood at almost 34 percent. The job market had low employment rates, limited youth labor participation, and higher unemployment among youth and women. Since everyone is not counted in the unemployment rate, it is probably closer to 50% -very depressing.
Farther south, there were many farms, growing things like eucalyptus, trees, macadami by a trees, oranges and lemons. The countryside was quite attractive with Rollinghills and attractive vistas at points.
We arrived at Nelspruit airport, a former, or possibly current army base. The flight was Fastjet. We went through Zimbabwe immigration and as usual we were picked up at the airport by the man who would be our guide for our two days in Victoria Falls, Vusa.
The surrounding area is not very attractive, very dry, and in the places inhabited by people, lots of litter. There are lots of monkeys and baboons who try their hardest to run around stealing food from wherever they can get it to people here consider them to be a nuisance animals the same we were way we would think of a raccoon or a squirrel.
We stayed at a place called the old drift lodge. Except for a fair number of bugs it was very nice, also substantially outside and we also stayed in tents. As soon as we got there, we went on a river cruise on the Zambezi river led by Vusa. The Zambezi river is a very wide river, and very large river, and separates Zimbabwe, where we now were from Zambia. Both of these countries were once Rhodesia. Zambia rebelled first and split off in 1964. Zimbabwe in 1980.
The river cruise was a lot of fun- we saw elephants from a different perspective, as well, as hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and an occasional giraffe. This is the river that feeds Victoria Falls, where we would be going the next day. We had a nice dinner and hung out a bit, but it was very hot, and the bugs got to be too much. My tent had good Internet, but Bob and Daph’s did not, so they hung out at my tent a bit.
Old Drift Lodge was much more flexible about the meals and there were not all kinds of areas to eat. We just sat at a table on the deck outside. Breakfast was from 6 to 10. Lunch from 12 to 3 and dinner from 7 to 9. It was quite a big treat for me to sit down and be served for meals, most of which were very good quality for 12 days.
We spent the next two nights at Old Drift lodge. Thursday morning we got up early to the park for a Victoria Falls, which was about 30 minutes away. The falls had many different view in points. The water level was down because it was the lowest time of the year, and some of the falls were not flowing, but most were, and they were quite spectacular with rainbows above them, and huge 100 m drops into the Zambezi river. We visited all of the viewing spots and saw them from every angle vertically where you could see quite a few of them, and sometimes straight on with the roaring waters. The water plunges 100 m into a deep and winding gorge full of turbulent rapids and whirlpools. Victoria Falls is one of the world's most spectacular waterfalls.
The Victoria Falls is comprised of five main waterfalls – The Devils Cataract, the Main Falls, the Horseshoe Falls, the Rainbow Falls and the Eastern Cataract, which is on the Zambian side but can be seen from the Zimbabwe side. The waterfall on the Zimbabwe side has 16 viewing points.
The first sighting of the Falls is from viewpoint number 2. This spot has a glorious view down the length of the waterfall and is very picturesque, as the view is framed by trees and foliage. A unique viewing spot at this viewpoint is down a set of steps, which takes you lower into the gorge and gives you a view of the falls from a lower angle.
Viewpoint number 1 is around the corner and in front of the David Livingstone statue. Here you can look down onto Devils Cataract and also along the length to the Main falls. Viewpoints 3, 4 & 5 give you a good frontal view of Devils Cataract. Viewpoints 6, 7 & 8 give you clear views of the Main Falls. Viewpoints 9, 10, 11 & 12 are in the heart of the rainforest and where it is wettest throughout the year, so here the vegetation is a true rainforest jungle. Viewpoints 11, 12 & 13 give you a glimpse of Livingstone Island and the Devil’s pool activity, which is famous for "swims on the edge".
Viewpoints 13, 14 & 15, emerge out of the rainforest, as it doesn't rain from the spray all year round here. They look onto the Horseshoe Falls and the Rainbow falls and in the low water season you can also get a good look into the raging river way below.
Viewpoint 15, also known as Danger Point is the furthest point one can go on the Zimbabwean side. It also looks east to the Eastern Cataract on the Zambian side and the boiling pot below where the white water rafting starts, in low water. The iconic Victoria Falls Bridge can be seen from viewpoint number 16
The other side of the river is Zambia. On the Zambia side at one point we saw some people swimming just above the Falls. That took a lot of nerve!
After that, we went high up on the hill, which overlooked the Zambezi river. We could not actually see the falls, but we could watch the kayakers and rafters on the river, which was quite interesting. It was a very pleasant place to have lunch -open air, as many places are in Africa.
After that, we went to a local market where we were told that the products were not made in China, but were made locally, some by the men who are selling them. There was a lot of bargaining to do if you didn’t wanna put pay in a price that was way beyond what the object was worth. That was a Course right up my alley. So I bought quite a few wooden animals. I imagine at least some of them were carved locally.
Dinner was on the deck where all the meals were. It was a bit buggy, and hot, but it is always nice to sit outside and have dinner.
I
Friday 9/21/23 day 13 and Saturday, 9/22/23 day 14 Victoria Falls/ Johannesburg
After a relaxing morning at the Old Drift Lodge, we were picked up to go to the Victoria Falls Airport, to fly into Johannesburg. We flew EasyJet, and the flight was uneventful. We were picked up in Johannesburg, by our driver, Mike, who dropped us off at the hotel, Sanctuary Mandela. Sanctuary Mandela had been Nelson Mandela‘s home and foundation office until it was turned into a hotel in 2003. Madiba and members of his family lived at the Houghton residence between 1992 and 1998 (after which it became the headquarters of the Nelson Mandela Foundation until 2002). He was based there while negotiating the multi-party talks that led to South Africa’s democratic rebirth.
Although we only stayed there one day, it was a beautiful hotel. The food was very good. The dining areas seem to be virtually empty, and we could not really figure out how they made any money, but it appeared that people came there on tours and perhaps they had the restaurant open for lunch for outsiders.
The night we had dinner, I had trout, which was very good, but was not very well cooked at all, stay tuned, for what happen next.
At breakfast the next morning, we had the privilege of meeting a woman who had been Nelson Mandela,s chef for 20 years. The food on the menu consists of a lot of Nelson Mandela’s favorite foods. She told us the story of how she was recommended to cook for him. She said she was shaking when she first met him and realized that he wanted her to be his chef.
The next day, after breakfast, at about noon, Mike picked us up to take us on a tour of Johannesburg. Unfortunately, I felt very nauseous in the morning, and as the day progressed the nausea wore off, but my stomach began to hurt. I concluded that I must’ve gotten mild food poisoning from the uncooked fish. Sanctuary Mandela was in a very nice neighborhood although clearly, the residents were quite afraid of crime, because every house had high fences, and sometimes barbed wire. We headed for downtown Johannesburg, which is a shell of its former self. Mike came to Johannesburg 35 years ago from Malawi, headed for the US, but he never made it since he met his wife and got married. He was a teacher Malawi and in Johannesburg, he has been a hotel manager and now a tour guide. He seem to be fairly disgusted at the state of Johannesburg. Downtown he said has been taken over by immigrants from various countries here illegally. They are squatting in the office buildings and apartment, buildings without electricity or running water unless they can Jerry rig something. The main way they make their living is through drug dealing and other types of crime. The streets were absolutely crowded with people and you could see the buildings that had an office buildings and couldn’t really tell that they were empty but he said that everyone has left the center city who used to live there. He showed us a Portuguese area where the Portuguese have entirely left. He and many other people told us that the government of South Africa is completely and totally corrupt and so therefore nothing is done about these type of problems to either deport or help the people that are there.
Next, we went to the Apartheid Museum and he informed us that it would take five days to go through and really see it. I was not feeling well, so I was not really able to concentrate or look at any of the exhibit, other than the model of a solitary confinement prison cell, where Winnie Mandela was confined, and a tank that was used to come through the townships during the uprising and quell them. There were very good videos that we saw at the beginning and at the end. The beginning told the early history of South Africa and how it came to be what it is today. The final video was about the uprising that started in 1976 and continued until Apartheid came to an end. The people that were engaged in that were very courageous, since they were definitely risking their lives, and many many people were killed. They had interviews with some of the people that have been involved and hearing the interviews was very interesting. It took until 1992 before an Apartheid actually ended. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990.
Next, we went to Soweto and had lunch on a very famous street, Vilakazi Street, a Street where both Nelson Mandela had lived (with his first wife) and just a few blocks away Desmond Tutu had also lived. We ate in a buffet restaurant with picnic tables, and if I had been feeling better, it would’ve been very enjoyable. The street was very lively with music and people walking around. Trevor Noah the most famous American from South Africa also grew up in Soweto. Originally when complete segregation occurred, Soweto was the neighborhood designated for Black people, who were never allowed to leave the neighborhood, and in fact, had to carry their papers with them always to prove that they belonged there. Johannesburg was the neighborhood for the white people at that time and there is a big hill that was built to separate the two areas so that they could not even see each other from afar.
Soweto was the site of the first uprisings against apartheid, and Mike showed us several memorials to people who had been killed. Soweto is also very poor, the government has promised to build housing for everyone, but it has not happened, and most people live in tin shacks without electric or water. It is very painful to see because people should not have to live that way, and there doesn’t seem to be any solution except perhaps for the fact that there is a developing middle class that includes people of black African descent.
We headed for the airport and we were dropped in plenty of time to catch her international flights – I to Cairo and Daphne and Bob to Toronto.
Day 15 9/23 Saturday and day 16 9/24 Sunday Cairo
I landed in Cairo at about 6:30 AM, right on time. The flight was not bad – eight hours, but I was able to sleep. The man next to me was Egyptian and worked for Sheraton hotels. His territory is Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe and he travels one week and stays home one week. When I told him I was nervous about being in Cairo by myself, he gave me his phone number and his card, which was very nice. When I told him where I was staying, he seemed to kind of frown.
The airport was fairly chaotic as most of them are these days. The line for immigration was about an hour and a half long. The owner of the Airbnb contacted me on WhatsApp. I was able to meet the driver Sharif. He took me to the Airbnb, arriving at about nine and the owner Medo let me. When we went into the apartment building, which was very rundown looking in a street with no street sign on it, my heart begin to sink. There was a room full of garbage on the first floor, the halls were very dirty, and filled with feral cats and water to feed them. There was a very old elevator. It had a door that you opened like a regular door to get into it, and the cables were visible. I once got stuck in an elevator in Cairo, so it kind of made me nervous. You had to have your apartment key to go both up and down. The apartment itself was very nice and I could see that the owner had worked on trying to make it nice, but that didn’t really make up for the outside environment. The owner took me around the corner to show me the stores. When I tried to get back to the apartment, I could not find it. I called him and he helped me, but I informed him that I was really kind of afraid to leave because I didn’t know if I could find my way back.
I decided to work on trying to leave early. I repeatedly tried to change my flight online - at times the Internet was weak, but other times it was fine, but nevertheless I could not get it done online. I called several numbers and sometimes reached some Egyptian person who would hang up on me. Finally I got the right number and called at 7 AM, which was by then 2 PM in Cairo. By buying points and paying a change fee, I was able to change my flight to the following day.
Except for Medo, most of the people in Egypt do not seem to speak much English, not that they should, but I had to pull out of my brain every last Arabic word I have ever learned.
I informed Medo that I would be checking out and that I would be leaving at 8:15 in the morning and he said he would be there at that time. I then decided I might as well walk around a bit of Cairo since I was only going to be there for 24 hours and six of that had already passed. I walked to Midan Tahrir, which is where I had hung out a lot when I lived here. Midan Tahrir was the site of the protests for most of the Arab Spring in Egypt. Most notably, in Egypt, where early changes arising from the Arab Spring gave many hope after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarek authoritarian rule has apparently returned. Following the controversial election of Mohamed Morsi in 2012, a coup led by defense minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi installed the latter as president in 2013, and he remains in power today. I remember that the school I went to in Cairo wrote with great pride in the revolution and hope for the future.
The square had not seem to change much, if anything has deteriorated. There are no real sidewalks and to cross the streets, you have to be a very skilled jaywalker, which I am.
When I was here before, I was always the only woman alone on the street, except when I was with other friends from the school. People would kind of stare, but at that point, it didn’t really bother me, but this time I felt pretty uncomfortable, almost all the people on the streets are men. Occasionally there is a woman who is wearing a hijab. The people seem to be considerably less friendly then they had been the last time. Last time people were always saying welcome to Egypt to me. I decided to go and have some Kochari, the National dish of Egypt at the famous place on Midan Tahrir. I was able to find it by asking in Arabic where it was. People were pretty surprised that I could even speak some Arabic but I do know the directions and how to say where is something. I sat down and they served me. The price was 14 pounds, which is $.42. That was for a pop and a large bowl of Kochari, which is noodles, spaghetti, rice, lentils, crispy dried onions, and a tomato sauce. It was delicious as I had remembered. I was, however, the only woman sitting in the restaurant. They say you can never go back home again, and I felt that this was true.
I walked over to the Nile river and saw that and passed a couple of upscale hotels that are there, the Ritz Carlton and the Sheraton. According to my plane companion, Ashraf, Sheraton owns almost every hotel chain you could think of.
It was very hot, about 97° and I decided to just head back to the Airbnb. I put it into my GPS and did manage to find it. I was pleased that I could still walk about as far as I could 15 years ago.
I spent most of the rest of the day, working on my photos and my blog. I did go out to buy some food at the grocery store. I couldn’t really figure out what I could eat so I bought some cheese, water, bread, candy bars, and two containers of juice. The total price for all of that was three dollars and yet the few Egyptians that I interacted with said that the prices had skyrocketed. The whole idea of currency devaluation which I can’t say that I really understand appears to have occurred here big time. The last time I was here, the Egyptian pound was worth $.17, now it is worth 3¢.
The noise that you hear outside in the evening is cats fighting, dogs, fighting, and at certain intervals the call to prayer. I went to bed and was able to sleep for about four hours, and then I was awakened by some sort of banging noise. I never figured out what it was, but it was a couple of hours before I went back to sleep. I thought maybe it was something in the walls but it did occur to me that maybe they have all those feral cats so that they don’t have rats I read that in Chicago there is some sort of experimental program where they are trying to bring cats into some neighborhoods to ameliorate the rat problem.
I got up in the morning and had ordered an Uber for 8:15 by 8:15, Medo was not there, and the Uber driver was having trouble finding the place. I spent time corresponding with the Uber driver, who barely spoken English and finally met up with him. Since I had to have the keys to go down the elevator, and had my suitcase, I had to take the keys with me, there was no doorman there or any place to leave the keys except just in the hall which is what I did and then I texted Medo and told him where they were.
Once I got into the Uber, driver informed me that he wanted to cancel the Uber and he wanted cash. He said he had children and they were hungry and he needed the money. I basically didn’t have much choice. He was fairly aggressive until he got his way.
On the way to the airport, Medo called me livid because I had left the keys and they were not there. We went back-and-forth and he told me he was going to give me a very bad rating on airbnb and I told him I was going to give him a very bad rating also because he never described the exterior of the building or the halls. Finally, he told me I was a terrible person that I was going to hell. I said FU. But I felt badly. I have been told that in the Muslim countries people never steal. I saw that there were two girls, watching me, put the keys down, but I assumed that they would not take them. Apparently they did. If Medo had just shown up at 8:15, none of this would’ve happened.
I’ve never had an Uber have to stop and get gas but he did. When I got to the airport, I gave him Ethiopian money by mistake, and he said he would take that too. Once he got his way, he thanked me profusely. He spoke almost no English, and so we had to converse in my very poor Arabic, not that we conversed much.
I boarded the plane to Montreal at 12 pm. I was in first class with lie down seats, which makes a 12 hour trip a lot easier! I made my connection in Montreal, and after another hour and a half I was finally home to Chicago, sweet home, Chicago!
So in 16 days I traveled to 5 countries on 9 different flights on 6 different airlines. I spent the night in 8 different places and I had more than my share of travel problems.
I also saw hundreds if not thousands of animals of at least 50 species. I saw dark skies full of stars and the Southern Hemisphere constellations of scorpion and the southern cross, I saw and learned about Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe first hand. I met many delightful and informative African people working in the tourist industry, I experienced the quiet and beauty of the African Bush, I saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets, I ate delicious meals.