chaosvizier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chaosvizier) wrote2025-05-02 08:54 pm
chaosvizier) wrote2025-05-02 08:54 pm
Journey Extraordinaire, Part Four
We conclude the first half of our grand adventure, and continue in an entirely different country.
Day Seven
We get up at sunrise to have breakfast at six. We convinced Duncan to maybe take us out on one quick final ride before we returned to Maun, and he agreed. As we're eating breakfast, we hear a sound, a low rumble. Duncan immediately perks up and starts looking around. We hear the rumble again.
Sirloin: What is it?
Duncan: Lion.
Finally, our chance to see a MurderCat! We finish breakfast and hop into the truck. We go searching but alas we see nothing; the truck can't go too far off road so the lion was probably just hiding out in the brush. We certainly weren't getting out of the truck to explore further; we're not total dummies.
We got back to camp, packed up our things, and loaded the truck. While packing, we make an unpleasant discovery: the ant hills that we saw dotting the ground around our tents were not ant hills. We recalled what the San had taught us, about how scorpion holes were wider, elongated, not simple circles like ant hills.
Our tents were surrounded by scorpions.
We decided that this was the best time to have made that discovery.
Everyone from camp came out to say goodbye, and we thanked them for the experience. Sirloin gifted them the deck of Uno cards, which they absolutely loved. Onks hitched a ride with us out of the park, and away we went.
Somewhere during this multi-hour drive the long nights finally caught up with us, and we dozed through a good portion of it. We were awake long enough to see a dead kudu who had tried to jump the fence but failed. He must have been fresh, Duncan said, because the hyenas and vultures were not yet around.
We were turned over to a van just outside of the park, as before, and the van returned us to the airport. We were early so we had lunch at a small restaurant across the street, and then caught a plane back to Gaborone. This plane was even smaller than the previous planes. Sirloin was unamused.
We still made it safely, although it was a bumpier trip than the first one, and returned to the same hotel we had chosen before the safari. The taxi driver, Jozy, was very friendly, and he agreed to come by the next morning to bring us back to the airport. We settled in and rested for a bit, and then one of our work counterparts met us and took us out to dinner at Park 27, a spacious and beautiful restaurant just outside the city limits. As we ate, we learned that the weather forecast was a bit dire, as there was a cyclone in Mozambique and the aftereffects were heading our way. This became evident very quickly as a massive torrential downpour hit, drowning the outside tables and guests and even blowing open some of the windows and doors. Exciting! Another counterpart joined us after that, and we enjoyed dinner and drinks and then returned to the hotel. Sirloin found a pair of bees in her room; I stomped one but the other flew up to the ceiling. I removed my shoe and hit it, and it splattered and stuck there, along with a clear footprint on the ceiling. We decided to pretend this never happened and called it a night. After all, the following day was going to be complicated.
Five hours of sleep isn't perfect, but it's better than our previous few days so we'll take it.
Day Eight
Jozy picks us up at 0500 (we have learned our lesson about when the airport really opens), and we have breakfast, check in, and board our flight back to Johannesburg.
INTERLUDE: This is not the end. Originally, when this was a work-based trip, we had planned on going back home after the safari finished, since the flights would be paid for. But, since we were doing this on our own, we said, why not stay longer? And so Sirloin and I came up with a travel plan for the rest of the week. This is where we are now.
Our challenge: get to Johannesburg, check out, check back in, and board a flight to Zimbabwe, all in the space of three hours. We knew that time was short, and that every second mattered. We had memorized the path from airline checkout to the check-in stations, and we knew that the security line could be long. We were lucky on that count; we passed through security in 20 minutes and then our flight was delayed by a half hour, so we were safe.
Surprise, our flight to Zimbabwe featured our smallest plane yet. Sirloin is resigned to her fate.
Our destination: Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world. While Niagara Falls on the Canada/USA border generates the largest volume of water per second, and Angel Falls in Venezuela is the tallest, Victoria Falls is the largest in breadth, stretching over a mile of continuous waterflow during the rainy season.
Unsurprisingly, the town of Victoria Falls is very tourist-friendly.
To our discredit, we did not plan this part of the trip perfectly. We landed without visas, and waited in line for half an hour to get processed. We also discovered that there is no cell or wifi service in Victoria Falls airport. None. Not even eSims work there for whatever reason. So we check with Security on taxi fare, find a reasonable-looking taxi and driver, and headed off to Nguni Lodge with our new driver, Victor.
INTERLUDE: This is an important note for world travelers. From experience, most cab drivers in Africa and South America are very accommodating, knowing that tourists are money and good service yields good tips. Multiple times we asked a driver to come get us the following day, and they did exactly that. This is not formal, like Uber, but so far in my experience I have encountered no failure in a driver to appear when requested. If you're polite, your driver will help you out.
Nguni Lodge is about half an hour from the airport. Victor tells us a bit about the city and how the weather has been; it's been extra hot so the falls are not at their peak. He gives us a sheet of paper with a large number of tours and adventures that could be purchased. We ask Victor if he can get us in a few days, and he says yes. He drops us off at the lodge and we check in. The place is beautiful, with large rooms and a lot of natural decor. The front desk staff are super friendly and tell us not to stay out too late as the city is open and wild animals frequently just wander the streets in the evenings. Animals including but not limited to baboons, elephants, and buffalo. Point noted: stay inside or get fucked up.
We also did not plan this afternoon, so, looking at Victor's tour sheet, we find a combination safari tour and dinner at an elephant sanctuary. That sounds intriguing. So I go to the hotel desk and ask if it's possible to book it at the last minute. Half an hour later a jeep shows up and off we go.
Our guide (and alas, I did not remember his name) takes us to Zambezi National Park for our game drive. The atmosphere here is far different from the Kalahari - we have gone from arid desert landscape and dry brush and shrubbery to green grass, tall trees, and water. And, in turn, our animal selection has changed. We see a pumba with baby pumbas. We see impala, "the McDonalds of Africa" because they are everywhere, good fast food for predators, and have an M-shaped pattern on their butts. We see some baboons. And this is before we even get into the park.
Once inside we meet some old friends, springbok, steenbok, giraffes, and wildebeest. We then encounter the Cape Buffalo, one of the Big Five and a dangerous entity by itself, much less in a pack of fifty plus. We see hundreds of them. We see one that is in the process of giving birth. Our guide said we couldn't stay for the whole thing, as it would take several hours and it had just started. We saw a hyena mom and her pup. Found many guinea fowl. Saw a dung beetle with his ball of poo. Saw Zazu on break from his stint in the Lion King. Saw more baboons, more buffalo, more hyenas, various birds, and then a group of elephants, including some very young ones. As it got dark, the spring hares came out - like a kangaroo/mouse hybrid thing.
As darkness fell we left the park and headed to the elephant sanctuary for dinner. The road was an unlit dirt road into nowhere. Fine, maybe not ideal safety here, but again, most of the time, in a tourism-heavy location, the guides will not lead you to crime and/or death. The sanctuary was dedicated to elephant rescue; sometimes taken from zoos or other captive environments and given space to roam and regain understanding of the wild. Sometimes it works; they had a pair of elephants leave the sanctuary and go wild not long before, but some are too integrated with captivity and can't leave. so they are cared for and used for educational purposes. Dinner was tasty; steak and potatoes, with a squash soup and fire-roasted vegetables.
After dinner we took a bathroom break. The men's and women's rest rooms were adjacent, and the roof was shared so you could hear everything.
Her: Are you there?
Me: Yes?
Her: There's a huge spider in here.
Me: ...I can't fix this problem right now.
Her: It's right in the middle of the floor.
Me: How about I finish up, and then you use the men's room which seems to be less spideriffic, and I'll watch the door?
Her: I like this plan.
We leave under the cover of total darkness. Our guide has a hand-held spotlight which he uses to scan the road and the foliage around, and in so doing points out a scorpion crossing the road and a giant millipede just chilling out.
We get back to Nguni Lodge around 11:00 pm and thank our guide profusely for taking us out at the last minute and spending extra time with us, well beyond the planned excursion. We retire to our rooms and actually get a decent amount of sleep, finally.
Day Seven
We get up at sunrise to have breakfast at six. We convinced Duncan to maybe take us out on one quick final ride before we returned to Maun, and he agreed. As we're eating breakfast, we hear a sound, a low rumble. Duncan immediately perks up and starts looking around. We hear the rumble again.
Sirloin: What is it?
Duncan: Lion.
Finally, our chance to see a MurderCat! We finish breakfast and hop into the truck. We go searching but alas we see nothing; the truck can't go too far off road so the lion was probably just hiding out in the brush. We certainly weren't getting out of the truck to explore further; we're not total dummies.
We got back to camp, packed up our things, and loaded the truck. While packing, we make an unpleasant discovery: the ant hills that we saw dotting the ground around our tents were not ant hills. We recalled what the San had taught us, about how scorpion holes were wider, elongated, not simple circles like ant hills.
Our tents were surrounded by scorpions.
We decided that this was the best time to have made that discovery.
Everyone from camp came out to say goodbye, and we thanked them for the experience. Sirloin gifted them the deck of Uno cards, which they absolutely loved. Onks hitched a ride with us out of the park, and away we went.
Somewhere during this multi-hour drive the long nights finally caught up with us, and we dozed through a good portion of it. We were awake long enough to see a dead kudu who had tried to jump the fence but failed. He must have been fresh, Duncan said, because the hyenas and vultures were not yet around.
We were turned over to a van just outside of the park, as before, and the van returned us to the airport. We were early so we had lunch at a small restaurant across the street, and then caught a plane back to Gaborone. This plane was even smaller than the previous planes. Sirloin was unamused.
We still made it safely, although it was a bumpier trip than the first one, and returned to the same hotel we had chosen before the safari. The taxi driver, Jozy, was very friendly, and he agreed to come by the next morning to bring us back to the airport. We settled in and rested for a bit, and then one of our work counterparts met us and took us out to dinner at Park 27, a spacious and beautiful restaurant just outside the city limits. As we ate, we learned that the weather forecast was a bit dire, as there was a cyclone in Mozambique and the aftereffects were heading our way. This became evident very quickly as a massive torrential downpour hit, drowning the outside tables and guests and even blowing open some of the windows and doors. Exciting! Another counterpart joined us after that, and we enjoyed dinner and drinks and then returned to the hotel. Sirloin found a pair of bees in her room; I stomped one but the other flew up to the ceiling. I removed my shoe and hit it, and it splattered and stuck there, along with a clear footprint on the ceiling. We decided to pretend this never happened and called it a night. After all, the following day was going to be complicated.
Five hours of sleep isn't perfect, but it's better than our previous few days so we'll take it.
Day Eight
Jozy picks us up at 0500 (we have learned our lesson about when the airport really opens), and we have breakfast, check in, and board our flight back to Johannesburg.
INTERLUDE: This is not the end. Originally, when this was a work-based trip, we had planned on going back home after the safari finished, since the flights would be paid for. But, since we were doing this on our own, we said, why not stay longer? And so Sirloin and I came up with a travel plan for the rest of the week. This is where we are now.
Our challenge: get to Johannesburg, check out, check back in, and board a flight to Zimbabwe, all in the space of three hours. We knew that time was short, and that every second mattered. We had memorized the path from airline checkout to the check-in stations, and we knew that the security line could be long. We were lucky on that count; we passed through security in 20 minutes and then our flight was delayed by a half hour, so we were safe.
Surprise, our flight to Zimbabwe featured our smallest plane yet. Sirloin is resigned to her fate.
Our destination: Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world. While Niagara Falls on the Canada/USA border generates the largest volume of water per second, and Angel Falls in Venezuela is the tallest, Victoria Falls is the largest in breadth, stretching over a mile of continuous waterflow during the rainy season.
Unsurprisingly, the town of Victoria Falls is very tourist-friendly.
To our discredit, we did not plan this part of the trip perfectly. We landed without visas, and waited in line for half an hour to get processed. We also discovered that there is no cell or wifi service in Victoria Falls airport. None. Not even eSims work there for whatever reason. So we check with Security on taxi fare, find a reasonable-looking taxi and driver, and headed off to Nguni Lodge with our new driver, Victor.
INTERLUDE: This is an important note for world travelers. From experience, most cab drivers in Africa and South America are very accommodating, knowing that tourists are money and good service yields good tips. Multiple times we asked a driver to come get us the following day, and they did exactly that. This is not formal, like Uber, but so far in my experience I have encountered no failure in a driver to appear when requested. If you're polite, your driver will help you out.
Nguni Lodge is about half an hour from the airport. Victor tells us a bit about the city and how the weather has been; it's been extra hot so the falls are not at their peak. He gives us a sheet of paper with a large number of tours and adventures that could be purchased. We ask Victor if he can get us in a few days, and he says yes. He drops us off at the lodge and we check in. The place is beautiful, with large rooms and a lot of natural decor. The front desk staff are super friendly and tell us not to stay out too late as the city is open and wild animals frequently just wander the streets in the evenings. Animals including but not limited to baboons, elephants, and buffalo. Point noted: stay inside or get fucked up.
We also did not plan this afternoon, so, looking at Victor's tour sheet, we find a combination safari tour and dinner at an elephant sanctuary. That sounds intriguing. So I go to the hotel desk and ask if it's possible to book it at the last minute. Half an hour later a jeep shows up and off we go.
Our guide (and alas, I did not remember his name) takes us to Zambezi National Park for our game drive. The atmosphere here is far different from the Kalahari - we have gone from arid desert landscape and dry brush and shrubbery to green grass, tall trees, and water. And, in turn, our animal selection has changed. We see a pumba with baby pumbas. We see impala, "the McDonalds of Africa" because they are everywhere, good fast food for predators, and have an M-shaped pattern on their butts. We see some baboons. And this is before we even get into the park.
Once inside we meet some old friends, springbok, steenbok, giraffes, and wildebeest. We then encounter the Cape Buffalo, one of the Big Five and a dangerous entity by itself, much less in a pack of fifty plus. We see hundreds of them. We see one that is in the process of giving birth. Our guide said we couldn't stay for the whole thing, as it would take several hours and it had just started. We saw a hyena mom and her pup. Found many guinea fowl. Saw a dung beetle with his ball of poo. Saw Zazu on break from his stint in the Lion King. Saw more baboons, more buffalo, more hyenas, various birds, and then a group of elephants, including some very young ones. As it got dark, the spring hares came out - like a kangaroo/mouse hybrid thing.
As darkness fell we left the park and headed to the elephant sanctuary for dinner. The road was an unlit dirt road into nowhere. Fine, maybe not ideal safety here, but again, most of the time, in a tourism-heavy location, the guides will not lead you to crime and/or death. The sanctuary was dedicated to elephant rescue; sometimes taken from zoos or other captive environments and given space to roam and regain understanding of the wild. Sometimes it works; they had a pair of elephants leave the sanctuary and go wild not long before, but some are too integrated with captivity and can't leave. so they are cared for and used for educational purposes. Dinner was tasty; steak and potatoes, with a squash soup and fire-roasted vegetables.
After dinner we took a bathroom break. The men's and women's rest rooms were adjacent, and the roof was shared so you could hear everything.
Her: Are you there?
Me: Yes?
Her: There's a huge spider in here.
Me: ...I can't fix this problem right now.
Her: It's right in the middle of the floor.
Me: How about I finish up, and then you use the men's room which seems to be less spideriffic, and I'll watch the door?
Her: I like this plan.
We leave under the cover of total darkness. Our guide has a hand-held spotlight which he uses to scan the road and the foliage around, and in so doing points out a scorpion crossing the road and a giant millipede just chilling out.
We get back to Nguni Lodge around 11:00 pm and thank our guide profusely for taking us out at the last minute and spending extra time with us, well beyond the planned excursion. We retire to our rooms and actually get a decent amount of sleep, finally.