Sundowners

The physical beauty of Africa is not limited to its wonderful wildlife.  We made it a goal to see as many sunrises and sunsets as possible.  It won't be a surprise to anyone who knows me that I didn't do a very good job of documenting sunrises.  (I did enjoy many though!)

Tian, our proprietor in Nxamaseri told us that he didn't believe a camera could actually capture the beauty of an African sunset.  I agree.  They are amazing, magical, fleeting.  And, while you know it won't be the same, it's really hard not to try to capture that magic through the camera to savor later.  It's not the same as being there, but I'm still glad that I tried to bring that juju home with me.  I think that I had some moderate success, and better yet, for me, looking at these pictures does transport me back to those places.  So, I had to share.  Below are sunsets from most of the places that we stayed.
Enjoy!

Deception Valley in the Kalahari

Nxamaseri in the Okavango Delta

Chobe Game Reserve in Northern Botswana - from the land

Chobe Game Reserve in Northern Botswana - from the water

Kyle Game Reserve in Masvingo Zimbabwe, near the Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Askari Game Reserve, South Africa

While not specifically a sunset, it was late afternoon.  The beach at Vilanculos, Mozambique.

The Big Five

When I left for Africa I knew that there were some animals that everyone had on their list of "must sees," or "The Big Five"....I didn't.  I wanted to experience the place for its natural beauty and while I did really REALLY want to see elephants, I didn't really have any other animals on my list that I'd feel disappointed if I didn't see.

Along the way people kept asking us if we'd seen the Big Five and all three of us shrugged and said something to the effect that we'd seen lots of animals.....because, honestly, we weren't quite sure what they were and while we felt a little ignorant that we didn't know, we were having fun and it didn't matter that much to us if we ticked off a list of animals.  If pressed, we decided that we were pretty sure the lion was on the list and maybe the elephant, but we also thought the giraffe must also be represented, because, it IS tall after all.  (We were wrong....)

It wasn't until halfway through the trip, when we were approached by a street vendor selling wooden animal carvings (of the Big Five), that we figured out what they actually were.  And, by then (to our surprise) we'd seen all of them with the exception of the rhino, which came later.

So, on my bucket list trip, I filled up someone else's bucket list card, which was nice.

For your education and enjoyment, here are the Big Five in alphabetical order:

Photo Montage

I have a lot of sorting to do in the photo department, but I wanted to share a small sampling of some of the better animal photos I took over the last 2 weeks.

These animals are from the Chobe Game reserve, where, among other things, 50,000 elephant live.

Three pied kingfisher on the lookout for their next meal.

Kudo and crocodile co-existing, for now....

Birds really do hang out on the backs of large herbivores...

Elephant and egret

Cape buffalo walking to breakfast.  Due to their hide and horns, we were told that they are very difficult to kill.  We didn't try.

Warthogs are built with front legs too long to allow for standing and feeding at the same time...so they kneel to eat.

They say that you should never get between a hippo and the water, as they have poor eyesight, and are prone to a short temper....we were.

The cats are from Deception Valley Lodge:

Lion cubs saying "hi" to Mom after returning from her long night of hunting

Lion cub practicing his hunting skills on naive tourists

Female leopard  crossing the road after her hunt was interrupted, by tourists

These are from Nxamaseri in the Okavango Delta:

A bee eater looking for dinner before sunset, while perched in the reeds

A fish eagle attempting to snag a meal, sadly, unsuccessfully

Yawning male hippo.  Note the teeth.


These pictures are from a place I won't mention, because rhinos are being killed off at a rate of at least2 per day.  If it continues, they estimate that rhinos will be extinct in less than a decade.  They are magnificent animals.  This one, a male, weighs more than 3 tons and stood taller than my car.

What's in a Name?

The Sunbirds, Zabeta, Kirstin and Catherine, enjoying a Rulo Sundance Chardonnay in Vilanculous

The past few weeks have been a really amazing experience.  As I sit in the Hong Kong airport over a long transit, looking at a few pictures (I have several thousand!) I am truly awe inspired by the trip.  Given the complexity of what we did, we had very little go wrong and nearly everything - from the weather; to customs and immigration in several countries; to the peculiarities of an old and small airplane - go right. 

We learned a few things along the way, including how to say thank you (and hello) in:

• Zulu
• Swana
• Davelli
• Shona

We also learned that Africans are very creative when naming their children.  Here are just a few of the names that we encountered along the way:

• Chote  - an amazing Bush guide who found us a beautiful female leopard early one morning at Deception Valley.
• Kay-Ha - an equally amazing guide who enacted a traditional Bush medicine dance for us...more on that later.
• Jacu - An Afrikans man, and proprietor of the Deception Valley Lodge, who was an encyclopedia of information about the Kalahari bush and was willing to take 5 gringos on a walk through it to show us how special it is, up close and personal.
• Trythings - the manager at the Elephant Hills Resort.
• Bright - a Concierge at the Elephant Hills Resort.
• Edmore - a wonderful waiter at the Elephant Hills Resort, who not only spoke 9 languages, but danced with me and Catherine on my birthday.
• Memory - Staff member at the Elephant Hills resort
• Sunny - Staff member at the Elephant Hills resort
• Moses - The Air Traffic Controller at Mashvingo, who very kindly gave us a tour of his office and was incredibly helpful in organizing both the flight plan filing and immigrations and customs for Zimbabwe.
• Welcome - Our waiter at the Great Zimbabwe Lodge.  A kind and gentle giant, who served us the worst wine I have ever tasted in my life and then made it right by finding us a replacement.  This caused us to say: "Thank you, Welcome...," which just sounded weird.
• Champion - Our very knowledgable and passionate guide at the Great Zimbabwe ruins.
• Chipo - (This means "Gift" in Shona).  A woman marketing manager for the Kyle Lake Game Reserve, who not only accompanied us on our game drive, but also ensured that we understood everything that Kyle Lake had to offer so that we could and would encourage others to come.
• Nasha - The security officer at the Mashvingo airport, who expedited our entrance and exit from the airport.
• Jimmi - the airport Marshall at Kruger airfield.  He used those red paddles to help us park the plane.  That was our only experience with the paddle thing, and it was the second to last stop on the trip...
• Senior - (a woman) the Customs officer at Kruger.  She is a twin, and the first to be born, hence the name.
• Hillary -  (a man) our general guide for Mashvingo, and (I think) the only unmarried adult that we encountered on our trip.
• Dudu - A waitress at Askari Lodge, who very kindly set a table on our porch outside our chalet so that we could have al fresco room service.
• Paolo (X2) - one was a  waiter and one a manager at the Vilanculos Beach Lodge. 
• Jefita - The Elephant Hills Resort shuttle driver, who took care to ensure that we saw everything around Victoria Falls.
• David - Jefita's brother who worked in Mashvingo at the Great Zimbabwe Lodge (600 kilometres from the Elephant Hills Resort). 
• Tian - the manager of Nxamaseri (pronounced N-click-aseri....it's a Swana language thing that has to be heard to understand).
• Kapinga (aka Adam) - Our guide in Nxamaseri, who loved birds and passed that love on to us.  I'm buying a bird book as soon as I get home.
• Emanuel - The Mashvingo airport manager. More on Mashvingo in a later post....Emanuel - The Mashvingo airport manager. More on Mashvingo in a later post....

We were blown away by the passion, customer service attitude, and interest in three women flying around in a small airplane.  We got some initial disbelief from some people when they discovered that Catherine was the pilot and that we were roaming around Africa in a plane just a little bit bigger than a VW beattle, but in large part the reaction was joy and excitement over what we were doing.  My favorite quote was just yesterday, from our game drive guide, Warren, in Askari who after hearing our story said:  "You rock!"

We did. The trip did. And none of us will ever be the same for it.