I was ready for a steady diet of
nature as we left Cape Town to go on the safari part of our South Africa trip. We flew to one of the airports serving Kruger
National Park in the northeast part of the country. There we boarded a van that drove two hours
to our camp in an unfenced private game reserve that bordered Kruger. Being unfenced, any wild game in Kruger had
free range to enter our reserve. Since
our relatively small private reserve only had a fraction of the tourists that
go to the very popular Kruger, we were able to get closer to wildlife,
unencumbered by many other spectators.
Interesting sign along the road on the way
to our camp.
Each couple had their individual rustic,
but spacious tent. The bed was tented
with mosquito netting. There was a big
wooden box where we were cautioned to place any food or other item that we
didn’t want the monkeys to get into. We
just emptied our suitcases into it as well as our backpacks. There was a sink and flush toilet and a sunken
pit with a shower head above it which you could use in the afternoon after the
sun had heated the water tank on the roof.
We could sit inside on the sofa and look out into the wilderness. At night, the attendants lowered the three sides
of the tent.
Tent
Our living room with bedroom behind it
Bathroom
We walked down a dirt path to the lodge
where meals were served and we attended lectures. That afternoon during tea and snacks, the
group leader gave us a lecture on lion social structure and behavior before we
embarked on our first game drive. Four
of us boarded the cloth covered four-wheel drive vehicle along with the driver
and a spotter who sat on a jump seat at the very front. The spotter looked for pawprints and sightings
of pea or poop along the road while the driver continually scanned the
surrounding landscape. There were
elevated front and back seats behind the driver and the two couples took turns sitting
in front.
Vehicle
Paw Print
Almost immediately we saw the following
species: warthog, wildebeest, greater kudu antelopes,
elephants, crocodiles and hippopotamuses, as well as many exotic bird species. All of us met at a scenic spot for a
beautiful sunset and sundowners (alcoholic drinks during sunset over the
African Bush). Back at the lodge, we sat
in the open-air dining area while we watched the resident cook prepare our
evening meal.
Warthog
Wildebeest
Greater kudu antelope with spiral horns
Elephant
Crocodile
Hippopotamus
Swainson's Spurfowl
Woodland Kingfisher
Dining room
In the morning, Diane and I awoke to
beating drums followed by coffee served in our tent. Then we walked to the lodge and boarded our
van for the morning game drive. The new
species on this trip included giraffes, waterbuck, and more birds. After brunch at the camp, we were at leisure
during the heat of the day. We had
afternoon tea and snacks at the lodge while hearing a lecture on termites and
their importance to the ecology of the area. The new species during the evening safari included
leopard, water buffalo, and wild dog. After
our sundowners meeting, we returned to camp for the evening meal.
Giraffes
Waterbuck
Water buffalo
Wild dog
Southern ground hornbill
Red-Billed Hornbill
On our game drive the next morning, we saw
female lions, a leopard carcass, spotted hyenas and zebra. Then it was back to the lodge for brunch and
time to relax while it was so hot. During
afternoon tea there was a lecture on rhinos followed by the last evening safari
where we spotted a leopard tortoise and a helmeted guinea fowl. It was rainy
and our spotters were trying very hard to find a water buffalo, but they had no
luck. After sundowners at a scenic spot,
we had dinner at camp and an evening spent recounting tales from the program
with fellow participants.
Lion
Leopard carcass
Zebra
Helmeted guinea fowl
During the game drive on our last morning,
we spotted an impala antelope and, again, many beautiful bird species. Our jeep got stuck in the mud from the rain
the night before so we were late for brunch. Then we packed up for the ride to
a nearby airport for the flight back to Johannesburg.
African jacana (we previously saw this bird
in the Peruvian Amazon)
Impala antelope
There were only four of us who were not
flying home but rather continuing on the post-trip to Victoria Falls in
Zimbabwe. We four transferred to the
same hotel we stayed in before that was near the airport. We enjoyed happy hour, sitting with a view of
the lake and hearing an overview of Zimbabwe's history, culture and wildlife to
prepare us for our visit.
The next day after our flight arrived, we
transferred to the beautiful, historic Victoria Falls hotel. Our local guide was Priscilla, a beautiful
Zimbabwean woman, who took us to a Mpisi Village. There we met the chief of the local Matabele
people, Mr. Mpisi (mpisi means hyena). He
discussed the history of his nation from its origins in Zululand, South Africa
to present-day Zimbabwe. We toured his
village to see the huts, inside and out, the gardens, livestock (goats and
chickens) and met some of his family. We
went to an open building where there were many carvings out of wood and
sandstone. He showed us one drawing by
the youngest son, and I asked if we could see more. He took us to a hut whose walls were lined
with his son’s artwork. I fell in love
with a pencil drawing of two lions lapping water with eyes alert for intruders,
their heads and upper bodies reflected in the water. It was so lifelike that I couldn’t imagine
how he sketched it from memory. What
talent! I bought it on the spot. This son was not married, and I wondered if
he might have been gay.
Bird of paradise on hotel grounds
Priscilla, our guide
Chief and son with hut containing son’s art
work in the background
Village huts
Son’s pencil drawing of lions
The next day we drove through an
immigration checkpoint to visit the Chobe National Park in the neighboring
country of Botswana. Both Diane and I had
read several of Alexander McCall Smith’s books about The No. 1 Ladies'
Detective Agency which were set in Botswana. We boarded a 4x4 vehicle and drove through the
plains. We saw troops of baboons,
including a baby on its mother’s back, antelope, crocodile and hippopotamus.
The unusual sightings were a mongoose, a dung beetle and a whole herd of plains
elephants.
Mongoose
Dung beetle
African eagle
After lunch back at the hotel, we boarded a
motorboat for a cruise on the Chobe River to view more wild game. Being on a large river adjacent to plains
with wooded areas, in the late afternoon we saw the usual water birds, huge
crocodiles and a bloat of adult and baby hippopotamuses. It was the time of day when other animals
were also coming to the water to drink like kudu antelope and a herd of adult
and baby elephants. We really enjoyed
the day in Botswana.
Very big crocodile
Adult and baby elephants going to drink
Adult and baby hippos grazing
Back at the hotel, we sat on the balcony
viewing the spray from the falls and the bridge over the gorge in the
distance. Victoria Falls (Lozi: Mosi-oa-Tunya,
"The Smoke That Thunders"; Tonga: Shungu Namutitima, "Boiling
Water") is on the Zambezi River, and is one of the world's largest
waterfalls, with a width of 5,604 feet. It
became known to the western world as Victoria Falls only after Dr. David
Livingstone set eyes upon it in 1855 naming it after his British Queen. We enjoyed one of the hotel’s special
cocktail-hour drinks before dinner with the man and woman on this post-trip
with us and our local guide, Priscilla.
Bridge over the gorge with spray
In the morning, we toured the hotel itself,
learning about its long history in a gallery with many photographs and displays. The hotel was built by the British in 1904,
and was originally conceived as an accommodation for workers on the
Cape-to-Cairo railway before becoming a famous luxury brand. The walls were decorated with murals
depicting life in Zimbabwe and held oil paintings of famous people and of the
falls. We visited the gift shop and
purchased a colorful wall hanging made by a women’s cooperative showing many of
the animals and trees we had seen in South Africa.
Me viewing hotel gallery
Wall hanging
Our guide took us to a local grocery
store. It was interesting to see many of
the brand names were the same as in the U.S.
During tea at the hotel our guide talked more about the history of the
falls. Then we walked with her to the
falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
KFC sign
Victoria Falls
We concluded our visit with a special
farewell dinner in the elegant hotel dining room with piano music in the
background. Priscilla joined us, dressed
in a fancy gown with a matching head wrap.
We were so glad we included the post-trip on our visit to South Africa.
Me, Priscilla and Diane at farewell dinner
All too soon we returned from South Africa
and got into our Columbia routine: Seeing
movies at Ragtag and local theaters, plays at Stephens College and Columbia
Entertainment Company, concerts at We Always Swing Jazz Series at Murrays and
Odyssey Chamber Music, lunches at Muleskinners on Friday and classes at Osher. We were keeping up with Tai Chi, Diane was
swimming at the ARC and we were both walking and exercising on the machines
there several days a week. We had
friends over for dinner, met them at a restaurant, or went to their houses. Ellen was coming over to do computer work and
staying for dinner or lunch. As had been
our long-time habit since moving back to Columbia, Diane and I both saw Lori every
month for an hour-long full-body Swedish massage and Robert every five weeks
for haircuts. We started using the foot
nurse at the Senior Center to have our toenails cut and routine foot care.
We were having a very busy time while at
home in Columbia. It was the time of
year to do taxes for me and Diane, Ellen, Gale and this year for Chris and Mary. I loved doing taxes with my Columbia
family. On a Sunday brunch with our gay
male friends, Larry and Carl, we started discussing what we would do if the
Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, legalizing gay
marriage. We agreed that it would
benefit us to file joint rather than individual tax returns. Diane and I attended another Apple Mac class
on software to organize photographs, something Diane said she would like to do,
but I could tell she would never master it.
The last week of February, my sister flew
to Kansas City and took the shuttle to our house the day before the BOAT
conference that preceded the True/False film festival. The Monday after the festival concluded, we
left on a short trip with Earlene, driving to Little Rock, Arkansas with a stop
for lunch in Branson, MO on the way. She
had never visited the Clinton Library and really wanted to see it, so we spent
the next morning there and the afternoon at the Arkansas Art Center. Diane and I had been sponsoring a young man
who came to Columbia in the summer to play violin with the Missouri Symphony
Society’s Hot Summer Nights series. He
had been admitted to the Medical School in Little Rock, and we asked him to
join us for a nice dinner at a restaurant in North Little Rock.
The next morning, we drove to the Crystal
Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart founder
Sam Walton, was responsible for the development of the museum. It is magnificently built into the landscape,
taking advantage of the shape of the land and the water sources. The thirty-foot tall silver tree that greeted
us at the front entrance told us we were in for a special treat. We had a box lunch and toured the galleries
that afternoon. Earlene had made friends
with a docent at the museum who showed us her favorite paintings. Since we were there on a Wednesday, we had
reservations for their special dinner night called WOW, Wednesdays Over Water,
because of the beautiful setting of the restaurant. That night the dinner was a special creation
of small plates featuring local fresh ingredients starting with the appetizer
through the dessert. After the meal, we
took another docent-led tour featuring landscapes and why they were important
to the artist.
Silver tree
Our WOW appetizer
We had one more day of art. We drove to Overland Park, Kansas to visit
the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College. It presents many of the region's most
important exhibitions of leading-edge contemporary art. In the afternoon we drove into Kansas City,
Missouri, and visited both the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Before
Earlene’s flight home, we had time the next morning to tour the Thomas Hart
Benton Home and Studio, State Historic Site.
There were not many visitors so our guide was able to spend a lot of
time telling us about all the objects and artwork in the house and studio. It was so interesting to learn about how
Benton made models of what he planned to paint so he could visualize ahead of
time how he could best paint the scene.
After dropping Earlene off at the airport, we drove to our home in
Columbia. We had packed a lot into five
days and were ready to resume our usual activities.
Our Columbia home
Diane was attending meetings of her Salon group and the Women’s Symphony League. I was meeting with our friends about their portfolios and checking their asset allocations to see if they needed to rebalance their accounts. I also loved planning our upcoming trips, choosing ones we would enjoy and making reservations where needed. I prepared a day-by-day itinerary for each trip so we would know at a glance what we would be doing each day. If we were on our own, within each day it was still completely spontaneous. If we were on a tour, I often added time on our own before or after the tour. If the trip included foreign currencies, I prepared tables of currency conversion we could carry in our money belts so we would have some idea of the cost in U.S. dollars when ordering or buying anything. The itinerary included the phone numbers to call in case of emergency, airline frequent flyer and reservation numbers. I scheduled the payments and made sure the funds were in place for each trip. This was all the kind of detailed work I enjoyed.
Diane and I did not see our East Coast families in 2012. We were now planning a visit to Acadia National Park in Maine before driving south to spend time with each of our families this year.