Details About the Trip to London and Africa
On April 25th, 2008 we left to see London and Africa. In all it involved 4 countries, 12 stamps in passports, 12 plane flights, 2 helicopter flights, 1 forced “medical emergency landing” for someone with air sickness, a light lunch at Harrod’s that cost US$100, a lunch in Zimbabwe that cost ZIM$30,000,000.00, dozens and dozens of wildlife sightings, a walk with baboons, a half dozen rides on elephants in the Okavango Delta, and about 110 Gig of pictures (roughly 10,000). A greatly reduced subset of the photos can be found at Photockie.com.
The stop in London was mostly to reduce jet lag, so we were only there for a couple nights. The double-decker red bus tours provided a great way to see a lot of sights in the limited time available. A few comments about our experiences in London. Grammar school history came alive, even though all the people it’s about are dead. This place is so old it’s cool. That fits, though. The English have a fetish with the dead. Westminster Abby is an enormous church, but can only handle a small congregation. The rest of the space has to be the world’s largest indoor collection of tombs, huge statues of dead people and grave markers. Just look down as you walk around the church. You’re almost always standing on someone’s grave. The Tower of London was much better than expected. An odd location – quarters for the Royalty along with the “go to” dungeon for traitors.
The staff at our hotel in London were exceptional, and, best of all, quite quirky. No one knew when anything started. The manager had no clue which direction was North. Once we realized they knew little about the world outside the hotel, we got along famously with them.
The flight to South Africa was most interesting. There was a gentleman who was blowing his nose every 15 minutes or so. The bellow that erupted, though, sounded more like a mating call for elephants.Thankfully, he didn’t show up at any of our safari camps. Being eaten by a lion is one thing, but trampled by a horny elephant…
Cape Town may well be the most beautiful city in the world. There's tons of stuff to do, but it's spread out all over. Our travel agent advised us to use a local guide, Chris McWilliams, to help overcome this problem.It was fantastic advice. He adjusted the tour in real-time so it was perfect for us. Due to two sets of mechanical problems and a passenger developing airsickness, our trip to Vumbura Plains was delayed by a day. Botawana Airways is a government owned monopoly. If you're going into Botawana,decide to be OK if they screw up the flight. According to the locals,it's pretty common.
Vumbura was the first camp. The bungalows were very modern with essentially no tent canvas. Amenities included an outdoor shower and plunge pool.In-room power made battery recharging very easy. As with all three camps, views from the room/lodge, food, and service was great. We stayed one night.
Mombo was next up. It was the best by far. The abundance of wildlife was incredible. An African Buffalo slept under our tent and we were visited by an elephant one afternoon. Our tent was huge, probably larger than my first apartment.Its amenities included an outdoor daybed and shower. We were there for three nights and took well over 4,000 photos.
Abu was the most unique camp we visited. We rode elephants for game viewing, mokoro canoes to see the delta waterways, and bass boats on a fishing trip. The tents, while small, were comfortable. The patio deck was smaller than the other camps, but more inviting. Power was not in-tent for recharging, which proved a hassle. There was substantially less wildlife, but the real point of the trip was elephant back riding and it was fantastic. The mokoro canoe and "bass" fishing provided some welcome variety.We wrapped up with a quick trip to Zimbabwe to stay at the Victoria Falls hotel and see the falls.The hotel has the feeling of an old English Explorers club. At any moment you expect someone in full safari gear to walk in boasting of his latest trip to the Congo or such. Game trophies litter the walls alongside life size portraits of long deceased English royalty. A short walk away, Victoria Falls is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world.We had a great time and owe much of it to our travel agent, Tom Froehlich of Rudi Steel Travel in Dallas, Texas (tomf@rudisteele.com).
How on Earth did you manage to spend $100 on lunch at Harrods?
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Believe it or not, 2 small pizzas, a small dish of olives, and 2 small Pelligrinos!
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