My Southern African Adventure is a wrap

My Southern African Adventure is almost over and I’ve had a couple of days to chill, recover from my stomach problems and contemplate the last month.

I started this contemplation by re-reading my blog posts starting from the beginning. First of all, I apologize for all the typos, horrendous grammar, and missed words or thoughts. (Special apology to Mr. Red Pen himself, Leif. I think of you often when re-reading my errors and knowing how you must have cringed.) When I’m back home with good wifi I’ll go back and fix the most egregious of the errors. In my defence, the blog posts were most often written under less than ideal conditions, in a hurry, at the end of a long day, with poor wifi taking forever to make edits, on my knees in bed hoping not to wake up my poor roommate or offline on a bumpy bus ride.

I realized, in looking back over my blog, just how rich in experiences the time has been. And at this point in my life, that’s what it’s all about – experiences. While this tour is rated as “Comfort”, it wasn’t always that. Some of the lodges were less than we’d normally accept, the days were often long and dusty, and going “bushy, bushy” isn’t ideal, but to be able to experience more than a postcard view of this region is worth every little bit of discomfort.

The beginning of the trip brought slight physical challenges, with paddling on the Orange River (which seems like a lifetime ago!), and climbing Dune 45. Both amazing experiences and Dune 45 was certainly unique!

Culturally the whole time has been interesting and diverse, with special effort made to take us to remote and interesting locations – house boat in the Okavango, lodge run by the San people, Gweta to go Meerkat hunting, stops to experience the Himba and Herera people and a walk through a truly rural Botswana village.

Seeing the variety of landscapes made the “African massages” (from corrugated and pot-holed dirt roads), dusty and long days worthwhile. Some have described the desert landscape as boring and uninteresting, and many on our tour dozed through the days. But I loved the dynamic and sometimes dramatic desert landscapes and found something to look at all day, everyday (save one which I talked about in my blog).

And of course, the wildlife. I will never forget the excitement of the first giraffe and zebra sightings, and how my heart leapt at seeing those first elephants in Etosha. I completely underestimated how exciting it would be to see wildlife in the wild, learn about them and have a chance to watch them do what they do.

Finally, the people. I cannot say enough about the warmth and hospitality extended to us by almost every single person we came across. Well, maybe not that one guy who ran us out of his restaurant for using the toilets!

I can’t say enough good things about our Intrepid Tour Leader, Innocent and our Driver, Sandile. They kept us safe and happy and put up with our silly questions, requests, and even dealt adeptly with some unreasonable demands and difficult fellow travellers.

Our interactions with the staff at the lodges, restaurants, gas stations, etc were 90% positive. You mostly got the impression that the people were happy doing what they were doing, well except for maybe that porter at one lodge that grumbled all down the walkway about the confusion about where the bags were supposed to go. They smiled, joked and were engaging and over the top helpful. And they sang and they danced with passion. I loved the rhythms and beautiful melodies of the traditional African songs, and the energy of the dancers.

Are there lessons learned on this trip? Of course, shoot me if there should come a time when that stops. From a practical perspective, I think I was mentally and physically well-prepared for this trip, probably the most unique of all my trips taken to date. I did a not-too-bad job of packing for this trip, especially considering how challenging it was because of the temperature fluctuations of the desert, length of the trip and limited weight. But once again, I probably did bring a little too much of everything. I hate washing out clothes at the end of long days, having them hanging everywhere, and wearing synthetics, so opted to get laundry done every time we stopped two nights. If I’d known in advance that was going to work, I might have been able to cut back. Oh, and don’t leave your sunglasses on the seat of the bus. On a more personal level it was once again reinforced that I am less and less a social animal. I know that is not a healthy situation especially entering my senior years (don’t really like the way that sounds!) and that my daughter will find it worrisome, but it’s a reality. How I deal with that remains to be seen.

Do I have recommendations for Intrepid? Dump Lampert’s Bay from the itinerary unless it’s a tour specifically for bird watchers. The hotel facilities weren’t that great, the smell of the guano put off many of the group, and it was a very short day. I’d add another 2 night stop in the itinerary since there were so many places where we barely got to appreciate the great facilities because we were in late and out early. Dump the lodge we used in Kasane. It wasn’t quaint. It was poorly run and a dump. And since so many of us got sick after staying and eating there, I’d suspect their food-handling ability. I was going to suggest they use a canopied power boat to get to the house boats, because it was pretty warm on the way out to the boats, but it was freezing on the way back so it was nice to have the sun! And find other options for at least a couple of the picnics. They got so tiresome and repetitive and I’d have been willing to pay for quick sub sandwich or fish and chips in Walvis Bay, for instance.

Would I recommend this trip to anyone asking? In a heartbeat. Gripes listed aside, it offered up more than I expected, and I expected so much I was deathly afraid I’d be disappointed. I was disappointed that because I was sick I didn’t get to see Vic Falls or get to Kruger, on this trip………..and I’m disappointed I forgot to take more toe pictures!

Once again, thanks to my loyal readers (all 2 or 3 of you) for coming along on this adventure with me. I get so much more out of documenting my trips because it serves as a diary for me to remember, and forces me to pay attention and do some research.

So where to next?