Time to Pack

Eleanor says:

After a year of planning and researching this trip, we’re almost ready to go.

We’ve had our travel shots and bought our meds, which cost us a small fortune since our medical plans don’t cover them. Now we have the required documentation to assure the wild animals we meet that we’re fresh, Grade A certified, well-tenderized, and disease free Canadian meat. Comforting thought.

Richard has read everything there is to read about the history and the political structure of the entire African continent, and although I think he’s been slacking a little when it comes to bird, snake, and insect life, he’s read up on the animals we’ll see on safari. He’s shamed me into learning which animals are included in “The Big Five” (B.R.E.L.L.: water Buffalo, Rhino, Elephant, Lion, and Leopard) but I’m woefully ignorant about some of the other important animal facts he feels are necessary for this trip.

For example, did you know that lions are very efficient predators? They sleep 18 hours a day and hunt and socialize for only 6, compared to elephants who eat for 18 hours a day and consume 240 kilos of foliage plus 100 litres of water. Also, there are 2 different kinds of zebra (white with black stripes and black with white stripes, maybe?) and 8 types of giraffe. Who’da knew? But honestly, does it really matter? When a giraffe looks through the window of our treetop lodge, I'll leave Richard to figure out which type it is while I run for the camera.

David Coffey at Travel Cuts/Adventure Travel, has done an incredible job of packing the entire trip with fabulous experiences. We’ll be staying in everything from wilderness lodges, tents, tree houses and thatch huts in the bush, to a city hotel complex with a mall, a casino, and even an indoor roller coaster. We’ll be going on city tours, wine tours, bush walks, Mokoro (African canoe) excursions, and sunset cruises, and we’ll be waking up at 4 AM for dawn game drives. In addition to seeing a wide range of animals and birds in the wild, we’ll get to see Victoria Falls, petrified forests, 6000-year old ancient rock paintings, and massive red sand dunes.

All we have left to do now is pack. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But seriously, how do you pack for a trip like this? First of all, there’s the problem of colour. Black is too hot. White gets dirty too quickly, and the bushveld isn’t known for its laundry service. The guide books tell us that lions don’t like red because it’s the colour frequently worn by the Masai warriors. It isn’t wise to upset the lions, so red is out. But even Richard was unable to find information in the literature about just how aware a lion is of the colour wheel. If we’re wearing orange or pink or purple, for example, will they understand that we’re not trying to annoy them, or will they just see red?

Then there are the tsetse flies, who, we’re told, are attracted to blue, but how do they feel about teal or aquamarine? And how much yellow can be added to the blue before the tsetse realizes that our outfit is green and therefore unattractive? In Botswana we’ll be travelling in canoes through crocodile- and hippo-infested waters, but the literature doesn’t tell us much about their colour preferences. Best to err on the side of caution and fade into the background as much as possible, we’ve decided, so we’re left with a wardrobe of beige, brown, and (yawn) olive green.

It’s late winter in Africa. We’ll need clothes for average temperatures ranging from night-time lows of 9C on the coast to daytime highs of 35 C near the Kalahari Desert in Namibia and Botswana. We’ll need to dress in layers with long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and sturdy bush-walking and predator-escaping shoes for early morning game drives, but when we get back to camp, we’ll need swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts, and sandals and something dressier for evenings. Some of these camps have no electricity, but most have swimming pools and most of them expect us to dress for dinner. Then, of course, we’ll need some city clothes for Cape Town and Windhoek; you can’t tour wine country looking like Crocodile Dundee. Add to that our toiletries, sun hats, insect repellent, sunscreen, Richard’s travelling pharmacy, a couple of books each, our cameras and binoculars….. HELP!

Oh, did I mention that because we’ll be travelling between countries in small bush planes like this one, our baggage is restricted to one 15 kg. duffel bag and a small carry-on bag each? For a whole month of travel! I took more than that on my last trip to Toronto, and it was just for a weekend. Thank goodness for the new lightweight microfibre fabrics.

I just have one question: if it turns out that Tilley Endurables’ advertising is wrong and it you can’t actually travel around the world on 2 pairs of their underwear, do you think they'll make deliveries to bush camps?

From Africa with Love

As many of you know, Eleanor and I are soon leaving on our long anticipated safari to southern and central Africa. We will be gone from September 7th to October 5th. And as we rush to finalize the many necessary details, our blood is starting to rush as we become pumped up and realize that what was a seeming fantasy nearly a year ago is now almost a reality.

There are any variety of questions which we have confronted and asked ourselves, least of which is: Why Africa? There is probably no simple answer to that question, especially as we read the headlines of our daily newspapers. Perhaps the most obvious response would be something like : Because it is there. Or, it is a unique tourist experience.

During the 19th century Africa was a magnet for European explorers, a type of El Dorado like the New World. More than anything else, what initially drove European exploration of the so-called "Dark Continent" was the desire to trace Africa’s river system, especially that which fed into the Nile; this assumed a mystique similar to the Northwest Passage. In reality though, the so-called "Dark Continent" was not like that for its native inhabitants, but was perceived that way only by European adventurers and colonialists.

Another answer to why we are going to Africa would be that we are seeking a return to the "simple life". Yet as tourists, we will experience anything but a " simple life". Indeed, being on safari, we are an elite of pampered and spoiled white middle-class tourists enjoying champagne breakfasts, gourmet picnic lunches, having "Sundowners " on some of Africa’s most picturesque rivers, and enjoying the sunset on the savannah as we watch the Big Five. This highly sheltered experience hardly allows us to see, no less understand, the grim economic and social African reality around us, ranging from rampant unemployment, a total lack of infrastructure, raging civil wars claiming 200, 000 to 3. 3 million dead, to vampire-like leaders and corruption at all levels.

And in that sense, it is necessary, indeed critical, to remember that the Africa around us is very much the product of European map-makers and colonial administrators. Two historical facts might put African history, and its interaction with so-called Western "civilization" , into perspective.

First , economic demographers have established that in the 18th and 19th centuries, in the order of 12 million black inhabitants from western Africa were shipped as slaves to Brazilian and American plantations, as well as to Arab sultanates; there was an estimated 15 per cent mortality rate on transatlantic slaving.

Second, King Leopold II of Belgium, who personally owned the Belgium Congo, killed over 10 million native inhabitants in his drive for profits from ivory and rubber in the period prior to WW I. This is more than the total number of Jews killed during WW II and 12 times the number of people killed during the recent Rwanda genocide.

By these standards, Karen Blixen, author of "Out of Africa", notwithstanding her liberated life style, who outright stole 1,000 acres of tribal lands from the Kenyan Kikuyu natives (who would later lead the Mau Mau rebellion against the British in 1950) for her coffee plantation was a piker.

Within this context, it probably fair to say that we feel extremely schizophrenic, bifurcated, awkward and highly fortunate that we have this once -in-a-life opportunity to observe what is reputed to be among the world’s finest scenery and most unique animal life, including the Big Five, before it is destroyed by our so-called "civilization". Only a cynic or an existentialist would ask : Who are the real animals, and who should really be kept on reserves?
We will do our best to keep you informed of our adventures the best that we can. This however, is largely dependent on our access to the internet; we already know, for example, that we will be unable to communicate to the outside while we are in Botswana and Namibia (10 days total). But we will do our best to let you know of our wanderings, thoughts and impressions in occasional bullet-like factoids and "opinionoids", and hopefully, if the technology doesn't defeat us, some on-site pics.

Meanwhile, here's a map showing our proposed route,starting in Johannesburg and travelling counter-clockwise from South Africa to Zimbabwe (just long enough to see Victoria Falls), then on to Botswana and Namibia and finally back to Cape Town, South Africa.

Richard

Preparation part 2

BR (Before Richard), I thought I knew how to prepare for a holiday:

- book the trip
- shop for the appropriate wardrobe
- shop for a suitcase large enough to hold the new wardrobe
- pack
- buy a guidebook at the airport to read en route

Turns out that all these years I’ve been missing some crucial steps. Apparently, beginning several months before departure, one must make lists. Many, many lists: lists about meds, shots, clothes, passports, camera equipment, and cancelling the newspaper; lists about things to see and things to do and things to avoid when we get there; lists for the person looking after the cat and the one watering the plants; and, of course, lists prioritizing all the other lists.

One must also buy, read, and highlight the important passages in every book one can find on the history, politics, art, religion, and economic development of every town, village, national park and truck stop one intends to visit. Then one prepares a briefing volume for each member of the travel party, containing notes on these books, along with detailed maps, the location and hours of operation of all art galleries and museums within a 100 mile radius of all hotels they’re booked into, health warnings, and a minute-by-minute trip itinerary.

Hey! I don’t mind. It keeps Richard busy while I’m out shopping, and the finished product looks pretty impressive. But this week when I received my own personal Africa briefing duotang, it came as a shock that it contained NOTHING that a traveller really needs to know.

It listed our itinerary and described the safaris, the animals we’ll be seeing and the tours we’ll be taking, and it lists all of our hotels, with phone numbers, addresses, number of rooms, and all of that nonsense, but did it mention the important details a traveller needs to know? How close are we going to be to shopping and restaurants? Is there a swimming pool? A sauna? Does the room have a bathtub or a shower? A hair dryer? A coffee maker? Room service? Little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and hand cream? NOTHING was mentioned about any of those things! Did it mention how far I’d have to go for a chocolate fix? Did it list the good places to eat nearby? Did it describe the local food specialties and crafts? Did it talk about local markets and shopping areas? Did it tell what the locals do for entertainment? NO!

So now I have to put my shopping plans on hold before I’ve even maxed out my Visa, so that I can check out each of the hotel websites and then look them up on Trip Advisor and find out the answers to all these questions. Luckily, my briefing notes will be no more than a couple of pages, so I can slip them into my duotang and at least one of us will be fully prepared for this trip!

Sigh. A woman’s work is never done.

Eleanor