Monthly Archives: September 2021

Trying to get caught up before going back to the bush. Yesterday was a half day of touring around Karen (the area we are in in Nairobi). Today was a totally lazy lay-day, mostly spent publishing these blogs.

In the morning we had a lovely breakfast then our driver, Elias, picked us up at 1000 (soooo late!) and took us to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Conservancy, where they raise baby orphaned elephants until they can be adopted by a wild herd. It is really cool, and awesome to learn what they do and see the baby elephants REALLY close up (you can touch them if they come to you).

From there, we went to the Giraffe Centre, where they raise and shelter giraffe. The big draw is you can feed them treats. Here’s heather bonding with a baby.

From there we went to Kazuri, which is a bead and pottery center founded to support single mothers in Kenya. They would normally have >300 women employed, but due to covid they are rotating them through in groups of 70. They provide full day child care for the kids while the moms work. It is a cool program and awesome to watch this beautiful art being made.

Back at the hotel, I hung out in the bar (where I remain) to work my way through Hemingway’s preferred cocktails. These are:

• The Gibson – the bar had to procure the onions, but did so, and made a great gibson for me.
• The White Lady – this is 2 gin, 1/2 triple sec, 1/2 lemon juice, and an egg white.
• Death in the Afternoon – Champagne with a shot of Absinthe. They have no absinthe, so this was a miss. I’ll have to come back.
• The Bloody Mary (vodka)
• Scotch and Soda. Scotch, rocks, soda. Simple and refreshing.

Again, Hemingway was all about how to drink strong liquor in hot climates. I am happy to report that in the process of writing these blogs, I have achieved 5/6 or about 82% Hemingway compliance.

At the end of yesterday, we bumped in amazingly cool people from San Francisco – lots of cyber folk, ex msft folks, conversations were awesome and they invited us to join them for dinner. Hilarity and great conversation ensued, and we turned in well fed, well watered, and well entertained.

Today was a laying about and blogging day. Got some nice pics of the garden.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Tomorrow we head back into the bush, going to Lewa where our new friends tell us we will be blown away.

For now, I bid you lala salama (sweet dreams).

Because I wanted *that* show we had a do-over and at 0500 (again) we got up (again) and met chips at 0537 (he was a little late) – we bombed through the park and actually got to the gate just as it opened. They were more organized today and we got through lickety split. Went right to the main falls arriving just as the sun was cresting the horizon.

Because sunrise is to the east, we had to get west of the falls to get good shots. Fortunately, we were early enough that the light was just great.

I took probably 50 shots all told. Probably every one one of the best 50 shots I have ever taken . . . yet I am narrowing it down. Tough editing process.

Finally, all the way west, shooting down the canyon. Got some truly magical “jurassic park” shots here, again here’s just one of many (posted a different one on instagram).

All of this was done by 0630! Then we hustled back to Land Cruiser (for the record, all vehicles in the bush seem to be Land Cruisers – all manual lockers, all diesel, and standard transmission). We were on our way back to the park for our 0700 meet up with our guide for the walking Safari, Booli.

Booli has been a guide since childhood, and was the son of one of Chips’ friends who Chips had guided with since childhood. Booli was also next level tuned in to the bush. Super cool. He taught us about the little 5: the five smallest animals in Africa that correspond to the big 5.

The big 5, because they were dangerous to hunt:

• Cape Buffalo
• Rhinocerous
• Lion
• Leopard
• Elephant

The little 5:

• The buffalo weaver (a small bird)
• The Rhinocerous beetle
• The Ant-lion
• The leopard tortoise
• The elephant shrew (named for big ears)

Booli got us hunting for the little 5, and of course the savannah was littered with anti-lion nests.

We had a blast baiting them out of their holes. Booli grabbed one and held it in his palm before dropping it back into its nest.

This was the inspiration for the Sarlacc (I think mostly Africa inspired most of Lucas’s Star Wars ideas).

As we walked along in the sun we realized something was watching us.

Booli gave us an awesome lesson on the giraffe, and how basically, they are designed for breadth of vision, not depth. Eyes on the side of the head = prey. Eyes on the front of the head = predator.

If we are holding still and being quiet, the giraffe can’t gauge our distance and on foot we aren’t familiar enough to assess. So we had caution, then curiousity, then they dismissed us and walked away.

We continued down to the river then turned upwind back towards the car. We saw a few Kudu running away. I got interested in the funnel spiders, but we never got one to come out for a portrait.

Found some evidence of harsh life on the savannah, and also found the corresponding hyena den (empty) – that was super awesome. Also found a shed cobra skin. Yay for closed shoes.

Once back at the lodge, it was time to shower, pack, nap, and then get underway. At 1500 we were at the river dock – the staff waving us goodbye. 100% recommend this place.

The boat whisked us to road transport which took us back to the Victoria Falls bridge. We cleared out of Zimbabwe, drove across the bridge, and cleared into Zambia, changing drivers again as we did.

Now this wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t elegant. New experience: having baboons jump on your car as you pull into customs.

We cleared Zambian customs, then proceeded to the airport. Arrived about 1630 for our 1800 flight. This seems fine. Young man grabbed a cart to escort us into checkin (for tips) and we let him. Arrive at customs desk at 1635.

I keep reminding myself that the next part of this only took an hour. But sheesh it felt like forever. Things were slow but ok until I was pulling my Kenya visa out of my passport wallet and it ripped. I asked “do you have some scotch tape?” but apparently the UN had to be called because my visa had a tear in it. I HAD TO PRINT A NEW ONE!

Ok, so – can I email it to you? (Doesn’t work). Text it to you? (doesn’t work). Basically crappy wifi and cell service made this muuuuuch harder than it needed to be. All the while being watched by everyone from Heather to the baggage cart dude to all the staff of Kenya air being VERY CONCERNED.

I finally said, look, just get me to the printer. I sat down at their office PC (Windows 7, natch), logged into my home NAS, grabbed the doc and printed it in two minutes flat. It was like I had done serious magic. Kid helping me was a tech nerd and just was SO psyched I could grab my visa like that 🙂 Yes, I logged out and flushed cookies.

So on to security. The baggage dude had a lucky day because I had no change so I have him a 20 and he gave me 2 Zambian, which is literally about $0.05. Then through the machines, where all my camera gear had to be checked out, then on to another random desk where they wanted to “see our passports” for reasons unclear, then finally down to the gate 20 minutes after the posted boarding time of 1715 – and the flight was late, so no big deal.

We waited in the coffee shop and decompressed, then boarded our Kenya air flight for Nairobi.

Once in Nairobi, we were met by an amazing young woman from Africa travel who wasn’t exactly friendly, but DAMN she was efficient and got us through customs in no time. Outside the airport we were met with Elias and Wycliffe, who took us to the Hemingway Nairobi, exhausted.

The hotel is just awesome, though I have had to teach them to make the Hemingway cocktails. They aren’t capitalizing on their name quite as much as I think they could – but if you ever come, be sure to order a Gibson.

Victoria Falls River Lodge is really great, as mentioned before, and one of the things that was cool was that they offered their menu of stuff to do and I torpedoed it with “We want to see Victoria Falls at dawn tomorrow and do a walking safari the next day” and they just … made it happen.

So at 0500 we got up and dragged ourselves up to the lodge (well, we were escorted, because you know, leopards) and had a quick coffee before piling into the land cruiser with Chips at 0530. We drove out of the park in the pre-dawn light meeting giraffe and kudu on the way, then down into the town of Victoria Falls and to the gate just as they were opening.

By 0605 we were striding behind chips and I was anguishing over how high the sun would be. We could hear the roaring of the falls. As soon as I spotted a chance, I ran over and set up the tripod and got my first shots of the falls.

Now, I usually try to keep a leash on how many of the same pic I post, but THIS IS ONE OF THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE NATURAL WORLD y’all, so just bear with me.

We worked our way down to the Victoria falls bridge, which was build in 1904. It was assembled from pieces pre-made in England and shipped out.

From the brige, we worked our way from East to West. By the time we hit the main falls, the sun was pretty high.

I started worrying at “hmmmm I want another go, I think we can do this better.” Heather wanted to see the falls again . . . so we actually said “we’re doing this again tomorrow.” Next blog!

Anyway, it was a long morning and after a rest we chose to go for another boat tour – basically, we are going to be lazy somewhere, might as well be on the water.

• 

• 

• 

• 

And of course, saw amazing wildlife and . . .

A great sunset.

And went to bed early, because we have another 0500 falls tour followed by a walking safari!

This morning started bright and early packing and getting dressed before heading to the boat.

We cast off at 0630 (m&c aboard) and saw hippos almost immediately, then a troop of baboons moving downriver with their babies in the morning light.

There were many shenanigans, and a clumsy baby baboon is a thing to behold.

Onward, we watched birds hunting and hippos play fighting as Namibian fishermen looked on.

We returned to the lodge, said our goodbyes to M&C then packed our bags and waited in the lobby for our ride.

Everyone was incredibly gracious and warm. Our driver , CK, arrived a little late but took us back along the river to leave the park. We encountered M&C returning with our guide Kitty.

Kitty is pretty amazing – really fun happy and slightly cutting wit. She lost her brother to Covid, and like everyone in tourism has been really struggling economically. Whole resorts have just closed down. Like most guides, she spends several weeks at the lodge continuously then goes to see her family before returning.

CK took out out along the river, so of course we saw a bunch more wildlife.

Out of the park, we drove to the Zambian border, hitting a few traffic jams on the way.

We don’t lose sight of how incredibly lucky we are. Everywhere we go we meet people who are working HARD not just to get by but to better themselves. Inspiring and humbling.

At the border, we spent about 30 minutes getting our visas and passports processed. The crossing required we show our negative Covid tests and CDC vaccination cards, and the two country visas were $100USD in cash only.

Mask compliance and enforcement was pretty loose, though it was also all outdoors and reasonably distanced. We kept our masks on diligently. There was no hint of corruption.

We were handed from one driver to another at the border, Duncan from Thompson’s Transport driving us to the Victoria River Lodge. We got pulled over on the way, the police and our driver seemed to be negotiating proper paperwork. Our driver was pretty convincing and again we were on our way.

We arrived at the Victoria Falls River Lodge dock, where we were picked up on a pontoon boat and whisked upriver to the lodge. Of course we saw elephants and hippos on the way, including an elephant greeting party at the lodge dock.

We checked in, had orientation and lunch and went to our incredible room on the river. The resort is really spectacular- extremely wonderful setting, facilities, management and service.

There’s a cold tub (like a hot tub, but not heated) we jumped in to cool off.

Coming back in, Heather found a frog visitor in her towel (we named her Kushamisika, for “surprise” in Shone).

After settling in it was back to the dock for our evening river tour. We had insanely good G&Ts saw incredible wildlife – tons of storks, hippos, and elephants playing around in the water.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We made friends with Kate from S Africa (and her young daughters), she is an architect and photographer and photo safari’s all over Africa. We learned a ton from her about how the pandemic impacted S Africa.

Polished it off with an amazing sunset (obvi) and then back for another G&T in the bar with the amazing Francis, a really delicious dinner on the dock, then back for an early night (0500 wake up to try to catch sunset on the falls).

Chobe is the largest national park in Zimbabwe, home to 30k elephants, countless hippos, crocs, lions, leopards … you know, the usual.

We got up at 5:30, got dressed, grabbed a coffee and met Kitty, Matt and Kat at the Land Cruiser. Roads in Chobe are very bumpy and sandy, so we enjoyed a “Botswana massage” while we scanned for leopards. Didn’t see any, but saw tons of other beautiful wildlife on the way.

We were working our way West in the park, and when we dropped down to the river, we were watching Cape buffalo crossing the river to Zambia when we saw this group under a bush.

A young male sauntered in and said hi to his mom.

In person, this pride of mom, 2 adolescent male Cubs and an adolescent female were just incredibly beautiful. We sat watching them, and the Buffalo, getting closer together – and hoping for some action.

Mom got very attentive, started fixating on prey – even told her Cubs to go hide at one point.

Then she disappeared too. We eventually “timed out” and in all likelihood the herd was too strong to deal with. Cape Buffalo are mean boogers, and there were plenty bulls protecting the calves.

Found a place for a coffee and made friends with some baboons and starlings.

Headed back to the lodge for our Covid tests, which were efficiently handled and cost about $150USD, then went for a lovely lunch and some photo processing, then we met for game drive #2, this time in an all electric land cruiser, which was really cool. Kitty headed us east through the park, then dropped to the river to return along the bank.

Tons of amazing wildlife watching, including coming across elephant babies doing elephant spa (get coated in mud, the dust with sand, to keep the sun and bugs off). The babies got stuck frequently and had to be helped out by the grown ups.

We came across another snoozy pride of lions under a bush, then later a single but very very large and strong female – we think the same one that chased the giraffe last night. Amusingly, the same giraffe came out of the forest nearby, so it looked as though there might be a repeat performance.

From there we climbed up from the river bank, got stuck in the sand briefly, then had a snack in the bush (G&T). Here’s to new friends 🙂 Also made friends with a striped mongoose.

Back to camp to clean up for dinner, another round of drinks with M&K, then off to a stunning dinner on the deck overlooking the river. What’s that rustling? Baboon or lioness? Nope, it was Kat delivering two flutes of champagne to our table.

Dinner was amazing, a bunch of Africa inspired fusion dishes, and as it drew to a close the staff came out and sang to us for our anniversary. It was completely magical and moving.

With full tummies and full hearts we headed back to our room to zzzz and get ready for the 0600 dawn river tour.

I got up at 0500 and had a solar powered shower, then when up to the roof deck to watch the savannah come to life.

It was a truly incredible thing watching the moon go down and the sun come up.

Des showed up at 0645, coffee in hand (I love Des!) and we went looking for leopards. No luck, but an incredible time on the “hunt.”

• 

• 

• 

At 0915 on the dot Des dropped us off, and we packed like the wind, checked out, and then it was off to the airstrip to catch the green-tailed Cessna (for the record, the plane I couldn’t remember was a Cessna Grand Caravan).

We had a great time chatting with Des and Quest and then our plane arrived. We had three stops before Kisawe. The pilot was awesome , and airstrips were less and less improved until we got to Kisawe. It was almost a disappointment to see asphalt. Boring.

Once in Kisawe, we were met by the Chobe game lodge staff and driven out to the lodge.

We oriented at the lodge, which is super nice though not crazy like Xigara, and went out for our sunset river cruise. I was going to try not to take pics, but I failed. Kitty, our guide was awesome. The boats are electric drive, and generally Chobe Lodge is all about being environmentally responsible. Also, all the wilderness guides are women.

We saw lots of elephants, hippos, crocodiles and birds!

The excitement picked up when we saw a lioness go after a giraffe, but she broke off the chase as soon as she was spotted. Score one for team herbivore. Still, stoked to get this capture.

After the cruise we went for a G&T and we’re joined by new friends Matt and Kat, and exchanged stories until we were led away for a crazy beautiful dinner in the garden. The ultimate in distanced dining, no table is in view of any others.

Set up a 5:30 wake up for a 6:30 game drive and turned in!

Last night as Des walked us to our villa while lions roared a few hundred yards away, he told us: I only worry about lions if they are mating, injured, or with their young. Hmmm.

It rained – mostly showers and thundershowers – so we had a cooler sunrise but also Toto stuck in my head all day (“I’ve seen the rains down in . . .”).

In the morning, we headed out to meet Des and Heather looks down and sees this looking back at us:

Momma lion had left her cubs (3 of them) for safe keeping directly under our portch. This mom and cubs don’t have an attached male, so if the local males find the cubs, they will kill them. We got Des, he said lets come look, and by the time we got there momma had taken two away. I say her moving the cub not 6′ away, then stepped back so this tyke could run off with her.

Today’s agenda, a walking safari, slightly disrupted 🙂 Headed over to the airstrip to see some adult lions umm…… lyin’ around.

Then took the long drive to where we would meet top for the walking safari. SO cool to be at ground level. Top and his .458 were a certain comfort. Zebras got very curious.

And hard life on the savannah more visceral here.

Got back in the truck, and drove to a shady spot and had a spot of coffee.

Then Des, almost cackling, pulls up to the scene where his colleagues have laid out the full Savannah brunch for us. Hippos, eagles, savannah, and elephant dropped in, crazy crazy crazy. And an amazing brunch to boot.

Headed back to camp for massage (what else)? And then out for another excursion, looking for leopards. No luck, but . . .

Then we went to the treehouse – well after dark – where the guys had set up a full meal, bar, etc. The treehouse is all solar. It was an incredible thing to spend the night listening to lions, hippos, Baboons, . . . sleeping? Not so much. Turns out our primate brains are pretty attenuated to night noises 🙂

Oh, btw, listening to mosquitos thwarted by mosquito netting is fun 🙂

More on the treehouse in the next blog.

Ok, day 2, way behind schedule. Day 2 was all about the water – a morning drive on the river, followed by an evening dugout canoe trip on a smaller tributary. Walked out the door to meet Des for our 0630 game drive, and were a little late because we ran into these guys – a family of monkeys on the boardwalk, so of course we had to say hi:

We made it past the cuteness and met Des for coffee, then rolled out of camp like . . . an inch before encountering this beauty, feeding on sausage fruit:

Rolling out we saw a million amazing birds, and then came across this sleepy lady – the Savannah equivalent of a coyote – a jackal.

Did I mention amazing birds? This is a lilac breasted roller.

Yes, there are a LOT of elephants. And elephants are cool.One cool thing they do is shake the fruit from palm trees. Being a tree is hard in elephant country!

We came across Zebras, the “Blue Steel” Zoolanders of the Savannah.

A ton of Red Lechwe boys were fighting for dominance. This one cracks me up – looks like they are being referreed!

Awesome birds. Forgot what this one is called, but it tastes like chicken:

Mind you, this was just on the way to the river boat. Once on the boat, things got differently Interesting. Here’s a beautiful day lilly with a visitor:

Within a few minutes on the water we came across this teeny crocodile. Small, but still plenty evil.

Then, even cooler – or at least, less expected for me – a monitor lizard:

Caught this fish eagle just before it made a catch:

And an infinite array of cool birds feeding on the river

Birds ranged from teeny to huge. Some were incredibly illusive to shoot.

Then we come around a corner and see this amazing vista – this bull elephant feeding by the river, except there’s a GIGANTIC DINOSAUR CROCODILE right in front of him that slips into the water in front of us 😐

Then had a picnic while watching the fish eagle finishng his meal.

We were graced by many pelicans:

And bumped into more tiny crocs – this one walking to the water.

The one thing that makes guides nervous, as it turns out, is hippos in the water. This scene caused a lot of face-offs and consternation.

After a ton of amazing water adventures, we started driving back but of course that couldn’t be simple, oh, no, we had to see Ostrich watering in the delta.

As if this weren’t enough, we went to the lodge for a mind-blowingly awesome tapas lunch, then a quick rest, then back out to go on a dugout canoe through some tributaries on the delta. Super quiet, super intimate, and got to use my macro lens:

Des was on point in case there were hippos. Des is amazing.

More day lillies,and this vista:

Once we put canoes away, a family of elephants came to the river and we got to watch the awesome social interactions as the matriarch led the herd down to the river. Teenage boys get unruly, and this dude wanted to show us he was tough, and show the matriarch she wasn’t the boss of him.

After this, Des and Eliah surprised us with a sundowner – gin and tonics on the savannah. This rules.

That was a pretty epic day. Tomorrow: Lions!

ikoki87i

Going to try to keep up. The mind boggling hospitality, architecture, vistas, and food of Xigera defy any experience I have had before. We were driven from the bush plane to the lodge by Dez. We were the only passengers.and he is serving as our private guide on our stay. Dez is an encylopaedia of knowledge on the Delta, and also is a pretty serious photographer (“picked it up from the guests”).

On the brief drive back from the airstrip, we saw Red Letchnes, Impalas, Kudu, Elephants . . . we were greeted at the lodge with lemon water to wash our hands and freshly made (and amazing) G&Ts and “high tea” which, for me, consisted of a smoked salmon sandwich and an egg roll of amazingness.

We were then taken to our room – errr, suite —- errrr, palace, where we were greeted with songs and ululations by Nomsa, who is looking after our suite. Everyone is insanely gracious and hospitable. And cool.

Off of our deck were warthogs, an ostrich, and a bunch of Red Lechnes. We called Dez to do a tour about 5:30pm and walking back to meet him we saw monkeys and some impala.

Dez was going to take us to find a local lioness and her cubs, but we were interrupted by a LOT of elephants. Like, repeatedly. So we saw… elephants, and zebras, and more impala, and monkeys, and a jackal and . . . I will have to go back to fill in proper names of some of these animals.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We ran out of light and headed back, where were met with a sundowner, more insane service, and a cooked-in-front-of-us 7 course tapas meal which was truly amazing, paired with 7 South African wines. Then we were walked back to our villa.

6am coffee, 6:30 am drive tomorrow! More then.

-Alex

Jet-lagged night and really got sleeping about the time the alarm went off. Packed up our kit and got breakfast downstairs- lovely people everywhere, and a very good omelet! Tipping room service, noticed that the money is cool 🙂

Flights from South Africa to Maun on Air Link were pretty easy, customs in Botswana too. More forms than usual, but mostly everything dialed in and knowing we were sitting with a bunch of people with fresh Covid negative tests helped. All but two people were cool about masking too.

In Botswana our pilot from Mac Air met us at customs and took us to our turboprop aircraft – which was epic though the AV geek in me eyes not knowing the model. We were with a photography pair from California and a delayed honeymoon couple from Madrid. On the flight in we saw elephants and impala from the aircraft.

I won’t even start on Xigera other than to say it is hands down the most amazing place I have ever been and I have been a fair number of places. The room, views, staff etc all deserve a special write up, coming next-ish, but right now I need to go out because we are trying to look for a lioness that is hunting near camp. Not making this up.

It’s happening! (and 100% of the gear I brought is justified! Should have brought less clothes!)

-Alex