Le grand jour est arrivé as they say in some parts of the world. Not South Africa particularly although I did overhear some French tourists the other night in Hermanus. Arrivé however it has.
Meeting Hannah for breakfast at seven thirty but I was up before six and getting sorted. Now just pottering, scribbling. I see through my bedroom window that someone is sat outside their room, taking in the early morning I guess. I hear no sounds, no monkey screeches or exotic avian vocals. Just the loud fan in the bathroom.
The monkeys will come tonight, swinging from branch to branch as they eye up yet another lot of wildlife tourists. Trespassers in their domain. They should know that I know all the words to the King of the Swingers song from the Jungle Book movie 🙂
We have a two and a half hor flight from CPT to HDS and are being met by a driver from the Motswari Lodge. I’m expecting the hour’s drive to the lodge to be quite an experience in itself. It isn’t often I get excited about travel. I’ve been to lots of places and seen lots of interesting things. Drank in cool bars and eaten in some great restaurants. Never been on safari.
Last night’s restaurant, the Codfather in Camps Bay is a case in point. Recommended by @Andy it really came up with the goods. Great sashimi, although I’ve probably already had better wasabi on this trip and the langoustines were probably the best I’ve had.
As an aside the internet access is almost non-existent in this hotel. 100Kbps down and 1.95Megs up. No idea what we will have in the bush so it may be a while before I post again.
Ciao amigos.
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Hannah and I are sat in an emergency exit row. The extra legroom works. We have the binocs out of my carryon but at thirty eight thousand feet ain’t going to see much. I figured we might catch the occasional giraffe galloping across the plains but even giraffes are not that tall.
This flight takes across most off the length of South Africa and far to the north. The temperature inland is significantly higher than that in Cape Town. Our taxi driver was wearing a padded coat which was an amusing contrast with out own shorts and tshirts.
There is booze on offer on this flight. You have to be a bit hard core to go for any of it. We have a wilderness to explore when we arrive at the Timbavati reserve. Most of the passengers on this flight are at least as old as I am and they don’t appear to be holding back on the plonk.
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Below us the expanse of the African interior looks empty. This is probably deceptive. No signs of human habitation though. Just evidence of watercourses meandering, presumably, through valleys that would be otherwise invisible from the two dimensional perspective of thirty eight thousand feet.
Our flight is full of European looking people. Four Chinese. Pretty much everyone on their way to a game reserve I imagine. After my sparking water and beef pastrami sandwich I took the opportunity to use the forward lavatory. Smallest one you could ever be in. I discovered that I was still a contortionist at heart. I never knew.
Now the queuing has started. Those who live by the wine… It always gives me great pleasure to get the timing right on a visit to the loo on a plane, especially on a long haul overnighter. Get that timing wrong and you will be waiting ages. Get it right and you can smugly watch from your seat whilst consuming the barely edible airline breakfast.
Quite a few blokes wearing their safari kecks with removable trouser leg bottoms. I have a pair like that but will put them on before heading bushwards.
We are so far removed from the early European settlers in this place.