Lions and leopards and warthogs…oh my!!!   My eyes have seen!! My hands have touched!! My ears have heard the song and the warning calls and the movement!  My nose has smelled the fragrance of sage growing wild,  and I have tasted the food of the African bush!!  As much as I may try, flowery language and skillful picture-taking cannot give you even a smithereen of the actual experience that being on a real safari would.  You’ve seen all the pictures, you’ve watched the shows on National Geographic…but still, you just cannot understand until you’ve been there.  It’s like seeing pictures of the Grand Canyon and then going to visit it – it’s unbelievable, right? There are no boundaries!  Your eyes can’t see the end!  That’s what a safari feels like too.  There are no boundaries.  There are no fences..  It is truly WILD!  And FREE! And SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!  And…most surprising of all….it is incredibly peaceful.  All of these animals live there amongst each other and the only time they kill is when they are hungry.  Otherwise, they can walk right by each other and remain unfazed.  Astonishing!  The only thing that interrupts the peace is the sound of the Land Rover that we ride in to see these animals.  But they are unfazed by that too.  They’ve gotten used to them and know that the vehicles and the people in them are not a threat.  So they accept them and go on about their business.  You will see how close they come to the vehicles.  I was wayyy more scared then they were.  But the guides know by the animals’ body language that they are fine with us coming near.  So I trusted my guides and sat back and enjoyed the show.  And what a show it was.

But before we watch the parade, I want to talk a little about the camps I went to.  They are all part of Wilderness Safari, which is one of the top safari groups throughout southern Africa.  I went through a travel agent that books only safaris and has personally been to most of these camps so she has extensive firsthand knowledge about the places she recommended. She did a great job for me, so I highly recommend her if you are looking into safaris.  Her name is Lorna Davidson and she can be reached by clicking here.  I chose to go to 4 camps – 3 are in Botswana, and the last one is in Zambia.  The 3 in Botswana are in different areas so they have different landscapes and wildlife.  Each of the camps is accessible by light aircraft (which means a plane that carries between 4-12 passengers), and the plane actually lands on a cleared sand strip in the middle of nowhere.  The drivers who pick you up at the airstrip must arrive a little early to make sure there are no animals on the strip, and if there are, they chase them away. The guides are like walking encyclopedias and know everything about everything –  endless amounts of information spill out of them.  They know each bird’s and animal’s body language, their different sounds, their behaviors…and so it is an immense amount of knowledge that is passed from them to me throughout my 11 days as we ride through the bush.  The guides, and many of the people who work at these safari camps have names that they feel are difficult for the average person to understand, so they abbreviate with initials.  I don’t know why they think this is easier to remember….here’s an example.  BD picked me up from the airplane landing strip and was accompanied by Bob Marley (I swear the only one with a recognizable name and obviously not his real name, that’s his chosen abbreviation!).  They drove to the camp, where I was met by OD, my guide and ST.  TD was the cook, and BT was another guide…and it went on like this.  I would much sooner remember a name like Thiemba than twelve different sets of initials, but that’s how it goes.  Who am I to recreate the wheel.

The first camp I went to was Vumbura Plains Camp.  It was the highest end of luxury. Absolutely gorgeous in every detail.  Each individual cabin was appointed with the most beautiful linens, built-in dressing area and sitting area with comfy cushions, stocked refrigerators,  enormous showers and baths with the finest fittings…I could have stayed for months.  The managers at this camp were a beautiful young couple and another fabulous young woman.  They were incredibly personable, upbeat, helpful, and friendly.  They were happy to hang out with me, chat, eat, drink, laugh….anything to make my stay perfect.  And it was.  My guide there was OD, and I was blown away by his knowledge and his determination to find wildlife.  I loved learning from him, and have a huge amount of respect for him in that he seems to be Master of the Bush and has a wonderful way about him.  I met wonderful people at this camp too, and will keep in touch with some of them. There was an older South African couple from Johannesburg who surprised me with their proper safari attire – he always looked dapper, and she always had her coral lipstick on, perfect hair and makeup, and a pretty necklace.  I, of course, looked like hell.  I didn’t think the animals would care much, so I had only brought crappy shit with me.  The proper Jo’berg couple made me wanna look better.  Then there was a fun girl from Switzerland, also traveling solo.  She wore all the brightest colors that I specifically read about not wearing.  But she looked happy and the animals didn’t stay away, so no harm done.  And I ate ridiculous amounts of food at this – and all the other – camps.  They feed you 6 meals a day, and the food is GREAT.  They wake you up at 5am by coming to your cabin and yelling, “Good morning, good morning!” to which you reply, “slkghdoeihsaksejh;f aesio….ok….I’m up…thanks”.  You meet for early breakfast at 5:30 and then go out on your safari ride at 6am.  At around 8:30, the guide will find a spot and stop for tea and accompanied goodies.  Then when you arrive back at camp at 10:30, you have hot breakfast.  Then it’s off  to slumber, swim in your private dipping pool, read, rest….whatever you want.  You can have lunch at 1:00 if you like, but you’ve already eaten 3 times so it’s unlikely you will be hungry.  At 4:00pm, you meet again for high tea and alway a gorgeous spread of hot and cold hors d’oevres.  And then you’re out again on safari at 4:30.  You stop for a “sundown” at  6:30 where the alcohol is generously poured with more snacks, and then you’re back at camp at 7:30 for dinner.  After you’ve eaten all you can eat and drank more than you planned to, it’s off to bed.  Get ready for your 5am wake up call.

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I took about 800 pictures on my safari, and tried my best to edit them down.  Still I know some of them will be quite redundant.  Some of them are meaningful to me because they remind me of what I felt at that particular moment. I cried when I saw my first elephants in the wild. It was just a visceral reaction.  I love elephants.   These are the pics of the animals I saw at Vumbura Plains.

The next camp I went to was called Abu Camp.  It is an elephant safari camp where you can touch, play, feed, ride and spend time with elephants that they have saved from zoos and basically death.  Many years ago, South Africa believed they needed to “cull” the population of elephants because there were too many.  Some of the elephants, instead of being killed, were sent to zoos around the world.  The elephants that are at Abu are from a generation that had been rescued and bought back from Canadian and American zoos and returned to their homes in Africa. Because they have been in captivity for so long, they are protected by this camp and integrated slowly back into the wild. They spend their days free to roam the wild but always being watched by the men of the camp.  At night, they are brought back to the “boma” – an electrified fenced, protected area.  They sleep here so that wild elephants will not kill them.  If they want to leave, they can.  And some do.  When I was there, a two-week old baby had just been born.  Her name is Nalady.  You will see her, and her mom Sharini, and her 2 sisters.  The elephants that I rode are Cathy, who is 54 years old and rescued from a Canadian zoo, along with another female elephant and her 2 year old daughter Narona. The time spent with these elephants and the guides have made me think long and hard about zoos, and presently I am not a fan.  As much as we may enjoy seeing animals, if they are not in their natural habitats, it is cruel. As I write this I am in Sydney, but I will not visit the zoo here. Abu Camp has over-the top tents that are so huge and luxurious that my wild, creative imagination couldn’t have dreamed them up.  Again, the finest hand-made linens, white-washed wood which was a welcome departure from the typical dark woods, insane copper outdoor tubs, and resident baboons who liked to jump on the top of my tent as if it was a trampoline.  Joy!

And here are the elephants….and animals….

The third camp I went to was called King’s Pool Camp.  It is on the Linyanti River, aka “the Pool” for the hippos.  The hippos come out of the river every night and walk across the path to eat and spend time out of the water.  By dawn, they make their way back into the river.  But you have to be careful or you may be eye to eye with a dangerous and scary enormous H!! There are rules in this camp – look both ways!! And no walking alone at night to and from your room! The rooms here are, again, beautiful, with enormously high thatched roofs, mosquito netted beds, and the best of everything,  The baboons here are not afraid and will break through the screens of your room if you leave anything colorful out, like makeup.  They think it’s candy and they want it.  The weather was not great here, and I probably saw the least amount of wildlife, but still saw some incredible things I hadn’t seen in the other camps, like wild dogs and a python! Here you go…..

The fourth and final camp I went to is called….ugh, well, I hated it.  So I’m not even gonna mention what it was.  It was very different from the other camps  – and it was in Zambia, rather than Botswana.  But the reason I went there was to see Victoria Falls.  The weather did NOT cooperate at all, and it poured while I was there.  But I only had one full day and 2 nights there so I had to press on with my plans.  Livingstone, Zambia, is a developed town in the southwestern part of Zambia.  To me, it was extremely depressed with a lot of people walking along the streets, or hanging out at shack-built areas.  It is clearly a third-world, underdeveloped country – about 40 years behind us.  As I rode through the streets, I felt dirty and depressed and worlds away from life here, thankfully.  So on my one day out to see Victoria Falls, I put on a raincoat and climbed into the open jeep and sat perched up above the driver, in the rain, getting wet, as the other cars passed me by and stared.  Can you imagine this? This is my luxury vacation, and I look like I’m riding behind a donkey in the rain.  The funny thing is – and this is true – friends of mine that I had been at another camp with actually saw me and were flabbergasted!!! Is that Meryl???  Of course, they were in a regular car, dry and comfy.  Wish I had a picture of that.  I would laugh along with you.  The  Falls were beautiful, even in the rain, and the other highlight here was the White Rhino. Take a look…

So that’s the show.  I am in awe every time I look at these pictures.  Africa is in my soul and I will go back.  There’s so much beauty and so diverse and so much more to see.  It’s life changing. One more funny story.  Zambia has built a brand new airport.  It’s so new that they haven’t even rented out the retail stores yet.  They are VERY proud of this airport, which took many years to build and ALOT of money.  It was pouring when we left, and apparently…the designer/architects of the airport forgot to build a covered entrance to board the planes.  Forgot?  Ok, I know, I’m tough.  So they have a guy whose job it is to open umbrellas and hand them to each person to walk to the plane.  Then you leave the umbrella at the door of the plane and some other guy runs them back down to the first guy.  Oh my god.  I’m laughing.  I could be a hero here!! Up next….Sydney!