The Tetley Tea Room

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June 8

We arrive at Kasane airport and wave goodbye to our driver & safari friends.  Sitting in the airport I am fascinated to watch the bush pilots – white males in their 20-30s, shorts, no socks, short sleeve shirts, caps & glasses.  They dress to fit the stereotype =).  Our pilot comes out and we learn we’re in for quite a bit of flying – an hour to the first airstrip, then another 15 minutes to stop #2, and a final 5 minutes to our destination.  After some “for-the-show-of-it” security we are on a 6-seater plane to our home for the next 2 nights.

At 6,500ft we have a great view of the amazing landscape that is the Okavango Delta.  It’s an amazing & truly unique area – I won’t describe it all here so click the link =).  We are met at the airstrip by a safari vehicle, and it’s 30 minutes through the flooded dirt paths to our lodge.  We are warmly greeted and welcomed to this little slice of paradise in remote Africa.

For this portion of the trip we’ve upgraded accommodation to Xudum lodge.  The best word for Xudum is “open”.  The entire camp is open to the beautiful lagoon surroundings.  We have our own hut, with open windows around, an open tub & bathroom, an outdoor shower, a private plunge pool, and an open top deck.  Everything is in a teak wood, the decorations are done to the finest detail, all the cloth is soft and comfy, and the room is stocked with snacks and drink ingredients.  In nice weather, it makes for an incredibly elegant & comfortable experience – like something you’d see advertised in a Conde Nast Traveller magazine even though it’s out in the middle of nowhere.

Everything about the service at the lodge is excellent.  For one thing, there are 30 staff on sight for only 4 guests (at it’s peak, the lodge would hold 18).  Everyone is incredibly friendly & genuine, and we never go for want.  The food is prepared in an open kitchen, and one night we eat at the counter and chat with the cooks as they make us dinner.  What comes out of the kitchen is a great variety of dishes, well prepared and full of flavour.  This really completes the wonderful experience of staying here.

The Washout:  June 8-10

At dinner we watch lighting in the distance sky and listened to the soft echo of thunder from afar.  We ask the staff if it might rain, but most people don’t know what to make of it.  It’s the dry season in Botswana, and it simply doesn’t rain during the dry season.  However, in the middle of the night these distance storms meet us.  With all of the wind & rain, suddenly the openness of Xudum becomes a curse.  The curtains bang relentlessly, rain seeps through the thin screens to give a damp to everything, and we tuck tightly in the covers as a cold chill envelops the area.

Little do we know that we are in the midst of one of the worst, most unseasonable storms in Botswana for some time.  Even during the rainy season, a storm usually only features 30-60 min of intense showers, followed by sunshine.  We are in for an entirely different beast:  a huge cold front has moved up from South Africa (where it dropped incredibly rare snow in the northern areas) and will bring wind, rain, and cold for our entire stay in the delta.  The lodge has been open for less than a year and not seen a storm like this, hence the problems in the room overnight.  The curtains around the lodge are drawn, but there is no “indoors” area so it’s impossible to escape the cold & damp. However, the staff gets right to work making the best of the situation.  In the main lodge we gather around a wood stove, just put in for decoration but now getting used for the first time.  To help keep warm, we have an endless supply of hot drinks, water bottles, and blankets.   Amazingly, the staff are able to jury-rig the blinds in the room to cut down on the drafts & racket made by the wind.  There is no Home Depot just down the road, so they operate MacGyver-style and make due with the supplies on hand (we later learn that most supplies are flown in; anything arriving by truck takes several days from Maun, and can only come when the floods have gone down). 

Thankfully we are stuck with a great couple – Darrell & Allet.  These South Africans come from an amazing travelling background, and are flying through the area on their own airplane.  We mostly sit and chat the day away, sharing in our funny experience.  We do manage to get out for a couple game drives, but we don’t see much.  The animals & birds, all smarter than us, are hid away trying to stay dry & warm.

June 10

We awake on departure day to learn that the local airstrip has been flooded and so we won’t be flying out that way.  Thankfully our camp manager is right on the situation, and soon we have a helicopter arranged to transfer us to an operating airfield.  As we say goodbye to our friends, I am excited for my first helicopter ride.  It turns out to be a great way to see the landscape, and flying low we see giraffe & water buffalo grazing in the delta below.  We still have a long journey ahead.  From the new airstrip we are on a bush plane again, and flying into Maun we begin our return to “civilization” (though with the huts intermingled with houses – both with outhouses – you wouldn’t mistake this for a European city ;).  It is two more flights to Cape Town, and we finally roll into our hotel at around 10pm, tired from a long day of travel but ready for the next stage of our journey.

It was one of those weekends where we took advantage of all that London has to offer:  three concerts of big acts like DMB, The Killers, & The Boss himself; two fine evenings listening to music in Hyde Park; a day walking the white cliffs along the southeast coast of England. 

On Thursday we were off to the Brixton Academy, a historic old theatre that holds ~5,000, for an evening of jazz and rock with Dave Mathews Band.

On Friday, we went to the Hard Rock Calling event in Hyde Park, and watched The Kooks & The Killers on the big stage with thousands of others.

On Saturday, we took an hour and a half train ride to Sussex for a country walk along the top of the Seven Sisters.

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On Sunday, we were back at Hyde Park for Dave Mathews Band (again ;) and Bruce Springsteen.  This time we were just listening, enjoying the summer weather outside the gates where we could drink our Pimms and throw the ball for Daisy.

We’re nice and relaxed – now back to work.

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June 6

After leaving the border station in Botswana we enter Kasane, and our surroundings have changed.  Before we travelled I had heard that one of the positives of Botswana is that it’s “more developed”, and it’s obvious from looking around.  The houses are all cinder blocks at least (as opposed to mud which you see elsewhere), the roads are well paved and with dedicated bus stops, and the signage is orderly.  Make no mistake, we are still in Africa, but it’s a long way from what I’ve seen on my limited other travels.  We are soon to our first stop on Safari – Chobe NP.

We are camping in the park, so it’s just a short drive to base camp.  We know from our last Africa trip that safari camping is not like camping we grew up doing.  There is an entire camp staff of cooks & butlers to make it seem almost like a hotel experience, from turning down your bed at night, to waking you up and filling your sink or shower with hot water in the morning.  These guys also do all the hard work behind the scenes to set the camp up and provide the food.  Upon arrival we see this camp is well advanced from what we had when we camped in Tanzania:  nice double bed, furniture, bedside lamps on a batter, a separate bathroom in the back, and a flushing toilet!  It’s so well set up that we are convinced it’s semi-permanent, but we find out they move camp every 5-6 days. 

They food is very good at the camp.  We take a tour of the “kitchen” and are amazing what they are able to turn out with some limited supplies and facilities.  My favourite is the bread oven, which is a large box which operates like a dutch oven to provide us fresh bread every day.  Another part of the camping experience is getting to meet other people, as there’s 6 tents in camp.  A honeymooning Spanish couple is on the game drives with us, and we become friendly and end up meeting them at a couple other points on our journey in Botswana.  Perhaps the most interesting members of camp are Boris Diaw and his mother.  You can tell that basketball runs in the family.  We have a fully stocked bar, and it’s very pleasant to finish out the night chatting by the fire to finish out a good day on safari.

Safari:  June 6-8

Our experience says that there’s a common pattern for safari.  Wake up before sunrise, eat breakfast, and head out at first light so you can catch the animals during the early morning hours when they are most active.  Arrive back late morning and during the hot day relax at the camp/lodge for a lazy lunch and afternoon of reading/sun, as that’s what all the animals are doing as well.  Get going again in the late afternoon for an evening game drive when the animals start to come alive again, and stay out until the sun sets.  That being said, certain animals you can see at just about any time.  We are into the park midday and almost immediately see our first elephant in the distance.  I remember a similar moment when we first arrived in Tanzania on our last safari, and how our initial pictures are of these little gray specs off in the distance.  This time I hold off getting the camera out. 

Our first safari experience on this trip is something a bit different - a boat safari cruise in the Zambezi.  The sun is bright & the air crisp, warm, and dry – a perfect afternoon to be out on the water watching the elephants bathing themselves along the riverbank.  I feel like a dip in the river, but the sight of a 12 foot crocodile quickly dispels that thought.   We’re also in for some great birdwatching, with numerous kinds of egrets, herons, cranes, and birds of prey everywhere you turn.  There’s also a great variety of smaller birds, and I am always amazed by the colours that they dress themselves in.  We find looking for birds a great way to keep the drives interesting during the lulls between the big game.

Our drives are full of herbivores:  giraffes, elephants, buffalo, and impala.  They are absolutely thick, and we get up close & personal with elephants of all ages & sizes.  One of my favourite things is to just sit and listen to them munching on the dry brush.  There are a much different variety of antelope here compared to Tanzania, and my favourite is the kudu with it’s huge spiralling horns.  Notably absent are zebra and wildebeest, but being by the water we see hippos everywhere.  These guys make a true chorus of munching on grass, grunting at each other, and gas-releasing noises which define the sound of the river.  We also delight in spotting the odd little thing, such as an adder, banded mongoose, and a honey badger. 

Around dusk on our first evening we hear reports of a lion.  We arrive on the scene a bit late and learn it’s moved off to the distance and ducked down behind a bush.  As the other safari vehicles drive off we decide to wait.  After about 15 min our patience is rewarded as a large maned male emerges and runs right past our truck – no more than 10 feet away.  Then, we spot another male in the distance and after a little further wait he runs across the same path.  This proves to be our only lion sighting on the trip, and it’s a great way to end the evening as the sun sets a rosy pink & orange cast on the scene.

June 8

Our morning game drive is actually just an extended drive out of the park.  We are lucky to get some last good sightings of our favourites:  a big herd of elephant & giraffes, several kudu, and hippos out in the water.  We also see some different types of antelope for the first time, and have a great eagle owl spotting (worth it’s own post).  So it’s with some sadness that we leave the park, but the two days felt like enough time to “see it” and we are anxious to get onto the next stage of our adventure.  It’s off to Kasane airport then for our trip to the Okavango Delta. 

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4 June

We depart.  We’ve been saving up our miles for a while, and so we are flying Business Class on BA which is always a treat.  We kick off the trip properly with a glass of the bubbly stuff, and with our seats facing one another I can see that Megan’s expression mirrors my own giddy excitement.  There’s a buzz on the plane, sort of like you might expect on a flight to Vegas.  There’s lots of holidaymakers, and British Lions fans on their way south to take in some part of the tour.  Taking off on an adventure like this is sometimes the best part ;).

5 June

Our longhaul flight from Heathrow arrives in Johannesburg, but we’re got another leg to travel on to Livingstone, Zambia.  Of course, we’ve already gotten our first stamp from the transit immigration officials so I say we’re officially on African soil.  They are always quite stamp-happy in Africa, and Megan got new pages in her passport before we travelled.  We’ve 4.5 hours to kill in the airport, but take the opportunity to freshen up in the BA lounge, and we’re still a bit too excited to care much.

Around noon we arrive at Livingstone airport.  One minute we are flying in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but brown and a few shrubs extending to the limits of the horizon.  Then suddenly we thump down at a small airport with about 100 other tourists (the skin colour and freshly bought safari outfits are a dead giveaway) and proceed to get fleeced for $50pp to enter the country – tourism is quite the money generator in these parts =).  Airport & arrival experience reminds us of Arusha.  Once through the chaos we are greeted by a sign with our last name, and whisked through Livingstone to our lodge.  Livingstone is a town of about 100,000 residents, though the main street reminds me of what you might find in a town like Fulton, MO. 

As we drive through town the sights of our last trip to Africa come flooding back:  people digging ditches instead of machines, red hot dry land, fences to nowhere, half-finished houses, one of the only paved roads being dug up so it can be repaved (the Japanese believe they can build it better than the Chinese), mosquito nets, the friendly people always smiling and so polite.  Africa:  there just is nothing quite like it.

We arrive at the David Livingstone Lodge.  Greeted with refreshing tea, and the immediate look of the lodge is impressive with a luxury African decor.  Very nice, comfy bed.  Large bathroom with a great looking tub with a privacy screen that opens out over the bedroom.  Views from the veranda out over the Zambezi.  As we sit sunning ourselves by the pool, we are occasionally interrupted by the sounds of Hippos grunting at one another out on the river.  We can see the “smoke” rising from the falls down the river. 

It is only 15 min down to Victoria Falls.  We see the falls from the top then don our ponchos and head to the arm of land situated across from the falls.  My dad has visited the falls from the Zimbabwe side, and said it would be wet.  I imagined thick mist.  Instead it’s more like stepping into a shower.  The air is warm (mid 80s), and we are soaked but it feels good.  Many groups take the opposite approach – stripping to just shorts and running through like you might do with a sprinkler on a hot summer's day.  The roar of the water is deafening.  I am struck by the immense flow of water falling over.  It’s impossible to capture with pictures, as it is too vast and the water spray blocks the distant view anyway. 

Tired from the day’s travels, we return to the hotel for a nice dinner and our first of many bottles of SA wine.  Starters are good, and I do a main of Zambezi river bream which is quite tasty.  The chef – a local trained by an Australian woman – comes out to make sure it was all OK.  It was, though later we figured out it was a bit pricey @ 450,000 kwacha. 

6 June

We depart after a good night’s sleep feeling well rested.  The roads are good in Zambia so we make good time to the border crossing to Botswana.  Oh what a border crossing it is.  Imagine a dirt road with a mile-long line-up of trucks.  Chaos at the gate with trucks & cars & people mixing everywhere, and we go talk to a man behind a screen in a small concrete building to check out of the country.  It’s a river crossing, using ferries that take just 1 truck at a time across the Zambezi river.  We learn that the truckers are not so lucky, and may spend 1-2 weeks waiting to get across the border here.  This explains the bars and other establishments set up to server their every need.  As tourists, we drive right up and are across in a matter of minutes.  The Botswana side is much calmer, with a very official looking immigration building.  More stamps and we are through to a new country for us, and the next part of our adventure.

If it has seemed a bit quiet around here lately, it’s because we’ve been off travelling.  This time we ventured off to a different continent than usual, and headed directly south to Africa.  This was our ‘Big Trip’ for the year, and we’ve been planning it since January.  We spent 10 nights in southern Africa, starting with a night in Zambia to visit Victoria Falls, then across to Botswana for 2 nights in Chobe NP and then 2 nights in the Okavango delta, and finally down to Cape Town for 3 nights exploring the city and 2 nights in the winelands.  As you can see we were quite all over the place, but as usual I put together a quick map highlighting what we did here:

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&encType=1&cid=9EA3F8ED932A3BAD!1346

The great thing about travelling to Africa from London is that the flights work out well.  It’s an 11-hour flight, but only a 1-hour time difference.  Since the flights are red-eyes going both directions, you can leave right after work and be in Africa the following morning for a full day of activities.  Needless to say we came back with lots of stories & pictures.  Rather than cram them all in a giant blog post, I’m going to spread things out a bit.  I’ll do a picture album & corresponding blog post for each section of our trip, so watch this space if you want to learn more.

As I mentioned in a previous post, our local park has been getting a series of upgrades as part of a “Parks Improvement Programme” by the local council.  Today I went over to walk daisy and found some interesting new equipment

It may look a bit alien, but it’s actually playground weightlifting equipment!  This is quite the upgrade from the circuits of yesteryear, which were maybe just a a chin-up bar and a few wooden benches to do sit-ups on.  This setup includes a bench press, bicep curls, and leg lifts – all with the ability to change the weight.  Pretty ingenious, though I’ll be curious to see how the hold up to the strain of English weather & hoodies. 

We recently hosted our friends Matt & Dana who were over as part of their spring European adventure.  One thing that people always comment on is how old everything is here relative to the states, be it the centuries old churches, pubs, or halls.  The depth of history really hit home as we walked home from an adventure in the city this weekend.  Our path back from the Hammersmith tube station takes us by St. Paul’s School, where we noticed a large stage being set up on the athletic fields.  Lo and behold we discovered that this was a concert for the Quincentenary celebration of the school’s birthday.  Granted, it hasn’t been on this piece of property for the entire time, but to let that sink in: the school was founded in 1509, just 17 years after Columbus figured out the world wasn’t flat.  We always had suspicions that this was a pretty important school in the region, but I was impressed to see that its preparatory school originally commissioned Joseph & the Technicolor Dreamcoat for its first concert in the current school building.

Did some maintenance on the site today.  I’ve put up pictures from our last trip in the Rome album.  I’ve also updated my European Travels map to add in our trips from this year. 

In the past I’ve blogged about how frequently we see foxes in London.  We’ve gotten very used to them – one time I saw a fox walk right up to our back door and start barking at me.  However, I’ve never been able to capture visual proof of these sly creatures.  That is, until now.  Today, Megan spotted a fox taking a nap in our neighbour’s back yard, and I snapped this picture:

We were reviewing a document at work today, and when we got to the end of the meeting the document writer asked if there was any last comments on the doc.  Someone in the room jokingly mentioned that he needed to clean up the writing style, for example he had forgotten commas when writing things like “we will run all priority 1, 2 and 3 cases.”  I chuckled, but was shocked when someone else replied that the document was perfectly correct.  The next thing you know the room had broken down into a full-scale philosophical battle as to which was the correct way of doing commas.  Suddenly it dawned on me that it was the Americans in the room who believed there should be a comma before the and, and the English were adamant that there should not be one.  I joked this must be another example where the US & UK couldn’t agree on English.  In a matter of moments we were on the internet, where of course we found the answer:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma.