We are at the ‘faded rose’ phase of our Big Trip.
Now it is Sunday morning, October 12th (Sri Lankan time). Somehow our time here is a half-hour off from halfway around the world—half an hour earlier for California, half an hour later in New Mexico. Or the other way around?
Two weeks since our very fine, life-renewing, unexpectedly wonderful journey in the Okavango Delta. Seems a long time ago already but forever will remain one of my favorite life adventures of all time.
It’s the big countdown. We have two more hotel days, one here, one in Kuwait; one day spent flying and a lengthy visit to the Abu Dhabi airport (bad timing but huge money saving); and one long long long 24 hours of almost pure flight with a relatively small amount of airport time. We’re a little stir crazy in this Colombo hotel. Only one big excursion out into the Sri Lankan countryside (post to follow) and the rest in this town (another post to follow!).
But for now—a wrap-up of the Delta trip. So the whole time I’ve been writing this the tune “Delta Dawn” has been humming away in my mind’s ‘ear’—when I told Steven this he said “What’s Delta Dawn?” (Kids these days—no experience with the good stuff) so I made him listen and he agreed “it had a good sound to it, alternative more than old!” Okay then.
Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on
Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?
And did I hear you say he was a-meeting you here
To take you to his mansion in the sky?
Obviously this has nothing whatsoever to do with the trip but you may as well be subjected to this in your head for the next day or so too.
See, it’s a big damn hot shadeless island.
No wonder, I almost got heat stroke (had a heat stroke?).
Brako and me as I recover with cookies.
Day Four: The day was ever so slightly anti-climatic as last days of anything tend to be. We took a four-hour walk across a different island in the morning. It was very very hot with little shade and I disappointed myself by feeling like I was on the verge of heat stroke at the end of hour three. I hate admitting to many frailties yet as they will be coming fast and furiously in the next years I am sure. Hate even more having my sons show signs of concern (even though it would surely be worse if they didn’t!). The walk did offer more sightings of elephants, wildebeests, zebras and red lechwe(s?) and more birds for Scott, so well worthwhile except for that burning African (felt like New Mexican) sun. The guide/poler/wildlife expert with us is in his final phase of studying to be a fully-certified guide which involves much of the training a wildlife biologist would get as an undergrad. His knowledge of both birds and animals and all of the signs indicating their well-being, presence and direction of travel was most impressive.
Wildebeests everywhere.
After another delicious Bush lunch (and just why is nicely-prepared but ordinary food so extraordinarily delicious out in the woods?), we headed back to Old Bridge via mokoro, motorboat and vehicle. Collapsed with food, talk, beer, storing memories, and wondering if we could make it back someday to this very special land.
The Party’s over…
Botswana is one of Africa’s (actually the world’s) success stories. Good Government is the key to the excellent management of resources throughout this country and the general well-being of the people. I am going to make a wild guess and say that there is a real chance that not only does Botswana have a more effective and honest government than the rest of Africa but quite possibly the U.S.as well. (If I said all of this somewhere else I apologize.)
Just what is life-changing about all of this you might ask? It’s all about the big world picture and where we fit in it I suppose. It’s about being in a country where the natural resources are treasured and nurtured. It’s about coming to an establishment organized to give people without big bucks the chance to come together in an adventure that they/we will remember the rest of their/our lives. And it’s about family and about the friends we make when we venture forth. Thanks Scott for making this happen.
Guides in training.
Another Early Delta Morning.
Slowly the daylight.
Day Three: Mokoros and Wine. Up early again for our two-day mokoro trip. Mokoros are dugout canoes poled through the ever-present marshlands, each by a single experienced poler from a group that focuses on that trade alone. By van to a motorboat drop-off, by motorboat to the mokoro polers’ village. Then just over two hours in a literal flotilla of mokoros, three for the five of us, three more for our tents and food, to our island.
Mokoros.
A real Croc.
Poling is a profession in which people take great pride.
Home for the next 24 hours was a brushy nook along the marsh bank. Trees and brush, tiny clearings for tents and the portable shower and the stand-alone toilet with its pit and shovel. I must say it is a quite enjoyable little interlude to sit comfortably in your own small clearing, happily peeing into a hole that you and your fellow campers will fill one small shovel at a time over the duration of your stay. Occasionally one of the roaming cows puzzles over your activities for a moment and then ambles away.
Home Sweet—Very Sweet—Home.
Strange guys just outside our door/flap.
We’d be taking a nap except for the 90 degree temp and no fan.
Probably not a good idea to read your novel here.
Steven, checking things out in advance.
Our tents and dining table were already set up as the mokoros with the camping gear had come directly to the site while our personal polers had stopped to explain the flora and fauna of the marshes along the way. The chef had prepared a just-right lunch for us. Not too filling but still substantial with sandwiches, salad, cookies and drinks. The white bread in Botswana is very good with weight and chewiness and taste.
There is a bit of a problem with an afternoon siesta since the tents are too hot and there are no comfortable chairs, ground covers or hammocks. So before our mokoro ride to the hippo lagoon we just sat on logs and told tall tales. Well, the boys did, Teresa and I served in the necessary posts of listeners. The youngest generation always enjoys their dad’s and uncle’s tales of their mildly wild Albuquerque boyhoods.
Scary snorting evil-eyed river spirits.
The afternoon visit to the big bad hippos was just the smallest bit of scary. While we had almost total faith in our polers’ knowledge, abilities and experience, sitting in the flimsy dugouts not so many yards away from snorting diving mean-faced hippopotami did inspire intense moments of vulnerability—at least from Teresa and me, and Steven admits to a moment or as well.
Chef & Assistant.
Dining in Style.
Best stew ever.
Storytime.
But safely back to base camp and a very fine dinner of tomato-based stew with chicken, carrots, celery, potatoes; sautéed veggies; Mediterranean salad and the smoothest of red and white wines. Calvin, our chef, accepted our surprised and grateful compliments with grace and jokes. And this all led to an evening around the campfire telling riddles; the staff trying to top the campers and generally winning.
We all slept surprisingly well in our hot little camping tents with mats and minimal bedding and no toilet nearby. A big creature snorted and clumped about the tents at night, drowning out family snorer par excellence. Odd how it didn’t frighten any of us—just seemed like what should happen on a night in the Okavango Delta! Our guides told us it was probably a baby hippo. Not those darn baby hippos up at night again we said.
The Grand Finale of Day Two
Timber (our smart and thoughtful guide on the Moreni Game Reserve) searched for, observed and made some directional changes during the day in hopes of finding LIONS before we left. Success!
The second day in the Okavango Delta draws to a close with the King and the road home.
Way home to Old Bridge from Game Reserve.
In Botswana, animals always have the right-of-way.
END OF DAY TWO. STAY TUNED FOR DAY THREE–WITH FEWER PHOTOS, I PROMISE. I THINK.
Taken before the lion ate Teresa.
Forgive me. This obsession with my animal photos. Would be different if I were a serious photographer with a serious camera. Son Steven brought along a top of the line point & shoot and his photos are studio-quality probably. But he’s back in Albuquerque, I’m here at the Renuka City Hotel in Colombo… so you just get MY PHOTOS.
On with Day Two.
Missing my Tingley Beach ducks and geese.
And the glamour shot.
And my favorite. PUMBAA.
What is it about being out in the bush? In Africa. In a clunky four-wheel drive 4-by-4 truck converted to viewing vehicle. The tiniest bit of danger from a charging elephant or really hungry lion—but so slight as to be fun without being life-threatening. The hippo tipping the boat fear seems a little more real to me—just because I can’t really swim and would drown even before he could chomp or stomp me into oblivion.
Always we’ve seen these amazing creatures in cages and pens. But here they are. Born free. Still free. Big. Magnificent. Comfortable in their skins here at home; humans just blips on the day’s animal radar.
Driving around. Lunch. Lovely camaraderie with our guides and a couple from Germany.
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent. (Dr. Seuss)
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- Some in the girls’ tent wake up perkier…
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- But a weak smile is better than none at all.
In the Bush: Up at 5am, off at 5:45 for 14-hours in the Moremi Game Reserve with plenty of Okavanga animal life and many miles of very rough roads. And what a day.
Dry dry bush: wide open spaces, clumps of trees—mostly acacias (the toothpick trees of an earlier Botswana visit) but other taller and shorter species as well and then small crackly goldy-tan dry trees/bushes/shrubs. The brown and dusty look of the place should be off-putting (or only too familiar to a New Mexican) but it is actually quite bright and beautiful in the way African landscapes are supposed to be.
The first sightings of any one of the big (and small) animals are so wondrous and exciting… there’s an Impala…but then there many; the first Giraffe…then a family of Giraffes… including cousins. Elephant sighting. Look look an elephant. OMG, there are more, oh wow, a herd. And on and on. Zebras, beautiful exotic horses of Africa. Their stripes are so fake—must be painted on—too perfect.
A tasty bush breakfast of cereal, yogurt, fruit, crackers, coffee, tea was served as we passed into the reserve and later a very nice lunch, quickly and prettily set up on a bright cloth, which included salad, meat, bread, soft drinks and sides of pickles and spreads, cookies for dessert. All the necessities of life in the outdoors.
And always back to the bush and the animals. Wart hogs possibly my favorites. Ugly oddities but not menacing, kind of a nice compliment to all the pretty things. Speaking of ugly we spent a part of the day around a hippo pool, Scott with his binoculars, me trying to get just the right snapshot of Mr. Seriously Bad Looking. Day one we were in the protective height of our big viewing vehicle—the next day we would feel far more vulnerable!
Son Scott is a birder and reveled all day in the multitudes of big colorful birds, some unique to this Delta, some with cousins and even siblings all over the world.
We ended our major viewing experience with LIONS. Just when we thought we might not see them. Several of them actually. Stalking warthogs, encircling a kudu. No lion sex or leopard kills like Kenya but a long slow back and forth to watch them go after that night’s dinner. A nice high before the long ride home.
What a day. On my first safari in Kenya, we were literally in the reserve. In the case of Old Bridge it is a couple of hours to the reserve and then all day in the vehicle around animal land and then of course the agonizingly-jolting way home. But there was something very satisfying about the wealth and consequent exhaustion of the day. An immersion of sorts that doesn’t happen when you return after a three-or-four hour viewing to your comfy lodge.
We ate, we showered, we drank, we rested…at least until we realized there was that party house across the water that would drown us in hard pounding music until around 3am. Still, who cares as long as it somewhat blends with sounds of the bush and pond and me still choosing to believe in a spiderless Botswana. Denial is a beautiful thing.
A small sampling of the day’s million and three photos follow here and in one or two separate posts just because I can’t resist sharing too many of lions and elephants and angry–no I mean ugly-but magnificent–birds!
Enjoy.
Kudu.
Just waiting for one of us to succumb.
Watching the annoying interlopers going by.
Really, you don’t have anything better to do than driving around staring at us all day.
The Honey badger or ratel is a tenacious small carnivore that has a reputation for being, pound for pound, Africa’s most fearless animal despite its small size. It is even listed as the “most fearless animal in the world” in the Guinness Book of Records. (on-line)
VOTED ‘ MOST GORGEOUS’ BY TERESA.
Stop. Do not even think it. It is not wrong to have lunch in a pleasant dining room with soft classical music in the background and black swans floating by outside the window. It. Is. Not. Even if one is in an exotic tropical land and should, by real traveler standards, be eating exotically pepper hot hot hot food at the local dive with its many cheap and exotic choices.
Steven declares his Kottu Roti (Sri Lankan bread cut into thin strips sautéed with vegetables in a spicy yellow curry sauce topped with an egg) the best (and hottest) meal on this whole trip. So there Scott and Robert…you who would scoff at Hilton lunches in far off Colombo.
I had cream of sweet potato soup and a salad fresh and luscious with greens and pears and nuts and olives and a funny sweet fruit/veggie thing accompanied by just olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And two glass of really really nice Sauvignon Blanc.
We walked quite a ways partially along the misty shores of the Indian Ocean to get to our posh little lunch but took a tuk tuk back through booming Colombo’s dense traffic.
Rest of day mostly around the room on our Surfi and books. Tomorrow’s a big all-day trip so both of us felt like a slow day. In addition to the travel wearing us down—even Steven not just me—the constant hustle here from the tuk tuk guides/drivers is a little annoying. But hey, we’re happy. “Are we Steven?” He responds, “Yup. Why not? We have a very full day planned tomorrow. A revived confidence in our abilities to manage tuk tuk travel around town. Enough activities left in Colombo to fill rest of our stay—including GoPro editing time and a couple more movies.”
I miss my Rio Grande ducks and geese. Here’s today’s fowl special.
Colombo, Sri Lanka. Humid, rainy season, Asian success story, frustrating and my 94th country.
As stated ever so briefly last night, getting into the city from the airport with a completely clueless taxi driver (whom we contracted through the airport taxi service) who was forced to stop every four minutes to ask passersby where our hotel was (and who could not see very well) was a journey all its own for about 90 minutes. Then, upon arrival, our hotel could find no record of booking or payment. Eventually resolved. I must admit to having flashbacks to the Indian visa nightmare while trying not to feel animosity toward the subcontinent and its neighboring islands.
Today has been well…odd. Slept well, showered, Steven went to the gym, and then we hit the streets. Ever so briefly. We were soon talked into getting into a tuk tuk and being taken to the Full Moon Poya happenings at the Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple. Wow. Some of what glitters is gold and some of the Buddhas are very golden. It seems the gods come in all colors and shapes and are quite different in personality, appearance and general quirkiness depending on their countries of origin: India, Thailand, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Tibet … A plus for eastern religions since—even though religion is almost always detrimental to world peace—the variety of the east does make for better photo albums. The temple is completely full of relics, gifts, photos, every kind of memento related to Buddhism. Many visitors were present this fine holiday making offerings and reading and eating the free meal served downstairs (I think for the poor but I’m not sure). I was not proud to think that all of this would have to be under lock and key in the U.S. because we have become a nation of thieves and defacers.
We were briefly tempted by one of the many ‘guides’ and ‘drivers’ and ‘friends’ and briefly signed on to a two-day trip out of town to some major sights. It was not too pricey and seemed like a great deal until Steven started researching tours, trips, outings on line and reading up on the many small deceptions that occur especially on some of the out of town jaunts. Nothing horrible or dangerous, just petty and disconcerting. In any case we cancelled and are now going on a day trip to Sigiriya cave and another world heritage site with another agency. Maybe.
Turns out Sri Lanka is one of those countries with endless and constant and incessant and annoying offerings of every kind of tourist-related service. First place on the trip we’ve encountered this. Seems odd in a way since Addis is less well off economically than Colombo and it didn’t happen there. But this particular form of entrepreneurial activity thrives in some places and not others based on poverty of course but, I suppose, culture, religion, former colonial influences and more all play a role in attitudes toward ‘hustling.’
We did make it to the grocery store around the corner and have crackers, peanut butter and jam, yogurt, cream cheese and Oreos! Steve is happily eating Indian/Sri Lankan food at every opportunity but I’m thinking of checking out the Burger King across the street tomorrow! I am such a travel foodie failure.
We can come home a week from tomorrow. Yay……. I think I would have left by now if Steven weren’t handling the money, taxis, visas at borders, and communicating with hotel personnel and drivers. I have the luxury of becoming increasingly antisocial as the days go by. It’s not that I don’t like the many interesting people all around me; I just don’t want to talk to them.
Actually it’s pretty contemporary around here but this makes for a more interesting photo.
Birds of the Indian Ocean.
Arriving at the Temple.
I have this t-shirt.
Is that a bit of a smirk?
How can you not love this guy/god?
No clue?
This is how I imagine myself, back home on the couch, finishing up “Orange is the New Black.”
Thai Buddha.
Scariest deity.
Chinese Buddha. I think. Not grinning. Taking over the world.
Steven is feeding the baby bananas.
Finally, home to our crackers and Sufi (plural for Surfaces).
This is the first of a series of posts about our most wonderful adventure on safari in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, written a week or so after the fact. I choose to call our safari Delta Dawn because…well, just because…and what is that flower you have on…
Safaris are silly. That is what I thought. We have an excellent zoo in Albuquerque where I can see animals native to other lands any time I want. In fact it is so close by I can hear the seals bark and smell elephant dung on my morning walks. Why spend a ton of money driving around some distant bush or plain or jungle to see those same animals from further away?
How absolutely wrong I was. A few years ago I went on a half-week safari with friends to the Masai Mara in Kenya. It was a grand experience in a land magnificently abundant in humanity’s history and in the environmental and wildlife reminders of what was—that we humans of today seem intent on destroying. Almost life-changing in a way. As in ‘yes, there is something more important to the world than one more shopping experience, one more foodie emporium.’
And, yes, it seems so appropriate to be the ‘caged’ while the animals roam free and appear to consider our vehicles a small annoyance if we’re noticed at all.
Now, I’ve been on a second safari and it is time to remove the ‘almost’ from the phrase ‘life-changing.’
A family trip to the Okavango Delta which was just completed a week ago. A fourteen-hour day animal viewing. Another almost two days and a night gliding about the Delta’s marshy waterways in mokoros and sleeping with hippo snorts and a million billion bird and insect sounds all about. And finally a four-hour trek across another island while being instructed in the various kinds of tracks and dung from the herds of wildebeests and elephants off to the right or left, and the many unseen animals presumably lurking just behind that small clump of trees over there or there or there.
This adventure came about thanks to one son’s determination to find a safari the whole family could afford and being smart enough to let Lonely Planet guide him. So it all happened courtesy of Scott, LP and Old Bridge Backpacker’s Lodge.
Our family of travelers included grandchildren Steven and Teresa in their 20s, sons Scott and Steve in their 50s and me in my 70s. We are all fit for our age and a curious bunch, especially the four who had never been on the continent before. Scott’s big fear was that the trip he had so carefully planned would not live up to our expectations; my big fear was spiders.
We arrive in Mauna and head out to Old Bridge Backpackers.
Day One: We arrived at Old Bridge Backpackers mid-afternoon after a pleasant flight on Botswana Airlines from Johannesburg. Our roomy-enough tents awaited us—the permanent kind which included an outdoor en suite bathroom with toilet, sink, warm shower and a voyeuristic bird or two. Of course the tents zip open and shut at both ends and that’s really the only down-side, the constant zipping and unzipping for every single step-out to toilet or front porch sofa and coffee-maker. Thankfully I did not know—until they so gleefully shared the story later—that when Scott and kids were going to each of our three tents to raise the flaps they found numerous and substantial spiders nesting just underneath. I did hear whispering outside but I was innocently unpacking and willing Botswana to be spider-free.
We rested a bit, walked around to see the ‘old bridge’ and get a first glimpse of the area’s plentiful bird population. Dinner with lots of beer and everyone’s favorite music, even an old folk melody here and there for me and a restful—in an odd way—night. The odd bit being that it was so very noisy with birds and insects and barking dogs and the occasional blatting goat wandering by and even what sounded like a hippo-splash in the pond out front now and again. Little did we know that the party-house across the pond would move into full-effect on future nights but for this first night we were blissfully immersed in the natural night sounds of Botswana.
Just outside our front ‘flap.’
The gang on our first Old Bridge walk.
FOLLOWING BIRD PHOTOS ARE THE BEST MY LITTLE POINT AND SHOOT COULD PRODUCE. I like them anyway.
First bird sighting, a Kingfisher.
Big Bird.
Roadrunner and Killdeer cousin.
Who is he?
No clue…
This is an … egret?
Under Delta Water.
Termite Mound.
We are halfway around the world. And the last 25 miles was a struggle. Taxi driver lost for 1 1/2 hours, then hotel lost our reservation for another 1/2 hour. But we are here. HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD FROM HOME.
More tomorrow when we are happy.
But we’re a little bit happy now. It’s raining hard and I have chocolate ice cream and Steve still thinks travel is cool and he has a beer.
