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[African masks at our hotel in Johannesburg airport] |
Much of the long flight from Vienna/Paris to Johannesburg was rather dim for me as we both found ourselves ready to retreat into our cubicles.
We're in business-class, gifting us privacy, with good food & drink along with room to stretch-out & actually sleep; we found ourselves ready to tune ourselves inward, keeping the partition open to the bits of conversational sharing we enjoy while we settled into our bubbles to ruminate Vienna... through a 10+ hour flight through that dark circumference of the globe's solar stasis we flew from European autumn into South Africa's spring. A rolling-ball explosion for my sense of time. I love finding even vaguely plausible excuses for my own quirky notions about that stuff!
With the privacy window left open, we could talk & share with with each other while we enjoyed choosing films from a very generous selection menu, with our cocktails savoring the the possibility of previewing them as well while took our time, settled under headphones, through the several courses of the dinner service... by then finding even more private sensory zones while we watched our choices. I felt like I had over viewed the current culture, educating myself in new ways. Another value of travel...
As my energies continued fading I reclined the seat flat to succumb into a fairly good sleep, but, even on my waking the cabin was hushed & dim... the shades were mostly closed. I had no idea what time it was, nor how long I slept. Stephen explained that he'd earlier seen through the galley window, light on forest & desert below, which I'd missed. I had to assume the sun was warming the continent which I'm coming to visit & taste in a ways unlike any of my much earlier anticipations...
Since my youth I'd presumed I would approach Africa by way of Egypt's colossally mythic ancient history of art & architecture... or later, the exoticism of Morocco, both at the "top" of the continent. But no... we were going on safari... into the cultures of botany & biology... of curious plants & wild animals -- oh my!
The hotel suggested by Hippo Lakes was across a street from the airport... we walked. An arrival bath is always helpful to re-orientate after such travel... happily the tub held us both! Dinner began our adventure into the wild; we ordered a wild springbok for him... for me it was ostrich.
After breakfast we gathered in front of the hotel, gradually gleaning others who were to be met by a driver & be taken in a van to our Hippo Lakes destination. That driver was
a young African woman named Mary Jane... who greeted us warmly while tending to the efficient organization of our luggage, then, helping us find our preferred seating. Positioning an ice chest full of drinks, handing out around of bottled waters, she started our road trip with smiles all around; she had cared for us so very well.
We are eight, including us: another couple, Melissa & Andy, from Florida; then, Dana & Ralph, who live in Colorado with two adult daughters... Lexa & Julie , who lie in Chicago. Our already-proven-capable driver's name was soon to be often abbreviated to MJ as she further proves to become the group's safari guide & park ranger staying close to us all through the week.
The road was an efficiently tidy freeway... familiar. We begin forward with makng our acquaintances inside the myriad questions inevitable between strangers-with-a-single-purpose.
An experience with a herd of elephants living on reserve became the first stop, beginning our education about the
animals we've come to see. These were refugees of various sorts... being mostly homeless or retired.
They appeared in the distance as a stately parade to arrange themselves, for display, accompanied & directed by their handlers.
The absorbent quality of their thick hide was demonstrated with a bucket of water. 
We learned that an elephant's foot print isis its ID, being unique as fingerprints.
This herd of about a dozen, put on a bit of show. It was fascinating to see them so intimately close, to be able to even touch. I was one of five volunteers to stand at a rail for a demonstration of their fabled memory. We were asked to remove a shoe, then to one at a time hold it out to the animal's trunk, while saying our name as it was grokked & handed back... moving down the line of us. The tender took all the shoes & threw them mixed-up in a pile in front of our behemoth, who, when hearing me say my name a second time shuffled to quickly find my shoe to hand it back to me & reliably do the same down the line. Much better than a circus trick. Few dogs could be trained so well. This has to do with language capability as well as scent. My artist was taking mental notes about their anatomy & taking the opportunity to feel the soft interior surface of an ear flopping open as it was laying comfortably prone being beautiful, docile tonnage! Especially impressive as it rises back to stand... with a wonderfully lurching sort of massive grace!
An experience with a herd of elephants living on reserve became the first stop, beginning our education about the animals we've come to see. These were refugees of various sorts... being mostly homeless or retired.
They appeared in the distance as a stately parade to arrange themselves, for display, accompanied & directed by their handlers.
The absorbent quality of their thick hide was demonstrated with a bucket of water.
We learned that an elephant's foot print isis its ID, being unique as fingerprints.
Lunch was served afterward on a shady veranda while we talked with a member of the family who deal with the difficulty of owning this herd with the necessity of enough land preserved to sustain them them... tamed, but still wild. That is right lively conundrum for our time. We have different intelligence than when "our west was won" & the buffalo mostly erased, leaving some deficit of knowledge we could use. We're coasting on dependencies of mostly outdated types of ever-dwindling resources by that short-range thinking.
New ecology inviting new aeconomies might help save more of the rich resources--dead, sometimes deadly & very much alive--as vegetables & animals... including all the crazy people, of which I am one... celebrating my reluctance to admit.
Driving off any pavement now, we are invited by MJ to enjoy an "African massage" as she steers to negotiate the ruts. We kept being jolly as we were being told about the land & the seasonal change in the weather as the animals began to appear, as fences & gates lined parts of the road, with names of various large reserves. Many have history as game parks for hunters. Mary Jane is savvy about this real estate. Her life is part of a mission to save life, not take it as trophy. Our group is of the same accord. We begin to grok that all of our trips here were seeded by Hippo Lakes' donations to various progressive causes we patronize. We are generous, responsible creatives. Of course we will love being pampered with other exotic fauna. I realize that we've been cleverly captured for observation... by our own kind!
In the afternoon we get first glimpses of the canvas roofs of our destination in the distances below.
Then we come to water... the first of three lakes... this one being the home for the Hippos who stand in the shallow water above on layers of rock... with only eyes & nostrils exposed... unless they yawn. Several more seriously sturdy gates opened by MJ's remote, bring us onto pavement sweeping up onto higher land, where a covered entrance shelters our stretching out well-bounced muscles into a welcome reception to our home for the next 5 days.
Wide brick pathways lead to our tent accommodations. We two new grooms were in the farthest one... "out with the wild animals," we joked appreciatively!
Glamping is one correct word for this situation.
We approached our "tent" via a steep trex/wood walkway down from those bricks onto a deck rising just above the lake water, sheltered by the fabric roof. A key-locked double door opening into a large roomy space with a tall headboard hiding a dressing area & closet beyond which a door opens into a generous bath with two sinks, a glass shower enclosure & a graceful tub big enough for two... though we never got time to use it... sigh.
Window shades could keep out weather or allow light in, along with with the view, although they were complicated by multiple functions, as canvas weather sheathing & options of transparent plastic or mosquito netting, all requiring straps, snaps & zippers aligned to properly function. A manual could have helped... 
It was well & tightly designed.
It was quite romantic in its furniture...
A collection of colorful genuine carpets finished the space with comfy cush under foot... fans & an AC unit with a heater took care of the air, but we simply preferred enjoying what came naturally.
A collection of colorful genuine carpets finished the space with comfy cush under foot... fans & an AC unit with a heater took care of the air, but we simply preferred enjoying what came naturally.
One might set a Victorian novel here...
The shower with a rain-shower head above as well as the hand wand, which I prefer.
An outdoor shower seemed to stay uselessly dry, but its sunlight in which to dry off from our showers was welcome.
Romance & mystery a bit wasted. Or still to be retrieved when/if we make a return...
The shower with a rain-shower head above as well as the hand wand, which I prefer.
An outdoor shower seemed to stay uselessly dry, but its sunlight in which to dry off from our showers was welcome.
Romance & mystery a bit wasted. Or still to be retrieved when/if we make a return...
