Rivers and Rails of Africa
March 31 - April 12, 2023
Mike and Judy Henderson
I'll leave this map up so you can see where we are. In this episode we travel from Johannesburg to Kruger National Park and go to the safari lodge.
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4/11/2023 (Tuesday) We gathered in the hotel reception area this morning. There is an interesting sign on the desk..
Judy and Frank are waiting in the lobby. I post this picture because you can see me in the mirror, doing a selfie in the mirror.
Here's one. Because the distance for this picture is the distance to the mirror plus the distance back to the camera, it's a telephoto picture. If you look closely, you'll see that the image is not crisp. That's the weakness of the iPhone telephoto.
Our bags went into the trailer for our trip to the airport.
Here's Lucky doing the "cart on the escalator" thing again, which was very impressive.
Ana and Arnaldo at the airport.
We're on an Embraer E-190, with two seats each side. Very nice. Nobody gets stuck in a middle seat.
The flight was quick. They barely had time to serve anything. We landed at the Eastgate Airport. It's actually a part of Air Force Base Hoedspruit. In the late 1990's, a part of the air base was converted to a commercial airport to serve the tourist industry of the Kruger National Park.
The driver from Tintswalo Safari Lodge was there waiting for us, and everyone's baggage made it.
Here's the van and trailer. It was a fairly long ride, about 67km. Tintswalo is located in the Manyeleti Game Reserve, which is a subset of the Kruger National Park.
As we got closer to Kruger, we turned onto a dirt road. We followed the signs to Tintswalo.
Eventually, we arrived at the lodge and some of the staff was waiting to greet us.
Walking into the lodge.
A view of one of the buildings of the lodge.
We gathered together and signed the release forms.
Ana and Arnaldo. Ana was able to get her hat back.
Annette and Thomas.
Karen and Al.
Then we went to our suites. As we walked to our suite, there were animals on the grounds. This grazing animal is a Nyala.
A Vervet Monkey came out to greet us.
The suites are separate buildings and are spread out on the property. This gives the guest in each suite privacy. The suite we're in is at the end of the line of suites. Here's a picture of the walkway to our suite. I checked the distance from our suite to the main building and it's about 270 meters - just about three football fields.
Our suite is lovely. Here's the bedroom (actually, it's the second bedroom but it's identical and was a better picture).
It's a two bedroom suite with a living room between the bedrooms. We just closed off the second bedroom.
The lodge has very fast Internet access, but they have a problem. They use a firewall and they have all the ports closed except the most common ones. I use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to send pictures to my server. But FTP uses ports 20, 21 and 22 and those ports were blocked. Additionally, my mail system uses port 465 to send email and they had that port blocked. I could receive email and view web pages but otherwise, I was blocked.
I was able to send a couple of emails by setting up my iPhone (using cellular) as a hotspot and connecting my computer to the iPhone.
But there was to be no rest for us today. We got together for sweets and coffee at 3:30pm with the plan to go on a safari at 4pm.
Bradley and Wise, the two guides, gave us an introduction to the Manyeleti Game Reserve.
Then we went out and loaded up in the safari vehicle. It's a Toyota Land Cruiser, a pickup truck with seats in the truck bed, similar to what we experienced at Chobe. Judy and I were late getting to the truck, and got the rear seats.
That was unfortunate because it was VERY rough riding in those seats. We were bounced up and down and side-to-side for about three hours. Safaris are done in the morning and evening for about three hours each, six hours total. I told Judy that I could not survive six hours a day of that kind of punishment. It was really miserable.
However, the next day, we rotated seats and got the front seats which had a MUCH smoother ride.
A closer view of our group in the Land Cruiser.
And we're off. The tracker rides in a seat at the front of the vehicle looking for signs of animals.
The other thing I'll mention was that it was absolutely impossible to take pictures when the vehicle was moving. It was just bouncing and shaking too much. I missed a lot of good pictures, especially of birds. The only pictures I have were taken when we stopped.
We encountered some plains zebras.
A closer view of one of the zebras.
A rhino.
His horn has been cut off to protect him from poachers. It will grow back and have to be cut off again about every 18 months. You can see that it is starting to grow back already. The horn grows out as a tube but is shaped to a point by rubbing it against trees and other objects.
Next we came upon some ostriches.
We saw a female lion. It was getting dark now. The camera compensates for the lower light by increasing the ISO but that degrades the image.
The male came along shortly after.
Here's a bit better picture of the male. The fading light made picture-taking difficult. I have better lion pictures later in the blog.
Three females.
A close-up of one of the females.
A face view of a female.
That was the end of our safari - the light had faded so it was impossible to take pictures. We returned to the lodge in the dark.
That evening we had a cook-out for dinner with outdoor dining in the dark. And it was really dark. I could not see the food on my plate and had to use the light from my iPhone to eat. This picture was taken with the iPhone which makes it look better illuminated that it really was.
I was told that they don't use more lights because it attracts insects.
That was the end of our day. Tomorrow, we have a safari that begins at 5:30am, before first light.
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4/12/2023 (Wednesday) Judy and I were up before 5am and arrived at the gathering point about 5:15. They had coffee and biscuits ready for us.
We loaded up in the Land Cruiser, and Judy and I had first seat. It made all the difference in the world. They had also placed a hot water bottle and a blanket for each of us on the seats. Very nice.
Our first spotting of the day was some spotted hyenas.
A hyena puppy. Cute little fellow, isn't he?
Then some more ostrich. Some males, with black feathers.
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A female, with gray feathers.
Then we came upon some lions resting in the grass not too far from a herd of Cape Buffalos. I took a lot of pictures of the lions but will only put a few here. Here's a female.
A close-up of a female.
The male with a female. He had been sound asleep, and just raised his head.
A closer view of the male.
And then he stood up to check things out. I guess everything was good, because he laid down again and went to sleep. When a big cat lies down in the tall grass to rest or sleep, the guides call it "going flat cat", because they are almost impossible to see.
We drove over to the herd of Cape Buffalo. Must be a hundred in the herd.
A mother and her calf.
A calf nursing.
A female Cape Buffalo.
An older male. Note how his horns cover his head, as compared to the female. The males fight, and this protects their heads.
A tiny little calf.
An old bull with a bird on his back.
I have a lot more pictures of the Cape Buffalos but I'll stop here.
The lions were still watching the buffalos.
We left the lions and buffalos, found a place for a jungle rest-stop, and had some coffee. The extra bottle on the table was Amarula, a cream liqueur made from sugar, cream and the fruit of a South African marula tree. A touch added to the coffee was delicious, similar to Kahlua. Ah, the safari life.
Me, at the coffee stop.
Continuing on, we found more zebra. This poor gal lost part of her tail, probably to a lion attack. She also has a scar on her rump.
Traffic jam.
Two giraffes
With a modified sky.
Some more zebras.
A young wildebeest.
This wildebeest seems to have eyes above his ears, but it's just the space between his ear and horn.
That was the end of the morning safari. We had lunch and relaxed until time for the afternoon safari.
Here's Judy with Bradley and Wise at the afternoon coffee and sweets. This time they had chocolate cake.
A closer view of the trio.
The highlight of our afternoon trip was sighting this leopard.
She seemed pretty relaxed. Although she looked at us, she just moved on nonchalantly.
She took time for a stretch.
Then she moved on a bit.
She stopped, took a long look back at us, then moved off into the grass.
We left the leopard and headed back toward the lodge. We saw this giraffe on the way.
The pattern of spots on this giraffe.
By now, the sun was setting and it was getting dark.
We went to a location by a watering hole. The lodge had set up for drinks and a place to sit. It obviously took a lot of work by the staff to set up these bush events. And they were done well.
Judy getting out of the truck.
They spelled out our greeting with small rocks.
The welcome sign. Someone switched two letters on "lodge".
They were grilling some kebobs in the bar area.
Mike and Isabel on the swing.
It was so dark now that I had to switch to my iPhone. It can handle low light better than my camera. Here's some of our group around the fire.
By now, it was DARK - African outback dark. We could see the milky way, something I haven't seen for a lot of years because of "skyglow", light pollution from cities. And especially where we live, near Los Angeles.
As we drove back to the lodge, the tracker on the front of the vehicle scanned the sides of the road with a spotlight. The vehicle was bouncing quite a bit, so this image is not clear, but I thought it showed something about the travel at night. It almost looks like a touch of Van Gogh.
We had dinner in the dark.
When we got back to our room Juliet, our housekeeper, had left a piece of towel art on our bed.
This was not the first, or the last. Here's the one she left the first day.
One on another day. I think it's a bunny, but it also looks a little bit like Yoda.
And our last day. Small leaves are used for the eyes and other decoration.
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4/13/2023 (Thursday) Another early safari. We were out in the truck before sun-up. We encountered some zebras.
And some giraffes against the rising sun.
The guide drove around so the sun would be at our backs.
An elephant in the bush
Throughout these safaris we saw other animals, such as impalas, but the guide didn't stop for us to take pictures. The focus of these safaris are more on the cats and the large animals.
We drove to a small lake, a popular watering place for many of the animals.
Through the grass, heading toward the lake, was a cheetah.
Really a beautiful male.
The cheetah and the leopard look somewhat alike, but their spots are different. The spots of the cheetah are round and distinct, while the leopard's spots are more irregular, more like a rosette. The cheetah also has black lines coming down his face, from the inner corner of his eyes.
Just for comparison, here's the picture of the leopard.
The cheetah had to cross a road to get to the lake, and like a good cheetah, he looked both ways before crossing, in case there was any traffic.
A close-up of the cheetah. You can clearly see the lines running from his eyes.
With no traffic, he crossed the road.
So we know why the cheetah crossed the road - it was to get to the lake.
And at the lake were zebras and impalas, or as cheetahs call them, "food". So far, it was a peaceful morning on the savannah.
The guide drove down to the water where we could see the shoreline. There were a lot of animals there.
A zebra mom was suckling her calf. Very pastoral, unaware that potential death was in the grass, creeping up on them.
Our guide told us, "Watch now, but be ready because when it happens, it will happen fast."
And it did. The Cheetah attacked and the animals took off in every direction. Look at some of the impalas flying through the air. You don't have to outrun the cheetah, you just have to outrun the slowest animal.
They ran right by us, separating on either side of the jeep. Look at those impalas fly! All four feet are off the ground.
Then came the cheetah. He passed by only a few feet from the left side of our vehicle, totally focused on the fleeing prey.
I was shooting stills but other people were shooting video, and I was given these two videos, one shot by Mike (of Mike and Isabel) and the other by Arnaldo. I don't remember which one was given to me by each.
The cheetah rested after the chase. There would be no meal from this chase. He is a handsome fellow, isn't he?
After this, we drove to an area where the lodge had set up "breakfast in the bush". It was obvious that a lot of work went into setting up this breakfast. They had to haul the tables and chairs and other equipment to this site, and set up fires to cook the food. The staff really went to a lot of effort to make our experience memorable.
A table was set up for our group. White tablecloths in the bush.
The chef was cooking breakfast over wood fires.
Making scrambled eggs.
A closer view of the "stoves".
They even toasted the bread over wood coals.
And a look down the gully.
Here's the group at breakfast.
The honeymoon couple.
After breakfast we went back to the lodge.
I didn't go on the afternoon safari. I was way behind on this blog and wanted a few hours to try to catch up. But Judy did go, and the following pictures are hers.
Here's an elephant.
They stopped at the place where a hippo had died during a terrible drought around 2016. Bradley reassembled the bones in the proper order.
They came upon a place where the rangers were doing a prescribed burn to reduce the amount of dry grass. If this were not done, fires in the dry season could burn a lot of the bush, and the food for the animals in a difficult time.
We had dinner as a group this evening, but everyone went back to their suites early to pack.
When we got back to the suite, we found this towel sculpture.
And Juliet had filled the tub with hot water and bubble bath, and put small leaves along the edge of the tub.
Neither Judy nor I are "tub people" but we both got in to experience it. Sorry, no selfie of this:-) We left Juliet a nice separate gratuity.
We leave tomorrow.
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4/14/2023 (Friday) We don't depart for the airport until 10:30 so the lodge offered a morning safari. However, only Annette and Thomas went. The rest of us slept late, knowing that we have a very long travel day (or two days).
When we went for breakfast, we watched the elephants drink from a water hose draped in a tree, which had been placed there by the lodge, just in front of the patio. The elephants have learned how to drink directly out of the water stream, and they come almost each morning for a drink.
They fill up their trunk and then force the water into their mouth.
Here's a closer view of the elephant filling up his trunk. The previous morning a young elephant was with the group, and he tried to capture the water by wrapping his trunk around the stream of water and pulling, as he does with brush. After about 15 minutes, he got the idea, and had a nice drink.
Karen and Al having breakfast and watching the elephants.
Judy watching the elephants.
While we were sitting at breakfast, this Vervet Monkey came and stole Thomas' toast off of his plate. The monkey was so fast we didn't know what was happening until we saw him in the tree with the toast.
There were two other monkeys in the tree, but we were wise to them now, and kept a close watch on both them and our food.
And then it was time to go. The guides and trackers came out to say "Goodbye".
We made it to the airport in plenty of time and had no problems checking in. Eventually, the plane came, a De Havilland Dash 8 turboprop.
The flight to Johannesburg was quick - about an hour. Once we collected our bags, it was time to say Goodbye - we were all heading in different directions.
Judy and I went to Turkish Air check-in, which was quite a walk, and checked our bags all the way to LAX. We then headed to the lounge to wait for our Turkish Air flight to Istanbul. The lounge was nice and our flight was called on time. We were a bit late to the gate and there was a line. The thing that I found unusual was that it was mostly families with young children. I don't think I've ever seen a flight with that many children. But thankfully, they all went into economy.
The plane is an Airbus A-300, which is an old plane (it was the first two-engine wide-body). Turkish Airlines has an unusual arrangement for business class, compared to most business class seating.
This one was 2-2-2, which means that the person sitting by the window has to crawl over his/her seatmate to get out. This is especially bad after everyone has gone to sleep. Most modern business seats are arranged so that no one has to crawl over someone else.
On many lie-flat seats, your feet go into an opening that is partially alongside the person sitting in front of you. This makes the seat pitch much shorter, and the entertainment screen is much closer to you. On Turkish Airlines, the screen is quite some distance from you - you have to release your seat belt to reach the screen (for touch functions, for example).
This was a fairly old aircraft, so perhaps Turkish Air has more modern seating in their newer planes.
One nice thing on both Turkish Air flights was that they had free Internet access. It wasn't fast, but it was enough to do texts and some email.
Our flight was overnight, and Judy and I managed to sleep for most of it.
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4/15/2023 (Saturday) We arrived in Istanbul about 5:30am local time. Istanbul is an hour ahead of South Africa. We have a long layover - we don't board until about 12:30pm.
But the Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul is very, very large and very nice. It was busy but I managed to find a seat that had access to a power outlet.
The lounge has food and beverage stations spread all over the lounge. If you want waffles, there's a station that makes waffles. Want a sandwich? There's a station for that. And a lot more.
Here are a couple of stations.
This is a salad station.
But being your dedicated scribe, I mostly worked on this blog.
The airport is new and huge. But it's well organized and easy to get around - although you may have to walk some distance.
This time we went to the gate a bit early. There was additional screening at the gate, which is common for flights to the US.
About 30 minutes before flight time, people started lining up and we joined them. Business class lined up on this side of the gate and economy on the far side, as you see in this picture.
But loading was delayed - and, of course, no one told us anything. Eventually, after perhaps a half-hour standing in line, they began boarding.
This plane is a Boeing 777-300ER, which is a somewhat newer plane than the Airbus A-300, but it had the same "old-style" business class seats. Actually, they were worse because it was a 2-3-2 arrangement. How would you like to be in the middle seat in a three-across lie-flat business class section? Especially if you were traveling alone, with strangers on both sides of you. And not much of a divider between seats.
Contrast this with the seats on the United flight.
But the food and service on both of our flights was very good.
We arrived about on time and breezed through Global Entry. The facial recognition that Global Entry uses now is really quick.
The Carey limo driver picked us up at the curb - so I didn't get a picture. Since it was Saturday, there wasn't much traffic and we were home a bit before 7pm. We went out for a pizza and then to bed.
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4/15/2023 (Saturday) No trip is complete until we pick up the girls. We board them at Coast Canine Country Club, and they seem to enjoy staying there. Our friend, Greg, originally had the girls but had to give them up for several reasons. That's when we adopted them. But he's still attached to them and enjoys spending time with them. He picks them up for day walks from the boarding place while we're gone and spends part of the day with them.
On Saturday, he picked them up, and kept them overnight, because the boarding place is closed on Sunday and we would have had to wait until Monday to pick them up.
We met him this morning at the Coffee Grove, a local coffee shop.
Here's Greg with the girls waiting for us. That's Annie on the left and Lizzie on the right.
The girls greeting Judy.
They were also happy to see me. They hadn't forgotten us.
That was our trip. I hope you enjoyed traveling with us. Our next trip is a Tauck tour of Switzerland in the fall.
A few overall comments:
Photography: I took about 5,000 photographs on the trip, about 3,800 with my Fujifilm camera and 1,200 with the iPhone - including a few that Judy took. As expected, the iPhone does not produce really good telephoto pictures but can produce excellent pictures under the right conditions. I post-process every photo that I put on the blog and I used about 635 pictures for the blog, which is significantly more than I usually do for a trip. Mostly because of the many animal pictures.
I was generally satisfied with the quality of the photographs from the Fujifilm camera. The images might not be as good as a full-frame camera but a full frame camera with a long zoom lens (maybe up to 600mm) would be just too big to conveniently transport.
AMA Waterways: All good. They stepped up and handled the changes necessary because of the problems with Rovo Rail. The Tour Director (Frank) was excellent. Friendly, hard-working, and organized. He made everything easy. The hotels we stayed in were very nice. I'd definitely recommend them.
A rail tour: I had previously thought it would be nice to take a rail tour, perhaps across Canada. Before the Ukraine invasion I even considered the train trip across Siberia. But just the short time on the train in Victoria Falls cured me. A train is just too confining - too many people in too small a space.
Air Travel: The United Airlines flights from LAX to Newark, and then to Cape Town, were really excellent. United had very modern business class seating and the service was great. Turkish Air does a good job but their seating is not as good and the routing made the total travel time much longer.
Too bad we couldn't get a non-stop back to the US from Johannesburg:-)
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