Botswana safari

Safari to Little Kwara (4 nights) and Nxai Pan (3 nights) camps in March, 2010.

Little Kwara
I’d reserved a private vehicle at Little Kwara, and Hobbs was my guide. Kwando is properly renowned for the quality of their guides, and Hobbs is among the best of the best. He’s chock full of both knowledge and understanding, he’ll instinctively drive to where the animals will go to (instead of where they already are), and he knows how to position the vehicle for the best photography.

Little Kwara is a wonderful camp. It has just 5 tents, so no more than 10 guests at a time. The tents are comfortable enough with verandas, outdoor showers, big comfortable beds, and ample storage space. The lodge is more or less standard (dining area, boma/fireplace, and bar/sitting area, though the chairs in the sitting area are arranged to preclude conversations that involve more than 2 people. (I think that’s my biggest gripe, which should tell you something about the place.)

A highlight of this trip was meeting a fellow poster, Jan (botsfan on Fodor’s), who managed to bring Spencer in her luggage as her guide. Jan was enormously interesting and lots of fun, and it was a special treat to enjoy a few meals and drinks with her.

Little Kwara provided no shortage of predators during my visit. On my first afternoon, we ran across a pack of 7 wild dogs who had been in the Kwara area for several days. They were relaxed and not much in the mood for a hunt, spending the afternoon in the shade. Kwara was not home to these dogs, and by the following day they had decamped and moved on.


As the sun was getting low, we came across a group of 3 lionesses. Hobbs moved the vehicle to where I got some terrific video of the lions prowling and sniffing for prey.


The lionesses worked as a team. After locating their prey – in this instance, a small herd of wildebeest – one of the lions would head round to the other side of the wildebeest. That lion would then start chasing the wildebeest, who would, if all went as planned, run smack dab into the other two lions. Not many projects ever run perfectly, and this was no exception: the wildebeest ran in a slightly different direction, the other two lions gave chase, there was enormous amounts of dust and confusion, and in the end the wildebeest ran faster than did the lions. Particularly noteworthy was one infant wildebeest (could not have been more than a few days old) who managed to keep up with all of the others. All in all, a heart-pounding event. Sorry to say, I have no video of this: I was too busy watching it all unfold (other excuses: it was getting too dark, we kept moving the vehicle to follow the chase, the wild dogs ate my homework, etc.).

Next day we were treated to more bush theatre. As we’re driving along, an impala and a few giraffe are trotting in one direction and a lone hyena is headed in the other, with the hyena paying no attention at all to the giraffe or impala. Meanwhile, quite a way ahead, a female cheetah had taken down an impala for herself and her two sub-adult cubs. The cheetahs seemed aware that danger was lurking, as the cubs dragged the impala from the kill location to a more secure spot, behind a knoll. As the cubs opened up the impala and began eating while the mother looked on from a short distance, the hyena appeared, about 30 meters away. The hyena bared its teeth, and that was all it took. The cubs left their prize, and all the cheetahs could do was watch as the hyena feasted on their kill. Hobbs suggested that had there been 2 or 3 adult cheetahs, they might have put up a fight, but the hyena would be too tough for the 1 adult and 2 juveniles. This whole thing was an amazing scene, straight out of what you see on TV. I was half expecting Jeremy Irons or someone to start describing events as they unfolded.


On another day we ran into a pride of at least 7 lions in the tall grasses: we saw 2 adult males, two females, and 3 cubs. The tall grasses made it easy for them to move around unnoticed, though the males did not object to showing off their stuff.

And then there were the honeymooning lions. It was the first time I’d seen lions mating, and it’s fair to say my jaw dropped on hearing that they’ll mate every 5 or 10 minutes for several days in a row. Sans commentaire.


Little Kwara advertises itself as having both land- and water-based activities. I passed on the motorboat (too noisy for my taste) but enjoyed a mokoro ride one day. The area for mekoro is quite a bit smaller than other camps I’ve been to in the Delta (Nxabega, for example). This made for a relatively brief mokoro ride, but allowed both mokoro and game drive in the same morning.


Lots and lots of other mammals and birds and a few reptilians, but I was too lazy or preoccupied to note them. A flock of African Skimmers during the mokoro ride stood out. And, after having always visited in the dry winter, it was a treat to see so much green. The tall grass did at times limit game viewing, but not as much as I’d have thought. I was lucky with the weather: not a drop of rain during my 8 days. I’m told that it had rained quite a lot during the previous week.

Nxai Pan
Some of the most interesting game viewing is from the lodge and individual verandahs. Loads and loads of elephants show up at the waterhole -- at one point I counted 19 elephants there -- and the interactions among them are absolutely amazing. For example, the way that an elder male shows his dominance and right to the best spot at the waterhole, giving a certain look or a flap of his ears to a young upstart. A dazzle of zebra stood nearby while the elephants drank and bathed and lounged at the waterhole -- the zebs were hoping to get a seat at the bar, but they had no chance.
One elephant put on a great show at a small waterhole next to the lodge.


The most entertaining part was an amazing show that the springboks put on one day just before sunset, bounding around as if they were on pogo sticks. Pronking, that’s what the Brits in the vehicle called it.


The only cats seen were a cheetah and her cub. Our guide Donald said that lions were very definitely in the park, but they hadn't been seen in several days. Leopard sightings are said to be rare in Nxai Pan. During my 3 full days, I'd rate the game viewing as fair-to-poor. But the best part of Nxai Pan, for me at least, was the relaxed and pleasant environment.

I'm not a birder so can't comment on the viewing, but the bee eaters (many blue-cheeked, and a single carmine) topped my list.

Nxai Pan camp has 8 stand-alone chalet-style accommodations (villas). All have an enormous panoramic view onto a plain, where a waterhole always attracts elephants, zebra. Sliding doors open out onto a veranda. There's an exceptionally large desk area, a king-size bed, separate toilet room, and a large area with double-sink, shelves for clothing, and an indoor shower. This area leads to a door to the outdoor shower, which everyone but the very most modest would use instead of the indoor shower. Floors are made from a very light colored wood, and that all works to make the interior seem airy, even at night.

The lodge is set up to face the same plain as the villas. Under the roof of the lodge, but open top the plain, are a bar, a seating area with sofas, and the dining table. Then, not under the roof, is a minuscule swimming pool (or maybe it's a full-sized plunge pool) with lounge chairs, a boma (fireplace), and a few other chairs.

The managers are Carlos and Phoebe, who try hard, treating each guest warmly and with plenty of attention.

The camp is encircled by an electrified fence, apparently to keep the elephants from coming through. The fence -- several strands of wire -- is very visible from the lodge and from my villa. I suppose that there are some very good reasons for the fence, but for me the fence detracted from the overall experience: the absence of fences is surely a major appeal of Botswana.

Another problem that is not just Nxai Pan but with all of Kwando is the seating arrangements in their vehicle -- 2 rows of 3 seats, with the obvious potential of 1 or 2 guests having to sit in the middle. One night when only 5 guests were in camp, Kwando assigned only a single guide to the camp and put all 5 of us into a single vehicle. It would be one thing if the 3-across were a family of 3 people, or if the camp were fully booked and it was a capacity issue. This was Kwando saving a relatively few dollars by not paying for the additional guide and tracker. This arrangement detracts, in a major way, from an otherwise outstanding product. A vehicle issue that is specific to Nxai Pan is the roof on the safari vehicles there. All or most of Kwando's other camps have open-tops, and to me the open-top vehicles are enormously preferable to the roofed ones. It's not so easy to see birds flying over you when the roof is in the way.

Nxai Pan Camp is in the National Park of the same name, unlike most other Kwando camps where the Kwnado controls access. Off-road and night drives are prohibited. This means that you can't track and seek predators, and it makes the job of the tracker nearly superfluous. Yes, it's 4 trained eyes instead of 2, but Kwando guides are so good that the extra pair of eyes don't add nearly as much as they do in off-road camps.

Photos
I can no longer imagine being without my camcorder on safari: it’s fantastic to close my eyes and just listen to the sounds. So just a few photos:



Getting there and back
I didn’t have any side-trips planned, so it was a straight Boston-to-Nxai Pan trip on the way out. First class between Boston and Johannesburg made life easier, but it still took forever.

My Lufthansa flight left Boston at 4.30pm on Thursday, getting in to Frankfurt about 6am Friday. The flight was unremarkable – forgettable meal, and a bit too early in the day to get any sleep. In Frankfurt, I’d arranged for a day room at a the local Kempinski hotel (the day room is free when you arrive in F on Lufthansa), and I got a decent sleep once I settled in to the hotel. It was too cold to head into the city later in the afternoon (I had only a cotton sweater and windbreaker for warm clothing), so I headed back to the airport around 6pm for the scheduled 10.30pm flight.

After an excellent dinner featuring chicken in a light Thai sauce washed down with Perrier Rosé at the restaurant in Lufthansa’s dedicated First Class terminal, I learned that the flight to Johannesburg would be delayed by about an hour. I’d have a very tight connection in Johannesburg to my scheduled Air Botswana flight, and I asked Lufthansa for assistance when we got to Jo’burg. They came through for me, having an agent meet the plane and racing with my papers to the Air Botswana check-in desk at the transfer area. My flight from Johannesburg to Maun required a change of planes in Gabarone, and that’s where everything fell apart. A 2.5-hour delay followed by an aircraft that took off and had to return to Gabs because of mechanical problems made for a hellacious day and an arrival in Maun at 7.30pm, long after it would have been possible to get to Nxai Pan. Air Botswana arranged for me and a few other misconnectees to stay at Riley’s Hotel in Maun, a place that was nice enough except for the single most sourpussed clerk I can ever recall at any hotel in more than 50 years of traveling.

Travel between camps was mostly uneventful, except for the bizarre itinerary that Moremi Air slammed on me to go from Nxai Pan to Kwara. They first flew me from Nxai Pan to Maun, and I was the sole passenger on the plane. In Maun, I transferred to a 12-seater, which flew first to Lagoon (!) and then back to Kwara. For those who aren’t familiar with these locations, that would be about like flying from Rome to Zurich by way of Stockholm, or Los Angeles to San Francisco by way of Portland. Thanks, Moremi.

Flying back from Little Kwara to Boston was enormously easier than coming the other way. I had a non-stop from Maun to Jo’burg, and the Virgin Clubhouse lounge at JNB is one of my favorite places in airports – the host there is about the most welcoming fellow you could ever want to meet. One of the benefits of traveling in F is having dinner served when it’s convenient for you, and that worked out especially well coming home. My last flight was Frankfurt to Boston, which (1)got in 30 minutes early, and (2)plopped me into an immigration hall with exactly 0 people in line ahead of me. I was out the door and in my car ride home within 10 minutes of getting off the plane.

Tokyo

Been running around the city for the past couple of days, looking at the jaw-dropping assortment of boys' toys in Akihabara, a very different assortment of jaw-dropping boys' toys in Harajuku, and generally wandering around the streets. I must say that I feel extremely comfortable in Tokyo; I find it to be a very welcoming city (even if it appears to be daunting for the newly-arrived).

Here are a few (uninspired) pictures of a corner of the Imperial Gardens (no sakura -- they're long gone) and of the Hibiya Gardens.

Hakone

On a map, Hakone is an hour from Tokyo, but it's more than distance that separates them. Where Tokyo is rushing and noise and pushing, Hakone is relaxing and quiet. Okay, there's still plenty of pushing, but most of it seems to be done by the old ladies who are EVERYWHERE here.

There is a standard circuit that you Must Do in Hakone. After you take the zig-zag train from Hakone-Yumoto to Gora, you hop on a cable car that climbs the hill to Sounzan (3 syllables: so-un-zan). Then it's a big gondola (they call it a ropeway) over some mountains, where you can get a good view of Mt Fuji if he's in a mood to show his face, winding up at the beautiful Lake Ashi. From there, you board a "sightseeing boat," which seems to have been modeled after a Disney Pirate ship, which drops you off somewhere else, where you catch a bus that brings you back to Hakone-Yumoto. I made it as far as the lake, decided that the pirate ship would be far too exciting for my fragile psyche, and headed back to Gora.


Hakone Open Air Museum
Just outside of Gora is one of the most pleasant spots you'll find on a sunny day, the Hakone Open Air museum. This is the 20th Century version of the Rodin in Paris, except that the setting is a hundred times nicer. (There are also a couple of indoor buildings, and I have no clue what they contain: it was far too nice a day to be inside.)

This one is named Hand of God, by a Swedish artist whose name I did not write down (sorry!):

The $48 Hamburger

I'm in the wonderful mountains of Hakone, happily ensconced in a room with a view. More about this place later, but first a bit of catching up from Osaka. I'm a Bostonian, so for me Boston is the standard definition of "city." And it stretches the imagination to think that "city" could describe both Osaka and Boston -- the scale is so t5otally, entirely different. Osaka goes on and on and on and on and on, non-stop, block after block after block after mind-numbing block. I stayed at the Swissotel in Namba for 2 nights, then moved to the Ritz-Carlton near Osaka station. Was supposed to stay for 2 nights, but found it a bit too posh for my mood and left after just 1. The Ritz did provide me, however, with a Hamburger to Remember. The Ritz Carlton brand has multiple faces. In Boston, there is, or rather there was, the Old Ritz, a formal, often dowdy, place where ladies of a certain age would go to have tea. Then some years ago came a New Ritz, just as upscale but appealing to a far more contemporary crowd. The bar is funky, the decor is modern, and it feels like a place for the living more than for the dead. The Osaka Ritz, alas, is more along the lines of Boston's Old Ritz. The wall hangings are of fruit or old birds, and that pretty much describes the patrons, as well. Anyway, I arrived there at 11:30 and was told that my room wouldn't be ready for a couple of hours. I'm still gimpy, the Ritz isn't exactly in the middle of a shopping area for normal people (a Ferrari-Maserati dealership is on the Ritz's building's ground floor, and there's a Bvlgari store on the next corner), so it seemed like a reasonable idea to find a bite to eat in the hotel. "Can I get a sandwich or light lunch in this room," I asked the hostess at the Tea Room. "Of course," sez she, escorting me to a table. Dressed in a mostly clean Eddie Bauer t-shirt and jeans, I might easily be mistaken for the nouveau pauvre who had lost all their money over the past few months and had sold their pearls and/or children. Anyway, the menu offered a hamburger, and that's what I ordered. It cost 4500 Yen, or about $48. It wasn't just a good hamburger, it was a fantastic hamburger. On a sesame roll. With lettuce, tomato, some sort of interesting sauce, and foie gras. That's right, foie gras. If I'd seen that it had foie gras, I wouldn't have ordered it, but I didn't, so I did. And after a brief acknowledgment to both the unfortunate cow and even more unfortunate goose, I enjoyed that burger. It didn't simply come with French fries, it came with 3 different kinds of fries. There was a pile of shoestring fries, then there were 4 steak fries on top of the pile. Next to that were 3 slices of fried potato-onion things. And the water glass kept getting refilled, with lemon-scented water. Before this experience, I believe that the most I paid for a burger was $16 or $18, at the Bristol Lounge in the Four Seasons in Boston. Darned good burger, that one, even if it's served with only 1 type of fries. So now I'm at the Hyatt in Gora, and getting here is a pile of fun. From Osaka (or Tokyo, for that matter), you take the bullet train to Odawara, then change to a local train going to a place called Hakone-Yumoto. That's where the real fun begins, as you get on a mountain-climbing train that ingeniously handles switchbacks -- instead of trying to make a hairpin turn, the train zig-zags up the mountain, with the front of the train becoming the back of the train many times over. Confused? Well so was I, and I haven't figured out how to explain it, so you'll just have to come here yourself.

No Place for Old Men

The trip from Chengdu to Osaka seemed like it would be long, but not difficult. The 2.5 hour flight from Chengdu to Shanghai would leave at 7.45, then a 2-hour layover in Shanghai, and a 2-hour flight to Osaka. From the Osaka airport, there's a train to the city center, and my hotel sits on top of the train station. Piece of cake.

First problem was at Chengdu airport, where the agent tells me I can't check my bags through to Osaka. Huh? The two flights would be on different airlines, but they are both Star Alliance airlines, and Im on a single ticket from Chengdu to Osaka. No go sez the agent, I can only check your bag to Shanghai.

Land in Shanghai, plane parks at the furthest gate, about 20 or 30 miles from the terminal. The terminal is hot, of course, and half of the (few to begin with) moving walkways turn out to be non-moving walkways. Eventually reach the baggage claim, then start searching for the departure area, for which there are no signs. By this point, I am in a foul mood. Reach the check-in a full 45 minutes after the plane had parked at the gate, politely told the check-in agent that it was preposterous that I had to reclaim bags and check in again. She smiled, told me that "unfortunately" Shanghai airport does not have any interline baggage facilities. Are you kidding me!?!?!?!

So I get my boarding pass, head off to go through immigration and security, and 30 yards before the immigration line a muscle gives way in my calf and I go down like a shot, Fuck, fuck, ten thousand fucks, ten million curses on every goddamned Chinese who decided that Shanghai airport would be some 3rd world outpost.

So now I am here in Osaka, hobbling. Hobbling down the hotel corridor and the streets, like a Dickensian wretch.

Are you feeling sorry for me yet? Don't waste your time: I still managed to enjoy some great sushi today, got myself to a modest park where the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, and I'm making the best of it. Hoping that another night's rest will help.

Free-form traffic, Unfortunate confusion, a Deal with the Devil

Today's theme was to explore Chengdu. Chengdu sitting in the dead center of China, has 7 million people and is the center of Szechuan, which is now spelled Sichuan, some of the time. Jin Li Street is a wonderful spot, I was told, so I bundled myself in a taxi and off I went.

Getting there is half the fun. I don't know any way to describe traffic patterns in China. Lane markings are on the road, but they might as well have a picture of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (Dwarves?) for all the attention that anyone pays to the markings. Right turn on red is allowed, as is pretty much anything else on red. The streets have cars and buses, also plenty of bicycles, motor scooters, 3-wheeled cycles (motorized and non-), occasional animals, and other various surprises. Drivers stay on the right side of the road, unless they feel like being on the other side. Anything that's paved, or remotely flat, is fair game. And pedestrians might as well have targets painted on them. But it all seems to work, somehow.

Jin Li Street is sort of a Chinese faux Quincy Market. Reproductions of old buildings, filled with shops and eating places. It looks kitschy at first glance, but it is very much an area where people seem to enjoy hanging out and walking around. Some of the food stalls looked downright terrific (though, admittedly, most were serving up stuff that looked frightening to this Westerner).

Jin Li didn't hold my attention for very long, so it was off to Chun Xi Road, the main downtown shopping area and roughly the equivalent of Boylston St or Fifth Avenue. Lots of shops, lots of pedestrian streets, lots of people window-shopping down the sidewalks, groups of women and men and teenagers doing their respective things. In short, indistinguishable from any similar street in Boston or Brussels or Johannesburg.

One major difference was the complete absence of Western faces. Now I saw plenty of blue-eyed devils at the panda center yesterday, and there's a smattering of us at the hotel where I'm staying. But I saw exactly 0 in Chun Xi. Around this time I needed to buy a bottle of water, found a nearby stand, and handed over 5 Yuan for the 2 Yuan bottle. No deal, said the shopkeeper. Now I had vaguely heard that some shops do not like to give change, that they need exact amounts, but this seemed odd. Anyway, I abandoned that place and headed over to the WoWo, which seems like a local 7-11 chain. Got the same response!! Feeling completely at a loss (look, the burden is on me to speak Chinese, not on the Chengdoobies to speak English), I skulked off, found a Starbucks (!), and bought a coffee for 15 Yuan (about $2.25).

Took a cab back to the hotel, fare was 9 Yuan, and I gave the cabbie 2 5's. Now I get histrionics from the cab driver! I have him drive me around to the entrance where there's a doorman, who I know can act as interpreter. And the cheerful doorman informed me that the 5 Yuan notes that I'd been trying to use are actually worth 1/2 of 1 Yuan. Oh.

I was confused. See the 5's on the left? They're halfs. The ones on the right, with the smiling Chairman, they're the real 5's.

Chengdu is the main city of Szechuan, and that means that it's the capital of Szechuan cooking. And I have had some great food here. The signature Szuchuan dish is Mabo Dofu, which is fried tofu in an incredibly spicy and mouth-numbing sauce. The sauce includes some type of "meat," and it's almost surely best not to inquire further. They have a fantastic sense of knowing how to create foods that are viciously spicy while at the same time being insanely delicious.

And that's where the Faustian part kicks in, the Deal with the Devil. You eat this stuff, it is delicious beyond all wild possibility, and you know that you will pay the price. But that price will be paid later. (Not a whole lot later, but later.) And the deal is done.

That's it for today. Glad to see that the Sox have a nearly insurmountable lead over the Yankees and Rays. Off to Japan tomorrow.

PandaPix ipsa loquitur

These are all from the panda breeding center in Chengdu, which, alas, seems to be mostly a glorified zoo. All of the beasts are in captivity, and none will be released to the wild. In a nearby center, at Wolong, there are efforts to release pandas.

So I can either drone on with silly facts about panda, or I can just show the pictures. (The one at the bottom is a red panda.)