DAY ONE
This evening we depart for a month of travel in Africa. We fly out of Los Angeles about 11:30 pm and don’t get to Joburg until Tuesday afternoon. I suspect we’ll be knackered on arrival.
DAY ONE.1
Well yesterday was a bummer! Got to the airport only to find out flight had been cancelled and we were rebooked for tonight. In and of itself not too big a deal. However, that screwed up a couple of connections!
BTW This is one long set of flights, 14 hours to Addis Ababa, another 5 to J-Burg, then another hour to Durban. Toss in about 4 hours of layovers & I expect to be getting a little gamey by arrival.🤪
DAY ONE.2 GETTING THERE
Ethiopian Airlines is a mixed bag! As I previously stated, they, with a little help from us, screwed up our flights. Once on board however, they were delightful. The food was good & generous, the lie flat seats not as good as the Dreamliner but nonetheless, excellent.
We made landfall in Lomé, Togo (West Africa)
Roughly 48 hours of planes and layovers and we are in Durban, SA. And boy was it rough!
It started with Ethiopian Airlines canceling our Sunday flight and rescheduling it for Monday. That wasn’t a big deal except they neglected to reschedule connections. When we finally got that straight we couldn’t get Business for the Addis Ababa to JBurg leg (5+ hours) and even though there were empty seats on the flight they “couldn’t fix it”. It seems everybody has the authority to screw things up but nobody has the authority to fix anything.
Coming through security at Addis Ababa (darned if I know why that was necessary as we merely changed planes on the same airline) they decided my walker, I brought the lightweight one, had to go through the x-ray machine BUT it wouldn’t fit!
After a long but losing argument they took it to baggage with many, many, many promises and assurances that it would be brought to the plane’s door upon landing. Frankly, I wasn’t as surprised as maddened when it didn’t show up. After a lot of scrambling, I’m so sorrying, and shoulder shrugging, I gave up, got a wheelchair down to baggage reclaim. Luckily, I knew enough to check oversized luggage first, and there it was! Then it was on to security again, this time a different airline. There they simply waved the walker through but not to be completely sensible, confiscated my 4” shears that have traveled through countless security lines without problems.😜
The good news is we drive to Zulu Nyalla and safari. Pictures of animals in the near future.
DAY ONE OF THE ADVENTURE After a good night’s sleep we were wide awake and much refreshed at 5:00 am. Breakfast wasn’t served until 6:30 so we brewed some tea, munched on some snacks, played on our phones and did most of our re-packing until then.
Breakfast was surprisingly good. Eggs scrambled correctly and thick English style bacon and many other goodies. After second helpings and a couple of cappuccinos we went back to the room and finally got underway about 9:00 am for Zulu Nyala, a three.5 hour drive.
SA, at least along this route, is very pretty. Long rolling hills filled with lush greenery and trees. The roads quite decent most of the way although in places only two lanes.
They have a somewhat different approach to single lane traffic. With wide shoulders, most will pull on to the shoulder at speed to allow an overtaker to pass. I was more often the passes than the passee and it worked quite well. Until that is, I got caught in a speed trap doing 102 in an 80 zone. 😱
A young cop waved me down and we went through all the normal, license/registration etc. Then he walked me over to his car, showed me the radar readout and the fine book (1500 Rand ~ $500) for that offense and told me that I’d have to follow him 20 Kilometers back down the road, etc.
All the time he was very sympathetic to my problem, friendly and solicitous but what was he to do.?
Then I asked him if there was some way we could skip going back to the police station. He thought a minute and said he couldn’t issue any receipts from his car but if I was ok with that he could charge me 500 Rand on the spot. For a minute I thought I was back in Georgia!😏 I couldn’t say ok fast enough! I told him I needed to go back to my car for the cash and he asked if my wife was going to be ok with our arrangement. I told absolutely!
We walked back to my car and I took the cash from Alexis and started to hand it to him but he said no and indicated I should put it in his notebook. Ok. I guess he didn’t want to be seen actually touching the cash.😂Anyhow, within about 15 minutes we were on our way. I was happy to part with less than $100.00 and be on my way hassle free and I was more careful about the posted speed limits the rest of the way.
We arrived at our new temporary residence and got checked in at about 12:30. Then the first order of business was lunch.
Our room is great. Plenty large and could accommodate eight people. The master bedroom is open to the rest of the place, about 20×20 with a good sized bathroom, large shower & double sinks just behind. The other room which has sleeping accommodations for six and also doubles as a sitting room with a small frig is about 20×30 and opens on to a front patio of nearly equal size. BEST OF ALL IT’S AIR CONDITIONED!
At 3 pm we took off on our first game drive of 2-1/2 hours. The first thing we saw, even before getting to the truck, were the crocks right here on the site. They live in a pond that is adequately fenced off so there is no safety issue.
Once in the trucks we were treated to Cape Buffalo, Wart Hogs, giraffes, rhinos (White & Black), monkeys, hippopotamuses, Wildebeest and birds. And of course the Nyala for which the park is named.
Baby rhino
Rhino, notice the hole in his horn. That’s from placing tracking device there.
Cape Buffalo, One of the big 5 and extremely dangerous.
Wart Hog, one of our guides said they really are as witless as depicted in, Lion King.
Young female Nyala
Vervet Monkey
Male Nyala for which the park is named
A pair of terrapins
African Starling
Wildebeest
Dung Beetles (2) rolling a ball of dung down the road
The largest beast we faced. Stopped at the edge of the road as we crossed the tracks.
Too tired to stay up for 7:30 pm dinner, we returned to our rooms, ate the hardboiled eggs we’d liberated in Durban and crashed for the night. Tomorrow’s trek starts at 5:30 am so nite nite😴
DAY TWO
The game drive starts at 5:30 am so with only a cup of coffee to fortify, we were on our way. First order of business, find the park’s cheetah!
We found him taking his leisure near a fence marking the edge of the reserve. He was pretty relaxed and an obviously full belly indicated he’d already had breakfast so he was in no hurry to go anywhere.
Here he’s inspecting droppings of some other critter.
Then he marks it. I don’t think one wants to be too close when he sprays.
This is a wrap for Zulu Nyala. I’ll include some more interesting shots and I’ll make separate entries for our time at the Elephant Experience and the Chet’s Rescue.
Terrapins
Traveling Jim 