Your Next Journey: The Dark Continent, part 1

This post is by Sue Tindell of Travel Leaders.

It used to be called "The Dark Continent". Africa was a place of exotic animals inhabiting dense jungles and wide savannas, explorers in shorts and pith helmets, primitive native villages. Well, Africa is no longer "dark"; it has modern cities, friendly people, and best of all it still has jungles, savannas, and exotic animals. So, when Travel Leaders scheduled their annual International Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, I was eager to sign up.

Wednesday-Thursday, April 3-4, 2013

Minneapolis to Johannesburg, South Africa

   The only downside to going to Africa is that it's a long trip. Our first leg was from Minneapolis to Atlanta, and then it was 15 hours to Johannesburg. I flew "economy comfort", and while it's not as luxurious as "business" or "first class", it offers more leg and reclining room, which is very important on a long flight. A major plus: it is about 10% of the cost of a first-class ticket!
      My traveling companions were all good friends and colleagues with Travel Leaders: Denise Petricka from Eau Claire, Laurie Passard from Grand Rapids, Minn., and Kim Gorres from New Richmond. With the International Summit opening in Cape Town on April 12th, we decided to arrive in country early and take a safari. Our host was Grosvenor Tours, which handled all the arrangements. All we had to do was show up!
      South African Standard Time is seven hours ahead of Central Daylight, so it was late Thursday afternoon when we touched down at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, the largest city not only in South Africa but in the entire continent south of the Sahara, with over seven million people in the metro area. We checked into our hotel, the Saxon, about 45 minutes from the airport. The Saxon is a destination in itself.

The reception area of the Saxon. It looked a lot more glamorous than we did, after 18 hours in the air.

Our rooms were suites, with large bathrooms and private butlers.

We capped our first evening in Africa with a great dinner and one of South Africa's great wines, Epicurean 2008. The next day would be a day to relax and prepare for our journey to the interior.

Friday, April 5 -- Johannesburg

There's a lot to see and do in Johannesburg, so after relaxing for part of the day and using the Saxon's terrific gym and pool, we set out for Mandela Square.

Mandela Square, with great dining and shopping.

South Africa is known for its great wines, so we made sure to visit a local wine shop.

Saturday, April 6 -- Sanctuary Stanley's Camp, Botswana

This morning we headed back to O.R. Tambo for a flight to Maun, Botswana. Tambo is a huge airport and here's a cautionary note: make sure you deal only with official airport personnel, wearing orange vests. We were greeted by an official-looking "representative", who wanted to be paid before he would give us back our bags.
Our flight to Botswana was two and a half hours. After clearing customs we boarded a small plane for the
short hop to Sanctuary Stanley's Camp. The plane was designed for six passengers with one small duffel bag per person. Needless to say, they weren't quite prepared for four American women and their luggage, but we managed.

Note the small pod near the wheel. That's for luggage. We almost needed an extra plane.

Denise was the co-pilot, but we arrived safely anyway.

Sanctuary Stanley's Camp is on a 260,000-acre private concession in Botswana's Okavanga Delta, providing its guests with absolute exclusivity. The camp has eight classic-style safari tents. The main building is raised on decking to afford visitors a great view, and the camp is blended into the tree line. Its main support is a huge "sausage tree", properly named kigelia. Its fruit resemble sausages.

We were greeted by Botswanese, dancing and singing.

The main area of the camp.

Our tent. Yes, we were roughing it.

After checking in at the camp, we embarked on our first game drive, getting our first view of Africa's amazing animals and birds. Our driver and guide was Ohn, who knew everything about the flora and fauna we saw.

The African wart hog, familiar to us as Poombaa in The Lion King.

The first of many giraffes we would see.

Wildebeest herd on the move.

In Africa they have a tradition called the "sundowner", where guests gather at sundown for drinks and snacks. This was a custom we all agreed was one we would adopt at home.

Sunday, April 7 -- Botswana

After breakfast, we participated in the camp's feature attraction, interaction with elephants. The African elephant is the largest land animal on Earth. Males can grow to 13 feet tall at the shoulder and weigh upwards of six or seven tons. The elephants at Stanley's Camp are orphans that are semi-habituated, meaning they are used to interacting safely with humans---on their terms. We would meet them in their own environment. The three elephants we met were named Jabu, Thembi and Morula. Our hosts were Doug and Sandi Groves, the "adoptive parents" of the elephants. The interaction was one of the highlights of our entire trip, especially when they joined us for lunch!

Our new African bodyguard.

Jabu, the big guy of the trio.

Our host, Doug Graves, and the elephants join us for lunch.

Kim and Denise with Jabu, who eats lunch wherever he wants.

After lunch it was time to head to our next stop, Sanctuary Chief's Camp , a 15-minute flight away. During the rainy season the camp is actually on an island in the Mombo Concession of the Moremi Game Reserve. As our visit was during the dry season, we were no longer on an island. We had game drives in the afternoon and the following morning. This region is known as the "Predator Capital" of Africa, with the finest game viewing in Botswana. Lions, leopards, Cape buffalo, rhinos and elephants are known as the "Big Five" of African game viewing, and we saw all except the elusive leopard.

The game drive was a thrill, but we were anxious to head back to camp for dinner and another evening in the bush. The camps' menus are surprisingly extensive, with a good selection of entrees, including one vegetarian dish, with one of the two meat dishes featuring local cuisine, like the ostrich Denise enjoyed. The meals are always accompanied by great South African wines.