April 2009
79 posts
Welcome, friends!
Here are the questions that race through my mind as I begin the process of pimping-out my usual, greatly-feared, under-appreciated, passive-aggressive holiday letter:
1. By creating a blog am I, by default, a narcissist?
2. Is that question in itself narcissistic?
3. Why am I doing this as opposed to working on my novel? (I did the book all morning— get over it. How deep is a hole? It...
Octopus on tripadvisor.com →
ps. (you knew it wouldn’t end smoothly): If anyone’s interested in our travel specifics, please check out my posts on Tripadvisor and watch me fawn and bitch like crazy.
First Impressions: Johannesburg
Let me start by saying that exploring the African bush on foot is a lot like walking around Johannesburg. My first impressions were that both require:
1. A high level of awareness.
2. Backing slowly away from threat displays.
3. Not going out alone at night.
4. A local guide. Preferably with a rifle.
That being said, we stayed in Jo’berg with our good friends Bruce and Mark, a married,...
Animal Bottoms of Southern Africa: the Inception
We were driving through the lion sanctuary outside Jo’berg when Cathy had her art-flash.
It was triggered by a white lioness crouching to drink at the side of the road.
“Look at that fabulous bottom,” she said. “The strength, the curves…” Suddenly she got this weird, distant look in her eye.
“Take a picture,” she insisted, while Bruce and Mark...
Wild Bottoms of Southern Africa: The Indemnity
After a five-hour drive from Johannesburg, we arrived in a bush pub outside the town of Hoedspruit. There, we filled in indemnity forms which basically relieved Transfrontiers (http://transfrontiers.com/safari_itineraries.asp) of all responsibility for any horrible fate that might befall us whilst walking or driving around in the bush. Things like mamba venom, malaria, tick-bite fever (which one...
Wild bottoms of Southern Africa: the reality
After dumping our gear in the tents and slathering our pasty tourist bodies with sunscreen, insect repellant, lip balm and baby’s bottom butter (Seriously, people, if you or someone you love suffers from ball chafe— this shit is *ahem* da balm) we set off across the bush in the Land Cruiser.
After Ingrid’s disheartening speech every-one’s expectations were somewhat muted....
I guess you had to be there...
There we were (you can always tell a fascinating anecdote is coming by this intro. That’s a tip, kids. Write it down). In the Kruger. In the Land-Rover. Six guests, two guides, one tracker, all of us taking the piss out of each other and getting along rather famously for nine people thrown together in the bush. In this respect we were lucky. The guests, all drinking steadily at this point,...
Elephant Day
Cathy’s favourite day of the trip occurred in the wildlife-dense confines of Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park (try biting the tip of your tongue and going “Sha-shloo-we-oom-fa-low-zee.” Good, you’re still pronouncing it wrong). She calls it Elephant Day and in the slang of two this is right up there with Manta Day, Outer Walruston and even our Sakalava wedding (surely not!).
At the...
“The St. Lucia Wetland Park must be the only place on the globe where the...”
– Nelson Mandela
In Charge
Here’s the deal: because Cathy is the main breadwinner of the Winn family, when in London, she’s in charge.
The woman slaves over a hot restaurant for fifty-plus hours per week while I sit at home chewing my nails and fretting about things like, oh, say, whether this entire blog is ultimately necessary. Sure, aside from toiling on the Great British-American novel, I work weekends at...
Not in Charge
One of the more interesting things we learned on the walking safari is that the Big 5 (lion, rhino, elephant, leopard and Cape buffalo) are so-called because these are the most difficult and deadly animals to hunt on foot. When encountered, generally speaking, lions will roar, charge a few paces and then back away. Rhino will apparently spook and run if you get large and act weird— much like...
