I literally squeed when I saw a mother baboon carrying her baby. “Oh my god it’s a baby baboon!” I exclaimed in a high pitched squeal like an 11 year old girl. The baby dropped off the mother, stood on his hind legs a wobbly moment, then looked puzzled and fell over. Who would not squee at that?

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Dawn river cruise. Instant coffee from metal camp cups at sunrise, mixed with hot water from a Stanley insulated bottle

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Kasane International Airport, outside Chobe National Park in Botswana, is tiny, but it is clean and modern and efficient. [Note from 2020: Kasane is small, but a proper airport. Many of the other places we caught planes were just airstrips — a grassy field with a long cleared strip, often graded but not paved, to accept small planes.] We’re here on our way to Camp Xakanaxa (pronounced ka-ka-na-ka), in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The plane is a Cessna 208 or 208B Caravan. It seats 12 but we are the only two passengers, along with pilot Clement and another guy, who I think is the baggage master. Other than the road, I don’t see a sign of human habitation from the air.

I watched the ground go by outside the window of our little plane. Dozed off. Woke up. Same. Ground was greener and wetter and swampy. We descend for landing. I see a few houses.

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The Okavango airport is a dirt airstrip with no buildings, just a structure like a Little League baseball dugout with a sign that says VIP Lounge. Good to see irony thrives in Africa. There is no Starbucks.

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TS, our driver, was moving fast and the truck was rocking and rolling over rutted roads. I was daydreaming when suddenly I was knocked off my seat and hit the unpadded metal floor on my ass, hard.

I was uninjured, which was lucky, because that’s how people get permanent, disabling back injuries. On the other hand, had I gotten a permanent, disabling back injury, it would have been a better story than everybody else’s story. Everybody else gets back injuries reaching for paper towels from the top shelf of their kitchen cabinets.

We parked next to two sleeping male lions, and waited a half hour for them to wake up. For the first part of that time there were about four other trucks parked in a semicircle, watching the lions. How would you like to be sleeping in bed and wake up to find 25 people in a semicircle around your bed staring at you while you slept?

TS asked whether he should get out of the truck and wake the lions up. We said sure, and he laughed. Funny guy, that TS. We agreed that taking a selfie with the lions would be a great way to become world famous and score many views and likes on YouTube. Unfortunately you would not be around to enjoy the celebrity.

Internet connectivity here at Xakanaxa is crap, electricity goes out at 10 pm so I’m just going to power down my phone at bedtime so it has maximum charge for tomorrow. Shocking!

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Yesterday was our first full day really in Africa, when we got out of the airport/hotel complex in Johannesburg to the Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana . This place is posh, with a vaguely colonial style and dozens of staff, smiling and jumping to attention. Indeed, service is both overly attentive and not quite what we wanted.Four or five people serve us at each meal, and yet service is slow and it can be difficult to find someone if you need something. I ordered a rump roast for dinner last night from a gemsbok, a type of antelope. It was delicious, but very tough, and I sawed at it for minutes with a standard table knife, looking around for a server to ask for a sharp steak knife. But there was no one to be found. There had been two separate people there a few minutes ago to take our drink orders, separately and with unnecessary redundancy.

When choosing our meals, Julie pointed out one dish, which was labeled as spicy, and asked how spicy it was. The waitress smiled and said promptly that it is spicy. Julie said, yes, but HOW spicy. The waitress smiled and said it’s “spicy.” Yes, said Julie, but is it VERY spicy. On a scale of one to five, Julie said, where five is extremely spicy and 1 is not spicy at all, how spicy is it? The waitress said, “I’ll have to ask the chef,” and left the table, returning with the answer. “Two.”

Another example: Breakfast yesterday was a buffet of cold food. There was a server at the buffet, a smiling young woman with a “TRAINEE” badge. I asked her if I could get any hot food, and she said no, this was all cold food. The buffets had veils in front of them, I expect to keep out flies, and in some areas when I wanted something it was this young woman’s job to lift the veil so I could serve myself, as I would at any buffet. Flavored yogurt and fresh and canned fruits.

When I got to the table, the waitress brought over our menus. Of hot breakfasts. “B-b-b-b-b-ut,” I said to myself. “The waitress over there just said ‘no hot food.” And why is there a waitress serving at a buffet – doesn’t that defeat the whole “buffet” concept, making it more of a “cafeteria.” Then I realized that the waitress was thinking I was asking if there was hot food at her station, and she answered truthfully. I did not ask her if there was hot food elsewhere, so she did not answer that question.

The whole place is like that. Communications difficulties. But the food has been delicious, and we had very nice sandwiches for lunch, sitting out on a deck while we could see giraffes and elephants not too far away. So, we are having a fantastic time.

We got lucky with an upgrade to our room – a whole suite, two bedrooms and a sitting room. Everything is spacious and beautiful.

I took more than 300 photos yesterday alone. Wednesday evening, the day we arrived, I chatted with a fellow Californian who was taking no photos at all. He and his wife and daughter had been traveling 10 days. He said he’d been on trips with people where everyone was taking photos and he took none, because he figured the photos part was covered and he was free to just enjoy the experience. I endorse this point of view, and you can expect the rate of photography to trickle off as the trip progresses. But for now I am having a great time taking photos.

This is a philosophy I’ve been thinking of for some time actually, how social media makes us observers of our own lives, taking photos or (if you’re like me) thinking of things to say about what you’re doing. So yeah the long term goal for this trip is less photos and thinking of things to say online, and more being in the moment. But for now I’m doing the other thing.

I get the idea this fellow I was talking with worked in tech, like me. But I’d made another rule for myself this trip - if anyone asks what I do I’ll gladly tell them, but I won’t volunteer my work when I’m introducing myself, which is a thing that I’m told is characteristically American in social situations.

Yesterday was very scheduled, and I gather that will be typical of this trip. Up at 5 am for a dawn game drive, get driven around the bush on a flatbed open truck with padded seating for about two and a half hours. It’s cold in the morning, temperatures in the high 40s or low 50s this time of year. We wear light winter coats.

Then it’s back to the lodge for breakfast at 8:30 am.

River cruise at 11 am, then back to the hotel for lunch at 12:30 pm. There’s a choice between eating in the hotel restaurant, which is an enclosed deck, nearly like being indoors, or on an open air deck. We chose the open air deck and feel we chose wisely, with beautiful food and delicious views. I meant to say delicious food and beautiful views, but I like the other way.

After lunch I tried to have a nap but only got in about 20 minutes. Yesterday was the day that jet lag hit me hard. I got about three hours of sleep Sunday, the night before we left California, then only a few minutes of sleep on the 24 hours or so we were in transit. Then I was wide awake at 1:30 am Thursday. I don’t think those days add up, by the way. Traveling for 48 hours through nine time zones gets confusing, like a complicated time travel Doctor Who episode.

I laid in bed until about 3:30, and heard a lion roar not too far from us, which was thrilling. The lion did not sound anti-Semitic in his food preferences, like she would gladly have eaten me. I was glad to be indoors behind thick walls. I got out of bed and sat reviewing photos and writing in this journal - that was the most recent entry before this one – until it was time for the morning game drive.

Even the afternoon attempt at a nap was refreshing, and we were up again for a 3 pm tea. The tea was served by about a half-dozen servers dishing up tea and savory and sweet pastries. Again, too much service – that’s 2-3x the number of people needed to do the job. Or, really, we didn’t need any servers at all; just put out the beverages and cakes and let people help themselves. But instead we had a half-dozen people serving up food.

I let Julie order first, as a gentleman does, and everything she ordered sounded good so I just said “the same” to each. The servers thought that was hilarious; they laughed and laughed.

A few days before we left for Africa, I talked with a friend and former colleague and the conversation turned to our upcoming trip. I had completely forgotten until that moment that this woman I was talking with had LIVED for a time in South Africa. I asked her for tips and she pointed out that we were traveling to third world countries, and we should leave our American expectations about service behind. Things that seem like they should be easy will be difficult (steak knives, hot breakfast). Things that seem like they should be difficult will be easy. We’ve only been in Africa a couple of days but I think I’m starting to understand.

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Chobe Game Lodge, Chobe National Park, Botswana – Lovely surprise at breakfast this morning. The waitstaff came over with a cake and sang “happy birthday” and “happy anniversary” and one or two songs with an African rhythm, all done with African multipart harmonies, one of the women ululating occasionally and little synchronized dance moves. It was all very beautiful and silly and fun.

I had temporarily forgotten that this was a celebration of a milestone birthday for Julie. The birthday itself is October. And also a celebration of our 25th anniversary, which was in December.

I suspect the guiding hand for this and one or two other pleasant surprises, is the travel agent who helped us arrange the trip , Vanessa Hensley at African Portfolio. onsafari.com. So far, we have found working with her and the company to be a fantastic experience – I rate them 7 out of a possible 5 stars.

Julie did about 85% of the work with Vanessa on planning the trip. I kicked in for the final few weeks but mostly my role has been showing up. I’m pretty good at showing up.

River cruise in a few minutes.

I wrote a longer journal entry this morning but I don’t know if I will ever post it. I was cranky at the time. Nothing helps you get over being cranky like cake for breakfast. With occasional ululation.

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Dinner tonight: Buffet style, served on linen covered tables in a clearing over a short boardwalk from the lodge. Marimba band playing one the path a bit of a distance away, far enough to be pleasant but not overwhelming. Thandi was our waitress again, for the fifth time or so. We’re starting to get fond of her. I had steak filet with a pepper sauce. There was a tasty local bread, a distant cousin to naan. I asked the server what kind of bread it is; he said “local bread.” Ah.

One of the foods was ox tail. A woman did not understand what the serverwas saying, so he said “ox,” then stuck out his butt, pointed at it and said “tail.”

I also had poached pair in red wine, for dessert.

Now Julie is packing. I already have, as far as I can. I made a separate pile for things I brought and now regret including three pairs of heavy cargo pants, and two external power supplies for our gadgets. I also wish I’d brought a camera strap instead of the camera holster I did bring, and I wish I’d brought a light knapsack to use as a daybag, in addition to my computer bag, which is good for travel days but too much to bring on drives and boat cruises.

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From my travel journal, lightly edited for typoes:

We’ve been in transit nearly 2 days now. And we are almost there.

We left the house at 8 AM on Monday. Our flight was more than four hours from San Diego to Atlanta. I barely remember it now so I guess it was fine. We had a 90 minute connection to Johannesburg. Julie was having a little bit of difficulty with baggage, so we grabbed one of those golf cart things and were chauffeured around the airport in style, coming apparently close to bowling over pedestrians a couple of times, which made the drive more enjoyable. We decided to check our big bags at the gate. We have literally 5 to 10 flights on this trip – I’ve lost count – which makes me worry about checking bags. On the other hand carrying all the bags with us does not seem entirely practical. I’ll worry about this problem when it comes up.

The flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg was about 16 hours. It is a long flight. A very long flight. A very very very long flight. No, it is even longer than that. The longest duration nonstop flight in the world is Los Angeles to Singapore, and that is only 18 hours.

I was not interested in any of the movies on the plane. My brain quickly tired from reading. Prior to the flight, I downloaded every season of The Good Place, and watched more than a dozen episodes. I did not like the first 9 episodes but after that I got into it. I don’t know if I will ever say that about a TV show again, until my next long-haul international flight at least. [Update from 2020: I ended up watching the first three seasons and enjoying them. I’ll catch up with the final season one day.]

I watched “The Dark Knight,” which I’ve never seen before, and is one of those movies that makes me feel like I’m culturally ignorant for having missed. Heath Ledger’s performance was reputed to be brilliant, and it really was. He chewed the scenery admirably. I guess subtle acting is a higher skill, but scenery chewing is a good skill too, and Ledger was great at it. A couple of online articles talked about him having studied various sources, and worked hard to get the Joker’s speech intonation and laugh. None of these articles noted that Ledger was copying the laugh wholeheartedly from Caesar Romero’s Joker in the Batman TV series from the 1960s, Hoo hoo ha ha! Nothing wrong with him doing that, but I’m surprise nobody picked up on it in the articles about the movie.

Other than Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight was dumb.The theme is a very old and ugly one in American pop culture – going back to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and beyond – that law and order and the Constitution are all fine but some threats are so terrible that only a strong man can save us, by operating outside the law. Breaking the law in order to save it. You know, like Donald Trump saving us from illegal immigration. Or every President from Nixon to Reagan saving us from drugs. Or every President from Truman to Reagan saving us from Communism. And the Nazis and Japanese before that. And Communists and gangsters before that. So basically we’ve been in a permanent state of emergency the past century.

So yeah The Dark Knight was dumb. And disturbing if you think about it. As was Batman Begins before that. And yet I want to see The Dark Knight Returns. Because I’m crushing on Anne Hathaway, since The Devil Wore Prada. [Update from 2020: I might have enjoyed the movie more if I was not watching it on a screen barely larger than my hand, on a 16-hour flight.]

We got up and walked around the plane a couple of times, thus missing the entertainment value of deep vein thrombosis.

We arrived in Johannesburg at about 5:30 PM, and were greeted at the gate by a porter with a name card, as arranged by our travel agency. His name was Phumani, and he talked with a couple of the people that we passed him in a non-English language. I asked him what it was and he said it was Zulu, which seemed passably exotic to me.

We checked in overnight at the CityLodge hotel, which is connected to the airport. If you’ve stayed at any airport hotel in the US, this was pretty much the same. And that’s fine.

This morning I was up a bit before six, Julie a few minutes later. I went out to the airport in search of some things I’d forgotten to pack: Toothbrush, razor, TSA lock, USB-A port. [Update from 2020: I have no idea what I mean by “port” here. A hub?] Got everything but the port. The airport had a large and diverse array of shops, including a Woolworth that includes a whole small grocery store.

And then we went to the gates for our final short flight to Kasane. [Update from 2020: That’s Botswana, adjacent to South Africa] We’re waiting at the gate now. After the flight we have a 45 minute shuttle bus to the Chobe Lodge [In Chobe, also Botswana] and that is the beginning of the main part of our trip, about 47 hours after leaving home. The thing about travel to distant locations is that they are very far away.

Lotta people at the airport with their hand out. I am not sure who were supposed to tip and we aren’t so I’ve basically been giving out money to random strangers. Men’s room attendants are a thing here now. They greet you with a big grin and say welcome to my office. The first time I heard it I thought it was clever. The second time I realize it is clever but it is also what they say. A man helped us with the airline checkin, operating the self-check-in kiosk for us. Yes, I know, self check-in but those things can be confusing. He asked for $20 at the end and said he would split it with another guy who also helped us. Then we went to baggage check counter and the second guy tracked us down there and also asked for $20, and became agitated when I said no we already paid the other guy. These guys were not mentioned in any of the tipping guides I’ve read, leading me to believe we may have been scammed. So it goes.

Later, we arrived at Chobe and had ox-tongue dinner.

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