We are leaving civilization as we know it behind. We’re up at 3 AM for a 4:00 pickup by our driver, Arthur. It’s an hour & a half drive from Hermanus to Cape Town Airport. We’ve got three flights today to get to Kanga Camp in Mana Pools National Park. The first leg of the trip is a 6:50 flight from Cape Town to O.R.Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Our carrier is ‘Airlink’, South Africa’s primary airline. On arrival in Johannesburg, we had to process through immigration as we are leaving South Africa. The lines were huge and slow. After clearing immigration it’s a real hike to our departure gate.
Flight #2 is from Johannesburg to RG Mugabe International Airport in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Visitors to Zimbabwe must obtain a visa on arrival. The visa is $30 per person and must be paid in cash, exact change, with only crisp new bills (2012 or later) and no damage. Immigration again! The lines are even longer than at J’Burg airport and never seemed to move. At one point, an official came over and asked Mary how old she was. He then commented how bad it was for old people to wait in line so long!
Some twenty minutes later, he came back and redirected us to another line where we ended up being stuck behind a large group of guys on a hunting safari tour. The three very bored officials that processed our paperwork had very specific tasks – one took the money, one applied the stamp, one signed the visa. Welcome to 3rd world travel – could have been a Firesign Theater skit. Eventually they got their sixty bucks, we collected our luggage, and met our bush flight to Mana Pools National Park.
There are four of us on the bush plane flight to the Mana Pools airstrip. Our travelling companions were travel agents on a recon trip. We’re headed to ‘Kanga Camp’, they are going to another camp in the park. This is a very small plane owned by ‘Safari Logistics’. There’s a pilot, four passengers and luggage. One woman sat in the co-pilots seat. Dick sat in the very rear with excess luggage. The luggage restrictions for bush flights require soft-sided bags with a 33 lb max. It makes sense after seeing how the luggage is packed into the small storage area.
It’s a 1.5 hour flight from Harare to the Mana Pools strip. On arrival, the safari drivers are waiting for us. ‘Reggie’ from Kanga Camp has picked us up. He’ll be our guide for our time here. It’s a short drive through the bush to the camp where we are greeted by the whole staff with a traditional indigenous welcome, quite moving. Our host is ‘Joyce’ and our personal butler is ‘Tenbayti’. This is the most rustic of the camps we will stay at but it’s pretty nice. There are six tented cabins and a common dining area with bar centered around a water hole. We’re in luck as we are assigned the ‘honeymoon suite’. It’s a large, tented suite with king sized bed, a generous sitting area, deck, mosquito netting, indoor toilet and outdoor shower & toilet. We share the outdoor toilet with tree frogs.
The evening safari ride is getting ready to go, so we drop our stuff and head out. Our companion on the drive is Boone, a US citizen from Tennessee who owns ‘Bespoke Safari Tours‘, which organizes safaris with a focus on photography in this part of Africa. He was checking out the camp for potential trips and this is his final evening at Kanga. He and Reggie seem to have a special bond. Our first game drive was quite a success – elephants galore, impala, mongoose, lion, & baboons. While out on the drive we came across another vehicle from the camp stuck in the sand and provided moral support for the extraction.
Dinner back in camp was great – curry! Meals are a communal affair. In addition to Boone, a group of four related gals dined with us – a mother, sister, and her 2 daughters. Mother and daughters were from Johannesburg and the aunt from New Zealand.
After a long day of travel and settling into the camp we were escorted by armed guard to our tent. No guards needed during the day, but once things are dark, safety prevails. We heard a lot of animal noises during the night.