jgrussell – my world

Okay… what part of “I want something different” is to hard to understand?

In my emails to various safari operators, I explained that I would be staying at the Zulu Nyala Heritage Lodge for my week in South Africa. And that I wanted something different for the rest of my time in Africa. I even suggested (my exact words): “I’d rather a tent-style experience than a “ho hum, this is another hotel, except it’s in Africa” experience.”

So why are the majority of folks who are responding to my inquiry suggesting that I should just love to stay in places that are very much like hotels, except they’re in the bush somewhere? I mean, I know I may be making a terrible blunder (my idea of roughing it is a Howard Johnson’s instead of a Hyatt Regency), but it seems to me that this is one time in my life when sleeping in a tent in an unfenced compound is exactly what I want to do…

Sigh… maybe somebody will respond with something closer to what I’m looking for…

Let’s see here… we leave New York’s JFK airport at 5:20 p.m. on May 30th (Friday) and arrive Johannesburg, South Africa, at 5:00 p.m. on May 31st. Factoring in the time changes, that’s — give or take a few minutes — 19 hours on a plane. Then we stay overnight in Johannesburg, fly to Richards Bay on June 1, fly back to Johannesburg on June 7, and fly home on June 8.

No. I am not spending 19 hours on a plane, each way, for only a week in Africa. I have no idea how I’m going to pay for this, and no idea what else I’m going to do, but I am definitely staying in Africa longer than just one week.

Onto the web I go, and with a bit of research and some poking around, it seems to me that Botswana looks like a great place to go… with the Victoria Falls tacked on to the end. So emails are going out to a bunch of safari operators (mostly from the Botswana Tourism Office website) to see what else I can line up.

Nineteen hours on a plane? Okay, but for two weeks, maybe. Three would be even better…