Part I of our 2010 Hurricane Evacuation Plan had saved us not only from the misery of South Florida’s stultifying heat and hurricane hazards, but also from the mobs of soccer (Football) aficionados expected to descend on Cape Town for the World Cup. This part of the plan had ended in London after about five weeks of short hops in Europe and the UK. Before departing from London for Cape Town, we relieved our travel anxieties by taking in a hilarious and titillating performance of “Pricilla, Queen of the Desert” in one of those venerable theaters near Piccadilly Circus. We had made a booking (as they say here) way ahead of time, thinking that by the time we were to reach London after our complicated European escapade, we would be ready for a wee bit of bawdy entertainment! Although this could not have been further from an item on my bucket list, Joyce was dead right with the decision; it really loosened us up. Our London stay was then rounded off by a return to our new favorite London restaurant, Quilon, for an Indian dinner.
And so, on July 13th, it was finally time for the long haul from London to Cape Town. Unlike the Paris nightmare, everything was very civilized, from hotel check out to Heathrow check in and emplaning. We got to the British Air Boeing 747 flawlessly, and the service, meals and entertainment as well as the cabin configuration and amenities provided by BA were all exceptional. It was as if the standards established by Sir Richard Branson had caught fire in the industry and had migrated beyond Virgin Atlantic.
More good news. When we arrived in Cape Town, we were greeted by a new Airport. The old one, which we had last seen when we left last year as a work in progress, had been completely rebuilt. Everything worked, there was no confusion, walking distances were reasonable, our bags showed up promptly and, within half an hour from landing, we were launched in our rental car for our home overlooking magnificent False Bay.
Not much had changed. Gill, our rental agent who has become a personal friend, greeted us at the same house we’ve rented now for the 3rd summer, on the street where we’ve been for 4 summers. Some improvements had been made and these were in part justified by a moderate increase in our rent. The world Cup, it turned out, did not have any noticeable impact on life in this quainter part of Cape Town, and it wasn’t very long before we found ourselves as much at home here as we are on Key Biscayne.
The wine collection we had stashed away last year was still there and, as we made calls to all our friends and service providers, we found that indeed, little had changed. The supermarkets were the same and so were the specialty stores and those wonderful Farmer’s Markets. The one at the Old Biscuit Mill, located in a worn out commercial/wholesale district in the central city, was just as frenetic, crowded and abundant with a huge variety of all sorts of specialty foods as it had been in 2009. They even had Celeriac, which is virtually impossible to find in Cape Town. Our other favorite, the Tokay Farmer’s Market, had just as many pooches as it used to have, and they were all still there begging for scraps of food and actively wagging their tails, giving Joyce her Saturday morning “Puppy Fix”.
In our enthusiasm to become reacquainted with our favorite Cape Town wildlife, we decided to visit Cheetah Outreach at the Spier winery in Stellenbosch, to play with the current crop of “babies” which were now about seven weeks old. These cheetah cubs weigh nothing, and they are cute beyond description. They crawl all over you and it is not unusual to become part of their fight for dominance, which they express, even at this early age, with what I can only describe as really comical mini-snarls. This year, there were nine babies in the 100’ x 100’ pen where they spend sunny days playing. Almost immediately, three took their roughhousing right onto my lap. It turned into a battle ground and, in the process, I got several accidental scratches, including one which drew blood! In other words, I had been mauled by a cheetah! As my blood began seeping out, Dawn and Emily, the supervisors of the cubs, showed immediate, urgent and serious concern. They stemmed the flow of blood, applied tons of disinfectant and bandaged the wound so that it would stop bleeding. I was as grateful to these lovely Florence Nightingales as anyone vying for a Purple Heart in a war. But alas, I soon realized that their real concern was not about me or what the cubs had done to me. NO! There was only one question: “Did my bleeding present a danger of infection to the cubs??!!!” After all, I really did not matter. I was not a rare and endangered species. Nevertheless, a scar is a scar. I used it to good purpose to display my heroism, as well as my profound familiarity and expertise with predatory wildlife. I fervently hoped that it would show long enough to still be seen during our upcoming Safari.
No, not much in our Cape Town life had changed … except for our electronics. Joyce dove into this with her usual zest and zeal, spending hours upon hours grumbling and cursing like a fish wife while sitting on hold with, pardon the expression, Customer Service, as provided by the various Companies that controlled each of her gadgets. Of all the gadgets she had, the most intriguing one, the one no one here had heard about yet, went by the name of Sling Box. This gadget enables us to remotely watch the movies or TV programs from our cable box back home in Florida - anywhere in the world - and hooked up to a big screen plasma TV yet! Amazingly, she was actually able to make that work.
Having the iPhone unlocked so it could be used with her South African SIM card, however, was not that easy. Steve Jobs, in the final analysis, is really an SOB. It took several trips to a bizarre, out of the way, run-down shopping mall run by a group of what seemed to be Turkish Mafia types operating out of a kiosk to get that done. Beyond this, and unrelated to Sling Box, Joyce had yet another gadget to set up. It is less exotic, but equally miraculous. Its name is Skype and it enabled her to hold long audio and video conversations and conference calls at almost no cost anywhere in the world … for as long as anyone could stand it! She would have made Dick Tracy and his watch-phone envious!!! But his fame in the world of comic strips was probably before - as Joyce would say – her time. And so, with the electronics beaten into submission, it was time to renew our South African friendships.
This phase of our Cape Town reintroduction brings us to Jacqueline (Jax) and Archie Preuss. They are friends we met last year at a wine dinner in the Paarl - Wellington region of Cape Town. Archie is hard to describe - and even harder to contain! His joy at seeing his American friends again triggered a furious blizzard of phone calls and text messages. Joyce, of course, was the principal and often the “Agent Provocateur”, further motivating Archie with her enthusiasm for non-stop activity. The upshot of all this involved an incredible agenda of activities, events, drives of various distances, etc…all slightly complicated by two factors.
One was Robin - Jax and Archie’s adorable daughter, who is now about 18 months old. She was being breast fed last year when we first met them, and it seems that they never got out of the habit of taking her everywhere they go. Accordingly, Robin still hangs out with her parents, who come equipped with a van full of baby equipment, including a stroller and all the other paraphernalia required for the comfort of both parents and child. Fortunately, Robin is an angel, and she has astoundingly good and patient parents. We don’t know how they do it!
The second factor would have kept all but the hardiest from venturing into the fulfillment of an agenda as complex as that which Archie had organized for our stay in Cape Town. A day or so before we arrived, in an heroic lunge during Karate practice, he had torn his Achilles tendon, and his leg was in a cast. It would take about eight months to fully heal! He was currently recuperating at the “Penthouse”, a condo he bought for investment in the northern suburbs of Cape Town. Naturally, we made plans to visit the patient there, thankful that it was only about half the distance from where we live, rather than having to drive all the way to Archie’s primary residence - a work in progress in Wellington, where he is doing a magnificent historic reconstruction of a classic, roomy Dutch Colonial Farm estate. Unlike the rustic character of the latter, the Penthouse is, as the name implies, perched on the top floor of an ultra-modern, impressive and very slick building complex consisting of two high rise structures linked by a bridge. Not surprisingly, the building complex is called Knights Bridge.
All my hosting and nursing instincts came to the fore and, with Archie incapacitated, it was the perfect opportunity for me to prepare a home-cooked meal for all of us. As I was well supplied with local duck breast and concentrated Demi-Glace that I had brought from the US, I was able to regale Jax, Archie and Joyce with an excellent meal of Duck Maigret, Pommes Lyonaises and Chocolate Block wine, which was part of the stash that had been stored at our Fish Hoek house since last year.
The next event that Joyce and Archie planned was a sumptuous dinner for my July 31st birthday … my 79th… at the Rust en Vrede winery in Stellenbosch, where star Chef David Higgs has established a world wide reputation that keeps growing every year. The Estate Special Reserve, its top wine, isn’t too shabby either. Normally, we stay at a B&B in Stellenbosch, because the 45 minute drive home along a very dark and winding beach road is just too much after such a great meal and all that wine. But we had nearly frozen to death last time, as most B&Bs are not properly heated, at least by US standards, as Cape Town refuses to admit it has a winter. The fact that, after a world class meal, it is impossible to find commensurate world class hospitality in the Stellenbosch area is a measure of the extent to which it is missing a bet on its full potential as a tourist destination! One has to wonder why no one has taken the initiative to endow Stellenbosch with the kind of superb boutique hotels found in Cape Town, Franschhoek, or Hermanus. But this year, Archie had insisted that we stay at the farm, as Wellington was “so close to Stellenbosch”. And so, after dinner, we drove … and drove … and drove … for what felt like two hours. We had slept there last year, and we really appreciated the improvements Archie had made since that time. We admired Archie’s restoration accomplishments and the Yellow Pine which he had used in restoring the historic farmhouse. All this was really impressive. The next morning, before heading back to Cape Town, Jax treated us to a scrumptious breakfast she had pulled together in the classic country Dutch kitchen where the restoration work seemed nearly completed. Before we got under way, and after we said goodbye to Jax and Archie, we gave Bollinger, the friendly Jack Russell mix, a pat on the head and, with tail wagging a little sadly, he looked at us wistfully, as if he was saying “Oh No! I am being left behind again!”
And this was only the beginning of the Preuss’ plans for all of us. The next weekend, we were to participate in the Robertson Valley wine festival, called “The Robertson Slow”, which is actually a bouquet of events in honor of wine and everything related to it within the Valley, held in intimate venues either at the wine estate or in the winemakers’ homes. For our group, it started early on Friday morning, August 6th and wouldn’t end until Monday, when we would drive the 3 hours back to Cape Town. The plan had us leaving Cape Town early Friday morning, driving for 90 minutes to Wellington, where we would drop our little rental car off at Archie’s Farm and drive the rest of the way with them and Lynette and Marc Barnardo, close friends of Jax and Archie’s.
And so, we all piled into Archie’s faithful Chrysler SUV, which could comfortably accommodate us as well as Robin, her perambulator and her sundry toys, and related paraphernalia. It goes without saying that we could not forget Archie who had to fit into the SUV as well, together with his ankle cast, his crutches and his electronics. Finally, there was poor Jax, who was left with the job of driving this ménage all over the region, loading and unloading the contents of the SUV at each of the venues of the “Slow”.
The first event of the weekend-long celebration was actually not in, or even near, Robertson. It was in Franschhoek, where we met Linda Hightower, an American ex-pat who had bought and remodeled one of these Dutch Farm colonial historic houses in Franschhoek and who lived there full time between forays into the world of consulting in commercial high technology. Our purpose in Franschhoek, which is about an hour’s distance from Wellington, was a Champagne tasting at a champagnerie called Morena. We were hosted by the owner, Nick Davis, a delightful man. He opened the cellar to us and spent quite a bit of time describing the complex process that assures the right mix of vintages, quality of effervescence, alcohol content and other characteristics by which this quaff is judged. He proudly described the more subtle aspects of the processes employed to achieve the optimum condition of his product. He talked about how the dead yeast cells were expelled from the fermented wine through processes called “riddling” and “disgorging” and how the vintner went about the “dosage” process of flavoring the wine with sugar, brandy and various secret ingredients that would ultimately lead to the classification of the Champagne as Dry (namely Brut) or sweeter. He was quite articulate in describing how the bottles had to be periodically turned in their racks. He told us later, after we had finished tasting the various products in his repertoire, that at a significant point in his life, he chose to sell his business, a fairly substantial chain of furniture stores, to devote his life to Champagnes.
This visit with Nick gave us a deeper appreciation for Champagne, wherever we may encounter it, whether from Franschhoek in South Africa or Reims in France. In this case, we decided that his Brut Sauvage was our favorite; the bubbles were small and playful and the finish was definitely long. He had most assuredly mastered the Methode Cap Classique he produces. Naturally, we left with an abundant supply of bottles. But I refuse to apologize for the sin of calling Nick’s product “Champagne”, as I am really not into the academic distinctions between Methode Champagnoise, Vin Moussant, Vin Petillant, Cremant, or any other splitting of the viticulture hair! Nick, we accept what you’ve regaled us with, it is most definitely CHAMPAGNE!
After much champagne, we headed for the little town of Montagu, located another two hours or so northwest of Franschhoek. Actually, we started to feel as if every destination in Archie’s itinerary was two hours from wherever we started! But as usual, we were always comfortable in his large SUV, Jax was an excellent driver, the countryside was as gorgeous as ever, Robin was snoozing away or cooing happily, Lynette and Marc were laughing and full of jokes and Archie’s ankle cast was in nobody’s way! Linda, however, stayed back in Franschhoek, but we knew that we would meet again.
Montagu is quite picturesque and is considered, with its location on the famous Cape Route 62, as the gateway to the Klein Karoo plateau, just south of the imposing Swartberg Mountains. It is also a well known wine route, with quite a few wineries along its stretch, including those in Robertson and Ashton. When we arrived in Montagu, we checked in at the Mimosa Lodge, an adorable hybrid between a well serviced B&B and a full service Hotel. Having visited Montagu a couple of years ago, we can attest to the fact that, without question, Mimosa is by far the best hospitality there. The place was immaculate and the manicured grounds were groomed to perfection, while retaining the rustic character of a classic South African home. Amidst the used bricks that paved the path between the main house and the separate annex building that contained about half of the 23 hotel rooms that made up Mimosa, there was a swimming pool, a fountain and an abundance of colorful seasonal flowers. These, together with the lush plantings, endowed the place with an Eden-like quality.
Our room in the annex was attractively finished with a bit of creative interior design. It was extremely well equipped with all needs consistent with a luxurious stay, very well thought out. The only problem we encountered was the usual lack of heating so common in South African hospitalities rated less than five stars. This was offset by some warm robes, lots of hot water and one of those little space heaters that ultimately managed to defrost us after we left it on for hours!
Our hosts at Mimosa Lodge were Fida and Bernhard Hess. Bernhard is from the German side of Switzerland and learned hospitality as well as cuisine in one of those fabled Swiss hotel schools. His skills in the kitchen could not help but shine through. This became clearer and clearer as the three days we spent at Mimosa wore on! It was in the course of discussing the world of food that Bernhard and I bonded, and that we drifted into the subject of ethnic cooking. Naturally, I expounded on the art of French Peasant cooking, and it wasn’t long before we, and those who were listening around us in Bernhard’s kitchen, had us organizing a Cassoulet party. Everybody there thought this was a capital idea, particularly since we were about to meet Lourens van der Westhuizen, a close friend of Fida & Bernhard’s, for a tasting at Arendsig, his new boutique wine estate. We got the feeling that this would turn out to be no ordinary Cassoulet party.
Lourens refers to his products as “Hand Crafted Wines”. We met in his cellar where he expounded on his wine, the importance of the Terroir and his approach for transforming grapes into wine. When the label on his bottles refer to his wine as “Hand Crafted” or “Single Vineyard” wines, it implies a business model that stresses exclusivity and limited production. His approach to wine making is to place primary emphasis on the Terroir, namely the care and composition of the soil where the grapes are cultivated. The label on each of his bottles records, in addition to the number of cases of each wine produced in any given year, the number of grape vines in the particular vineyard where the wine is made, the rootstock, the date when the grape was picked and the soil where they were grown.
We tasted his Sauvignon Blanc, his lightly wooded Chardonnay and his Shiraz. We were in awe! But the best was yet to come. Like one’s children, there should not be a favorite, but in this case it’s the term “unusual” that fits best. He was particularly proud of his Viognier. This is a very subtle wine often used in many blends, but also enjoyed pure and unblended. We had tried it many times as a stand-alone wine and never found it particularly pleasant. Well, the one Lourens exposed us to, which he called “Wild Yeast 2009”, was a barely sweet dessert wine, and it changed all that. It had none of the doubtful taste characteristics we had encountered with this type of wine before! His was not too sweet, not too harsh - it was exceedingly pleasant; we fell in love with it!
We were so impressed that there was no question that too much wine sampling was about to turn our lowbrow Cassoulet party into a far more elaborate affair - a Cassoulet/Wine Pairing Party. Much later, when we were alone, Joyce asked with much fear and trepidation: “What have we done to ourselves?!!!” But, dear reader, you must wait to learn more about the party until Part III … because I must get on with the Robertson Slow.
Archie had booked us into two evening events, both within easy reach of Montagu and the Route 62 Wine Route. The first, a “Black and White” party, was held at the Bon Cap Winery, in the common-use area of that establishment. It had been turned into a festive ballroom with all of the accoutrements of a Miami “Ball”. It turned out to be very much akin to that, and almost as boring… but very pretty! The food was unremarkable, and Joyce and I could not form an opinion on the wine. We probably wouldn’t buy it, despite the emotional attributes lavished on it by the poetically sentimental odes recited by a buxom blonde performing as the entertainment of the evening for the seated and bejeweled crowd.
Actually, the evening had started out badly for me. This was a formal masquerade party where everyone had to wear something black and/or white and a mask of some sort. So I dressed in a dark grey suit with a black, very fashionable tee shirt and I bought some very ingenious black and white sunglasses, large enough to fit over my regular glasses, and I was set. Unfortunately, this get up would almost completely turn me into a blind man the moment I stepped indoors. As we entered the ballroom, I panicked, could not get my bearings and the thought of having to spend the evening in this condition really shook me up; I needed LIGHT! But then, I realized that I had these funny sunglasses on; all I had to do was remove them! That did the trick … and nobody seemed to care anyway. Joyce did not have this kind of problem; she donned a black sequined cocktail dress she had packed for the baltic cruise and, not needing glasses of any sort, her mask worked perfectly. Robin, being carried all bundled up by Jax, of course, slept through it all.
The second evening’s event was more interesting. The venue was the fermentation tank hall of the Ashton Kelder Winery. These tanks, cozens of them, are made of stainless steel and are enormous; about three stories high with diameters of fifteen to twenty feet, and they are filled with wine in the making. A long harvest table, decked out banquet style, was prominent at one end of the hall. This arrangement served as the venue for the evening’s event - a murder mystery! We would all take part in this sport, participating as one of the characters in the mystery. Because the number of people exceeded the number of characters, we were divided into small groups. The three girls in our group (Jax, Lynette and Joyce) were to be “Satyn Roi”, the winery’s famous red wine, and they had to wear something red and sultry. They each managed to come up with very sexy, long red dresses, and Joyce went to a costume shop and rented 3 massive red feather boas to assure nobody could accidentally miss them. They were stunning! The three boys (Archie, Marc and me) would be “Chenin Blanc”and had to wear something “sporty”, which could mean almost anything, so we chose Rugby shirts and Khakis. Each threesome would function as an unrelated team, competing against each other and the rest of the groups.
The rules of the game were simple, there really weren’t any rules! Each team received clues, but they could have been deliberate lies, and each team may have gotten different, conflicting clues, all designed to throw you off the tract. Everyone is basically left on their own with their teammates (if you dare trust them!). In the meantime, you are free to work the room and piece something together, by asking a lot of questions, developing a hypothesis and following it through until, by some mystical process, the answer becomes clear.
Joyce caught on real fast; outrageously, while she kept her clues for herself and the Satyn Rois’, they stole the paper slip containing our clue and read it! Indeed, she held all their clues hostage, until she was able to bargain the information for something useful in HER quest … that’s a banker for you! I was a bit slower, but I too had my secret weapon - It was Archie! He not only knew the game but he was able to work the room with such speed and acumen that he was able to sort through the false leads faster than anybody else and correctly identify both the murderer and the motive. It was good being Archie’s partner in the game. After all, he, Mark and I won a couple of cases of Ashton Kelder Rudewal as our trophy for the evening, More importantly, it brought out an interesting side of Archie’s talents and personality we had never appreciated; he can be frighteningly creative, ambitious and intelligent.
Beyond the two formal events of the “Slow” and the wine and Champagne tastings, I cannot neglect to mention the fact that Fida and Bernhard ended our, pardon the expression, “Slow”, sojourn with a special dinner he prepared which demonstrated his extraordinary culinary skills. Now all that remained was the long drive home.
In the course of the drive home, Joyce said something that sounded like “Drag Queen”, “Darling” and “Fun”. Archie immediately put it all together - “You must be joking, you’ve never been to see Evita Se Perron, we’ll do it next weekend”. And so we were off again …
Evita is really Pieter-Dirk Uys. He is a mimic, a comic and, as Mrs. Evita Bezuidenhoud, he has created the most famous white women in South Africa. His act is performed in a restaurant with a stage, so that the venue is really a dinner theater. He comes on with hardly any introduction, shortly after the audience has finished eating, as an ordinary man, intent on informing his audience about some trivial matter, which soon turns out to be not so trivial and which is actually the lead-in to his act. As reality dawns that this is actually the show, trivia turns into satire and satire into comical rants, interspersed with changes in clothing and appearance-altering make-up application which ends up turning Uys into Evita. Even with a substantial amount of Afrikaans colloquialisms, the show is funny entertaining and provocative.
He/She is, without question, the best known and most famous drag queen in South Africa and beyond. When he moved there in 1995, he made the little town of Darling in the Western Cape famous, creating a small artist colony from rustic buildings in various stages of decay that now serve as the headquarters and principal venue for her/his hilariously comical satire that has its audience in stitches for about one and a half hours, during which no public official can escape the splatters from his biting wit.
Uys’s colony of buildings contains a good size museum, reminiscent of an old family attic where one can spend time before or after the show. There is also an outdoor Art Garden called “Boerracic Park”, displaying all kinds of political icons and symbols; and then there is the tiny railroad station and the concrete apron that separates and protects the public from the tracks. It is this “apron”, translated from the Afrikaans “Perron”, that we were told was responsible for Evita’s DBA.
The show was a matinee, and the meal was lunch. When it was over, there was enough time for yet one more activity which the indomitable Archie had planned. On the road back, still in the Darling region, there is a large winery known for not only its quality but its quantity. The Winery is “Groote Post” and our host was the scion of the estate, yet another “Nick”. He was in his late twenties or early thirties and, as the sun was still high enough, there was time, he insisted, to show us some of the huge estate. There’s several thousand acres of it, all owned by his family. They had lived in South Africa for generations, and the vineyard had become only a small part of it. The rest was more like a game park, so it was no surprise that he loaded up a Safari Land Rover with snacks and a bottle of each of the wines he produces, and off we went. For several hours we sampled his wines, enjoyed the game … including a herd of Quagga, nearly extinct, very pale, almost stripe-less zebra which he is helping bring back from the brink … and watched the sunset! It was wonderful to grow slowly mellow while enjoying the sinking of the sun into the hills of a wine estate, while its owner is touting the wines’ special qualities.
In many respects, Groote Post is the antithesis of Arendsig, but the pride of both the owner of a boutique winery and the scion of a huge wine estate in their respective products is the same, and commands respect from us mere mortals.
Our Darling outing took us past August 20th. The summer was speeding by, the whales in False Bay had made their appearance and we had revisited many of our favorite haunts. We had even managed to take in a couple of performances in our local Kalk Bay Theater. And, of course, Joyce had already acquired her first bauble - did I ever mention that she has made my ringtone on her iPhone Marilyn Monroe singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”? She needed a necklace repaired so she stopped in the local jewelry store in Fish Hoek - sounds innocent enough. She got into a conversation with the owner about the Robertson Slow, wine, unique jewelry and somehow the two of them came up with the idea that she needed a wine barrel necklace. But not a simple gold charm, oh no no no … he would fashion a REAL wine barrel from a piece of an old oak barrel he just happened to have at home, then make the staves out of gold and the nails from diamonds … lord help me! Turns out, he had recently won a very coveted award for most creative jewelry design in South Africa, and he certainly lived up to that with this piece.
Our immediate thoughts now turned to the fact that we were due to leave on our first Safari of the year. And so we began packing and off we went on our next adventure, which consisted of two animal encounter stops and 2 safari lodges. First the animal encounters …
We stopped for a short stay at De Wildt Cheetah Preserve, more formally known as the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Center. It is a well known cheetah rescue and breeding center, located 45 minutes from Pretoria and about an hour from Johannesburg. We spent three nights at the lovely lodge there and visited not only the furry wildlife but also our friend Alan Strachan and Linda, his significant other. Alan has had a long and intimate association with De Wildt, to a point where he could almost be considered family. We really enjoyed playing with the Cheetahs there, watching Alan feeding them and introducing them to us like old friends. Indeed, we had encountered three of them a year ago as 6 week old cubs when we were playing with them at Cheetah Outreach in Stellenbosch. We know them as Garfield, Heathcliffe and Felix. The three are now fully grown and huge … and Felix has acquired an antipathy to Alan, snarling at him and trying to attack him whenever he turns his back. Were it not for the fence that protects him, Felix would surely kill him, and nobody has quite figured out why!
During our stay there, we saw a new feature innovated by de Wildt: a Cheetah Race, whereby a lure is strapped on a pulley that moves a little faster than a cheetah-like rate of speed, along a race track built by deWildt on their property. A cheetah is then brought out and tries to catch the lure, developing speeds as high as 60 MPH in the process. It is an amazing show of speed and grace, and the cheeta has a ball.
Alan introduced us to an unrequited purring machine: an “eight year old lady” called Scarlet. Scarlet and Joyce bonded as close as such a feral creature can bond to a human, and they were having a jolly good time when suddenly Scarlet’s claw got caught in Joyce’s sweater. In her attempt to disengage her paw, Scarlet used her teeth…we are all sure it was not to bite, but to free herself. Anyway, now we both sport wildlife scars!!!
Our second animal encounter was a pit stop on the way to Leopard Hills, the second Safari Camp of our adventure, where we had an encounter with a group of twelve elephants at a place called Elephant Whispers. We met André and Colleen Kotzé, the managers of Elephant Whispers, and we spent a delightful two or three hours, learning more about these gentle giants than we had during all our years of encounters with them in Africa and Asia! Beside the educational aspects of the experience, we broke out in uncontrollable laughter at the sight of a bunch of juveniles slipping into a very muddy water hole which was their playground. They started by repeatedly smacking their trunks onto the surface of the water, then immersing themselves completely in the mud, and rolling around in a shallow part of the waterhole where they could maximize the mess they were making…it was hilarious and good fun for all. Of course, the encounter included a brief elephant back ride, just to show how obedient these wonderful creatures really are. Despite my usual reluctance to ride on the back of animals, I submitted to the inevitable, and actually had a good time during my ride.
Our safari camp adventure began with 3 days at Kings Camp, located in the Timbavati Private Game Reserve near Kruger National Park, and continued at what turned out to be the “Piece de Resistance” - three nights and days at Leopard Hills Camp in Sabi Sands Private Reserve, just on the other side of Kruger.
The best way to deal with Kings Camp and Leopard Hills is to compare the experiences. On the surface, there are many similarities. Both offer encounters with the Big Five and while they seem equally prolific, Leopard Hills engineered three leopard encounters, which is difficult to match. However, it was at Kings Camp that we saw the more beautiful leopard. In one smooth, unhurried leap, she was some thirty feet up in a tree, making herself comfortable for her afternoon nap and posing for the endlessly clicking cameras. Joyce must have snapped 300 pictures of the animal!
We failed to see lions the first day at Kings Camp. They were simply AWOL in our Big Five collecting efforts. But I worried too soon! On our second day there, as the sun started its nocturnal descent, and through the magic of the radios all the guides were using profusely, word came excitedly over the air that a pride of lions had been uncovered. But they were very far away. This did not deter our guide at Kings Camp, an intrepid, well rounded Zulu ranger and Land Rover driver named Colbert. And as we, the occupants of the Rover, had no qualms about letting him and his spotter drive in the dark, we did not hesitate, and urged him to go ahead.
Colbert put the Rover in gear and off we went, into the falling night, searching for the elusive pride of lions. After about an hour of unpaved and incredibly bumpy trails, we emerged from the bush onto a smooth black-topped highway. The sun was just setting by then, and the road was still hot from the heat of the day. It was then that things got a little tense.
We could barely distinguish the road in the penumbra, but there seemed to be something in the way. As we got closer, we were amazed to see that it was our pride of lions - looking like road kill! They had made the warm highway their territory, and this was where they had decided to pile up, as lions usually do, without so much as a “Right-of-Way-Yield” sign. They were sound asleep in the middle of the road, all 6 of them in a pile! Then things got a little more tense, when from the opposite direction, we spotted an intruder into this domestic scene. We could just make out the outline of a hyena, as it approached, silhouetted against the crest of the road. Had it seen the pride of lion? Would it continue its advance into the jaws of hell? Was it alone, or part of a fighting pack? Is this to be a scene from “Gunfight at the OK Corral”? The speculations were rampant. Even Colbert wasn’t sure! Eventually, however, the drama failed to materialize, the lone hyena turned off into the bush at a safe distance from the lions, and everybody went home peacefully.
While the game viewing at Leopard Hills was comparable to that at Kings Camp, it was easier. Poor Colbert had a full load of three couples in his Rover and Dave Pusey, our ranger at Leopard Hills, had only Joyce and me to ferry around. We got on famously! Dave was a well educated naturalist who displayed uncanny intelligence in strategizing and timing our position for the best game viewing in situations where something of special interest would draw a swarm of Safari vehicles from all the nearby camps. The management of this aspect of game viewing is actually quite orderly, involving a protocol for the rangers that, by sheer necessity, has to be self enforcing. Only 2 vehicles are allowed around the animals at a time, and they are limited to 20 minutes if other vehicles are waiting.
In one such instance, Dave found out that, earlier that day, a pride of 8 lions had brought down a Cape Buffalo and, having occurred fairly recently, had produced a feeding frenzy among the lions, in order to stay ahead of the usual carcass eaters like hyenas and vultures. This was something that my bloodthirsty banker wife would not want to miss!
Dave told a slight fib on the radio - we were very far way from the spot and it would take awhile before we could drive there, hoping that this would position us as the last vehicle in; we found a beautiful, secluded spot where we hoped we wouldn’t be seen, broke out the G&T for a little refreshment, and waited for an appropriate length of time. By the time we got to the kill, all of the other safari vehicles had had their allotted time, we were all alone, and Dave was able to position the Rover in such a way that Joyce could gorge herself vicariously, getting a special thrill every time she heard the grinding sound of lion teeth against the bones of the carcass. The fact that this scene was taking place in the moonlight, everyone else was gone and there was no time deadline, other than my queasiness about the whole thing, spiced up the entire experience.
So, to make a long story short, when it came to game viewing, I would call it a draw between Kings Camp and Leopard Hills. Also, both camps conveyed an aura of luxury in the outward quality of their hospitality. Yet this is where the similarities end. Kings Camp is a little larger than Leopard Hills, with the latter containing only eight Chalets to King’s twelve. The public areas are comparable, beautifully appointed and quite comfortable. So far; so good. But the differences are important. They have to do with service and management.
When we arrived at Kings Camp, we were not greeted by the Manager or his wife. In fact I am not even sure that we were greeted by the second team. In a hospitality of several hundred rooms, this might be understandable, but in an exclusive 12 chalet luxurious safari lodge, this should have given us pause for concern. It got worse.
When we were ensconced, we wanted to adjust the temperature. Kings Camp is very proud of the fact that it is equipped with in-wall climate controls adjusted with a remote … except we could not find the remote anywhere in the room. And the unit, similar to the ones we have in our home in Cape Town, had no controls on the unit itself! Worse, nobody, it seemed, could help … we would get one before dinner … it was broken …. it needed a battery, so we would have one by breakfast … they would get one from another room, we would have it by lunch … there wasn’t a compatible one in another room that was empty … Finally, we found another guest we had befriended and who was kind enough to lend us his remote which worked on the same equipment. Those managing the lodge were useless, claiming they couldn’t do anything, as the Manager was away for the weekend!
On a lesser front, I tend to enjoy good food, and I certainly do not shy away from ethnic cuisine. But on the night of our far away lion encounter, instead of a well deserved meal in a Safari-Chic environment, it was self-service Boma Night … no time for a shower! The other night was actually worse … it was self-service Bush Camp night. The charm was lost on me, to a point that I cannot recall what we ate the third and last night and for this I apologize. Finally, there are the details …
The bathing facilities at Leopard Hills were magnificent: a double shower head indoors, a shower outdoors in a little private courtyard, a tub with yet another shower and a charming private outdoor plunge pool for the extra hot season. Kings Camp had luxurious bathing facilities as well, but they paled compared to those of Leopard Hills. More importantly, the configuration of bathrooms and the arrangement of their respective amenities displayed, in the case of Leopard Hills, an attention to details worthy of a typical Aman Resort. In Hospitality, more than in any other place, God is in the details. Leopard Hills has it; Kings Camp could, but does not. I could go on forever and talk about these two Safari Camps, but I don’t want to risk being repetitive, or worse, boring.
I can’t resist, however, mentioning a tiny incident that so clearly illustrates the wild nature of the environment we move around in during our trips here. It occurred during the rest period between the end of the morning game drive and lunch at the lodge in Kings Camp. Joyce and I were relaxing in the growing heat of the day. We were seated on couches in an open but covered loft space above a common area that served as a library for the lodge. We both had our Kindles, and we were engrossed in this activity when Joyce decided to go downstairs to check the internet. I paid no attention and went on reading. Joyce put her Kindle on a coffee table and left. I don’t know what made me look up a minute later, but I was horrified to see a tiny Vervet Monkey holding Joyce’s Kindle in a position to either read it or eat it. I tried to stop him - I yelled “No” in a very stern voice, then gave chase as he totally ignored me, but it wasn’t much of a chase. The monkey, - actually, he was very cute - jumped quickly off the railing of the loft where he was sitting, examined his find, then jumped on the roof of an adjoining building. There, he chewed on it awhile and, when he determined it was not food, dropped it and, after leaving some harmless teeth marks on it, disappeared in the bush. We still don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this incident.
More recently, back in Cape Town, a baboon, the size of a grown man jumped on the terrace of our house and cased the joint. Unlike the Vervet Monkey this was a bit scary and not at all funny, as they are known to very dangerous animals that will totally destroy a house in their quest for food should they ever get in side.
So here we are, nearly mid-September, back from safari and frantically getting ready for our 40 guests who, in 4 days time, will be at our house for a Cassoulet/Wine Pairing party. Then, in October, we will be off for a cruise aboard the Zambezi Queen along the Chobe River on the border of Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe and a Botswana Safari where we will be joined by our friends Carol & Bill Crowe. They will return to Cape Town with us and our friend Janette Jerassy will also be arriving, so I’m guessing I’m in for (more) non-stop activity!
Say tuned!
Thanks for coming to what will become our way of entertaining our favorite people at our “home away from home”!
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