November 3, 2013

November 2013 and we’re preparing to travel again to South Africa, looking again for lions, elephants, leopards, crocs, hyenas and the rest.  Unlike the last two trips, Gina and I will be traveling without our 15 year old daughter Aislin.  Aislin likes the idea of traveling to Africa but she wasn’t too enthusiastic about going this year.  She likes animals but isn’t as obsessed with them as we are and is in fact nervous about being close to large wild animals, to elephants especially.  She’s also in high school now and last year we found that she missed her friends during her two weeks in Africa.  Plus, the bottom line is that it isn’t that much fun traveling with a photographer.  It means hours and hours sitting in a car – in baking heat or cold rain - looking for something to shoot or waiting for something to happen.

So Aislin stays with Gina’s parents for three weeks, over the Thanksgiving holidays.  It’s the longest time mother and daughter have been separated and it marks another small milestone in the process of growing up, establishing independence, ultimately preparing to leave the nest.  Not that she wouldn’t like to do more travel.  Just two days ago she was asking if I’d ever consider going somewhere other than Africa, mentioning specifically Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, Italy.  Spain.  And particularly Japan.  But they don’t have lions, do they?

It does mean that Gina and I have three weeks together for this trip.  During our previous two trips, I went first and Gina and Aislin joined me later, constrained by limiting the time Aislin misses school.  This time, Gina and I have three weeks, constrained by limiting time away from our jobs. We’re returning to Kruger National Park in South Africa, returning to places we are very familiar with.  Africa, of course, is huge.  There are so many amazing places on the continent.  We wrestled with the question of whether we should go someplace new.  But we think that Kruger is the most cost effective way to be able to be exposed to lots of African wildlife.  It’s expensive to get there, but the time in the park is reasonably affordable.  Everything else we considered – East Africa, Namibia, Botswana – seemed to be much more costly.  That said, there are other national parks in South Africa and Kruger itself is huge and there are parts of the park that we’ve never explored.  But there’s a part of this decision that’s about keeping things simple and familiar.  We know these camps, the roads, the environment and there will be many opportunities for great sightings.  But next year – something different.  Namibia?  Kenya?

In the past, we’ve also found a way to spend at least a few days at a private reserve.  This year, in the interest of reducing the cost, we’re passing on that.  Private reserves are much more expensive than a national park.  Photographically, there are distinct advantages to spending time in private reserves.  The guides know where animals are (and coordinate via radio), they’re able to go off road and deep into the bush and ultimately the guides are working hard to please their guests.  Typically the guides are also photographers, understand the needs of the photographer and work hard to make their guests happy.  At Kruger, virtually everything you shoot you shoot from your car (there are some exceptions…). The whole world you have to work with is within this narrow band along the road.  A hundred yards off the road, it doesn’t exist for you. 

But private reserves are also about the luxury experience – the lodgings, the food, the hospitality.  That’s part of why they’re so expensive and, frankly, that stuff doesn’t mean much to me.  The modest accommodations of the national park are plenty adequate for us.

We’re taking a bit of a different approach with travel this year.  Typically, we’ll fly Delta from Redmond, Oregon to Salt Lake City, to Atlanta and then direct from Atlanta to Johannesburg.  But the connection in SLC was very tight this year (like 30 minutes) so that any bobble in that link from Rdm to SLC would jeopardize the entire itinerary.  We’ve decided to fly to SLC on Friday, spend the night there, and then depart SLC on Saturday.  Arrive in JNB Sunday evening.  Spend the night at an airport hotel, then rent a car Monday morning and head out on the road to Kruger.

And leave the strain and stress of work behind for a few weeks. I think Gina and I don’t have any special objective other than to get up every morning, get in the car and enjoy being outside.  We understand that they’ve had rain, it’s greening up and I saw a report this week that the first baby impala has already been spotted.  We can’t wait.