New Year’s Travel Resolutions for 2012

Image courtesy of Inspirationline.com

Now that the excitement of Christmas has passed, it's time to reflect on the year gone by and make resolutions for the year lying ahead. Let's have a look at last year's travel resolutions:

1. Have more local holidays. This resolution started off well, but then sort of fell by the wayside as the year progressed. We had a... memorable... experience camping in the Pilanesberg in January. In April, we camped in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve with friends, followed by a chilly, but fantastic, few days in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park. And I'm afraid that was the end of it. Oh, we did a few daytrips here and there, but nothing that could be called a holiday.
2. Improve the quality of holiday pictures. I think I'm slowly getting the hang of learning how to make the best of my little point-and-shoot camera. Having Photoshop to edit and touch up helps a lot, though.
3. Save more money for holiday purposes. We're lucky enough that our income exceeds our expenditures, so once again we've managed to pay off all our holidays long before we actually went on them.
4. Continue improving the quality of this blog. This one is a little debatable, perhaps. I love writing for this blog, but sometimes I either just don't have the time or the inclination to write long posts, resulting in shorter or infrequent updates.
5. Engage with more travellers on Twitter. The 34 people who currently follow me will know that I am hardly ever active on Twitter. I've decided that Twitter is a tool (a very effective one, I'll admit) for people with too much time on their hands. I'll continue tweeting my latest blog posts and discovering new bloggers on it, but I will not be using it much more than that.

Once again, it seems like I've managed to keep some of my resolutions, but most have not gone quite as planned. Nevertheless, and despite certain bloggers' recent advice to live life without goals, I still think it's good to have something to strive for. So, without further ado, here are my travel-related resolutions for 2012:

1. Save money for holiday purposes. As said before, this one will always be on the list. It might be a little trickier in 2012 however, since we will be starting to build a house as soon as the rainy season has passed, and I have also enrolled part-time at university for a postgraduate degree, so we might be a little strapped for cash this year.
2. Exlore more of South Africa. Gareth will be starting a new job in January, one where he won't have to work weekends or public holidays any more, so we might actually have the opportunity to go away more often. Now we just need to make sure we can afford it.
3. Be more adventurous in trying out foreign food. Whenever I read about the street foods of Thailand or the vibrant colours and flavours of  Moroccan or Indian cuisine, I'm always disappointed that I didn't sample more local dishes while on my travels. Perhaps it's time to try something new.
4. Improve my travel writing. When I reread some of my posts I notice that an awful lot of detail is missing, things I remember but don't necessarily write down while telling the story. I was taught that all good writing includes the five senses, something I've been neglecting in my own hurried posts. Since the degree I have enrolled for is centred around English literature, I hope it will teach me to write better, more descriptive, prose.
5. Read more widely. Not necessarily a travel-related resolution, but I recenly realised that I've been limiting the genre in which I mostly read and I think it's time to branch out a bit more, perhaps into the history of destinations I intend to visit.

Let's see if I can do better in the coming year. What are some of your new year's resolutions? Do you make them? Do you keep them?

Mongoose Mayhem and Monkey Madness

“Come look quickly!” Gareth called quietly, but urgently, from our porch at the Chobe Safari Lodge where I was taking a respite from the heat by reading my Kindle inside our air-conditioned room. I put my book down and went outside to be met by this:

A troop of mongooses were cavorting on the lawn, joined shortly thereafter by a mischievous group of monkeys and two warthogs snuffling the ground in search of tasty titbits. The mongooses were running back and forth, playing with each other, seemingly unafraid of the people who came out to watch and take pictures of their antics. I sat down to watch the spectacle, a huge grin on my face.

I kept a close eye on the monkeys. Earlier that morning, a disgruntled neighbour with a German accent had knocked on our door and told us not to leave any windows open, because the monkeys had gotten into his room and stolen some food. We assured him we would be careful. After all, we’ve had a run-in with long-fingered simians before and were well acquainted with their kleptomaniac tendencies.

While most of the monkeys were dangling from the treetops or grooming each other, one of them was sitting quietly watching the mongooses, who at that point were all bundled together in a big group. It took a tentative step closer to them, sat down and watched them for a bit, then moved closer and closer and then suddenly darted in and cheekily pulled the tail of one of the mongooses. The offended creature hissed loudly, but could do nothing but try to blend into the bundle better. This soon turned into a fun game for the monkey, who darted back and forth playfully pulling tails left, right and centre, while the mongooses squirmed and roiled and tried their best to maintain some semblance of dignity. It took quite a while before the monkey got bored and decided to leave them in peace.

And this is why I love Africa. Where else does one get the chance to watch these animals interact, sometimes in the most unexpected ways, right on your doorstep?

Three Nights at Chobe Safari Lodge, Botswana

Gareth and I spent the first three days of our African Adventure 2011 holiday at the lovely Chobe Safari Lodge situated on the banks of the Chobe river in Botswana. We had a River Room at ground level and could watch small animals play on the grass outside while lying in bed, the blue waters of the river sparkling in the background. When we were first shown to the room, we were somewhat perturbed by the twin beds, but it didn’t take long for either of us to realise that separate beds meant lots of space – a luxury our queen bed at home doesn’t always allow. Although it sometimes seemed like the Chobe river was as busy as an intercity highway, we grew accustomed to the sounds of speedboats zipping past and paid them little attention.

We spent the larger part of our days relaxing by the pool, although a brief dip after a dusty game drive proved the waters yet too cold to swim in. If you’re up early you might be lucky enough to grab an unused lounger, but if not, there are many tables and chairs scattered along the deck and bar area from which you can watch the boats on the river. We saw elephants feeding in the long grass just across the way from where we were sitting every day, while monkeys played in the treetops above us.

Breakfast and dinner are served in the lapa, from where you still have a view of the river, and one of the friendly waiters takes you on a tour of the dining area the first time you come for a meal. Our holidays are usually spent camping or in self-catering accommodation, so whenever we stay in a hotel, I always look forward to breakfast (well, all meals, to be honest, but breakfast in particular). At home, my morning meal is usually limited to cereal, so when I get the chance to have something different, I go all out. The Lodge definitely didn’t disappoint! Fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, toast, sausages, mushrooms, muffins, croissants, scones – these are the stuff my gastronomic dreams are made of. Dinner was just as spectacular, and while Gareth raved about the stir-fry made on demand, I tried out such delicacies as warthog pie, ostrich steak and freshly caught fish. Oh, and don’t forget their homemade watermelon sorbet – it’s delicious!

There really isn’t all that much to do at the Lodge itself, but if you’re not content spending the day basking in the sun and waiting for the animals to come to you, the Lodge offers various excursions. We went on a morning game drive in the Chobe National Park, an afternoon game cruise on the Chobe river and a dinner boat cruise. My next few posts will have some photos from the first two activities, but the dinner boat cruise was really just a meal on a boat in the middle of the night. It was too dark to see anything besides the lights from hotels along the riverbank, and the food was pretty much the same as that served at the hotel, so I wouldn’t particularly recommend it. The game cruise, however, was definitely worth it.

We had a good time at the Chobe Safari Lodge, and I can recommend it to anyone spending a couple of days in the area. Bring a good book, your binoculars and some suntan lotion and you’ll have a wonderful time.

Mixing Pleasure with Business: Back from Tanzania

It's been almost a week since my return from my first business trip. You might remember that I had set myself a clear mission for those three weeks in Tanzania - to find some free time to explore. Well, that proved to be more difficult than expected. In fact, I ended up working 5 days worth of overtime - 6 days, if you count Saturdays as double time - and rarely had time for anything other than working, sleeping and eating.During my first week in Dar-es-Salaam, the only sights I saw were the hotel dining area and the inside of the office building where I was working. It was very disheartening.

But when the weekend arrived, I decided that I needed to do something about this sorry state of affairs. Although a colleague had advised me not to go out exploring on my own, the thought of sitting in the hotel all weekend watching TV was just too unbearable. That impulsive decision turned into a memorable day out, which I will write about in the near future - it involved a whirlwind taxi tour of the city, an improptu Swahili lesson and a trip in a wooden dhow to an island just off the coast of Tanzania.

I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to do some exploring at least, because the next Monday I took a chartered plane to a mine site where I was stranded for the last two weeks without a chance to see anything else. I won't complain (too much!), because the point of a business trip is, after all, to work, so I'm grateful that I did manage to see something at least. Which is more than my colleagues who visited the other sites were able to do. And I can now say that Tanzania is definitely a country I would like to see more of in future...