Napoli! 2023 The Next Chapter

 Let Go and Let God Bus Driver 

    Riding the bus in Naples is an everyday occurrence for many Neapolitans.

    It certainly became one for us.

       Scott sussed out how to download the public transportation app where we could purchase a week-long ticket and activate it (which we had to do every day we took the bus.)

    We soon learned to let go and let god the bus driver. (apologies to AA).  The road down to town is part cobblestone, part tarmac, all with many holes and tight turns. Along steep cliff-sides and too-narrow passages.

    Riding the bus in and around Naples conjured up so many past traumas for me: vertiginous ascents and descents. Overtaking on a curve/hill. The terror invoked by the thought of plummeting to a rocky and/or water death.  No guard rails. Blowing a tire on a too-tight turn.
    All the above have happened to me.  The Beartooth Highway in Wyoming was one long vertiginous, switch-back ascent with steep cliffs on one side and only air on the other.  Thank god there were guardrails.  There weren’t any on the 4k road down to a small seaside village where we spent several days in Croatia. Add to that a one-way-only stretch where the ascender had to back up to let the descender pass. One wrong move and off the cliff you go.
    Overtaking on curves was a frequent occurrence in Slovakia.  Those incidents where death occurred were routinely covered in the national newspapers. While not ever seeing a mortal accident, we did see too many drivers passing on curves and hills.
    I actually did blow a tire on a mountain pass ascent in Slovakia because I took the switch-back curve too tightly (the tire survived until we got to our driveway 20 minute later).
    This is all to say that I again became a fatalist bus rider: those Neapolitan bus drivers (many of them very good-looking, both men and women) know what they are doing. No careening off cliffs or smashing into oncoming traffic.

Bus inspectors. For perhaps the first week of our daily ride into town, we saw no bus ticket inspectors.

    But for the next three weeks, an inspector would frequently step onto the bus and randomly check for validated tickets.

    We were always compliant.
    Not everyone was.  There was a smartly dressed young scofflaw* who not only did not have a validated ticket.  He had no ticket at all.  The inspector stopped the bus and proceeded to write up a long citation during which he cited which violations the guy had broken.  The busload of us people sat there for at least 20 minutes while the inspector made his point in front of us all.
    Finally, he escorted the perp off the bus and we continued on our journey down the hill.

    We saw that same perp once more on our daily bus ride.  We noticed he validated his ticket upon boarding the bus. 

    There was only one other time when an inspector called out a woman who didn’t have a ticket.  He just showed her off the bus.
    We were just a little smug about knowing to keep our tickets valid every time.

* Scott made me use that word

Napoli!

 

Vesuvius behind us

Napoli! An Introduction

My journal of our month-long stay in Campania was mislaid for seven months.  It has only just been unearthed. I’ve been reading through it and enjoy reliving our time there. And I’d like to share it with you.

We spent the month of October in one Italian city: Naples.  This gave Scott a chance to practise his Italian language skills, for which he is very proud (with good reason: he can chat with the taxi drivers!) 

We chose a Neopolitan Airbnb in a neighbourhood recommended by a friend who knows Naples well. We were not disappointed by the area and only slightly by the flat.

Our mild disappointment was that there was no view of the sea nor was there private outdoor space (we had a table and two chairs outside the front door along the pavement, both pedestrian and vehicular). 

It didn’t really matter in the end because the mosquitos came out at dusk and sitting in the nicely air conditioned living room was preferable.

Cool and comfortable flat

The flat was half-way down a descent toward the sea on a small side road off Via Posillipo, the main drag west out of downtown Naples. The walk up and down was quite the exercise. Five hundred fifty steps each way. We made that walk up at least once, often twice a day.  After a week or so we noticed our bodies improved from the exercise.

550 Steps up to Via Posillipo

It is easy to catch a bus right at the top of our street. The first full day, we sat at the little café at the top of our street to watch how often Bus No. 140 came and went.  As it was every 20 minutes or so, this became our go-to means into town. (That little café became our daily haunt throughout our time in Naples. More about it and the wonderful people there in a later post.)

Back to the bus: I spent almost ten years taking the bus to work in London, becoming fatalistic about missing the odd bus to and from the office during those years.  But Scott was often annoyed at my mantra about missing a bus:  “We didn’t miss our bus. That wasn’t our bus because we’re not on it.” 

A little more about where we lived:  Posillipo. It’s an upmarket neighbourhood to the west of Naples proper, but an easy 20 minute bus ride into the heart of the Lungomare (an area where Neapolitans stroll along the waterfront with views of Vesuvius to the east and Capri to the south.)

The immediate area at the top of our street houses pretty much anything you might want or need:  our little café (where they served a delicious prosecco), a green grocer with very good produce, a little deli where they make good sandwiches to order as well as dairy, wine and beer; a fish market, small butcher, pharmacy and a pizza joint that turned out to be pretty awesome. 

Fresh Veg and beautiful women!

(I’m saving the food and drink details for a later post) 

This, we believed, was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. With Naples.

 Our Sicilian Celebration

England, particularly Shropshire, can be a little bleak in December.  Lots of rain, some flooding and no sun to speak of. That is why a trip to Sicily for Scott’s post-Christmas birthday was a high point in our year.

A couple of things we wanted to experience on this, Scott’s second trip to the island and my first:

For Christmas, I gave Scott a handmade ‘watch box’ from Stinga, the company based in Sorrento, which has been making exquisite inlaid woodwork marquetry boxes for the past three generations.  My mother brought back a music box from Stinga for me in the early ‘60s from her trip with her father to Italy.

Scott and I tried unsuccessfully to visit the shop whilst in Sorrento for the scant 50 minutes we were allowed on the bus tour. (Never ever take a bus tour to the Amalfi Coast.  It’s insulting to the tourists and insulting to the residents.) So I bought the box online.

Scott has been collecting antique watches ever since he began visiting Italy, Turin in particular. He has found an excellent little shop specialising in small bijou antiques: watches, rings, silverware.

When the Stinga watch box arrived, I decided to include in the box a number of addresses in Palermo that sell antique watches.

That was the first experience we didn’t.

Let me explain: our early morning flight to the island was cancelled. We had left our hotel nose-bleedingly early in order to make the flight (out of London City Airport) and found that the new flight was not for another four-plus hours. We finagled our way out of security to catch a taxi back to our hotel to wait in relative comfort rather than in the airport. After returning, the second flight was late, and we ended up arriving in Palermo well into  the evening, six hours after our expected arrival. Our car and driver were there to meet us and whisk us off to …

One of the most beautiful, elegant, exquisite villas we have ever experienced: the Villa Igiea, on the Palermo Coast of Sicily. It’s a Rocco Forte hotel so that gives one a clue about the level of luxury and commensurate price.

Having been up for 16-plus hours on two plane journeys, we were greeted by truly beautiful people who made us feel as though we had just come home.

Indeed, after the nasty weather in Shropshire and in London, the balmy evening on the coast enticed us to linger on the terrace at the hotel’s Terrazzo Bar, under the stars and under a welcome space heater. 

After a good night’s sleep, we wandered down to breakfast, overlooking the sea, for a pleasant meal. Yes, it was a buffet, and with cooked specials as one wanted.  But it included an amazing array of fresh fruit: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, red currants, cantaloup. I was glad to see they offered mimosas. Of course I took advantage.

Later, we walked through the extensive gardens, deciding, finally, not to go into town to look for watches, but just relax and enjoy this haven from the real world. 

Yes. We ate, drank and slept in this oasis the two days we were in Palermo. It was just what we had dreamed of.

Now. Onto the west of Sicily. 

We booked two nights in a town called Castellammare del Golfo, again on the north coast. I have a very good friend (I’d say old friend but he’s not old, just our friendship is old) whose family is from this town. He is a first-generation American, his parents both immigrants from Sicily.  Greg turned me onto Castellammare and told me he has more family here than in the U.S.

To get there, Scott was happy for me to book a rental car - he drives, I no longer do. 

Our taxi driver from the Villa to the airport (where we expected to pick up our car) was a great tour guide on all that we passed on the way to the airport:  a couple of guys were extracting sea urchin gonads and selling them by the road for Euros 25 a cup - four pasta meals’ worth. 

That’s like buying a bottle (or three) of Barolo whilst in La Morra - can’t get it in the UK for less than 60 quid a bottle, even if you can find it!

So, past the road-side sea urchin merchants, my first mistake was to book a car rental through booking.com.  Unh-uh.  They’ll give you a good rate, but you’ll have to be picked up in a van and driven miles from the airport to some back-water location with an unknown car rental. So no. Go for Avis for god's sake. They’re in the airport!

After the car rental refused to alter the contract (they had me as driver), we escaped with an Uber guy who took us all the way to Castellammare for a mere 60 Euros. It’s only about 45 kilometres from Palermo anyway.

I backtrack a little: when I happened to be speaking with the Concierge at the Villa Igiea, he wanted to know:  “Why are you going to Castellammare?” in a manner that made me question why indeed?  Well, because my friend’s family comes from there!

In the back of my mind - really, for all of us who watched the Godfather and wondered about where is really safe in Sicily (yes, typical American fantasists) - in the back of my mind, are we really safe gallivanting around the hinterlands of Sicily??

Well, yes of course. Duh.

Greg didn’t actually tell me to stay in the town of his parents’ families, but I was intrigued, so I booked a hotel on the coast again: the Marina di Petrolo Hotel and Spa.  

The hotel suffered in our minds, only because we’d just left the most idyllic spot in all the world, the Villa Igiea.  

Coming down from heaven, the hotel was actually just fine. We had a small balcony view of the coast and the sun shone on us the entire time.

We could walk everywhere, enjoy the historic town centre, the sea. We could sit and watch the people. We could watch the cats!  It was a holiday weekend so many of the restaurants were closed, go figure.

This was New Year’s Eve. 

We were fortunate to find a restaurant that still had a table free for the evening so we booked it. This was Sunday and the church bells rang in that very European style - loud, atonal, clanging and joyous.  Not at all like the precise change ringing bells we have here in Shropshire every Sunday morning. We caught the last few minutes of mass in the large, old cathedral (Scott likes to listen to the Italian for his studies) then meandered around the old Norman/Arab - influenced fortress castle guarding the harbour.  Then a nice lunch on the waterside before climbing back up to the historic town centre.

When the sun goes down, families come out for their nightly passeggiata, strolling along the pedestrian areas with grandparents and children in tow. 

It’s a wonderful sight.

Our restaurant, Egesta Mare, presented a feast consisting entirely of fresh seafood.  It was amazing. We dined with many of the multi-generational families we saw along the avenues.

Happy New Year!

And we found a very nice, local car rental guy who rented us a hybrid which Scott drove from Castellammare to the west coast and Trapani, another harbour town with some semi-famous salt flats.  

We detoured from town to first see whether we could glimpse the elusive flamingo.  This is the second experience we wanted to have whilst in Sicily.  And we found them! We couldn’t get close enough for photography without a super zoom lens, but we saw them just the same.  They are really amazing to watch.

Our hotel in Trapani, the Palazzo Gatto Art Hotel & Spa,  was just a few steps away from the pedestrian part of town.  Not exactly a palazzo, and we saw more cats in Castellammare, but the hotel was pleasant enough.

After joining the families of Trapani in their evening passeggiata, we stopped for pizza before heading back to the hotel and bed.

On the morning of the second of January, Scott drove us back to Castellammare to drop off the rental car. The nice guy agreed to drive us all the way back to Palermo. He was good practice for Scott's Italian, and he was a real fan of American wrestling. !

Arriving back in Palermo for our last day, we found ourselves once again in Eden (the Villa Igiea) for one more luxurious evening.

We returned home to rain, flooding, and a sunless January in Ludlow. Oh well.  After a week of beautiful sunshine and the mountainous terrain on the north coast of Sicily, we were ready for the change.

We enjoyed our time in Sicily enough that we want to return.  We’re thinking about this late spring for a couple of weeks back in Naples (that’s another adventure! I’ll share later) before taking the ferry down to Sicily for another week or so.

We’re enjoying it while we can!

The Last Drive in Madikwe

It’s just Annabel, Mitch, our guide, and me again this morning.

We contemplate the odds of finding the elusive African Dogs but know it is not to be. Even though a few of the dogs in each of the two packs are collared for tracking, both packs are too far away for this abbreviated morning drive. (We have a car taking us to Jo’burg at 09.00)

Coming out at 05.30, it is still dark, but there alongside the road, we can make out a very large, napping rhinoceros. He is sort of lying partly on his stomach partly on his side.  He seems to be asleep but Mitch assures us he is very much aware of everything going on around him. Mitch dims the car lights and puts the searchlight away.

We wait and watch to see whether he does anything more than lie there. He doesn’t.

We back away so as not to disturb him, and wander over to a large, dammed lake to wait for the sun to rise.

There is a family of Egyptian geese, parents and four chicks, paddling about near the shore. Close by in a tree sits a large fish eagle (in the US we call them osprey). These African species are larger. There are fish eagles on every continent except Antarctica.  We wonder how nervous the parents are with that giant predator just a short flight away from their chicks.

The sunrise is magnificent and we can hardly do it justice on a camera. The reflection of the colours from the clouds, the absolute peace of the moment the sun rises.

Peace. Quiet.

I think out loud, “I wonder if everyone lived through the night.”

Well.

No.

An impala didn’t.

As we sit watching the sun rise, the fish eagle flies off without snatching one of the little goslings right under its nose, flying across the big lake toward a murder of crows making noise on the far side of the water.  

Mitch says, “Let’s go have a look.” He knows something is up by the ruckus caused by the crows.

High drama: a largish herd of several dozens of impala are barking. They’re all looking in the same direction. There must be something there.

Of course there is:  a spotted hyena.

It moves toward a smell. We try - and succeed! - to follow.

The fish eagle is already there with the crows. They're in the trees while the hyena grabs a glob of kill and moves off to eat it without the lurking threat of the birds coming to take it away from him.

We follow the hyena.

He eats what, we eventually deduce, is the last remaining leg of an impala.

We see and hear him crunch through the bones, to consume the last bits. 

He is skittish and nervous, worrying about whether something bigger (a lion) will come steal his meal.

We are taught that all predators are scavengers when they want or need to be. Lions will snatch a kill from a hyena or jackal.

The hyena is able to finish his meal in an uneasy peace, and he moves off.

So do we.

We figure it’s the end of our last drive, but we have one more wonderful drama in store.

As we drive back around the lake toward home, a large herd of impala are barking barking barking.  They seem to be saying:

“Be careful! Be careful! Be careful,” they bark.  “We’re not sure what the danger is, but be careful! Be careful! Be careful!”

We come upon a rhino and her baby. They are not the threat, but they move off too, understanding there must be something to worry about.

We can't find the danger so we finally make it back to the Lodge and sadly say our goodbyes. 

This span of three days has left a lasting impression.

I won’t go into the last bit of wildlife I experienced in my room as I pack to leave (a flat spider and some other arachnid in the bathroom and the little lizard scurrying under the bed, all totally undangerous).

I am reluctant to leave. I want to see the Little Five and the Secret Seven.

Contemplating this alien world - alien to a city girl - it is difficult to put into words how the last three days have altered my understanding of how the world works.

This continent is where humanity evolved. Evolved beyond eat or be eaten. 

We are, after all, the only animal that wears clothes. Hmmm. 

I do not know if I will return, but this adventure will stay with me forever.

Next up:  life in ‘civilised’ Cape Town, and the vast vine lands of the Western Cape.

 

A March Sunday in Madikwe

 I am coming to the moment where it dawns on me why this is such a profound thing I’m doing out here with Annabel and Mitch and the others and the hotel staff.  And the wildlife.

The wildlife. That word takes on an entirely different meaning here in this complete, natural biosphere of the Madikwe wildlife reserve. This entire environment occurs, continues, with almost no human interface.  That’s not to say we aren’t part of the equation here; but humans let life go on without interfering in it.  We’re the interlopers. We’re the outsiders, the aliens. The animals live and die, kill or be killed, are born have sex and carry on without us humans. Life goes on here just fine without us.

It’s with the unspoken nod of Mitch that first night when he went another way rather than destroy that one spider web that got me thinking.

He also said at one point during one of the sundowners, “Let them be.” That is the mantra here in Madikwe. We watch from a little distance and let them carry on as they are meant to.

My small philosophical eureka moment over, on to the 

Sunday Morning Drive

This morning is epic in so many ways.

First off, my wish has been to see some grumpy old hippopotamuses in their natural habitat.

Easier said than done: we get close enough to see a couple of ripples in the river and hear a couple of honks and snorts, but we cannot get close enough to see the honkers and snorters. I have to be content with this “horse-shoes-near-miss” and be happy I've been that close to a hippo in the wild.

More exciting things to come, we are about to discover.

We move down alongside the river until Mitch finds a ford across this smallish Mariko River. The ford has been improved so that safari cars can cross safely.  Mitch drives us through the water and up onto the other side, where we’re not really supposed to be: this is now the Northeast Territory rather than our own Northwest Territory. But there’s a nice “watching spot” to see what’s going on in the stream.

A couple of Egyptian geese are perched on a tree near the water’s edge. They’re watching for fish and lizards, such as the baby monitor lizard sunning itself on some rocks. This one is a young one, only three inches or so long.  When it’s fully grown it can measure up to 10 feet.

There’s a pied kingfisher.  He darts up 20 feet or so above the water and hovers - just like a helicopter or a hummingbird (!) looking down into the water.  In a flash he dives and darts back out, flying away … with nothing.  No luck this time. We watch him for a few a few more dives before we start the engine up to go back across the ford.

Whoops.

We back up quickly, to let a long, very large, very old bull elephant saunter down to the water’s edge.

He takes his time.  He drags his trunk along the dirt road, looking as if he were really tired. Then he uses his trunk to feel for the bottom of the water before he starts to drink.

He’s thirsty.  A full grown male can hold up to 40 litres of water in his trunk. A full grown male will drink 240 litres of water in a day.

We sit back.  Wait.  Watch.

A good half-hour watching in fascination close enough to get a really good look at this old guy, and we wonder which way he’ll go when he’s had his fill.

He decides to continue along, crossing the ford where we're meant to go.  He drags his trunk the entire way.  Mitch explains:

Elephants communicate often through sound in the ground.  They can sense, ‘hear’ underground vibes from miles away. This old guy is listening to where others may be. He’s also smelling. 

The elephant’s ability to smell is six times that of a bloodhound. A bloodhound’s sense of smell is one thousand times that of humans.  (I just looked that up on google)

We wait some more.

The old guy saunters along through the water, stopping every several steps to rest, smell, listen. He slowly makes his way up the far bank, still stopping every few feet.

Since he’s on the road we want to get back to, we wait some more.

When he’s far enough away and going cross country, away from the road, we too make our way back through the water.

Thus endeth the Sunday Morning Drive. 

We say goodbye to the other four and this afternoon it will be just the three of us. We will go in search of cheetahs, we hope!

Cheetahs normally hunt solo. But on occasion, they will hunt together. It makes their chances of success a little better. Alas, it is not to be. We will most likely leave Madikwe without having seen these beautiful beasts.

What we do see is the coming together of a mixed herd at dusk: zebra, impala, giraffes, wildebeests. They know somehow there is safety in numbers. Methinks they also know there are two cheetah sisters out there. Waiting. Stalking. Hunting.

As we stop for our last Sundowner here in Madikwe, we're next to one of thousands of trees symbiotically attached to a termite hill. It's a good time to understand this relationship.

Termites cannot digest cellulose, so they need to manufacture mushrooms, which they can digest. To do this, they need water. A living tree out here in the bush has long roots going down deep to where the water is. Termites build their hills next to the tree in order to take advantage of that easy access to water, which they need to grow their crops of fungus/mushrooms.

They do not kill the tree.

The tree must stay alive so that it can provide the termites with the water they need to grow their crops. These termite hills are much more sophisticated than one might believe: human architects and engineers alike have studied these termite structures because of how they allow passages to be shut off and reopened as needed to keep a constant temperature - like ducts in a skyscraper - something needed to successfully grow fungus or to cool and heat a large skyscraper.

We return one last time for a quiet dinner on the open-air terrace of our Madikwe Safari Lodge.

Tomorrow morning is our last drive and it is a humdinger!

Saturday Afternoon Drive

People go on safari in Africa to see and shoot the Big Five. On Camera. The Big Five name is a throw back to when the animals were shot with guns and their heads and/or bodies taken back as wall trophies or area rugs.

Yuck.

Most - but not all - are now protected by law. That does not mean that illegal poaching no longer occurs. It does. We are warned before we travel not to post any real-time photos on social media whilst in the bush:  sophisticated poachers scan social media all the time, to find out where the profitable animals might be. It’s pretty creepy.

The Big Five are:  elephant, rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard. To the Super Seven are added:  cheetah and the critically endangered wild African dog. Actually, they’re probably closer to the wolf than a dog, but they too, like lions, hunt in packs.  We did not see any on our safari, but Mitch had two memorable experiences with them.

He once tracked a pack of wild dogs chasing a kudu all night all day.  The kudu, considerably larger than any one dog, reached the periphery fence and could go no further.  It turned to defend itself.  The pack took turns harassing their prey while others would lie in the shade watching. Talk about tag teaming!

Finally the kudu gave in and they were all over and done with him quickly.

The second tale takes place right here in the main, open air hall of our Lodge. It was early one morning, before most of the guests had gathered for the morning drive.  An impala bounded up the front steps and through the hall, with about 20 dogs after it.  They brought it down just at the far edge of the hall, tore it up and carried the pieces away, hardly stopping for anything. Everything was gone in a flash, the dogs and the kill.

Mitch recalls with a slight smile that none of the guests who arrived after had any idea of what they’d just missed.

Now on with today’s 

Afternoon Drive

It’s all about the kill. Or should I say about the aftermath of the kill.

The deceased:  a zebra.  Remains tucked away in the bush.  We make them out just beyond a napping, panting lioness.

She flicks her tail, raises her head, rolls onto her back then onto her other side.

We are about 20 feet away and she doesn’t care. Her belly is full.

After a while, we leave the lion and the carcass, stripes still visible, backing out the way we come in.

There are six of us in the safari car with Mitch:  Annabel and I; two Germans, and two South Africans from Johannesburg: Portia and Gershwin. Real names.

About half a mile along the road from the kill, Portia says, “I see ears! There!” and she points into the bush on the other side of the road.

We see nothing. Mitch sees nothing.  We stop anyway with the chance she actually saw something.

There are the ears!

And under the ears rises up a lone hyena lying amid the scrabble behind a bush.  Napping. Biding its time to get to that carcass after the lions are done.

Mitch is pretty sure there are other lions hidden in the bush surrounding the kill to protect it from scavengers until they’ve had their fill.

Our hyena lifts its head every once in a while.  It looks like it’s smiling.

Those teeth.  Look a little longer and the ‘smile’ becomes a grin. A grimace. Menacing.

Those teeth bite through bone. And yes, Mitch says, it mostly keeps its mouth open to help pant off the heat.

The teeth are just part of the fun.  I’ve seen horror movies and monsters where the creators use that Hyena mouth, those Hyena teeth for extra terrifying effect!

You’ll notice the hyena is wearing a collar. It’s a tracking device. 

As we sit watching the hyena with our backs to the road, along trots a solitary jackal. About the size of a fox but no bushy tail. And bigger, rounded ears.

It stops. It knows the hyena is there. The hyena knows the jackal is there. Both go back to what they were doing: the hyena napping, the jackal trotting. The jackal turns off the road on the other side to join another jackal - they’re all waiting for the lions to be done. They want next dibs on the kill.

The following morning I ask Mitch about what happens to the remains of the dead zebra.  He tells me:

After the lions are done, the hyenas and jackals come in. They want whatever fleshy parts are left, but they’re quite happy, those hyenas, to bite into the bones, eat the marrow, eat the bones.

Then the jackals.  Then the bugs, beetles etc.

By morning the entire remains will be gone having fed a host of fauna.  Even the dung beetles will enjoy a breakfast from the poo left by the lions and scavengers.  The bugs, in turn, are eaten by birds and other things. It’s trite to say it, but ‘the circle of life,’ there it is.

We continue on our way into the sunset. 

You might notice the lone, dead tree silhouetted by the pink sky. There are a lot of those dead trees around here. The elephants do that to trees. Eating the leaves, scratching themselves, and generally lumbering around through the bush.

This evening’s sundowner is a more elaborate affair, with staff from the Lodge laying out a nice cocktail hour in the bush, featuring several South Africa gins, including one called Six Dogs. It’s blue, but the tonic water turns it pink.

I stick with wine.

I have to pee (of course).  Mitch immediately gets his rifle out from the car and scopes out the area behind a big bush across the road.

All clear.

Loo paper goes into a brown paper bag given to me along with the loo paper to bus home to my room:  no t.p. stays in the bush.

On the way home, with the sun gone and the stars out, Mitch points out two constellations.  One I see all the time in the Northern Hemisphere:  Orion.  The other is brand new to me, this being my (almost) first time in the Southern Hemisphere:  the Southern Cross.  It’s cool to know that Orion can be seen in both hemispheres, but it’s even cooler to see the one you can only see ‘down here’.

Back in my suite, I open the curtains and look out onto the bush and into the sky.  The Milky Way is so bright you can almost read from the starlight. And so quiet!  No lion roars, no bugs buzzing.  

We are in a malaria-free zone here in Madikwe.  They Deet the rooms before we return in the evening so there is no need for bug repellent or mosquito nets around the bed.

A day full of wonder, a little fear, a lot of learning. We are so fortunate we have Mitch as our guide, in the true sense:  not only does he know a whole lot about life (and death) out here in the bush, he is eager to share his knowledge. You can tell he loves his job.

Next is our penultimate Morning Drive on Sunday.