WINE DINE AND TRAVEL MAGAZINE SPRING 2020 KENYA SAFARI EDITION

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DISCOVERING AFRICA SAFARIADVENTURE IN KENYA’S MASAI MARA 1

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RON & MARY’S

EDITOR’SNOTE

THE CORONA CORRIDOR The world is a much different place than it was when our last edition published. Since then, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned life upside down.

Chances are, travel as we have known it will never be the same. Many airlines, cruise lines, hotels, tour companies, and restaurant chains will not make it through massive shutdowns and quarantines around the globe. The travel industry is expecting an economic loss of $2.7 trillion, with millions of jobs lost as well.

That's depressing, but from an addicted traveler’s viewpoint, the inability to venture out into the world is devastating. We've discussed future travel plans with several friends who typically take two to a dozen trips a year. Everyone one of them is chomping at the bit to be back out in the world. So are we - and we’re not alone. A World Travel and Trade Association survey found that one-third of Americans would begin to travel within three months after travel restrictions are lifted.

It's still unclear when travel bans will be lifted. Americans most likely will face a long wait before they can cross the pond to visit Europe. The reason is we may not be welcome in many of these places we want to go.

At this writing, a number of Europe’s governments, along with their healthcare agencies, are hammering

out plans for “corona corridors.” Corona corridors will allow visitors to travel between nations without quarantine. Corona corridor planning only includes countries that locked down hard and early, escaping the worst of the pandemic. Our government did neither and Americans are not part of any corona corridor plans.

One corona corridor guideline is called "Europe Needs a Break." It's based on low contagion levels and reciprocity. Again, we do not make the cut.

The scattershot, contradictory, and mismanaged American approach to the pandemic, is the laughing stock of Europe. There's no doubt we won't be welcome any time soon.

The White House continues recklessly to play politics with the pandemic. Our leaders have falsely framed the debate on how to handle Covid-19 as the economy versus public health, the president's re-election above our nation’s well being.

There is no doubt that these actions will trigger more outbreaks and more spikes in contagion and death. And there’s no doubt that we won’t be included in any corona corridor anytime soon. Perhaps the only way we eventually will is to make sure we vote in November, for folks who will demonstrate to the world that we take this pandemic seriously.

Ron & Mary James Publishers & Editors

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EDITORS//PUBLISHERS Ron & Mary James ASSISTANT EDITOR Mia Sellfe ART DIRECTOR Don Inhousen

TRAVEL

COVER SHOT

CIRCULATION Jake Washington STAFF WRITERS Alison DaRosa Priscilla Lister John Muncie Jody Jaffe Kitty Morse FEATURE WRITERS Sharon Whitley Larsen Carl Larsen Maribeth Mellin Amy Laughinghouse Judy Garrison Wibke Carter Cover photo: Cover shot by Ron James of a Cheetah up a tree. The photo was taken with Oympus OM-D.

Margie Goldsmith .

Michael Burge WDT respects the intellectual property rights of others, andwe askthat our readers do the same.We have

Brian Clark Diane Covington-Carter Dara Beard

adopted a policy in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”)and other applicable laws.

Wine Dine & Travel Magazine is a Wine Country Interactive Inc. Publication Copyright 2020 Corporate headquarters SanDiego,California Contact ron@winedineandtravel.com

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BEST OF SHOW

BestTravel Story | Best Layout &Design | Best Photography | Best Column | Best Cover Design & Website | Best Feature Series

22 MAJOR AWARDSIN 2019

Since our first year Wine Dine & Travel Magazine has earned dozens of awards for everything that makes a great magazine. We’ve won top awards in every key category, including editorial, design, humor, photography, and columns. We’re proud we continue to receive these accolades year in and out from the most respected journalism organizations in the nation.

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GREATJOURNALISM THE BEST FREE TRAVEL MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD

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CONTENTS

& WDT TRAVEL WRITERS

Ron James

Wine Dine & Travel Magazine.

Mary James Mary Hellman James is an award-winning San Diego journalist and editor. After a 29-year-career with The San Diego Union-Tribune, she currently is a freelance garden writer and a columnist for San Diego Home-Garden/Lifestyles magazine and co-publisher and editor of this magazine.

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DISCOVERING AFRICA Timing is everything. We began our adventure in Africa, and the Indian Ocean, on January 20, we returned March 15 to a different world. The influence of the pandemic on our travels increased in line with its spread and impact. It was as if nature was heaping one kind of adventure on another.

SEA CHANGE My recent Indian Ocean cruise on the Azamara Quest ticked all the boxes in the dictionary definition of adventure - and more - as the world transformed around me in a matter of days.When my husband and I left Toronto in mid- February 2020, we looked forward to a five-week vacation built around a long cruise planned months ago.

Adjustments without financial pain were not options - or a possibility.

We’ve been driving up and down the dusty track of this 84-square-mile nature reserve for almost an hour looking for a leopard named Nkosi. At Okonjima, most of the carnivores have names and they all have radio-tracking collars so your chances of spotting some are good. Yesterday, we looked for cheetahs and today we’re looking for leopards. In the past,

Amy Laughinghouse LonelyPlanet.com, AAA Journey Magazine,Virtuoso Life, and The Dallas Morning News

Jody Jaffe & John MuncieMuncie BaltimoreSun

f TheSanDiegoUnion-Tribune,arts editor of The TheLosAngeles

Times.

The New YorkTimes and The LosAngelesTimes

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ESSAOUIRA Baked by the North African sun and buffeted by a persistent ocean breeze, the Moroccan coastal city of Essaouira lies about three hours west of Marrakesh. But its wave-lashed walled medina, wedged between the wild and windy Atlantic and an arc of modern suburbs, seems to exist in a parallel universe that transcends geographical boundaries.

FIJI MAGIC My husband and I have a home in New Zealand and travel there each year to swap winter for summer in the Southern Hemisphere. This year, I happened upon an ad for Fiji Air, with flights to New Zealand by way of Fiji. Why not? We booked it and scheduled a four-night stay to explore and experience the islands.

Alison DaRosa DiegoUnion- Tribune

The San SanDiegoNewsNetwork Travel the SanDiegoUnion-Tribune LosAngelesTimes,USATodayand

AOLTravel

Carl H. Larsen Carl H. Larsen is a veteran journalist based in San Diego. He now focuses on travel writing, and is summoned to pull out his notebook whenever there’s the plaintive cry of a steam locomotive nearby. In San Diego, he is a college-extension instructor who has led courses on the Titanic and the popular TV series “Downton Abbey.”

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Sharon Whitley Larsen Sharon Whitley Larsen’s work has appeared in many major publications, including Reader’s Digest (and 19 international issues), Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and Los Angeles Times Magazine. She’s the author of British Travel Tidbits (2017) and Travel Tidbits (2018), published by Sanbun Publishers in New Delhi. Sharon also had a two-year travel column “Travel Tidbits” in the Union Jack newspaper. Her favorite topic is travel (favorite destination London).

Maribeth Mellin

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Priscilla Lister Priscilla Lister is a longtime journalist in her native San Diego. She has covered many subjects over the years, but travel is her favorite. Her work, including photography, has appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Alaska Airlines’ magazine and numerous other publications throughout the U.S. and Canada. She is the author of “Take a Hike: San Diego County,” a comprehensive hiking guide to 260 trails in amazing San Diego County.

Wibke Carter German-born Wibke Carter has lived in New Zealand and New York, and presently enjoys life, love, and laughter in London. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The San Francisco Chronicle, BInspired Magazine,The Independent and more. When not traveling, she is trying to tame her two cats and improve her DIY skills

Michael Burge Michael Burge is an award-winning journalist who worked for many years as an assistant metro editor and senior writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Michael and his wife, Kathleen, have logged countless miles visiting adult children in Asia and Scotland.

The couple met as Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya, so they have no one to blame but themselves for their globe-trotting offspring.

Kitty Morse Kitty Morse is a Casablanca-born food and travel writer, speaker, and author of 11 cookbooks, five of them on the cuisine of her native Morocco. Her memoir, Mint Tea and Minarets: a banquet of Moroccan memories, and its French translation, Le Riad au Bord de l’Oued, are both recipients of a Gourmand World Award. https://www.kittymorse.com.

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Judy & Len Garrison Judy is the editor of Georgia Connector Magazine and Peach State Publications as well as a freelance writer/photographer/traveler for national/international publications including Deep South Magazine, Interval Magazine, Simply Buckhead, US Airways Magazine, Southern Hospitality Traveler and has a bi-monthly blog in Blue Ridge Country’s online edition. She and Len own Seeing Southern,L.L.C., a documentary photography company.

Margie Goldsmith Margie Goldsmith is a NYC-based author, writer and photographer who has explored 140 countries on seven continents. She has won 85 awards including the prestigious Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Award. She has written over 1,000 articles for Robb Report,Travel + Leisure, Business Jet Traveler, American Way, Hemispheres, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail.

Brian Clark Brian Clark is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer and photographer who likes to ski, kayak, scuba dive, bicycle and sail as often he can. A former staff writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, he now contributes to a number of publications.

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Africa DISCOVERING

ON SAFARI IN KENYA

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"The only person I envy is the one who has not yet been to Africa — for they h

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ave so much to look forward to." ~ Anon

REVELATIONS IN THE HEART OF AFRICA

W

e gazed at savanna sunsets so beautiful they brought tears to our eyes. We shared tender moments with elephants caring for newborns and stared in awe at majestic lions lazing in high grass.

With hearts pounding, we raced through raging thunderstorms and listened to giant hippos foraging outside our tent at night.

This was our Africa, on our first safari in Kenya's extraordinary Masai Mara.

Each game drive delivered unexpected and thrilling adventures. We reveled in the Mara's rich history and culture and forged friendships with extraordinary people who live and work there. In the end, we shared Ernest Hemingway's summation of time there: We never knew of a morning in Africa when we woke up and were not happy.

It took a while for us to explore Africa. Some of our procrastination was anxiety about crime, corruption, steamy weather, and disease. When we decided to travel there, we knew we needed to work with an experienced tour company to plan an adventure we would savor, not regret.

After considerable research, we selected Alan Feldstein, owner of Infinite Safari Adventures, based in Southern California. A "reformed" attorney and adventurer, Alan has ranged across the African continent for almost two decades, enjoying its many natural wonders, including the view from the sum-

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mit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. He brings his experience and passion for the travel packages he crafts for clients.

(Ours was all-inclusive except for international flights.) We benefited from his advice on everything, from where to go to what to wear. Plus, his team on the ground in Africa proved exceptionally friendly and competent. They were at our side from our touchdown in Nairobi until our safari ended seven days later.

with your tour company and have what you need to stay safe.

One major fear was mosquitos and the diseases they spread, especially malaria. We were prepared with repellents and medications, but fortunately, the pesky insects were not a problem on this trip. Because that's not always the case, it's best to consult

By early March, Covid-19 spread was declared a pandemic - and the world changed. We count ourselves extremely lucky to have traveled to Africa when we did and to be back at home, safe, healthy and sustained by beautiful memories made there.

On this trip, the timing was everything. We arrived in Kenya at the end of January, as worries mounted about a new illness, Covid-19, and a growing public health emergency. Fortunately, the outbreak didn't impact our experience in Africa, which included a weeklong adventure in mid-February in South Africa's Winelands.

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Nairobi Conservation and Rescue Lilian Kiliswa, infinite Safari Adventures’ operations manager, greeted us with warm smiles at the Nairobi Airport for the short trip to our hotel. We planned to kick back at the hotel for a couple of days to recover from jet lag before heading out on safari.

The Sheraton at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport proved ideal for catching up on sleep after the long flights that brought us from Los Angeles to Kenya, via Frankfort. With Nairobi's city center 10 miles away via clogged highways, we happily took advantage of the hotel's three excellent restaurants and bars.

During our two days here, it seemed at least half the guests were outfitted in safari garb. Some, including two well-coiffed women in heels, appeared better dressed for a Tarzan movie rather than a bushwalk. I almost expected to see pith helmets, but that didn't happen.

Photo Courtesy Rod Waddington

O

n day three, with jet lag fading, we met Infinite Safari Adventure’s partner, Daniel Kikemu, owner of DK Grand Safaris.

Daniel's company acts as Infinity's African operating arm. He and Lillian transferred us to the iconic Boma Hotel located near the heart of Nairobi and our base for our tours in and around the city before our travel to the Masai Mara.

During their briefing about our itinerary, Danial and Lilian casually brought up luggage. I knew where he was going. We had four hard-sided suitcases, and the small bush plane that would carry us to Masai

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Mara allowed one soft-sided bag weighing no more than 35 pounds. I quickly explained that we planned to store our suitcases at the Boma and travel with only one small duffle for our time in Kenya. Both Daniel and Lilian looked much relieved.

Accompanied by our friendly and knowledgeable guide Mbithi Dennis Katiki, we spent a full day in Nairobi getting up close and personal with baby elephants and giraffes. Our ground transport, expertly driven by Starphot (Star) Kitengu, was a humongous Toyota 4x4 Land Cruiser that seats six passengers comfortably.

THE SHELDRICK ELEPHANT ORPHANAGE Our first destination was The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi National Park on the southern outskirts of the city. A leader in orphaned elephant rehabilitation, the trust was the first organization in the world to successfully hand-raise orphaned milk-dependent elephants and reintegrated them back into the wild through its Orphans' Project. These infants need mother's milk every four hours for the first two years of life, and wouldn't survive without human help.

Dennis guided us through the crowd of waiting tourists and school children to position us near the entrance. When the rope barrier there dropped, we and everyone else speed-walked about 200 yards to a sizable roped-off dirt exhibition field. It was standing room only on a hot, humid day. We were grateful for Dennis' forethought to position us under the only tree-shaded area in the venue.

One of the keepers explained the orphanage's activities, as the baby elephants entered the field smallest and cutest first. They ran as fast as their little legs would go to their caretakers, hoisting giant

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bottles filled with milk. Each baby was introduced by name, along with individual histories and personalities. After gulping their milk, the smallest elephants entertained the crowd, wandering up to the rope barriers for pets and photographs. A half dozen older orphans celebrated their meal with a cooling wallow in a muddy pool that colored their gray coats red. In the heat of the noonday sun, that looked pretty good to us.

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THE GIRAFFE RESCUE CENTER Our next stop was an elegant sanctuary for the animal kingdom's tallest residents, thanks to their impossibly long-necks and legs. The Giraffe Center, a 12acre retreat run by the Africa Fund for Endangered Wildlife, was founded in 1979 by the late Jock LeslieMelville, and his American-born wife, Betty. They started a breeding program for endangered Rothschild's giraffes by bringing two youngsters, Daisy and Marlon, to their suburban home southwest of Nairobi.

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Now the site of the center, it includes open grasslands, a public feeding area, and one of the most unusual hotels in the world.

Center visitors take a cup filled with food pellets to offer any of the ten giraffes waiting eagerly behind a fence at the entrance. Hold out a handful of food, and in moments, one would stick out his long

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black tongue to scarf it up. Most of the time, the greedy fellows bypassed hands to scoop from the cups. Walk up some stairs and onto a platform, and you'll be eye-to-eye with these long-lashed beauties.

From the feeding platform, you can see Giraffe Manor, an exclusive boutique hotel that was once the founder's home. The Giraffe Manor experience is

very pricey - room rates start at $1,750. But where else would you awaken to Rothschild's giraffes poking their long necks through a window in the hope of a treat? Perhaps that explains why the 12-room manor is fully booked almost a year in advance.

Africa" or watched the movie based on her memoir and starring Robert Redford and Meryle Streep, knows her name. In real life, Blixen (who wrote under the pen name of Isak Dinesen) was a more towering personality than even Streep could portray.

One suite in Giraffe Manor is named for the legendary Karen Blixen. Anyone who has read "Out of

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BLIXEN MUSEUM A short drive from the Giraffe Center through the pricey Nairobi neighborhood of Karen brought us to Blixen's home and gardens, now enshrined as a museum. The upscale community of walled mansions sits on the grounds of her ill-fated coffee plantation. It was planted when this area was wildlands, and Nairobi wasn't more than a railway stop.

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We were joined by a guide, steps from the small ticket office at the property entrance. He walked us through the large lush garden, home to ancient trees, towering multi-armed euphorbias, and original farm implements and tractors. You could appreciate how Blixen fell in love with this place, especially as you lean against a tree she planted many years ago and imagine the scene back then.

The museum is in the home and contains many of the items Blixen auctioned off before she left Kenya sick and broke at the age of 46. Animal pelts that dot the floors contrast with antiques Blixen brought from Europe to furnish the rooms. A small alcove holds a footed tub where she bathed in hot water hauled and heated by servants she often treated like family and helped educate. Pictures

show that era as well as her life after Africa as a famous, prolific author.

Blixen's house doesn't look like the one in the film, because it wasn't. At the time the movie was made, her former home was owned by a nursing school that was unwilling to relocate. A nearby split level home was used in the shoot.

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CARNIVORE RESTAURANT It now was time for late lunch - a beast of a feast as the locals refer to a meal at the world-famous Carnivore Restaurant. A young doorman with a pith helmet (the first and only one we saw on the trip) welcomed us. The atmosphere, cuisine, and decor felt like The Girl from Ipanema meets Disneyland Jungle Cruise, complete with monkeys playing on the palapa roof. This was not fine dining; it was fun dining.

The feast is a fixed price and, along with salads and desserts, includes a seemingly infinite variety of grilled meats, sizzling over a massive wood fire inside the front door. You never know what's next as costumed servers wielding long sharp knives carve the meats

from spits onto your plate. It could be pork, beef, or turkey. Or maybe ostrich meatballs, crocodile or camel. Or perhaps golf ball-sized things we know as Rocky Mountain Oysters. We passed on the oysters.

We washed it all down with beer and very potent house cocktails called DAWA, which means a magic potion in Swahili. The drink was whipped up by a big guy, called Dr. Dawa, from ingredients on a portable tray that resembled those cigarette girls used to carry.

DAWA similar to a really potent Brazilian caipirinha and magically puts a smile on your face. We were still grinning and laughing when Dennis dropped us off for our last night at the Boma.

ABERDARE COUNTRY CLUB We were excited to begin the next phase of our safari as we joined Dennis and Star in the Land Cruiser early the following day. Our day in Nairobi was great fun and put us in the mood for the real thing - visits to wildlands where elephants, giraffes, and more were at home on their own.

A couple hour drive past pineapple and coffee farms, small villages, and bustling markets brought us to our next base, Aberdare Country Club. Don't be fooled by the name, this former homestead built in the 1920s sits amid its own 1,300-acre wildlife sanctuary. Yes, there's a full-service spa, golf course, and a decent restaurant. But zebras, giraffes, impalas, and warthogs wander the grounds, serenaded by exotic East African birds. If they're lucky, guests might spot a resident leopard.

Our grey stone cottage was large and comfortable, with a fireplace and a lovely view of Mount Kenya when the clouds finally cleared. Meals were served in the beautiful outdoor terrace restaurant and bar at the main house where we sipped wine, watched the sun go down and savored dinner by candlelight.

When we climbed into bed on the first rain-chilled evening. I yelped out loud, startled by a toasty catsized object under the covers. At first, I thought it was a critter, but quickly discovered it was a hot water bottle wrapped with a towel. It was a most welcome bed-warming custom we found throughout our early February stay.

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SOLIO GAME RESERVE After lunch at the country club, we joined Dennis and Star for our first safari game drive in the nearby Solio Game Reserve. Recent hard rains created lots of ruts and potholes for our driver to contend with as we traveled through the grasslands. It didn't take long to get used to the swaying and bouncing of the Land Cruiser. Its ragged rhythm is what experienced safari-goers call an African massage.

For the first 10 minutes, we saw mostly warthogs. They are the savanna's clowns and made us laugh out loud many times over the next few days. At the first sign of danger, their little tails rise like antennae as they dash away. But in a few minutes, they forget why they were running, the tails fall, and they stand still, looking slightly confused. This would not be a good trait if they were being chased by a hungry lion.

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Then the thrills began as we spotted our first rhino, an old-timer sunning himself in the grass.

We moved on, and just over a small rise, arrived at an enormous grassy plain studded with grey boulders the size of VW Beetles. As we moved closer, some boulders moved. We were looking at at least two dozen white rhinos, Dennis explained. Not indigenous to the area, all were brought here to keep safe from poachers. For the next two hours, we began counting rhinos. I stopped at 100.

Adding a black rhino to our tally proved more daunting. Endangered and shy, the huge creatures tend to hide in the bushes, which makes them not only hard to spot but dangerous. They can come out of nowhere and charge if they feel threatened.

Plus, they look like white rhinos except that their lips differ, so it takes real pros to know one when they see it.

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HISTORY OF SOLIO GAME RESERVE

In the 1960s, Solio Ranch, owned by Courtland Parfet, served mostly as grassland for beef cattle.

At the urging of his wife, Claude, Parfet fenced 22 square miles of the ranch to protect the indigenous wildlife, including Cape buffaloes, zebras, gazelles, and leopards.

A short time later, Kenya's Wildlife and Conservation Management Department asked Parfet to look after a few rare black rhinos. By 1970, Solio had become Kenya's first rhino sanctuary. Ten years later, it was the new home of 27 rhinos, white and black.

Solio also became a significant target for professional poachers. In five years, 21 white and nine black rhinos were killed by poachers trading in horns. A security and monitoring system was established to track each rhino. In 2005 a new photo-identification system and patrol teams cataloged 85 black rhinos, including Karanja, a 35year-old male, and one of Solio's original residents.

By the end of 2008, Solio recorded 150 white and 71 black rhinos. Continued breeding success has made it possible to settle 93 black and 52 white rhinos outside the reserve. Today, Solio represents the heartbeat of Kenya's essential and laudable rhino conservation.

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Rhinos are the stars of Solio, but we also saw a lot of other indigenous wildlife - Cape buffalos, zebras, and gazelles. As we drove toward the exit, Dennis stopped the Land Cruiser and pointed at the bushes. "I think it's a black rhino," he said. As if on cue, the big beautiful black rhino sauntered into a clearing. It posed for a few photos before disappearing back into the bush.

Our first game drive was a blast, and we were ready for more.

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Early in the morning, after breakfast at Aberdare Country Club, we piled into our safari wagon for the short drive to the Nanyuki airstrip and the flight to Masai Mara. Our Solio game drive still reverberated vividly in our heads, and we couldn't help but wonder how our safari adventure could get any better.

Before long, we'd find out, but first, we took a quick detour to the equator.

Veteran Shellbacks, we had crossed the equator several times at sea, but never by land. Dennis mentioned the invisible line crossed this part of Kenya just five miles past the airstrip. There was no problem finding the exact spot - two large yellow signs marked it on the side of the road, steps away from a neglected strip of stalls selling souvenirs.

Within a minute, a middle-aged local sauntered over carrying a milk jug filled with water, a hose, and a plastic bowl. After a canned speech, the professor demonstrated the so-called Coriolis Effect using his props to show the stream flowing clockwise on one side of the equator and counter on the other. It looked convincing, but the phenomenon really doesn't work that way. Still, it was an amusing stop, and we left with photos and an official "I was at the equator" certificate for only five bucks.

Back at the airstrip, we waited for our plane while sharing a cold Tusker's beer at Barney's Bar & Restaurant. Barney's is surprisingly hip little bistro catering to locals, aircrews, and passengers. Flying proved to be a most casual affair - no boarding passes, no security, no check-in. Just dump your bag at the gate for a guy to tag. When your plane arrives, wait until the passengers disembark, and the pilot checks you off the manifest. Then get in, find a seat, and fly out.

This was our first time on a passenger plane this small, which heightened the thrill of getting to the Mara. Takeoff was smooth, and the view out the window was dreamlike with farmland, grassy plains, and foothills dotted with villages and lakes. In about an hour, we landed on another dirt runway, then taxied back to the "terminal," a couple of small sheds, a covered patio with benches for a maybe a dozen people, and two brick one-seater bathrooms.

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Our driver-guide Simon Saidimu and his assistant Clara Kinyua welcomed us. They packed us into a specially designed Land Cruiser for the journey to our camp - and what turned out to be a spectacular minigame drive. On our short ride across grassy plains, Simon called out Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, topi and eland antelopes, zebras, and giraffes. He also introduced us to a gigantic elephant named Fred, a Mara legend we would see again during our stay.

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Simon hoped to show us the big five, a term coined long ago by big-game hunters referring to the five most difficult animals to snare in Africa. Today, we use cameras to document successful sightings of lions, leopards, rhinoceros, elephants, and Cape buffalos. Mara has one of the highest concentrations of big cats in all of Africa. However, they can be very elusive - as we soon discovered.

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KAREN BLIXEN CAMP A large sign decorated with a Cape buffalo skull marked our arrival at Karen Blixen Camp, our home for three nights Situated on the banks of the Mara River, this eco-friendly lodge houses visitors from around the world in 22 luxury canvas tents spaced along the river for maximum privacy and views.

A local Masai grabbed our duffle and led us down a narrow shaded path to our tent, a spacious suite with a king-sized bed, couch and chairs, a bathroom with a flush toilet, and an open air shower. Our fa-

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vorite area was the spacious veranda, where we could relax and watch the muddy river rush by, a result of recent heavy rains.

ters but one night heard thudding and thumping outside our tent. Staff told us the likely culprits were hippos foraging for tender grasses to munch.

Hot water is available only during certain hours morning and evening. There's electric power to all tents 24-hours a day, although if you're from America, you'll have to bring a converter plug. Power is generated by a complex solar panel system and stored in a bank of batteries within the camp.

Before our first scheduled game drive that afternoon, we walked back to the lodge for lunch. It was served in the open-air dining room or on the patio, both with views across the river. Watching a family of hippos was a favorite pastime for other guests and us when we were in camp. We also enjoyed the antics of bright yellow male weaver birds building nests that looked like tiny oval huts in a nearby tree.

And we laughed at mad dashes to and fro by dozens of resident dwarf mongooses.

Between dusk and dawn, guests must be accompanied to and from their tents by Masai men who light the way with flashlights. They also carry lethallooking clubs to ward off wildlife that freely roams the grounds. We never saw these dangerous crit-

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Karen Blixen CampTrust

Karen Blixen Camp is more than meets the eye.

Its hospitality business is just one aspect of a broader mission and vision, as we learned during a "backstage tour" of the complex.

We visited the two large kitchens that prepared meals for guests and for staff also housed on-site.

We also stopped in the trust's culinary arts school, where eager young chefs-to-be learn food preparation skills essential for jobs in the hospitality industry. Graduates, we learned, have won positions in restaurants and hotels throughout Kenya and other parts of Africa.

Other projects now operated by the trust include the Mara North Conservancy, a partnership among 13 tourism partners, and more than 800 Maasai landowners to protect the environment, wildlife, and local communities. The Mara Elephant Conservation Helicopter Project is designed to protect the savanna elephants threatened by poaching and human-elephant conflicts. A helicopter pad for animal life-flights is on the Campgrounds.

There's also a Vocational Education Initiative. In addition to the chef's school, it offers programs in languages, business, and information technology. It also provides business opportunities and vocational training for Masai women.

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In addition to the restaurant, the lodge houses a lounge and bar, where lots of comfy sofas and chairs drew guests together to swap safari stories over drinks. There's also a small gift shop stocked with logo sportswear, locally crafted carvings, and jewelry. A short walk away, beadwork is for sale, all crafted on-site by Masai women, who are supported

by Karen Blixen Camp.

Meals at the camp were eclectic and satisfying.

They offered dishes from Asia, India, and Africa, along with hamburgers, steaks, and other traditional favorites. An excellent assortment of cocktails, wines, and beers are included in the full-board package.

From the first day, Karen Blixen Camp felt right to us. It reflected the Mara and was dedicated to preserving this one-of-a-kind place. The friendly and efficient staff, predominately local Masai, welcomed us warmly and made us feel like honored guests in their home and country.

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GAME DRIVES IN THE MASAI MARA We initially wondered if three days in the Mara would be long enough for the African safari of our dreams. As it turned out, our time was filled with more adventure than we could have imagined - and that we will never forget.

Safariing can be a bit exhausting. Game drives are timed to coincide with animal activity. We set out before sunup, and late afternoon drives often ended after dark. After a couple days, you may be tempted to skip one. Don't do it. As we discovered, every journey was a revelation, offering something new and thrilling, along with pure adrenaline-fueled joy.

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Most Karen Blixen Camp game drives are within the Mara North Conservancy, a beautiful wilderness area that spans some 116 square miles. Karen Blixen Camp is one of 13 camps that partner with Masai landowners to promote best practices and preserve the environment, wildlife, and Masai communities.

This area by the Mara River basin boasts some of the most significant and complex wildlife ecosystems on the planet. Every year, nearly two million wildebeest, zebra, and gazelle make the trek from the Serengeti to this area to feed the tender grasses that follow seasonal rains.

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ELEPHANT CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Our first Big Five sighting was Fred, the grand old elephant with two massive ivory tusks munching grass along the road from the airstrip to Karen Blixen Camp. Fred's ever-present elephant companion, who has no name, grazed nearby. Like most elephants of their gender and age, the two males were nomads who left herds when they were 12-15 years old.

Fred is one of a few elephants that wear a tracking collar. Collaring is labor-intensive and expensive - each collar costs $26,000. Elephants like Fred with massive tusks are among the prime candidates for tracking to keep them safe from poachers. To ward off these threats, six anti-poaching patrols with 31 rangers, aided by two rapid response units, work in the area as part of the Mara Elephant Project. With efforts like these, Kenya has successfully stabilized its elephant population.

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More elephants awaited us during one of our first game drives. We were headed up into the Mara's rolling hills when Simon stopped the Land Rover and pulled out his binoculars. I used the zoom lens on my Olympus camera to make out what caught his eagle eye in the distance. Two big herds of elephants - more than two dozen - were just over the rise.

Simon maneuvered within 20-feet of the herds, that seemed unthreatened by our presence and continued to rip grasses from the soft ground.

There were several young males and some even younger babies in these maternity herds. Since they tend to be very protective of their youngsters, we stayed well clear of babies who didn't stay far from their moms.

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Simon noticed that some of the massive bull elephants were in musth, their response to females in heat nearby. Males can be highly aggressive during this surge in reproductive hormones and testosterone levels to more than 140 times normal. During musth, even the most placid male elephant can turn on humans.

When one bull came within a few feet of the Land Cruiser, we could smell and see the thick tarlike secretion called temporin along the sides of his head. It was another indication of musth.

Simon sensed the bull's irritability and started the jeep to move us away. Startled by the engine noise, the bull moved toward us, and all too quickly was within inches of the windshield. Now it was our turn to be startled. Thankfully this raging bull backed down as Simon backed away.

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PRIDE OF THE MARA

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“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.” ― Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

A highlight of most everyone's Mara safari is spotting big cats - lions, leopards, and cheetahs. The chance of seeing all three on a three-day trip is slim.

That's especially true for cheetahs and leopards that are few in number and exceptionally well camouflaged.

Some camp guests left after a week of game drives without seeing a single cat. We were fortunate to be searching with Simon, who drew on his experience to know where and when they might show.

Sometimes we journeyed to a promising spot several times before fortune smiled. In the end, we were thrilled to watch all three up close.

Lions can be difficult to spot because they snooze a lot in the camouflage of tall golden savanna grasses or inside cool, shady clumps of bushes. We

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came across our pride of lions - three muscular females and a majestic male - snoozing in the grass on a warm Kenyan afternoon. We are cat people, and we delighted in behaviors that mimicked house cats like rolling on their backs, legs splayed, or leaning back for a lazy yawn. If we were spoiling their naps, they didn't show it. I guess a Land Cruiser with four two-legged mammals is no enemy to this Mara royalty.

There were no cubs with our pride, but it sure looked as if there would be soon. In a feat that would humble the most virile human, the male lion mated with each of the females in less than fifteen minutes.

He was quick - sniff, mount, roar ferociously, and flop exhausted. Until the next time. Personally, I think he was showing off.

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After the orgy, they all seemed ready to nap when female number four sauntered out of the bushes, to the delight of another game drive group now parked in front of us. The new cat greeted her sisters before wandering to the male and batting him across the head to get his attention.

He looked interested, but this female evidently wasn't an exhibitionist like the others. She lazily walked between the two vehicles and, amazingly, the big guy followed. Along the way, he lifted his leg to mark the tires of both safari vehicles. No wonder lions weren't fearful of Land Cruisers - they owned them!

We last saw the two of them walking single file toward the sun until they disappeared into the splendid grass.

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SPOTTED AT LAST

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Leopards are beautiful, powerful, and damned hard to find. Pound for pound, they are the fiercest cat. Males are larger - and very territorial, but both sexes are incredibly strong. They can drag their kill, weighing more than they do, up a tree to keep other meat-eaters from poaching their dinner.

Unless you're a Masai guide like Simon, it's almost impossible to see them in the Mara's islands of trees and bushes where they live and escape the hot sun.

That spotted coat makes them practically invisible in that dim dappled light.

Our search for leopards brought us back one late morning to a thicket we had visited before. Simon stopped, sure that he saw a leopard napping in the deep shade. No matter how hard I tried, following his animated directions, I couldn't see anything. Disappointed, we returned to camp for lunch, hoping Simon's plan to return in the afternoon would prove the charm.

Later in the day, we piled back into the Land Cruiser, joined by Daniel Kikemu, owner of DK Safaris, and partner with Infinite Safari Adventures. He would spend the next couple days with us, contributing both his extensive knowledge of the Mara and his sly sense of humor. He was fun to have along as we set out again in search of the elusive leopard.

It was near dusk when we circled back to the grove we had visited earlier in the day. Within minutes, Simon stopped and pointed to a small clearing. There she was, sitting and calmly grooming herself. Simon recognized her and told us she had a cub that was probably still sleeping in the bushes.

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We were about 30 feet away, and I was afraid the leopard would disappear back into the greenery. She undoubtedly knew we were there but seemed unconcerned as Simon slowly moved our vehicle closer. Instead of retreating, she stood and slowly walked to a tree, about 15 feet from us.

more thrills were ahead as the full brunt of the storm hit. Jagged lightning bolts lit up the darkened grassland.

Thunder boomed so loud it seemed to rattle the jeep.

Driving rain puddled on the already saturated ground, turning our muddy route into a swamp. We were miles from camp.

Daniel pointed out that leopards are often spotted high in the branches of a tree, forcing safari-goers to patiently wait for one to jump down for a closer look.

Instead, our leopard entertained us by looking at a tree as if she was about to leap upwards. But she stayed on the ground, yawning and grooming as if shaking off her nap's drowsiness.

Simon pulled down the Land Cruiser's canvas and plastic sides to block the drenching rain, but by then, we were already soaked. For the next 30 minutes, he expertly maneuvered down slick roads, veering onto the grass to avoid flooding and potholes. In the headlights, we saw zebras, giraffes, and other Mara wildlife huddled with heads down with nowhere to take cover.

Captivated, we watched her for another 15 minutes, trying to ignore the coal-black clouds and rolling thunder in the distance. When it started to rain, she stood and loped gracefully past the periphery of trees as our Land Cruiser followed. Then, without a look back, she turned and disappeared into the bushes.

It was one wild ride. All of us were relieved when we passed the Karen Blixen Camp sign. In just a few minutes, we were home, welcomed with towels and blankets by staff, who had already warmed the lounge with a glowing fire.

We were exhilarated by our leopard sighting. Now

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What a fantastic day.

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WILD BRUNCH WILD BRUNCH Our last full day at the camp dawned bright and sunny. With yesterday's excitement - the leopard, the Indiana Jones-ride back to camp - still fresh memories, I couldn't help but wonder how we could top that?

The mud-drenched Land Cruiser we exited last night was sparkling clean as we joined Daniel, Simon, and Clara for the morning game drive. Today cheetahs were on our minds. It was the only cat we hadn't

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ticked off our list. For hours we looked in vain for any sign of the fastest animal on earth as we bounced around the Mara.

Our route on this day took us past large herds of cattle tended by Masai men. It's part of the tribe's arrangement with the camps. The herds move around to prevent overgrazing and damage to the environment. The Masai are provided with portable corrals to protect the valuable animals from predators of all sorts.

I also spotted some safari-goers in the distance, seated at tables on a grassy knoll. They must be on a walk-about, I figured, since it's verboten to leave your safari vehicle while in the wild. It looked like fun, I thought. Daniel laughed and spilled the beans.

We were joining them for brunch in the Mara. To our amazement, our personal server from the camp was waiting for us. We exited the Land Cruiser, and followed him to a table, draped in white linens and

topped with a small vase of flowers.

After a beautiful full breakfast, complete with sparkling wine and mimosas, Daniel strolled with us to a nearby viewpoint where the vastness of this unspoiled plain stretched to the horizon. On our way back to the jeep, Daniel poured the last of his coffee near the base of a tree. "For the ancestors," he said.

Little did we know how important this small gesture would prove to be.

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THE CHEETAH BROTHERS

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Because cheetahs tend to hunt later in the day, Simon convinced us to make another swing through some likely territory. Along the way, he stopped to talk to other guide-drivers to compare notes. He listened intently to the two-way radio for chatter about possible sightings. Nothing. After an hour, we started backtracking toward home along a rutted road that Daniel laughingly called the Mara freeway. Unwilling to give up the hunt, Simon paused the Land Cruiser one last time to talk with a Masai walking along the way. Suddenly he turned us around and sped back down the "freeway" before bouncing off the road into the grassland. In the distance, a lone tree jutted above the golden plain into the cloudless sky.

"There," Simon said, not letting up on the gas pedal. "There in the tree."

I focused my long lens, and, sure enough, there was a big cat on a low branch. A cheetah. At last.

We moved in closer - closer than I ever expected. Like the other cats, this one paid us no heed as he scanned the horizon for a meal. While we were looking up, Daniel eyed the ground.

"Over there," he exclaimed and pointed. Another cheetah, asleep, almost hidden by the grass.

Amazed at our good luck, we watched the two who are brothers for at least 45 minutes. Once they changed positions: the scout skidded down the tree trunk to wake his brother, and they switched places. It was an impressive teamwork. Finally, something caught the attention of the lookout, who stared intently at one point across the plain before leaping out of the tree. With his brother at his heels, he dashed through the grass.

The hunt was afoot, and for a while, we tracked them through the shifting grassland. But they were fast and camouflaged and much better hunters than we were.

We turned the Land Cruiser back toward the freeway and home.

"I had almost given up," I confided to Daniel. "Not me," he said with a knowing smile. "I ask the ancestors for help," he continued, reminding me of his coffee offering at brunch. "And they did."

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STORMY SUNDOWNER Mary and I were pretty whipped by the time we got back to camp that afternoon. We told Daniel and Simon that we might pass on the last late afternoon game drive.

"We'll keep it short," they promised. We succumbed to Daniel's charm and our team's history of remarkable outings. We relented, and we're so glad we did.

The sun was slipping low on the horizon when Simon turned off a well-traveled road and into a bowl dotted with the Mara's iconic thorn trees and ringed by dusky mountains. The golden light across the savanna was otherworldly and breathtaking as the trees turned to silhouettes against the reddening sky.

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I snapped picture after picture, including one of Mary wrapped in the traditional Masai red blanket, when I realized this was more than a photo-op. Simon and Clara were setting up chairs and a small table. Daniel lit a match under the firewood he had collected. Chilled wine and snacks appeared in front of the campfire.

Our new friends were throwing us a sundowner - a fabled safari happy hour. We were speechless - at this stunning place and the lovely folks who had made this unforgettable moment possible.

We talked, and laughed, and toasted, and laughed some more, until the changing weather finally intruded on our fun.

Bruised clouds split by lightning were closing in. Thunder crashed. When the rain started to fall, we knew the party was over. Our crew quickly packed up, and we raced to the road back to Karen Blixen Camp.

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We were flying through the storm when a gust of wind whisked my baseball hat away.

Daniel insisted on going back to find it, despite my pleadings to leave it behind. Simon backed up, Daniel jumped out and miraculously returned with my soggy cap. We cheered.

The joy of our Mara adventure couldn't be washed away by this deluge. Daniel, Simon, and Clara shared our high spirits, too, as they led us in a singalong of "Hakuna matta," the no worries anthem from "The Lion King." My contribution was a verse about my rescued hat that went something like this. "Hakuna matta, I losta my hatta ..." Well, it was funny at the time.

Before we knew it, we were back for our last night in camp.

The next morning, after breakfast, we made our final game drive with Daniel, Clara, and Simon back to the airstrip for our flight to Nairobi. As a fitting finale to our remarkable safari, we spotted Fred, the elephant, munching grass with his pal at his side.

After takeoff, we gazed down in time to see the Land Cruiser drive off into the seemingly endless sea of golden grass of the magnificent Masai Mara.

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IFYOUGO

Infinite Safari Adventures Alan Feldstein Adventure@InfiniteSafariAdventures.com https://www.infinitesafariadventures.com/ 888-745-2925

Karen Blixen Camp Karen, Nairobi, Kenya info@karenblixencamp.com https://karenblixencamp.com/ The Boma Hotel http://www.theboma.co.ke/en.html Sheldrick Baby Elephant Rescue https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ Giraffe Rescue Center https://www.giraffecentre.org/ Karen Blixen Museum +254 20 8002139 Carnivore Restaurant +254 20 6005933 Solio Game Reserve +254 725 675830 Aberdare Country Club

https://aberdarecountryclub.com/ Mara North Conservancey http://maranorth.org/

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A special thanks to Alan Feldstein, of Infinite Safari Adventures. Daniel Kikemu’s DK Grand Safari team and our guide and driver at Karen Blixen Camp.

Lilian Kiliswa Mbithi Dennis Katiki Starphot (Star) Kitengu Simon Saidimu and his assistant Clara Kinyua

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Birds of the Mara PHOTOGRAPHY BY RON JAMES

I

f you're a birder or just enjoy watching our feathered friends, Kenya is for you.

It's known as one of the top five birdwatching destinations in the world. In the Masai Mara, there are 550 bird species, from ostriches to eagles. Across the river, at the Karen Blixen Camp, we watched herons, geese, and sandpipers feeding next to the enormous hippos. In the savannas and we found eagles, vultures, weavers, starlings, mousebirds, white-browed robin-chats, and Scarlet-chested sunbirds.

I found that its hard to be a good bird photographer on a game drive. Unlike the big five, birds, for the most part, don't sit and pose for you while you're moving from one side of the Land Crusier to the other, and trying to focus in a tree full of branches and leaves. During our drives, Simon would point out a bird, and by the time I got the camera up to my eye, the bird had flown away. There were some exceptions; eagles, ostriches, and vultures we some of the birds that did cooperate. Here are a few that did.

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AZAMARA QUEST SKILLFULLY NAVIGATES TROUBLED WATERS STORY BY DARA BEARD | PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON & RON JAMES

Passen

M

y recent Indian Ocean cruise on the Azamara Quest ticked all the boxes in the dictionary definition of adventure - and more - as the world transformed around me in a matter of days.When my husband and I left Toronto in mid- February 2020, we looked forward to a five-week vacation built around a long cruise planned months ago. Adjustments without financial pain were not options - or a possibility.

That was before the Covid-19 pandemic.

ngers gaze wistfully at the canceled port stop of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The authorities did allowed the ship to refuel.

By the time we returned home a month later, our trip had been cut short, our flights rearranged without penalty and a hefty voucher for a future cruise filled my pocket.

Fortunately, we and our fellow passengers aboard the Azamara Quest were coronavirus-free during our more than three weeks on board. But pandemic fears around the world forced us to change course time and time again.

When we finally disembarked, our journey home took us through airports either eerily empty or packed with hourslong immigration lines. Borders closed behind us and flight departure boards flashed ominous cancellations.

Back in Canada at last, we complied with a government's request that returning travelers isolate for a period as we, like the rest of the world, focused on staying healthy and learning how to socially distance and keep pantries filled with mundane necessities like toilet paper.

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Cape Town The start of our vacation was everything that I had hoped. We arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, a few days before our cruise departed and stayed in Simonstown, about an hour's drive from the city, in the boutique Beach Lodge and Resta perched on Boulders Beach.

There a large and accessible colony of tuxedoed African penguins march heroically into the waves to fish during the day and then waddle back to their burrows at night. Though their home is a protected conservation area, you can get up close and personal with them on boardwalks that cross the dunes and vegetation. We saw every penguin behavior possible - mating, incubating, parenting, squabbling with neighbors, and the delightfully tender interactions of monogamous, life-long couples.

We also scheduled a day trip to Cape Town and explored some of its racially troubled past in two mu-

Penquins and Cape Town viewpoint by Christopher Robinson

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Chris and Dara at Bo Kaap by Christopher Robinson

seums. The first, the Bo Kaap Museum, celebrates the architecture and culture of Cape Town's Bo Kaap neighborhood that dates back to the eighteenth century. Colonization and Cape Town's long history as a crossroads for trade created a vibrant international community there built by freed slaves from many parts of Africa, slaves and indentured workers brought from Indonesia and India, and immigrant artisans and craftsmen from Europe. Its multi-ethnic Christian and Muslim population coexisted right through the Apartheid years, eventually demonstrating who was on the right side of history.

After visiting the museum, we wandered the cobbled streets of this close-knit neighborhood with its delightful, brightly colored houses, shops and galleries. Its Cape Malay restaurants offer delicious South East Asian curries that are less fiery than the cuisine in their originating countries, thanks to milder local spices.

Our next stop reached in just a five-minute walk was the Iziko Slave Lodge. Built in 1660, it is one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town and at its height housed 1,000 slaves, convicts and the mentally ill. It has seen a world of change in 360 years - altered and extended at least seven times as it acted as slave lodge, jail, brothel, asylum, post office, library, and Cape Supreme Court. The original building had no windows, only barred slits in the walls that mostly opened onto a courtyard that was the center of activities. The Lodge was so dark inside that, even during the day, lanterns were necessary.

Now a sprawling two-story museum, its exhibits bring into sharp focus the slave trade's economic drivers, the vast commercial infrastructure behind it, and the incalculable human suffering it caused, a legacy that shadows the present day.

Leaving museums behind, we next paid homage to Cape Town's incredible natural setting by ascending the cable car to Table Mountain. I feel there is something very special about a great city beside an ocean: Rio, Vancouver, Sydney, Hong Kong ‌ the list goes on, and Cape Town is right up there. Elevated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Cape Floral Kingdom in 2000, and declared one of the "new" Seven Natural Wonders of the World in 2012, Table Mountain offers breathtaking views of the city and harbor, still home to one of the world's

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busiest shipping routes. Though they may seem daunting, especially on a hot day, it's well worth the wait in long queues to board the cable cars.

Out to Sea After our brief travel hors d'oeuvre in Cape Town, it was time for the main course - our 26-day cruise on the Azamara Quest. A perfect size with only about 700 passengers, the ship boasted comfortable lounges like the "Drawing Room" and "Living Room," welcoming dining rooms, and bright, comfortable cabins. We were happy our stateroom had a balcony so we could enjoy the warm sea breezes, a delightful respite from the wintry weather we left behind in Canada.

Our fellow passengers were an intrepid, welltraveled, and interesting mix of Canadians, Americans, Europeans, Australians, and more. An astonishing number of Azamara veterans on board had logged dozens of past cruises with this line. The oftstated rationale was something along the lines of "we like Azamara because if something goes wrong, they will bend over backward to fix it." How prophetic those words turned out to be.

Food and wine aboard are of a very high standard.

On a personal note: I require a gluten-free diet and appreciated the unambiguous labeling, unexpectedly wide choices, and the care that the serving staff took to accommodate me - and others with dietary needs. Wines included as part of the cruise package are very acceptable – a variety of local South African wines, as well as European and American staples.

The main Discoveries dining room served international cuisine (the surf-and-turf was excellent!) as well as dishes inspired by our various upcoming ports of call. So did the Windows Café buffet with its themed cuisines such as Italian, French and Greek nights.

A major highlight, however, was the fabulous "special" buffets and barbeques offered during the sailing. Often the Officers would lend a hand – our Hotel Director Phillip Herbert was justifiably famous for his crepe Suzette! None of these feasts was more sumptuous than the signature White Night Party on the pool deck under the stars.

AZAMARA QUEST INDIAN OCEAN CRUISE

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Photos by Christopher Robinson

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South Africa Adventures Three exciting South African ports of call awaited us, and we took advantage of each to marvel at the extraordinary beauty of the African landscape and its extraordinary wildlife. It was easy to organize day safaris, either privately or through the ship's shore excursion department, for drives through the stunning, expansive, and untouched wilderness of Addo and Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Game reserves. Elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras – animals you have known since childhood - are majestic and humbling in their natural environments. It is a huge privilege to see these magnificent creatures in the wild, and South Africa arguably has the best tourism infrastructure roads, vehicles and knowledgeable guides - to enable you to do so. You can even enjoy a delicious South African braai in the wilderness – chicken, steak, game meat, boerewors (farmers sausage) and myriad accompaniments, cooked outdoors over burning coals.

My husband, Chris Robinson, is always drawn to adventure – especially the "hazardous and exciting" kinds. Early on in our vacation planning, he set his heart on a day trip into the mountainous Kingdom of Lesotho via the famous Sani Pass. From the foothills of South Africa's Drakensberg Mountains, this journey climbs 1332 vertical meters (4,370 feet) through the pass to the summit at 2876 meters (9,435 feet).

At times the gradient is a scary 1:4, and by law, only 4x4 vehicles may attempt this drive.

The local operator we consulted told us the road is often washed out by flooding and that this year's heavy rains were making passage particularly tricky.

Whether we'd make the trip, during our port stop in Durban, would be a "game day" decision made on the spot, and not before.

Often the greatest delight of travel is the people you meet – and Sotiris, our driver, was quite the character! Greek by birth, as a young man, he had been a member of the Greek equivalent of the Navy Seals. In the late 1960s, just as the military staged a coup – he left the Navy; and on a whim and a week's notice, emigrated to South Africa. After a series of businesses, from divemaster to fast-food operator, he launched his tour company.

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Basotho People Lesotho by Christopher Robinson

My husband and Sotiris quickly became blood brothers, egging each other on to feats of daring.

My plaintive concerns that we might not make it back to the ship from Lesotho fell on deaf ears. If we missed the boat, the guys reasoned, we could always chase the ship to its next port, nearby Richards Bay. Three things stand out from our Lesotho trip.

First is the stunning scenery of the Drakensberg Mountains. Africa still offers travelers the opportunity to view expansive landscapes virtually untouched by humankind. The pristine Drakensberg Mountains are magnificently carved, clad in verdant vegetation, and splashed with waterfalls. The Sani Pass is rugged, winding, and breathtaking.

The second is the beauty and serene calmness of the Basotho people who go about their harsh lives mostly on foot or horseback.

The third is the memory of my husband, sitting in the front seat, reveling in the details of Sotiris' varied life - and towards the end of our journey, talking with him just to keep him awake. This extraordinary character, probably well into his 70s, drove us for almost 14 hours, returning us to the Azamara Quest with 15 minutes to spare.

Basotho Lady Lesotho by Christopher Robinson

Turned Away As we sailed away from Africa, storm clouds started to gather, figuratively speaking, as we headed across the Indian Ocean. The latter half of our vacation would become an unexpected masterclass in customer service and crisis management.

First, our next stop, Madagascar, closed its port, denying us the much-anticipated chance to visit its native lemurs. We did dock at our next port, the French Department of Reunion, where we managed a rainy hike through the island's dramatic and unspoiled mountains. But passengers attempting to disembark a Princess cruise ship there the following day were met with violent protests by locals afraid of Coronavirus infection. Riot police were called, and the cruise ship promptly sailed away.

The next port was Mauritius. This island nation cautiously shared with us its beautiful beaches, plantation houses, and vibrant cultural mix of Tamils, Hindus, and Christians. This would be the last time we stepped ashore before the end of our cruise, 14 days later. And we likely will remain the last cruise ship to have docked in Mauritius for some time to come.

Meanwhile on board, our admiration grew for the diligent care provided by Azamara officers and crew.

Before we embarked, Captain Magnus Davidson wisely required a temperature check and health assessment of all passengers before they could board.

Once we sailed, he implemented "maximum sanitation" protocols. Uncomplaining staff wiped sanitizer on everything we touched - handrails and doorknobs, menus and tables - over and over again every day.

Officers joined servers in the buffet line as selfservice was banned. Everywhere, the Azamara "fist bump" replaced handshakes and hugs. When thanked for their extra effort, the universal reply was that they just wanted to keep us healthy and safe.

After Mauritius, our itinerary fell apart. Toward the end of five days at sea, the Captain announced that we were barred from our next scheduled port, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The country, however, would permit the ship to dock to refuel and restock supplies, he said.

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Photos of Mauritius by Ron James

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Passengers tempered their disappointment with respect for Captain Davidson's constant clear communication about our increasingly fluid situation.

How many of us have stood in angry groups at airports as a lonely ticket clerk offered no information about our canceled flights or any alternatives? By contrast, our Captain provided information honestly. He never spoke without a plan going forward coordinated with Azamara teams on board and at the company's Miami headquarters. He did not hide on the bridge; instead, he was visible around the ship, often hosting question and answer sessions with anxious passengers, even as he juggled our ever-changing cruise.

From the dock in Colombo, my husband and I gazed sadly at the city, we were not allowed to enter. We also were deprived of our journey's AzAmazing Evening, a complimentary event on every Azamara cruise designed to bring passengers closer to a destination, its culture and people. Ours was to have been ashore in Colombo. Instead, the crew staged the White Night Party, giving everyone a chance to blow off steam with dining and dancing under the stars. Many veterans rated it the best White Night Party they had ever attended.

We optimistically looked forward to a hastily arranged AzAmazing evening in our next planned port of call, Cochin, India. But once again, the Captain had to deliver bad news. India, too, was barring cruise ships, canceling our port calls at Cochin and Mumbai. Now our newly rearranged itinerary would take us to Muscat, Oman and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, before our final destination, Dubai.

Mounting uncertainty aside, we were thankfully virus-free on board. Instead of illness, we spread economic hurt in our wake. Sorry, Dodi, who was to have shown me the lemurs in Madagascar. Sorry Colombo caterers and local entertainers for our canceled AzAmazing Evening. Sorry houseboat operator in Cochin scheduled for an inland cruise through the backwaters of Alappuzha, India. Sorry, tour guide Varsa Joshi, who was to have shown us the crowded streets of Mumbai. Sorry bus and taxi drivers, restaurants, museums, hotels - the list goes on and on.

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Photos of Muscat, Oman by Ron James

By now, Azamara proactively offered passengers a future cruise credit based on their fare for this cruise, first 50 percent, and then 75 percent. I couldn't help but notice that the Future Cruise desk was always busy right up to the last day of our journey. That's a huge confirmation of customer loyalty.

And, the hopeful belief that "this too shall pass."

With global concerns about the pandemic mounting, the Captain very noticeably accelerated the ship to full speed for the rest of our voyage. No one seemed much surprised a day later when we learned the United Arab Emirates had closed its ports to us and that our cruise now would end in Muscat, where we hoped to dock 12 hours ahead of schedule. We understood without being told that officers wisely wanted to "claim our parking space" before this port, too, declined our arrival. The relief was palpable when the lights of Muscat came into view, and we tied up to our berth.

Getting Home I was working at a travel agency when the 9/11 attacks in 2001 changed our industry forever. The

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scramble during our final days aboard the Quest reminded me of the heroic efforts back then by travel professionals to aid stranded clients.

Our return home to Canada began with successfully obtaining a required Oman visa to disembark and travel to the airport. Along with each of Quest's 700 passengers, we applied online, working with officers' laptops and limited internet. Everyone on the ship stepped up. An onboard photographer took the necessary photos while the back office scanned our passports to attach to our applications. The crew helped the less technically savvy navigate the Omani website. Remarkably, everyone on board managed to complete the process just as Oman announced it would process no additional tourist visa applications.

Every passenger also had to reschedule flights to leave not only earlier than planned but to depart from Muscat rather than Dubai. Here's where good travel agents won clients for life while other passengers spoke of unanswered phones, long holds, confusion and chaos as they reached out to airlines and

internet travel sites. Again, the crew stepped up and didn't give up - even when U .S. passengers had to rearrange flights a second time in the confusion that followed President Trump's announced ban on flights to America from Europe. How tirelessly the Azamara team worked to help us get home.

A shout out goes to one who typified this nonstop effort. Cruise Director Stephen Millet worked morning to night helping with flights and visas yet still found time with his team to organize a Pirate Party for our penultimate evening onboard. He found the energy to entertain on stage for a couple of hours more because, in the absence of local entertainers brought on board, the show had to go on!

You might think that a party at such a time harkened back to the Titanic band playing on as the ship sank. But it represented to us the crew's dedication to serving us superbly as long as we were in their care even as they grappled with their substantial uncertainties. With the ship's next cruise canceled, they didn't know when they would work again or return home. But our needs came first - every time.

This experience underscored the lesson that, when the chips are down, a great travel provider is essential. With many cruise ships encountering difficulties, and some still wandering the high seas as I write this from the safety of my home, I count myself extremely lucky to have been on an Azamara vessel.

I can't wait until I can plan my next adventure with them.

Dara Beard worked in Canada for Air Miles and their travel agency Extra Mile Travel before becoming Producer for the weekly Chris Robinson Travel Show on AM740 Radio in Canada and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Covering destinations from around the world, podcasts and destination information from the radio broadcasts are available at www.chrisrobinsontravelshow.com .

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ST O M AL

AND OTHER TALES OF NAMIBIA

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Story & Photography by Margie Goldsmith

“I

hear her! She’s close by!” Rohan, the guide at Okonjima Bush Camp in Northern Namibia, holds up a radio transmitter that emits a loud beep beep beep. We’ve been driving up and down the dusty track of this 84-square-mile nature reserve for almost an hour looking for a leopard named Nkosi. At Okonjima, most of the carnivores have names and they all have radio-tracking collars so your chances of spotting some are good. Yesterday, we looked for cheetahs and today we’re looking for leopards. In the past, I’ve been on safari in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa, but never to southwest Africa. Namibia means land of two deserts, the Namib and the Kalahari. I’ve come to see the wildlife, do a flying safari on the Skeleton Coast, and climb the world’s highest and oldest sand dunes.

“Come on, Nkosi,” whispers Rohan. “Tell us where you are.” Nkosi means king in Zulu with good reason.

Despite its small body size, a leopard can take down prey twice its size. But they are difficult to see, even if they’re just ten yards away. Rohan has told me leopards can leap ten feet high, so if I see Nkosi, I should neither stand up nor look him in the eye.

“Nkosi could be watching us right now,” Rohan says.

I look closely through the tall grass but see nothing.

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Rohan listens through his headphones. “Nkosi is moving. Let’s find him.” He guns the motor and our Land Rover whizzes past zebras and kudos, two Oryxes and a giant termite’s nest. We pass ten giraffes, so close that I can hear them chewing the leaves from the top of a tree. Finally, Rohan stops the car and holds up the transmitter. “We’ve lost him,” he says. I try to hide my disappointment. I know I wasn’t guaranteed to see a leopard, and I can’t complain because yesterday I saw three sleeping chee-

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tahs in a clearing, four African wild dogs which looked like Rottweilers, a bat-eared fox with ears as big as dinner plates, and three nasty -looking African caracals not much bigger than huge house cats.

Suddenly, a large tawny-coated spotted leopard emerges from the dense bushes a short distance away and pads silently towards us. “It’s Nkosi!” whispers Rohan. Can Nkosi smell my fear? There’s no roof on this car. The leopard walks just inches from us and I stare until he disappears. “I think I know

where he’s going,” says Rohan. “Let’s go find him!”

We race down more dirt track until we come to a fence separating the carnivores in the wild from those who are being rehabilitated. Okonjima Bush Camp is home to the AfriCat Foundation, the world’s largest cheetah and leopard rescue and release program. The Foundation rehabilitates injured and orphaned carnivores and educates farmers and schoolchildren about conservation. Suddenly there’s an angry growl. Nkosi, facing a smaller leopard on

the other side of the metal fence, kicks up dirt to mark his territory. The leopard on the other side of the fence does the same thing. We watch for a long time before driving away.

To celebrate the spotting, I host a late afternoon celebration in the backyard of my secluded chalet by flinging birdseed around. I sit in a camp chair and wait for my guests. Soon, five grunting warthogs waddle over, gobble only the corn from the birdseed mix and leave. Next two small yellow canaries arrive,

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followed by a pair of Guinea Fowl, a yellow hornbill right out of The Lion King, and finches in neon colors of red, green, blue and yellow. I listen to the birds daintily pecking. It sounds like rain falling on sand.

By the time I shower for dinner, it is pitch dark outside. I start down the dirt path towards the dining area, about fifty yards away. The stars above me are huge. I’m looking at the Southern Cross when suddenly I hear a low growl. Lion! I stop. You’re not supposed to turn your back or run away from carnivores. The roar gets louder. My only weapon is my flashlight. An explosive roar blasts the silence of the darkness. I am going to die in the bush in Namibia and no one will know. My heart is pounding.

I am about to get into a crouch when in the distance, I see headlights. The roaring sound is not a lion – it’s an ATV in the distance.

The next day at Okonjima, I head out with another guide, Neal. to track cheetahs. We drive around until he picks up a signal on his transmitter.

“It’s Tongs,” he says, explaining that Tongs was two years old when she came to AfriCat. Four years later, a leopard bit her on the neck. The AfriCat vets patched her up, but then a warthog attacked her.

Again, the vets sewed her up. The other cheetahs pushed her out; again, she was attacked by a cheetah. She’s now been on her own for two years and Neal is relieved to discover that she’s still alive. We track her until the shrubbery is too thick to drive.

“We’ll walk,” Neil says, and grabs a wooden stick the size of a baseball bat. “Now if we see her, don’t run.

Don’t turn your back to her. Just back away slowly.”

We walk for a long time. Then Neil stops. “There she is!” he whispers. Fifteen feet in front of us, a cheetah is sleeping next to a huge impala, at least 40 pounds heavier than she. Neil whispers that Tongs is sleeping because she’s so weak from taking down her prey. I can see she’s already eaten the Impala’s rump. We move closer but as we do, Tongs opens her eyes. We freeze. She looks at us guardedly, then moves next to the impala and begins to chews on the foreleg. We move closer. Suddenly Tongs springs at Neil. He raises his wooden baton and screams at her in Afrikaans. I turn to run. This isn’t an imaginary lion – this is a real and angry cheetah. “Don’t run,” Neil calls and continues to yell at the cheetah, his stick raised. I make myself stand still. Tongs backs off and returns to the impala, eyeing us warily. We walk

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backwards until we can no longer see her, and then hurry back to the vehicle.

At dinner that night, I tell the General Manager that I was almost attacked by a cheetah. His face turns white, “Pease don’t tell that to anybody,” he says, “People will be afraid to come here.” I think for a minute. I wouldn’t want him to lose business because a guide got too close. “Ok,” I respond. “I’ll say I was almost kissed by a cheetah.”

Flying at “See” level over the Skeleton Coast The travel company I have chosen, cazenove+loyd has hand-tailored my dream trip. The next day I am flying 150 feet over above the famous Skeleton Coast with three other intrepid passengers in a Cessna 210 Centurion, Below, roiling eight-foothigh Atlantic Ocean waves crash into the sand and send up giant balls of foam. Here, the cold Benguela current creates dense ocean fog and the heavy surf

destroys ships. No wonder the Portuguese named this the “coast of hell” and the Bushmen called it the "The Land God Made in Anger."

We are flying at “see level” above the turbulent ocean past mist-enshrouded beaches, huge colonies of seals, and endless shipwrecks which stick out of the sand like ghost ships. We listen to or guide/pilot and co-owner of Skeleton Coast Flying Safaris, Andre Schoeman, on headphones. He explains that this

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desolate, timeless place was formed when the ancient supercontinent Gonwana split, creating Africa and South America.

Eventually we leave the shoreline and fly above endless swirling cream-colored sand dunes, the ancient ocean floor. The scenery changes to a narrow lunarscape canyon of metamorphic rocks. Andre flies Hans-Solo-like into its center, makes a perfect landing surrounded by rock walls jutting twenty feet into the air, then leads us on a walk to some fragments of clay pottery and a grinding stone, evidence of a 40,000-year-old Bushman campsite. He points

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out a large plant growing in the soil whose leaves are split in all directions. “This is Welwitschia Mirabilis, a plant that can grow 3,000 years and proves this is the oldest desert in the world,” he says.

Back in the air, the Huab River Valley looks as though there are large striated strips of tar everywhere on the rocks, but it’s lava, the result of a flow over 150 million years ago. We land on a dirt strip in the middle of nowhere, but conveniently, we are five feet away from a Land Rover, where a tall African man salutes as we step out of the plane. We pile our duffels into the vehicle and drive along the valley

floor. Andre and the African, the head staff member of our first safari camp, sit up front. The experts at cazenove + loyd had told me this Flying Safari was the most exclusive rustic adventure in the world, so I expected primitive campsites; but for the next three nights, we sleep in comfortable thatched roof tents equipped with battery-powered lamps, soft bedding, a flush toilet in the tent, and an outdoor shower with steaming hot water.

Each night I watch the sun sink beneath the copper-colored mountains and paint the sky orange,

pink and lavender. Happy hour is in the dining hall, followed by a hearty buffet dinner with fresh-baked bread and sinful desserts. I sleep better than I ever have. The next morning after breakfast, Andre takes us on a walk and explains the “Bushman’s newspaper.” He looks at a set of footprints and says, “See? A cheetah was dragging something.” He follows the footsteps down to a water hole, looks at new prints, and tells us that a young Oryx who came to drink was dragged away by the cheetah. We follow the footprints until there’s a mishmash of prints on the

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ground. “Here’s where a hyena chased the cheetah away and grabbed the Oryx. But where did he go?”

Andre looks around, then walks up a rocky trail where there are no footprints. Suddenly he stops and points to a bloody jawbone, part of a skull, and one hairy hoof. “See?” he says. “Bushman newspaper.

It always tells us the news.”

The next day we again land in the middle of nowhere surrounded by sand dunes in Skeleton Coast Park. This time, it’s not a surprise that there is a Land Rover waiting. We grip the seats as Andre takes us on a roller coaster ride up and down the steep dunes. At the top of the steepest dune, we get out and sit. Andre tells us to all push off at the same time. We slide down the dune which creates a roar as loud as a jet plane, explaining why these are called the Roaring Dunes.

The scenic drive through the Hoarusib Valley is equally thrilling.

A desert elephant gracefully ambles along the riverbed. We drive to a settlement of the nomadic Himba, a tribe with whom Andre grew up and who consider him family. Seven igloo-sized huts covered in copper-colored cow dung are spread out in a circle around an outer kraal (wooden fence). In the center is a smaller kraal where the calves are led each night to keep them safe from predators and where the sacred fire ceremonies take place.

A bare-breasted pregnant woman sits in a doorway grinding paste on a large ochre-colored stone.

Her entire body and thick braids, which end in a large plaited circle on top of her head, are all coated in the same ochre paste. Women use ochre to beautify themselves, protect their skin from the sun, and as an insect repellent. The pregnant woman smiles revealing a gap between her two front teeth. Andre explains that the Himba file down those two teeth so that if they develop Tetanus, food can still be inserted into the gap.

On our third day, we’re at camp overlooking the

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Kunene River which separates Namibia from Angola.

Andre drags a motorboat from out of the bushes and takes us down river. He points out at least eight scaly crocodiles that are either sleeping or studying us with their big beady eyes. He docks the boat on the Angola side of the river and we hop onto the sandy beach for a picnic lunch, joking about how we’ve crossed into Angola with no passports.

Climbing Big Daddy in Sossusvlei At the end of the flying Safari, Andre drops me in the backyard of the Kulalu Desert Lodge bordering the Namib Naukluft Park in the southern part of the Namib Desert. Here, I plan to climb 1,200-foothigh Big Daddy, the second tallest dune in Namibia. Before sunrise, my new guide Moses and I drive on a sandy track surrounded by high dunes towards Sossusvlei. Over 2.2 million years ago, these dunes were pushed into waves by the southwesterly wind and are now called the Sand Sea. The sun rises and turns the dunes from burnished copper and gold to blood red orange. An Oryx appears in the distance silhouetted by the sun; he watches us, then lopes away. “We don’t have the Big Five here,” grins Moses, referring to the African elephant, leopard, rhinoceros, Cape Buffalo and lion.

“But we have the Small Five: the elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, rhino beetle, buffalo weaver, and lion ant.”

Trudging up a sand dune is like walking in a thick bog. My foot sinks in sand to my ankle and I can’t gain any ground; it’s literally one step forward, and two sliding steps back. The razor-sharp ridge of Big Daddy snakes up towards the summit. Moses has taken off his sandals and practically runs up the ridge. I want to go barefoot also, but he tells me to leave my sneakers on. After more than an hour, we arrive at the top. Way down below us, eight antsized climbers are just starting up the trail. I look out over the endless marmalade-colored dunes, each with a unique shape. The hot wind blows on my face

and I breathe in the stillness of Africa.

feet into the air. ”He’s showing off,” Moses says.

Descending the backside of Big Daddy is steeper but a lot more fun because we run down the entire way, kicking up sand and screaming like kids. The mountain ends in a football field-sized dried clay riverbed called Dead Vlei where the Bushmen used to make pottery; its parched surface looks like elephant footprints on the moon. On the opposite side of the dried lake is a stand of petrified 800-year-old Camel Thorn trees. Their blackened branches droop down like old withered fingers, so startling I almost cry.

We get out of the vehicle and walk up a hill to a 2,500-year-old cave painting engraved in red ochre depicting a man carrying a bow and arrow and a baby and a pregnant woman also carrying a baby.

Both are barefoot. I want to touch the painting but I don’t. On our way down, I see big round patches of bare earth, called fairy circles, said to be over a thousand years old. No one knows what these circles were for, but it’s thought that termites caused them. I prefer to think they were the playgrounds of mischievous elves.

My spacious tent-suite at the Kulala Desert Camp has canvas sides with shiny cedar floors, a slate bathroom and a large deck where I could happily stare out at the ochre-colored hills all day. Instead, I drive out with Moses past Acacia trees and Bushman grass that looks like golden glaciers spilling down the slopes of the rock covered hills. I breathe in the aroma of wild sage. Laughing doves coo-coo from branches above. A springbok leaps ten

On our way back, we slow down for two ostriches with nine babies waddling behind them. We drive along until Moses suddenly stops the car. “Look! It’s a Brown Hyena!” he says. The hyena is pawing at the earth, looking for food. We get out of the car and approach, but it sees us and runs off. That night after dinner, I go outside stare up at the Southern Cross and the Milky Way which streaks across the inky darkness as thick as spilled cream.

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Essaouira STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY LAUGHINGHOUSE

A FUNKY, BREEZY MOROCCAN BEACH TOWN

B

aked by the North African sun and buffeted by a persistent ocean breeze, the Moroccan coastal city of Essaouira lies about three hours west of Marrakesh.

But its wave-lashed walled medina, wedged between the wild and windy Atlantic and an arc of modern suburbs, seems to exist in a parallel universe that transcends geographical boundaries.

Essaouira is an improbable mishmash of ancient Arabic and Berber culture, groovy surfer dude vibes, and 21st century Boho chic. It’s a mix of bustling souks and high-end art galleries, fishing shacks and sushi bars, traditional hammams and detox yoga retreats…the sort of place where you can take a camel ride on the beach in the morning and visit the organic Val d’Argan winery in the afternoon.

The city once welcomed musical legends Jimi Hendrix (definitely) and Bob Marley (maybe), and for many summers, it has hosted a huge Gnaoua World Music Festival, known as the “Moroccan Woodstock.” Hence its hippie street cred.

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Yet its medina is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site with golden walls and ramparts that are as fantastically picturesque as a fairytale kingdom. In fact, it doubled as Astapor, home of the Unsullied, in Season 3 of “Game of Thrones.” Even the inhabitants, many of whom dress in traditional pointy-hooded, cobble-sweeping robes called djellabas, wouldn’t look out of place as characters in the fantasy series, or indeed, as Jedi knights in Star Wars.

Stir all those crazily conflicting images into a cosmic frying pan. Salt with a liberal mélange of languages---the local dialect, classical Arabic, French, and English---and the haunting call to prayer which issues from tall towers across this white-washed city each day.

Then season with the sizzling energy of crowds clogging shop-lined pedestrian arteries where you can buy virtually anything you need—and a lot that you definitely don’t need but now realize you cannot live without. Aladdin-style lamps and intricate lacework. Rugs and bolts of brightly colored fabric.

Beach toys and antique books. Herbs and spices.

Fish and fresh meat that bear a disturbing resemblance to the animals as they looked in life. Rolling carts selling roasted corn, mint tea, and---Morocco being a former French colony---even cupfuls of escargot, devoured on the spot.

For a more in-depth understanding of the city, my hotel—the Heure Bleue Palais, a luxurious Relais & Chateaux property located just inside the city walls—has arranged a walking tour with local guide Rachida Hadimi.

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“Essaouira means ‘well designed’ or ‘protected’ or ‘little picture,’ depending on how you pronounce the ‘s,’” she explains. It could also be called “the windy city,” because, well, it very often is. “You’ll find sand in your ears, sand in your pockets…but it’s heaven for surfers,” Hadimi laughs.

While the sun, sand and surf remain constant, Hadimi has seen a lot of changes in Essaouira over the years. Thanks to its tiny international airport, which began welcoming direct flights from London in 2015, more English speakers have arrived, not only

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as tourists, but also as foreign investors buying property. And three miles south, in Diabet, a former hippie hangout has yielded to a luxury resort with two golf courses designed by Gary Player.

“We used to have only smokers of ‘herbs,’” Hadimi says, although marijuana has been illegal in Morocco since the 1950s. “Now we have golfers.”

But Essaouira hasn’t gone all upscale and posh.

Not by a long shot. In fact, some homes have no electricity or even running water, so their inhabitants resort to washing their laundry in a fountain in the

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street. A few people beg for money. Mostly, I’m struck by how industrious everyone seems to be.

All along the medina’s commercial streets, women are bent over stone slabs, endlessly grinding argan nuts to make products ranging from soap to oil and goat feed. In workshops around the periphery of the walled city, sawdust-coated men produce intricately inlaid trays, puzzle boxes and other keepsakes from local thuya wood. And at the port, fisherman patiently repair their fishing nets and sell their catch from umbrella-shaded stands.

The only beings that seem to get a free pass are cats, of which there are many roaming the streets.

Hadimi says they—or rather, their very distant ancestors—are credited with having saved the city from bubonic plague centuries ago, by hunting the rats which brought plague-infested fleas. Today, these bewhiskered regal residents are, by and large, among the most well-fed and doted upon animals I’ve seen in any city anywhere.

“The closer you get to the port, the fatter they get,” jokes Paolo Barbieri, an Italian native (and feline fan) who first came to Essaouira 15 years ago. Barbieri now runs a trio of guest apartments and local art gallery and shop called Mashi Mushki (translation: “no problem”) on Derb Chbanat within the medina.

“There are more and more boutiques and more and more shops,” he says of his adopted city, “but it has got a long way to go before it becomes one of those touristy places, full stop. People still live in the medina. On my street I see people going about their day-to-day life, not really aware of tourism. It’s the people that make the place, and this place is alive.”

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IF YOU GO Getting there: Essaouira-Mogador Airport is only 10 miles southeast of the old walled city, but it’s served by a limited number of airlines. Alternatively, Marrakesh Menara Airport is about 114 miles east of Essaouira.

Where to stay: Heure Bleue Palais is housed in an 18th century riad (a traditional Moroccan home) just inside Essaouira’s medina walls. It exudes timeless elegance in every detail, from its lush, shady central courtyard to the intricately carved woodwork of the English Bar and the Oriental Salon, serving hearty Moroccan specialties. Its 33 rooms and suites feature details like geometric tile floors and stained-glass accents that provide a sense of place.

Premium suites offer a working fireplace. A rooftop terrace, with far-reaching views across the city, features a heated pool and a lunchtime restaurant. Other amenities include a billiards room, a cinema, and a spa, where you can indulge in a variety of treatments, including a hammam, massage, or facial. Beyond the hotel’s physical properties, its greatest asset is the staff, who great guests with genuine smiles and touch their hearts—a reflexive gesture that is completely endearing—every time they wish you a good day. www.heure-bleue.com/en/ What to do: Heure Bleue Palais can arrange a variety of activities, including a guided walking tour of the medina.

Wine lovers should consider a visit to Val d’Argan (www.valdargan.com), where the vineyards are ploughed by a camel named Goliath; winemaker Charles Melia first made his name at Chateauneuf du Pape. The hotel can also organize a horse or camel ride along the beach (www.equievasion.com/en) and private cooking classes with the hotel chef. Sporty guests can opt for surfing, kitesurfing, windsurfing or golf.

What to wear: While some tourists don tank tops and shorts, both men and women might feel more comfortable with covered shoulders and longer trousers. The beach is probably not the place for your itsy-bitsy-teeny-weenyyellow-polka-dot-bikini, either. Consider packing a onepiece instead.

Tourism info: http://www.muchmorocco.com/locations/essaouira/ PHOTOS COPYRIGHT AMY LAUGHINGHOUSE.

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Story & Photography by Diane Covington-Carter

Likuliku Lagoon Resort in Fiji

not only offers a luxurious island experience, it is insuring that it will all be there for generations to come

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“Sipping champagne and relaxing on a lounge chair, I laid back and felt the sun on my face, listened to the gentle lapping of the lagoon, the call of a bird and the soft silence. Oh yes, this is paradise.”

My husband and I have a home in New Zealand and travel there each year to swap winter for summer in the Southern Hemisphere. This year, I happened upon an ad for Fiji Air, with flights to New Zealand by way of Fiji. Why not? We booked it and scheduled a four-night stay to explore and experience the islands.

But with over fifty resorts and hotels spread over the more than three hundred islands in Fiji, how to even go about choosing one? I was interested in ecotourism and one resort kept popping up, Likuliku Lagoon Resort on the island of Malolo Levu. We booked it for our first three nights.

The new Airbus plane was quite comfortable, even in economy. The ten-hour flight from San Francisco had us arrive early in the morning in Nadi, the international airport on the main island of Viti Levu.

Everywhere we turned, we heard a warm and enthusiastic chorus of “Bula!” “Welcome!” Even in our jetlagged haze, we couldn’t help smiling back.

I located Tour Managers, the company that would drive us to our ferry to Likuliku, but when I got there, I couldn’t find the paper with our reservation information. The kind woman who greeted us just smiled and said, “take a seat, relax, you’re on Fiji time now,” and handed me a cold drink. A few minutes later, after her continual smiles, the welcome drink and a

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few deep breaths, I remembered where I had left the paper, ran back and got it.

We settled in for the half hour drive to the ferry port. After more “Bulas!” and a coffee and pastry, we boarded the South Seas Cruise liner, which would take us to our resort on Malolo Levu Island, one of the outer islands in the island group called Mamanuca.

On the ferry trip, I turned my face into the fresh sea air and felt the wonder of being on my way to an island in the South Seas. How had we missed this?

We had flown over it so many times. From the ferry, we were carefully handed down into a small boat for the last leg to our island.

As our boat approached Likuliku Lagoon Resort, it looked like an ancient Fijian village, its thatched roof huts set back under palm trees at the edge of the natural lagoon, the crystal-clear water teeming with fish. At the pier, smiling staff greeted us, singing, clapping and shouting “Bula”!

“Welcome home,” a man declared as he helped me out of the boat. Looking down the pier to the resort, I felt like I finally had a true experience of what the word ‘paradise’ meant.

We had three days and nights to soak in the magic of being on this Fijian island. Already, I wished we’d planned to stay longer.

Our spacious thatched roof cottage, or bure, had a private outdoor shower, in addition to a large indoor one, a comfy king-sized bed, and a view straight out to sea. A lanai and lounging area was ad-

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jacent to our own salt water soaking pool. Sipping champagne and relaxing on a lounge chair, I laid back and felt the sun on my face, listened to the gentle lapping of the lagoon, the call of a bird and the soft silence. Oh yes, this is paradise.

There is a quality of relaxation you can experience when you arrive at an island and your only agenda is to slow down, breathe in the fresh, clean air and absorb the beauty. Or swim, nap, enjoy delicious food, have a massage, read or maybe head off on an adventure. Snorkeling excursion to the island where Castaways was filmed? Sign us up! Sunrise hike on Honeymoon Island, with coffee, tea, muffins and croissants served on the island after? You bet.

Likuliku fulfills all the requirements of a luxury resort. But the resort is also committed to preserving its natural, pristine and fragile beauty for future generations and to contributing to the local staff, villages, and communities. Woven into the relaxation, I was able to find out about the eco-programs that set this resort apart.

National Geographic named Likuliku as one of its sixty-one ‘Unique Lodges of the World’, a rare distinction. They describe their criteria as: “Where sustainability meets splendor. Each lodge is deeply rooted in its community and dedicated to protecting the surrounding habitats and cultures—and harnessing their magic to safeguard them for the future.”

Signs of sustainability efforts were evident in our

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bure. A five-gallon water dispenser hidden in a closet and two reusable aluminum water bottles replaced plastic water bottles. Ceramic in-room amenity dispensers took the place of the usual small, disposable containers. We were urged to reuse our towels, no problem. Paper straws and wooden drink stirrers replaced plastic.

In Fiji, sustainable tourism means not only caring for the land and the pristine and fragile marine environment, but also caring for and contributing to the people and preserving the culture of the islands.

That includes developing businesses that provide jobs, training and on-going development.

Fijian owned Ahura Resorts, which owns Likuliku Lagoon Resort and its sister property Malolo Island Resort, is an equal opportunity employer. The resorts are built on land that has a 99-year lease, with royalties paid to the local village clan, who are the landowners, as well as a monthly sum calculated on a percentage of income. Ahura also provides an education fund for the landowners.

Tropical Dry Forest and a resurgence of a species thought extinct Once, most islands in the Mamanuca island group were covered in tropical dry forest. Now, this type of vegetation is among the most endangered ecosystems on the planet, with only 1% remaining. Dry forests are also home to a variety of endangered species, such as the Fijian Crested Iguana and the Fijian Free-tailed Bat, Pacific Boas and Peregrine Falcons.

In 2012, Steve Anstey, General Manager of Liku-

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liku and Malolo Island Resort, took on a dry forest restoration plan in an effort to bring back the Fijian Crested Iguana. Anstey established a nursery which has since produced more than 6500 native tree species that have been planted within the resort leases, to try to stitch together dry forest patches.

In addition, Anstey implemented an invasive species management program to control the local feral cat and rat populations that were killing the iguanas. Because of these programs, the resort has seen a resurgence of the Fijian crested iguana, thought to be extinct, and many other native birds and animals.

Talking about the resurgence of the iguanas, Anstey said, “The idea that we could possibly bring a species back from the brink of extinction, how could we possibly turn away?”

In 2017, Anstey hired Fijian Sia Rasalato as a Group Environment Manager, to oversee a full-time program of conservation initiatives and terrestrial and marine restoration programs. Rasalato is the first in the country to have that title. The conservation trainings, education and advocacy programs are open to resort staff, guests and local villagers. In addition to the iguana program, other projects include turtle conservation, coral gardening and restoration, crown of thorns eradication, giant clam restoration, mangrove restoration, water quality monitoring and reef health assessments.

The resort’s conservation efforts have also been successful in eliminating eighty percent of single-use plastics at Likuliku. Other efforts include energy efficient light bulbs, environmentally friendly cleaning products, and regular on-going training and education of staff on environmental practices. The resorts’ state of the art sewage treatment plants use the treated residue for irrigation and reforestation projects. They also re-route resort run-off from entering the sea.

included environmental education into the Kids Club program, teaching the children about the iguana program and planting trees as part of their activities.

Cuisine at the resort also reflects sustainable values. Executive Chef, Ryan Ward creates a new menu every day to focus on the abundant fresh seafood and local produce such as pineapple, papaya, coconuts and fair- trade chocolate. A large garden provides herbs and vegetables and the resort’s beehives produced 150 kilos of fresh honey this past year, found in Salted Honey Ice Cream and many other luscious desserts.

“The essence of hospitality is in Fiji. When you come here, you can feel it,” Ward said. “In addition to our fresh food, being surrounded by that is a healthy thing.”

“This place melts your heart open. At the neighboring resort, the kids cry when they leave,” he said. “This is real, this is good, this is healthy. We are lucky and privileged.”

Ahura Resorts is doing its best to preserve this unique beauty and culture for generations to come. It states: “We support wholly the concept of sustainable tourism and believe that any development carries not only a legal but also a moral responsibility to ensure that the environment is not degraded through irresponsible activities and practices.”

We left inspired that sustainability and luxury can work together to preserve the magic of paradise. We can’t wait to go back.

Diane Covington-Carter, a native of San Diego, is an award-winning writer and photographer. www.dianecovingtoncarter.com

At the sister resort, Malolo Island Resort, they have

IF YOU GO Fiji consists of over 330 islands; about one third of them are inhabited. You fly into Nadi International Airport, on the main island of Viti Levu.

Fiji Airways offers reasonable flights http://fijiairways.com

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Once you arrive at Nadi, transfer to the port of Denarau to take a ferry to arrive at Malolo Levu island. We had excellent service from Tour Managers, for all of our transfers to and from the ferry and to the airport at 6am the day we left. https://tourmanagersfiji.com/contact-us/ The trip on the South Sea Cruises ferry to Malolo Levu island and Likuliku Resort was fast and comfortable.

https://www.directferries.com/south_sea_cruises.htm Likuliku Resort: Ahura Resorts, Likuliku Mamanuca Group of islands Malolo Levu island http://likulikulagoon.com

For an early morning flight, spend the night on the main island of Viti Levu, to get to the airport in time for check in.

We enjoyed the Hilton Fiji Beach Resort & Spa, then an easy trip to the airport. https://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/fiji/hiltonfiji-beach-resort-and-spa-NANHIHI/index.html

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