A very well travelled friend recommended Overseas Adventure Travel (aka OAT) to me for an African safari. She had been on the "Ultimate Africa" trip and loved it. The itinerary was exciting (Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe) and the price was very reasonable so I decided to book it. When I called, the agent was surprised by my date of birth and informed me that most of their travelers were retired Americans. No problem, I thought! I'd rather be with well travelled seniors than rowdy, entitled 20 something's.
After my amazing solo safari in Tanzania and an awful group day trip in Cape Town, I became a bit concerned about a 15 day group trip. It started with a flight to Zimbabwe and a long...hot...wait....in the customs line. Then there was a drive to Botswana and we finally settled into our rustic tented camp. I was in a mild panic : spiders in my room, no wifi, 530am wake up call, structured days with little downtime, many hours with complete strangers.
I could tell the 7 couples were curious as to why a solo woman the age of their children had decided to join them. I think they were probably worried I wouldn't fit in or wouldnt want to spend time with them. After spending 2 weeks in four different camps and visiting Victoria Falls, I felt like we were all old friends! I couldn't have met a better group. Everyone was adventurous, respectful, curious and genuinely thrilled to be on the trip. (It's not always easy to be chipper when you're bouncing around on a jeep in 100degrees, not finding any animals and surviving on instant coffee!)
The women looked after me. One day I was late for breakfast, and one quipped, "your 7 mothers were worried about you!" As we spent time in jeeps, buses, boats, planes, airports, runways, camps and the bush, we got to know each other. It was wonderful to hear about each couples' lives and previous travels.
One bonding experience was 'traditional night', in which on the last night at each camp, the employees performed songs for us and then expected us to perform in return. The first time, we slogged through 'This Land is Your Land' and 'God Bless America', neither of which I had sung in over 20 years. (I think most of you know that I can't sing at all). For the second night, we couldn't decide what songs to add, so I ended up leading an impromptu performance of 'When the Saints'. I introduced the song by saying it was a marching song, a jazz song, but had also become something more post Katrina- the theme song of a city that refused to be left behind and was rebuilt in spite of incredible hardships, in other words a true example of the American spirit. The song went over well and I ended up as a sort of bandleader after that -ha! My fellow traveller Bets (who can sing) thankfully took charge, and added a farewell song. The last night, we got ambitious. We sang the three previous songs and then, before the farewell song, we added "The Twist" and got all of the camp staff to dance it with us. They said we set the record for the most songs performed and we were the only group that got them to dance. They also made us drum and dance traditional dances, which I'm sure they found quite entertaining!
As I write this, it's the last night of our trip, we head to Jo'burg tomorrow and then part ways. I'm really going to miss my fellow travelers. Our trip leader, Wallace, said there is an African saying, "you meet to part and you part to meet". I hope I will meet new people as adventurous as these, and I hope that I will see this group again.
You're having such an amazing trip!
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