Daniele Somenzi's South Africa

South Africa 2007 with Donato On 6 March, departure with Donato, my travelling companion with whom I've been to the USA, Samoa Islands, New Zealand, Alaska, Bahamas, Canada, Hawaii and the Marshall Islands.

After a pause of a few years, we decided to make a little hop to see the meerkats of the Kgalagadi park, starting from Johannesburg and ending at Cape Town, just about ten days. We fly from Pisa to London Stansted with the legendary Ryanair; who hasn't already flown with this airline. There, we take a bus that takes us to Heathrow airport; the bus ticket cost us more than the Ryanair one from Pisa. Go figure! We have in the afternoon the beautiful Virgin Atlantic flight, considered by me the second most beautiful airline of all, second only to Emirates; we fly with an Airbus 340 all night; the flight is ok and the landing too. Here we hire a VW Polo so new it has only 70 km on the clock. Let's hope we don't ding it; anyway, as always, we took out all the insurance.

A quick stop at my friend Guido's little bar for a hello and then off towards Kuruman; however, inside Johannesburg, we can't find the N14 main road, and we practically get lost. It's not like me, it rarely happens to me; yes, I go with maps, but when I'm driving I can't look at it, it depends on my co-driver whether he interprets it well; many times I also go by feel, that is depending on where the sun is; if I know I have to go west and it's afternoon, I follow the sun and so on. Anyway in the end we find the road, a stop for a game of billiards and then on to Kuruman, where we sleep like logs, after the night spent seated on the plane.

The next morning, well rested, we set off for the north, where the road after about fifty km turns from tarmac into a gravel road, unpaved, up to Askham, where after a good while we finally find a petrol station where, as a precaution, we fill up and download the messages on our mobiles, since there's a signal and here it works. We continue to the Kgalagadi national park, but first we stop at the usual Bushman who sells local objects. So I take my usual little suitcase full of clothes, shoes and toys that we were throwing away in Italy, and barter for a couple of bows with little arrows and an ostrich egg; practically I left him the whole suitcase and also a radio I no longer used. A little further on we visit the Molopo lodge, where Donato buys an ostrich egg for one euro.

At Twee Rivieren, just inside the gate of the Kalahari national park, we camp for the night; we've brought 2 foam mattresses from Italy and my usual three-person tent. The heat and the stars in the evening make it all magical. The next day we set off for Nossob, and safari all day; for a short stretch we even crossed into Botswana, where they've built a campsite complete with toilets and everything, without any fence, so at your own risk; here the lions roam freely everywhere. At Mata Mata we spend the night in a tent, a dip in the pool, and then a night safari staying inside the fenced area, watching the waterhole just beyond the net, lit by a floodlight; shortly after a cheetah came to drink; Donato was over the moon, I was happy too, but I'd already seen many cheetahs, whereas he hadn't.

The next day, more safari, we stop for a visit to the Kalahari Tents, to show them to Donato; I'd already slept there when I came with my brother and my mum. Golden jackals, secretary birds, oryx, wildebeest, giraffes, springbok, lions, hyenas; these are only a part of the free animals we saw. We move to Upington to sleep and the next day to the Augrabies Falls national park, complete with a walking safari, and swims in the pool at 35 degrees. The waterfalls, very beautiful, of the Orange River, hide at their base the diamonds that the De Beers Company searches far and wide both in South Africa and in Namibia. In the evening the stars here are fabulous; since we're in the southern hemisphere, we see stars that back home in Italy we don't see; here there are many more. We set off heading west towards Springbok, where we spend the night in a guest house at a nice little old lady's.

The next day, full of petrol and off to Port Nolloth, off all tourist itineraries, and then north along the Atlantic Ocean and its very cold Benguela current; indeed it's populated by seals. At Oranjemund, which is already in Namibia, we again skirt the Orange River up to the Richtersveld national park, which though doesn't attract us much as it has no large animals, so we decide to return to sleep at Port Nolloth, but first we swap some clothes for some old car plates for a collection, and take a few photos of the farm ostriches. In Namibia and South Africa, given the high number of black people with AIDS, the government distributes free condoms, and in every hotel we find 4 in the bedside drawer, along with the inevitable Bible. Before leaving this town, I buy a wig that has us splitting our sides for a good while.

We head back towards Springbok which we pass and head south, and in the evening we're in a beautiful guest house a few km from Cape Town. Unfortunately the last day has come, and driving towards Cape Town, we see to our right the only nuclear power station in South Africa and all of Africa; then a visit to Sea Point and to the hill next to the Table Mountains, to see Robben Island where Mandela was imprisoned for many years. In the evening, after filling up, we return the car and, since we use up some miles for an upgrade on the plane, on this leg we both fly first class and before boarding we stop in the VIP lounge. Donato is super happy with this gift I gave him. The hostesses immediately ask us if we want some champagne, and at what time we book the massages; incredible.

The seat isn't a seat but a bed, which is prepared for us complete with sheets by the hostesses 2 hours after departure; what a treat. The flight passed in a flash, and that's because we slept the whole night; on arrival in London we didn't want to get off from that luxury. Virgin Atlantic, I like it more and more. A change of airport in reverse to take the B737 with winglets for Pisa, where someone is already waiting to take us to Massa.

bye bye