The Notebook

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In brief, 100/10 stars (not a typo), would absolutely do again. Would love to do again. The Okavango Explorers Camp is wonderful, and the Great Plains Conservancy has plenty more to choose from in different countries. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Yes, it is a little costly, but well, well, well, well worth it.

 

This isn’t really a review of the camp or a play-by-play travelog or anything like that. This is more like...odds and ends of things I noticed. Minor reviews and remarks, I guess.

 

Airlines

 

United Airlines sucks, but it’s (relatively) cheap, and they’re big enough that you can pretty much get a flight anywhere at any time. I think that’s basically the only reason people use them. The food is...edible, assuming you have a long enough flight to get anything to eat, even snacks. We had both short- and long-haul flights ranging from under an hour to over fourteen hours. Takeoffs and landings were stomach-churning and I did get sick once right as we landed in Johannesburg, South Africa. No complaints about the cabin crew. Overall, I mean, you get what you pay for.

 

Swiss Air is lovely, although we only had two long-haul flights with them. Tons of food which included two appetizers, an entree, and a dessert (plus extra chocolate at the end of the flight). The appetizers and desserts were pretty good, entrees were prepackaged industrial, same as United. Takeoffs and landings were as smooth as one could expect from taking a hulking metal beast weighing thousands of pounds and either getting it up to speed or bringing it to a stop. Cabin crew was nice, but they obviously preferred those passengers who could speak German. Not a bad experience, would fly them again.

 

Airlink is an absolutely fantastic airline, even on the short-haul (about an hour and a half or so). The food is basically boxed lunches prepared for that flight and they taste amazing. The portions are smaller, but simply delectable. I cannot say enough good about them; they have given me a couple ideas of things I want to try in my own cooking. Takeoffs were smooth. At one point, we were flying through and having to land in a major thunderstorm. I was preparing for a rollercoaster, but it was like butter. You could not have asked for a nicer landing. Cabin crew was very friendly. If I ever get back to Africa and need to fly, would absolutely choose them.

 

Mack Air is a small fleet of bush planes and puddle jumpers, so, obviously, just short hops from here to there, and nothing to eat although bottled water was always on hand considering how hot it was. The pilots were always entertaining. Landings were a bit rough, but that might have had more to do with the runways than the planes or pilots.

 

Airports (not including our local one)

 

Chicago O’Hare is...oddly sterile. After considering all of the other airports, it’s just...sterile. Other than a bit of art depicting Chicago, there is no Americana to be found. There are no trinkets or Tshirts or little baubles that anyone just passing through the United States can find to take home as a memento. There are some food vendors and such, but the whole place is...oddly, wholly industrial.

 

Newark (New York/New Jersey) is, as my mom describes it, a shopping mall with airplanes. Absolutely massive, filled to the brim with vendors (many of them clothes and beauty), lit up like the cosmopolitan area it services. Very glitzy, kind of annoying in that regard. It never really felt like an airport; it really is a shopping mall with airplanes. And, like Chicago, there is no Americana to be found, no trinket vendors for curios and mementos.

 

OR Tambo International (Johannesburg, South Africa) is actually a really fun airport, but that could just be that starry-eyed tourist talking. Very smooth to get through, no real problems. There is an attached hotel and massive parking garage making the whole place feel much, much bigger than it is. Like Newark, the interior area is kind of more of a shopping mall with all manner of shops for curios, clothes, jewelry, and whole restaurants. The neat thing is that while intercontinental flights were connected via the normal moving gates that attach directly to the planes, everything else is done by shuttling people by bus out to the plane on the tarmac like it’s the 1970s. It was pretty great. Also, there is security everywhere. Airport security, local police, federal police, and military, all very much present.

 

Maun International Airport (Maun, Botswana) was probably the most unsettling because we never had any indication of what was going to be expected of us. Basically you are given a piece of paper to fill out which details your itinerary for your stay, and some of the information we didn’t readily have because we didn’t know we needed it. Language barriers only exacerbated the problem. You know they’re speaking English, but you still can’t understand what they’re saying. It was the teeniest, tiniest of formal airports that we stopped at, and we were too happy to make it through each time. There was one vendor in the airport that was more like a concession stand with a few curios; all of the souvenirs were found right outside the airport in the scalpers’ marketplace.

 

Each of the camps also had a small airstrip where the bush planes landed. Because the ground is gypsum, it has no structure in and of itself and has to be chemically hardened. Well, heavy critters like elephants can sometimes break through this chemically-hardened layer and effectively create potholes in the runway, making for exciting landings.

 

Zurich International Airport (Zurich, Switzerland), at first, was terrifying to walk into. Concrete, steel, bad lighting, you kind of feel like you’re about to get mugged. And the maps suck. Entirely unhelpful. It was interesting, however, that if you fly in from an international flight and need to connect immediately to another international flight, you don’t actually have to go through passport control and customs; you can go straight to the next flight without needing to talk to any officials, or that’s what we were told by the passport control guys when we finally found them in another terminal entirely, completely lost because the maps are garbage. But, once you get in, it’s a nice airport with chocolate in every store that isn’t a dedicated chocolate store and at least three “Spirit of Switzerland” shops full of all sorts of trinkets. It is also worth noting that every purchase made in the airport requires you to scan your boarding pass. Everything sold in the airport is federally-controlled and they want to know who is buying what (or something to that effect).

 

Customs, Passport Control, and Security

 

South Africa was a little intimidating just because it was our first experience with such things. The US is considered visa exempt, so we were in a different line than people from countries who required a visa. And that was really about it. There was no trouble whatsoever any of the times we passed through the airport. Security was pretty standard, stuff in the bins, metal detectors, keep moving. People were serious but no one was unfriendly. Basically the whole process took maybe ten minutes.

 

Botswana was very intimidating, and the biggest reason was probably the language barrier. You knew they were speaking English, but you still weren’t sure what they were saying because of how thick the accent was (for reference, “eepa” is “iPad”). These guys were also less than friendly and did not seem pleased at all with having to let tourists in or out. Security was about the same as South Africa. If there weren’t a language barrier, might have been five minutes to get through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Switzerland was ridiculously easy. We didn’t even need to go through customs except we wanted to visit the shops in the interior of the airport. Apparently the airport was divided by European flights and everyone else. The passport control guy tried to turn us away because our next flight was to Chicago. When we told him that we just wanted to visit the shops, he rolled his eyes, stamped our passports, and waved us through. Returning to our appropriate terminal was just as easy. Two minutes tops, and security was also quite tame.

 

Returning to the United States, in Chicago, we were met with a line that took at least an hour and a half to get through. Twelve rows of lines weaving back and forth, then down one hall, around the corner, down another hall, around another corner, then down a third hall. Adam and I got separated at the end by one of the people trying to keep things moving quickly, put us in different booth lines. Then the agent questioning me at the booth had the audacity to chastise me for not sticking together. And then, as a note, anyone coming into the US has to claim their checked baggage. Doesn’t matter if you’re continuing to fly, you have to claim your baggage, then re-check it through security for your next flight. It didn’t affect us because we had no checked baggage, but it was not a good day for anyone who did. Dozens of people missed their connecting flights because of the long wait time. And then, TSA was an extra nightmare because my bag got confiscated. Apparenlty my water bottle still had water in it that I didn’t realize. Made it through multiple airports without an issue, but in the US, I’m apparently a terrorist. We thought we had a generous layover of two hours, and even we were running through the airport, reaching our gate right as they started boarding. It was not a good time in any sense of the word and there were no happy campers.

 

Food

 

The food at camp was amazing, but this is just for a few specific instances outside of that.

 

Apparently root beer is a North American thing because no one on any other continent had any clue what I was asking for, no matter how good their English. Non-alcoholic beverage options were basically Coke, Sprite, Orange Fanta, Powerade, fruit juices, an enormous selection of teas, and either sparkling or still water. Soft drinks taste very different because they use real ingredients and no chemicals. I hate Powerade here, but over there, it is actually delicious and refreshing. And if you’re not into soft drinks or energy drinks, sparkling water is apparently the default.

 

Because of shenanigans, we ended up going to Burger King in the Zurich Airport. I got a crispy chicken sandwich, onions rings, water, and a caramel sundae. Couldn’t figure out why water was 3 francs, but, hey, airport scalpers, amirite? Sandwich was nothing remarkable, although it did not give me a gutache like fast food here does. Onion rings were quite good, crispy, crunchy, without being nasty greasy. Took a swig of water and nearly died. Sparkling water, not still water. Actually I first though they gave me Sprite by mistake. Either way, it was nasty and I could not drink it. The caramel sundae was a delicious alternative.

 

I also ended up buying a fair amount of chocolate in both South Africa and Switzerland. For science, I promise. The South African chocolate (brand: Winston and Julia) was all dark chocolate, ranging from 56% to 70%. The Swiss chocolate (brand: Frey) was milk chocolate, dark chocolate (55%), and white chocolate. First off, it was all good. It was real chocolate, devoid of any nasty waxiness or artificial flavoring. But the Swiss chocolate still had an odd taste that I can only describe as still being industrially produced. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t like I was tasting chemicals or wax, but it definitely still had the taste of having come from a factory with an immovable recipe and perfect uniformity in execution. Meanwhile, the South African chocolate did not have such a uniform taste. In the bar with the crushed coffee beans, there were nibs that had lots of coffee, and nibs with less coffee. In the bar with the orange confit, there were nibs that were very strong in orange flavor, and others that were very subtle.

 

Social Atmosphere/Disposition

 

This is more about the general feel of people in the airports and surrounding areas, and, in the case of non-American countries, is generally referencing the non-American population.

 

South Africa was definitely very loose, very friendly. Yes, security was noticeable. Yes, some people were in a hurry to get to their next flight, or maybe worried due to the nature of their travel. But overall, anywhere you looked, people were laughing, talking, and just having a good time. Anyone was happy to talk, ask questions, answer questions, whatever you needed.

 

Botswana at the airport definitely had the feel of “tourists not wanted,” but outside the airport, very friendly, happy to talk. Locals were more than happy to brag about themselves or the local area, and they enjoyed hearing about the rest of the world.

 

Switzerland was generally chill, but also very formal and very private. There wasn’t much voluntary interaction between strangers, or familiars for that matter. Everything felt very impersonal. Polite, yes, but impersonal and disinterested.

 

United States was frustrated, up-tight, angry. There might be small, friendly, pop-up conversations between people in line or sitting nearby at a gate waiting to board, but there was a soul-sucking urgency and sense of dread that seemed to hang over everything and everyone. No one wanted to be there, no one was excited to be there, everything was just about getting on the next plane and getting tf out.

 

Closing Remarks

 

Like I said, this wasn’t meant to be a detailed travelog or review, just some observations I collected since I had the chance to observe people and places and things in four different countries on three different continents in a relatively short period of time.