Heading to Africa

When we got married back in 2006, we didn't have the time or resources for a big honeymoon. Twenty years later, my sabbatical from work neatly lined up with our 20th anniversary (which, to be fair, was in September), so a while back we planned a big, multi-country trip to make up for it. Technically, multi-continent, but we'll get into that in a bit.

We settled on Botswana for our safari for a few reasons. We've heard good things, it's supposed to have the best animal viewing this time of year, and it's one of the few African countries that doesn't criminalize being gay. Such a low bar.

First step is just getting there, and getting from Seattle to Chobe National Park is a bit of a journey. We flew Qatar from Seattle to Doha, in the legendary Q-suite. We also used points to upgrade ourselves to the first-class lounge, but let's start with the flight itself.

We showed up plenty early to check bags and relax. They use the BA lounge in SeaTac, which is a solid 3 out of 5, and unfortunately the Amex lounge was full or else we would have hung out there.

Once they boarded us and we settled in for the 15+ hour flight, it was honestly great. Good movie selection, gate-to-gate Starlink, and the best lie-flat we've had in the sky. In fact, the two seats we chose merge to a shared bed (sort of), so it feels extra spacious for a couple. Service was excellent, with some of the best food in the sky. Honestly, I think we overate.

At Doha, we breezed through transfer security and went straight to the lounge. It's massive and felt weirdly empty and sparse. They gave us a private shower room so we could clean up — it felt great to brush our teeth and shower! — and then we sat at the a-la-carte restaurant, but only ate appetizers given how much we'd had on the plane. Before we knew it, we had to cross to the other end of the terminal, passing by the lovely "Orchard," and waited by our gate for the flight to Johannesburg.

In contrast with that first mega-flight, this "brief" 8-hour trip barely gave us time to sleep between dinner and when they came by to remove the mattress pads from our seats. Though, TBH, the older herringbone seats weren't as easy to sleep in anyway.

And then we went through immigration in South Africa, purely to collect our bags and then check in again for our Airlink flight to Victoria Falls. It was a good thing that we had a long layover (6 hours), since we first had to deal with immigration and customs, then had to find our way to terminal B to check in, then, after waiting through the security line for terminal B, we were told to head back to terminal A since the flight was international. It would have been nice to have a gate or even terminal listed on the ticket or on the flight status, but Airlink is what it is.

Thanks to Priority Pass, we had a couple lounge options, but the first one we could get into didn't open until 6, so we went to the one place that was open — "the diner" — for coffee and a muffin. It was honestly a lovely little place in the middle of terminal A. Then we migrated to the Shangalolo lounge for an hour, which had an odd layout with a bunch of circular pods. Finally, we went to Bidvest Premium for a couple hours, which was honestly very nice.

Finally, we got to our little Airlink flight. They fit all the passengers into a bus that drove us out to the plane. It was a kind of old Embraer, but the seats were comfortable, and they even served free drinks and a sandwich on a flight under 2 hours!

When we arrived, we enjoyed the chaos of Zimbabwean immigration — basically just decide whether to buy the $30 visa or the $50 one. We opted for the simple $30 one since we were just passing through. Then we met our arranged driver. There was a little confusion over whether a second couple with the same last name existed or not, but it appears that was a paperwork mistake on their part. The drive through Zimbabwe was pretty smooth, but honestly a bit boring. Going through the border was easy; the thing they cared the most about was sanitizing all the shoes to avoid bringing foot & mouth disease into Botswana. As we approached the park, we did see some wildlife on the side of the road, like a teaser of what’s to come.

At our lodge, they hustled us through orientation so we could make the 3:30 boat ride. What we saw out there is the next post — where we discover that elephants can swim!