Waking in Jo'burg - July 31, 2025

Scott Farnsworth
Jul 31
3 min read

Updated: Aug 6

SUMMARY A “far ninente” [doing nothing] day of reading, eating, a little exercising. - Karen

DETAIL The alarm on my watch wakes me at 6:30. I’m sure I could have slept longer but we want to get on local time. On safari we’ll be woken very early every day. We’re told we’ll get coffee and a small bite to eat before heading out for our “morning game drive”. We want to be well adjusted for that!

Today again the skies are clear blue with no clouds. We dawdle on our phones in bed for a while, shower and go to breakfast at 10. They serve til 10:30.

Breakfast here is included and there’s lots of it available. You can tell the stuff they have for the Asians, the carnivores, the fruitarians, the health nuts, and so on. They have local stuff (a water buffalo biltong sausage omelette) for those brave enough to try. Given that the meal’s included, our plan is to enjoy a late breakfast and hope that hold us until dinner.

There seem to be quite a few families here, perhaps going on safari, too. Some Americans but many from other parts of the world, too. There are locals here, too, on business but all of the tourists seem to be white. 100% of the workers here appear to be natives. They’re all as nice as they can be.

Breakfast is good. We behave and get healthy options. It’s good to know they exist. Karen gets oatmeal with fruit and nuts. They ask if she prefers her oatmeal cooked with water or milk? I get poached eggs on toast, avocado, hummus, and sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes. That’s just ‘a thing’ you can order. Nice!

Back in the room we hang out some more. Laying in bed, surfing on our devices, our eyelids get heavy. We’re not fully acclimatized to this time zone yet, apparently. Tricia and Don check in from the coast (Cape Town). We’ll meet up with them tomorrow in Botswana.

At some point the maid comes by and we give up our room so she can do some cleaning. Did we dirty this place that much already? We hang out downstairs while the cleaning’s going on. We think we’ve found some quiet remote hidden corner, but we’re near the conference rooms and there’s the bustle of local business meetings and conferences. This is an industrious part of the world, apparently.

Back at our newly cleaned room we discover that our keys have both stop working. Huh? I ask at the front desk. They, in turn, ask when we’re checking out (today). Oh yeah. We paid for two nights ourselves and the safari company paid for the third night. We’re not changing rooms, but we are moving from one computer record to another, thus we have to have new keys made. I guess you have to think like a computer.

We partake of more chilling before we again visit the gym. No pool today. Around five we rummage in the well-stocked mini fridge and find a big half bottle of South African wine. Sauvignon Blanc. It’s good and is only six US dollars when we do the math. Stuff here is inexpensive! At dinner they don’t have our reservation. We’re not sure how that happened, but they’re able to fit us in. We ask for and get the same waiter (Cello) as last night. He’s as sweet and fun as before. The food is good and we reluctantly order dessert, which we shouldn’t have. Cello insists this is a local favorite that we must try: vanilla pound cake with vanilla ice cream and creme anglaise. Just what we (don’t) need! I try to envision Cello’s grandma whipping that up. Hm.

Back in our room, more stuffed than we should be, we try to get to sleep. Tomorrow is ‘rabbit, rabbit’ (the first of the month) and our flight to Maun, Botswana. There we’ll meet up with Tricia and Don and start of our safaris (photographing). We’re excited.

Photos