Our final stop on our African odyssey was Tintswalo Game Lodge, situated in the Manyeleti Nature Reserve, directly adjacent to the world-renowned Kruger National Park. That means LOTS MORE ANIMALS!
After our night of discussion in Johannesburg, we were off to the airport early in the morning for our shortest flight of the trip to Hoedspruit, South Africa, which is the home of Eastgate airport—the gateway to Kruger National Park. It was a very short flight on Airlink (which seems to be the go-to airline for getting around within Africa). They are a very nice airline that primarily flies smaller jets (four seats to a row—we flew all our flights with them in Embraer E-90s, which we liked.) This flight was the shortest flight we have ever taken. We were in the air for less than an hour. If you don’t count the time spent taxing on runways, it’s around 35 minutes. It’s a short flight.
One funny thing did happen on the flight. They actually serve food on these very short flights—to everyone, even those in the cheap seats. On the way to Hoedspruit, the flight attendant comes on and says, “We will shortly be coming around with drink service…and your choice of a cheese bagel or (are you ready for this?) a Krispy Kreme donut. Seriously. When he said it, the plane erupted in a combination of cheers and laughter. Sure enough, they came down the aisle and handed you a tiny box with a single Krispy Kreme donut inside. Just cracked me up.
I should mention here that when we left Johannesburg, we also left behind the amazing Delia, our guide through the entire trip. It was a sad parting, marked by lots of hugs. She is a gem among travel guides and humans. I would not have wanted to do this trip without her. She would not need to accompany us to Tintswalo, as we would be completely under the lodge’s care while there.
We were met at the airport by Welsent, our driver. (Isn’t that a great name for a driver that was sent to pick you up??) After about an hour’s drive, we arrived at Tintswalo. If you have been following this entire trip, you know we have had some amazing lodging experiences, and this would pretty much be the topper. Tintswalo is not a hotel but a beautiful main lodge connected by raised boardwalks to six individual lodges, each housing one or two people. Walking in is an experience you’ll never forget.
Not because the front door looks like this, but because you walk through to the deck that sits behind the door, and you see this. (Full disclosure, I stole the photo above from the lodge because I was not happy with any of mine.)
Just outside the back door of the lodge were (at that time) probably 8-10 elephants. The lodge leaves a hose hanging from a tree and turns it on in the afternoons. If you would like to see these elephants in person, Tintswalo has a webcam pointed directly at this spot 24/7. You have to figure out what time noon is in South Africa because they are pretty much just there in the afternoons. You can check it out by clicking here.
Elephants come and wiggle their way (in one case, a young male bullied his way) to get a drink from the hose and just generally frolic around under the running water. If you want a site to greet you when you arrive at a lodge; this one tops them all. At this point in the trip, I thought I had seen all the elephants I could ever want to see when we were in Chobe, but I guess that wasn’t true. This small herd would return almost every day we were there, along with other animals that walked through, including Cape buffalo, impalas, wildebeests, and others.
During our stay, we would eat out on this deck numerous times. I would sit and work on photos and write posts while the elephants drank, and other animals walked by. It could be very distracting.
I’d like to show you around, so here are some photos I took upon arrival with both my Nikon and my iPhone. Enjoy.
We sat down to lunch and when we were done, it was time to see our private lodges. Each was named after a famous African explorer. We were staying in Speke named after John Hanning Speke. I love a good, stupid joke, so if someone called on the phone, I would just say, “Speak,” because that’s how his name is pronounced. ?
Here are a few pics I took of the path leading to our lodge and the inside as well. One thing to know about the path. You were not allowed to use it at night without calling the Night Porter. He would sit up all night in the main lodge, and when you called, he would come down and get you to bring you to the main lodge. The main reason for this was that elephants could walk right up to the walkway. When we arrived on the first day, they were fixing an electric fence that a rogue elephant had knocked down the night before. On our last morning there, the staff informed us that the same elephant had returned the night before, and they had to rouse the staff who scared it off by beating pots and pans. However, it still managed to damage more of the fence and a couple of trees. The night porter became our friend when he removed what we thought was a HUGE spider from our bathroom.
I was going to delve deeper into the rest of the first day, but this post is already quite lengthy. Our first major activity was going on a game drive. More about that in my next post. Keep a sharp eye open for it coming soon.
In Africa, you have space…there is a profound sense of space here, space and sky. – Thabo Mbeki