South Africa

[lethargic_man]

In both the contract of my current and previous jobs, it states that I will ordinarily be based in the London office, but occasionally my employer might need to send me somewhere else. In the previous twelve years, the furthest away that "somewhere else" has been has been Manchester in one direction, and Paris in the other. Now they want to send me to South Africa (and possibly later, if I haven't managed to convince them I'm the wrong person for the job, to Hong Kong).

(For the benefit of those that know what I'm passionate about, yes, I did try and persuade them to use things like Skype instead; my überboss responded with a thoughtful and sympathetic email but concluded that this time it is necessary to send me to South Africa. I do not consider this a resigning issue, certainly not if it's going to be this occasional.)

Since I am shlepping all this way, it strikes me I might as well make a holiday out of it and do a bit of tourism whilst I'm there. My überboss mentioned Kruger National Park, which is less than two hundred miles (as the crow flies) from Johannesburg, where I'll be, but that turns out to be in a malarial area, and googling the subject comes across as quite scary (malarial tablets in advance, insect sprays, stay inside at dawn and dusk, sleep under mosquito netting, ulp!)—plus of course it would render me unable to give blood for some time afterwards; so I'm wondering if there's anywhere else I could go on a big game safari that's not in a malarial zone? Any people familiar with South Africa reading this?

(Whilst I'm there, I expect I'll also go to Cape Town and do some tourism there and in its vicinity.)

Comments

[liv]

Gosh, that's pretty exciting! It's a shame that you are being forced to fly when you have such strong principles about that, but I hope you will have a really interesting trip.

[lethargic_man]

I actually see it the other way around: By overriding my principles (insofar as that it's the company sending me, not me choosing to go, and if I don't go, it'd send someone else), it means I get to see somewhere I would be very unlikely to otherwise.

(Still waiting for aviation fuels based on second-generation biofuels, i.e. those made from the waste products of agriculture, not those grown as biofuels and displacing other agricultural activity. Plan B, of travelling overland around the world when I retire and have plenty of time, might not happen, as I realised once my mother, prior to her retirement, became almost uninsurable outside of the EU (though not quite totally: she did manage to go to Brazil last year, after a bout of insurance contortionism).)

[liv]

That other way round framing does make a lot of sense. That really is a great opportunity.

I thought the problem with flying was that it generates unconscionable amounts of CO₂ and other air pollution, not that it uses up too much fossil fuel?

[lethargic_man]

Whilst there is also a separate issue that the release of CO₂ at high altitude is more damaging to the environment than release at ground level, the primary concern is the release of carbon that had been locked up in the ground for millions of years as CO₂ into the atmosphere. If the CO₂ released by 'planes had only been fixed by plants in the last few years, it wouldn't be (so much of) a problem: it would be part of the present biosystem, constantly cycling back and forth between the atmosphere and biosphere, not an addition to it.

That's why I get annoyed whenever I see the implication one can do carbon offsetting by planting trees: it doesn't work, unless you chop down the trees when they're fully grown and bury them at the bottom of a mine!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This site (http://www.sanparks.org/tourism/malaria/) says the Kruger National Park is one of only two in a malaria risk area, so there should be lots of others to choose from. I would just go to Kruger if I had the chance, but then I've been in malarial zones before. You might find mosquito nets are a good idea anywhere you go on a safari. At least mosquitoes don't become immune to them, like they seem to with most insect repellants.

[lethargic_man]

Oh, thanks for that. The Marakele National Park is a similar distance from Johannesburg, but out of the malarial zone, and the site says:

Marakele is home to most of the large mammals synonymous with the African bush, including elephant, black and white rhino, and leopard.

TBH, leopard doesn't interest me quite so much, because I saw, by chance, one of what I was told was five wild leopard left in Israel in 1992. (Our tour guide was wondering where the ibex were; when we saw the leopard eating its kill barely fifty yards away, we realised they had smelled it.) The site goes on to say, however:

Large Predators such as brown hyena, leopard and now also lion, occur in the park. Resident antelope include, sable, kudu, eland, impala, waterbuck, tsessebe and many smaller species. Chacma baboon and vervet monkey are two species to be watched carefully for mischief, particularly around the rest camps.

So maybe that might be a good second choice?