We steal the title to Isak Dinesen’s book with all due respect. We are finally back at home after a roughly 30-hour sojourn that began with an 11:30 (5:30 a.m. EDT) departure from our hotel in Franschhoek in the wine region of South Africa. We got home about 12:30 pm on Monday after a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, from Joberg to Atlanta and finally from Atlanta to Philadelphia. The 16 hour flight from Johannesburg wasn’t all that bad, surprisingly enough.

Summing up the trip, we loved everything about it. It was really two trips, with the first focused on safari, followed by more traditional urban touring in Cape Town and its environs.

The fact we loved the animal watching part of the trip is ironic, as anyone who knows us would attest, given we have never had a dog, cat, other pet, or children. But the fact that you can drive up as close to these animals as we did, including predators like lions, cheetahs and leopards, is just astounding. It is as if you become invisible, which of course you are not, but the animals don’t apparently perceive humans as a threat as long as we are in the Land Rovers. Get out of the vehicles and their behavior changes immediately — they become wary and nervous — but in the trucks it’s almost as it it is a collective shrug.

The first camp, Zulu Nyala, as we previously commented is really more of an animal park. It’s too small to be a true safari camp and they were spreading dried grass to supplement the available food because of an extended drought. That led to animals gathering at those spots in ways they might otherwise not. But buying the visit at the Passage Theater fundraiser got us to go to South Africa, and after the second visit to Dulini River Lodge we definitely became hooked on the safari concept. We were in pretty posh accommodations this time around, and we are thinking a future trip should involve another part of Africa, which could get more rustic, but we will see. Likely not next year, but I wouldn’t want to put it off too long.

Cape Town is a lovely city, with Table Mountain dominating the scenery, but the wine region also offered some amazing vistas. Our accommodations were all good and we definitely ate too much and exercised too little, like basically not at all. It is a long haul for Americans and we would advise would-be travelers to consider breaking up the journey to South Africa with a stopover en route if time allows. A day or two in a European city of choice to get acclimated to the six-hour time difference, or even someplace on the Arabian peninsula if you can get a deal on a carrier like Qatar Airways or Emirates, both highly rated, is worth thinking about.

Vineyards adjacent to our hotel.

At one of out winery stops.

View of Table Mountain from Robben Island.