It's an interesting thing, people's holiday preferences. Some people enjoy roughing it on local transport and mixing it with the locals at the market and on the street. Others prefer sticking to the big cities, staying in comfortable hotels with limo transfers from the airport where the closest they get to a local is hopefully no nearer than the already terrifyingly thin 1/4" of tinted and reinforced glass separating them in their air-conditioned cacoon from, well, whatever the hell it is on the other side. Others still, apparently, desire a combination of the raw sense of adventure you can only get in a place like Africa whilst retaining some semblance of comfort and safety that can only be provided by comfortable lodgings in a rustic, semi-remote setting not far off a major highway, and some animatronic predatory animals. This is a niche ably filled by Sun City.
OK, this may be taking the description of Sun City too far. I didn't really want to talk about Sun City anyway, but instead the nearby Pilanesberg National Park. But the offerings of Sun City are really such a distraction that I feel compelled to draw your attention to them. I mean what is a game safari when it doesn't carry with it the risk of contracting malaria? This is truly Disneyland come to Africa, and quite possibly the greatest affront to tourism that I've so far seen on this continent.
Perhaps my experience at Pilanesberg was tainted not so much by Sun City but by a week of slow recovery from drug resistant Zambian food poisoining, or the fact that I didn't see anything but stock animals such as impala and wildebeest on the cold, windy and interminably dull game drive. I happened to see an episode of Long Way Down (Ewan McGregor's self-indulgent motorcycle road trip adventure 'documentary') just after we arrived back from Pilanesberg. In one scene his team are charging about the bush in a 4WD looking for big cats. Their guide spots one from afar and after a considerable chase they finally identify their quarry, a very confused looking domestic cat in long grass. McGregor's team were blessed with a sense of humour and managed a hearty laugh at this particular misadventure, but at the conclusion of our safari I just felt empty and longed for the consolation that could have been provided by a tacky animatronic beest at the park exit gate.
OK, this may be taking the description of Sun City too far. I didn't really want to talk about Sun City anyway, but instead the nearby Pilanesberg National Park. But the offerings of Sun City are really such a distraction that I feel compelled to draw your attention to them. I mean what is a game safari when it doesn't carry with it the risk of contracting malaria? This is truly Disneyland come to Africa, and quite possibly the greatest affront to tourism that I've so far seen on this continent.
Perhaps my experience at Pilanesberg was tainted not so much by Sun City but by a week of slow recovery from drug resistant Zambian food poisoining, or the fact that I didn't see anything but stock animals such as impala and wildebeest on the cold, windy and interminably dull game drive. I happened to see an episode of Long Way Down (Ewan McGregor's self-indulgent motorcycle road trip adventure 'documentary') just after we arrived back from Pilanesberg. In one scene his team are charging about the bush in a 4WD looking for big cats. Their guide spots one from afar and after a considerable chase they finally identify their quarry, a very confused looking domestic cat in long grass. McGregor's team were blessed with a sense of humour and managed a hearty laugh at this particular misadventure, but at the conclusion of our safari I just felt empty and longed for the consolation that could have been provided by a tacky animatronic beest at the park exit gate.
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