AFRICA ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (appeared in NUVO Magazine)

It was night in the Botswana bush and everything seemed hyper real: the blackout sky was crammed full of stereophonically bright stars, and our open jeep swayed like a camel on the sand path that served as a road. The daytime palette of lion-colored savannah punctuated with acacia trees had morphed into a ghostly green, and the sounds gave eerie hints of invisible bird and animal life.

An elephant nonchalantly crossed in front of our jeep - was it real? To the left, we could make out hippos standing by a marshy pond. The dark bulky animals are much more dangerous than people think, our guide was telling us when we stumbled upon a jaw-dropping sight: lions, lots of them, sprawled out just ahead.

“It was touch and go for awhile,” I said a few days later, expansively recounting the event over a fine local Pinotage, a South African blend of Pinot Noir and Hermitage wines. .“All these lions were blocking our path; we couldn’t just shoo them away so we had to veer left, and we woke them from their sleep. There were branches in our way, and worse, there were the hippos. We had to fjord the river in the jeep....”

The lions were there all right, but they did little more than raise an eyebrow before going back to their snoring. (My deepest fear was of cat allergies - what if lions had dander) Fjording the river? My safari mates grinned at the tall tale. We were in the perfect place to tell safari stories - the brocade and chintz covered couches in the spacious lobby at the Mt. Nelson, Africa’s oldest and most renowned hotel. We had flown to Capetown after our safari in neighboring Botswana, where peace reigns and animals roam free.

Decades ago, we might have arrived at the hotel in pith helmets, high boots and shotguns. Add to that steamer trunks and valets, for this, after all, was the Orient Express.

It’s a company run by an epicure who made his fortune in shipping containers and who keeps collecting hotels, and other “experiences”. James Sherwood’s UK-based train collection includes the signature Orient Express trains, which he bought in l977. The Venice Simplon-Orient Express runs from London to Venice and from Paris to Istanbul, carrying passengers who take seriously the advice in the brochure that “you can never be overdressed on the Orient Express”......