Of Lions, Lift Airlines, and Cape Town’s Weather Auditioning for a Bipolar Diagnosis
Today’s scribblings come to you from a slow morning in Moorreesburg. Coffee in hand, camera at the ready, brain still idling in neutral. By the time you read this, I’ll be somewhere in the Cederberg Mountains, hopefully not falling off a rock or drinking wine that tastes like it was filtered through a goat.
Last week was one of those rare ones that actually looked respectable on paper. A proper bush weekend in Black Rhino. Lions everywhere. Cheetahs doing cheetah things. Even one of the Moloto males made a cameo—ten glorious minutes of him strutting across the plains like he owned the place, which of course, he does. It was the kind of weekend that makes the Pilanesberg worth all the potholes, squeaky suspension bushes, and usually guests who ask if lions “hibernate.”
There are moments in life when you are reminded that humans, despite our apparent sophistication, are no different from lions. Both species spend an inordinate amount of time lying around, yawning loudly, and pretending they’re important. The difference, of course, is that the lion does it with dignity, while the human insists on doing it with an iPhone and an Instagram reel.
I had front-row seats to this revelation the other day. There I was, watching a pride of lions in the bush — the very embodiment of effortless power — when the universe decided to balance things out by later throwing me into the chaos of commercial aviation. And let me tell you, if lions ran airlines, they’d still be more punctual than Lift.
From Pilanesberg it was straight to Cape Town for long-overdue time with loved ones and, apparently, my tolerance for modern air travel. Let me start with this: Lift Airlines. It’s thanks to FNB that I bought a ticket, however, I can say with absolute clarity that I will never recommend you to anyone, ever. I had a 14:00 flight. I arrived at 13:00. Checked in, did the usual: lounge, champagne, smug sense of self-importance. Perfect. Except two hours later I was still in the lounge, nursing an entire bottle of wine, two beers, and enough snacks to sink a ferry. At one point I even bought cigarettes at the airport shop—a legal form of highway robbery. Nearly a hundred rand for Peter Stuyvesant. At that price, the damn things should smoke themselves.
By 17:28, after three and a half hours of waiting, our flight finally took off. Now, three and a half hours may not sound like much in the grand scheme of African timekeeping, but it is more than enough to demolish your will to live when spent in an airport lounge. At first, there’s a kind of novelty to it — oh look, champagne, pretzels, and free Wi-Fi. But fast-forward a few hours, and you’re sitting there staring at your reflection in the stainless steel sugar spoon, questioning every decision that has led you to this precise circle of hell.
Lift, if you’re listening — and I sincerely hope you are — change your slogan. “It’s time to fly” is misleading at best and fraudulent at worst. A more honest slogan would be: “We don’t take off, we just disappoint you more efficiently than SAA.”
It didn’t help that the lounge slowly devolved into a social experiment. Strangers bonded in shared misery. A man attempted to drown his frustration in cappuccinos, hitting double digits before switching to something more medicinal. A child discovered that running in circles and screaming could be sustained for hours on end, which proved to be more reliable than Lift’s schedule. By the time the aircraft actually left the tarmac, I was convinced I could have driven to Cape Town in a Polo Vivo, detoured via Upington, filmed a leopard in the Kgalagadi and still arrived earlier.
And then, Cape Town. Ah, Cape Town. A city that could easily be the most beautiful on Earth if it weren’t for its pathological need to sabotage itself. One moment, it greets you with a postcard view: Table Mountain rising majestically, the ocean glittering like a sapphire advertisement for sanity. The next moment, a cold front barrels in, the wind slices through you like you’ve offended it personally, and the drizzle conspires to soak you from angles that defy the laws of physics. Cape Town weather is like a Shakespearean actor — dramatic, unreliable, and always convinced it’s the star of the show.
Still, after the ordeal of Lift Airlines, even sideways rain felt like an upgrade. And later that week, perched on a wine estate with a spotted eagle owl eyeing me like the world’s most judgmental bouncer, I remembered why it’s all worth it. There is something oddly comforting about owls. They don’t care about your delays, your rants, or your disillusionment with modern air travel. They sit, they blink, and they remind you that life is simpler than you make it.
So yes, lions remind us of our insignificance, Lift Airlines reminds us of our misplaced trust in marketing departments, Cape Town weather reminds us of nature’s bipolar tendencies, and owls remind us to shut up and drink the Shiraz before it gets warm. Which, frankly, is probably the most sensible advice of all, and the point to this pointless writeup, just drink wine!
Wildlife Beyond the Lens 