Best travel experiences of 2023: Africa

Buhoma, Uganda
Thursday, March 23, 1.40pm

Bolts of kitenge fabric cascade down the shelves in the sewing workshop at Ride 4 A Woman, a co-operative neighbouring Bwindi Impenetrable Forest: marine blue flecked with scarlet florals, violet awash with indigo arabesques, fuchsia patterned with gold curlicues. How to choose? I settle on a swatch festooned with the imprecise colours of the Ugandan flag: pale green laced with spears of red and black and yellow. Christopher Byaruhanga takes my measurements and cuts the cloth; Emily Basheija works the peddle of the sewing machine. As Bwindi’s gorillas retreat into the mountains and fashion their nests for the night, I swirl about in the latest fashion: a bespoke skirt made from Africa’s fabric. See ride4awoman.org
- Catherine Marshall

Aswan, Egypt
Thursday, March 23, 8.30am

I’m on a boat on the Nile deep in southern Egypt, heading for a Nubian village in the shadow of Aswan Dam. From Elephantine Island we putter past mud-brick villages with mustard-coloured mosques into an ever-shrinking filigree of waterways and now, two small boys in a makeshift boat have fastened themselves limpet-like to our side to serenade us. Without missing a beat, their litany segues from Frere Jacques to the chorus of She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain. As they sing, they bail frantically to stop their coffin-size boat from sinking. I dig out a five-pound note but they’re not done yet. More cash comes their way and finally they cast off, just in time. Close to the bank their boat turns submarine. As we round the next curve, the taller of the two is up to his neck and treading water, but clutching the notes high and dry above his head. See bunniktours.com.au
- Michael Gebicki

Tsavo East National Park, Kenya
Monday, April 3, 10.59am

A commotion breaks out while I’m interviewing Joseph Kyalo of Tsavo Trust in the open-air dining room of Satao Camp: a herd of elephants storms across the plain beyond the waterhole, kicking up clouds of dusts and setting the earth atremble. Hurrying to the camp’s watch-tower, we see what all the fuss is about – wildlife vets have darted a bull elephant and chased away the herd, but it loiters, agitated, in the distance. We watch as the vets set about re-dressing a spear wound they’d first treated a few weeks ago. Task complete, they retreat to their vehicle and wait for the anaesthetic to wear off. The elephant reawakens, lumbers to his feet, and staggers off into his herd’s perpetual embrace. See sataocamp.com
- Catherine Marshall

Giza, Egypt
Thursday, September 28, 1pm

My dining companion is 4500 years old, and incidentally, also the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Sitting across from the Pyramids of Giza, waiters lay my table with plates of chicken livers in date molasses, rabbit in a garlic and molokyia soup, quail tagine and bread hissing with steam from the ovens on the terrace. The new Khufu’s Restaurant is within the grounds of the Pyramids of Giza, so close I can almost reach out and touch the stalwart tombs from its terrace. Sipping an iced cocktail of hibiscus, pomegranate and rose water, I watch the procession of loping camels and horse-drawn carriages spinning around the pyramids, humans dwarfed by the dreams of the sleeping gods within. See khufus.com
- Belinda Jackson

Morocco
Saturday, October 7, 7.30pm

It’s late in the evening when we finally arrive at our desert camp deep in southern Morocco after a four-wheel drive journey, two hours across a parched, stony wilderness that morphed into the ochre sands of the Sahara. There’s ice, a miracle, and we gulp down chilled drinks handed out by Bobo, the camp boss. Three musicians in embroidered indigo robes, heads wrapped in the enormous cheche turbans of the Tuareg Berbers, are warming up in the camp’s inner circle of tents. It’s desert blues, also known as Tuareg rock. They’re stopped for the night, on their way home from a wedding. We sprawl on carpets and cushions spread out in front of the fire that lights the trio, bare feet in the still warm sand, listening to the mesmerising music while a butter moon rises in the night sky. See desertcampmorocco.com
- Michael Gebicki