Brits Evolving to Stay at Home for a Change

Waterholes are a vital part of the whole African ecosystem.  Lifesaving oases in a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Bustling like a busy airport at the start of the holiday season, elephants, lions, leopards, gazelle, hyenas, hippos and hundreds of other species of animals and birds, all drawn together to compete for that most precious of commodities. Water!  Without water, life is impossible.

That is why waterholes are always at the top of the list of places to visit on African Safaris. Animals will come from hundreds of miles away to seek out the life sustaining liquid.  And if you sit quietly, whispering in calm undertones in that distinctive Sir David Attenborough kind of way, you will see the amazing spectacle called wildlife in action, played out in glorious 3D technicolour right in front of your very eyes.

You can see mother elephants carefully guiding their babies to the water’s edge and then encouraging the young ones to follow them into deeper water for a swim.  Then you will see a fight break out between a pack of hyenas and the impala and gazelles dash back into the bush out of harm’s way.  Over on the far side of the pool another fight breaks out between young lions from opposing prides, each desperate to get close to the water.

There is hunger, there is anger and rage, there is love and compassion, there is fear and there is hope.  The full range of emotions as nature competes in the life and death struggle for survival.

In fact, very much like a busy airport at the start of the holiday season. Here the patient observer will witness the full range of human emotions and see first-hand the animalistic behaviour of the species, homo sapiens, as they engage in that never ending life and death struggle that is called “getting away for a holiday in the sun.”

In a vain attempt to try and escape from all the frustrations and anxieties of everyday life, every man and his “anxiety dog” comes together in great boisterous confusion, to engage in mortal combat with booking in clerks and luggage carousels.  Humans will travel from many miles away to gather in these huge glass cathedrals of desperation and immediately form into long multicoloured queues, snaking their way through the bubbling sea of humanity, dragging brightly coloured suitcases on wheels in their wake.

The noise in the cavernous halls can be deafening, as mothers scream at their children, and children scream back at their mothers, and rattled fathers shout at implacable booking in clerks, and loudspeakers drop unwelcome pronouncements from the heavens, notifying the waiting throng of delays, cancellations, and bad weather.

And then a fight breaks out.  Children scatter and queues break up, as men in black uniforms rush in to pull the combatants apart and then peace returns, the queues reform and the travellers resume their slow undulating dance through the check-in desks.

This hectic struggle for a few days of rest and relaxation will continue through the duty-free shops and onto the cramped and overcrowded aeroplanes.  It will continue as new queues form by the luggage carrousels at the destination airport, and at the queues for buses and taxis, at the reception desk in the hotels and then at the lifts.

And once the weary travellers have settled in their rooms and unpacked their bags the struggle will start all over again and the bars, the buffets, and at the pool sides, as the sudden urge to lie down on a sun bed overtakes all thoughts of decency and decorum, and the fight for survival moves on to a whole new level of intensity.

Meanwhile, by a quiet and secluded waterhole in rural Devon, The Manor & Ashbury Resorts, a new breed of holiday makers can be seen, relaxing, and playing peacefully amidst idyllic surroundings.  Yes, homo remanē domi, have evolved to avoid the chaos and trauma of international travel, and have opted to holiday at home and enjoy what Britain has to offer. But please remember to only talk in whispers.  We don’t want to scare them away!