GUEST OF STATE

Victoria Falls and the Devil's Pool

2009-12-21T07:57:00.001-08:00

Microlight Flying Over the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls

The Okavango Inner Delta, Botswana

2009-12-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Bull Elephant Herd

Chobe National Park Photo Series, Botswana

2009-11-27T05:46:00.004-08:00

Mudbath

Bungy Jumping and Livingston Zambia

2009-11-27T05:46:00.003-08:00

Whitwater Rafting

2009-11-27T05:46:00.001-08:00

Ondangwa and the Owambo

2009-11-27T05:45:00.001-08:00

COMING SOON

Grandma

UNICEF

2009-11-27T05:44:00.000-08:00

Amani Big Cat Experience

2009-11-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

Amani Lodge is 16 miles southest of Windhoek, just beyond the famous Kuppferburg Pass in the rugged terrain of the Namibian Kalahari desert. The lodge sits on a high peak of the Khomas Hochland, (Highlands) and is the highest occupied locale in all of Namibia at 7100 feet above sea level.

The Lodge, and its surrounding acres, is a refuge for Southern African big cats run by a French man, Alain, and his son, Olivier. They have always had a passion for African cats, and have made protecting them their life’s work. When we visited Amani on a Saturday afternoon, we didn't see Alain, but Olivier was present, and must be seen to be believed. He roams the farm tanned and topless with long, sun-stained hair trailing down his body. He staus close to his animals, and clearly loves his work. He conjures images of Tarzan, if Tarzan had no interest in pursuing Jane, or any woman. His intentions are good, and work with the animals is uncompromising, but it is his style that makes him a legend. See for yourself.

(Olivier, Queen of the Kalahari)

Amani has a collectin of animals on their property. They have the traditional plains animals like kudu, impala, and hartebeest, but it is the cats that they are aiming to serve. Some of the cats they have inherited from captivity, and some of them they have rescued from the wild. All the cats have their own enclosures, and all of them are fed in the afternoons for the pleasure of tourists who join the ‘Amani Big Cat Experience.’

Namibia has the largest population of cheetahs in the world, with over 10,000. However, they are still an endangered species, due to competition from other carnivores and shrinking natural territories. The Cheetah Conservation Fund, together Amani Lodge fosters future generations of healthy cheetahs by collecting semen from wild cheetahs, and artificially inseminating cheetahs outside Namibia to stem consanguination.

The cheetahs at Amani were rescued as wild orphans from around southern Africa. They are raised on the refuge in wild conditions, and have minimal human contact to protect their instincts. Consequently they can fend for themselves, and will be the sent out to the wild. The current set of five at Amani are ready to be freed, as the pack before them was, when a suitable territory can be located that fits the requirements of the animals and the Governmnent of Namibia.

Amani’s two Kalahari lions are siblings that were raised from birth on a Namibian farm as pets. When the lions grew to adolescents, they tried to rebel against their owners, and developed aggressive tendencies towards humans. The Nambibian Government wanted to take the animals away from the farm and destroy them, until Amani stepped in and offered them a safe have. The siblings, were in very poor health when they arrived at Amani, because they had been locked in small cages for years, but now they are fit and active.

Bongani, the male, now weights 230 kg, and is over twenty years old. He surpasses both the weight and life expectancy for a lion in the wild under the constant care of the Amani staff. The lioness, Surabi, is the same age, and also larger than normal, at 195 kg. Surabi has been sterilized so that the siblings will never reproduce. Because the lions were raised in captivity, and do not have the skills they need to survive on their own, they cannot be returned to the bush of the Kalahari. However, they seem happy to see the oncoming truck load of people coming, and seem happy to take the free meal that is offered to them every afternoon, and are not bothered by the constant sound of camera churning out photos of them.

Leopards are solitary, noctural animals by nature that survive by hiding their prey in trees and out of the way of lions, and pack animals. Raffiki, the leopard, was raised on a farm, in Nambia, and treated as a pet. He came to Amani in 2006 nursing an injured shoulder that did not allow him to climb trees, and therefore fend for himself in the wild. Now, after the care and medical care of the Amani staff he climbs trees and roams his enclosure like a real leopard. However, because he was raised in captivity, and does not have full strenght in his shoulder he will never be able to survive in the wild on his own.

Philanthropy at the Windhoek Cycle Classic

2009-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

10.17.09

Working for the UN has its privileges. The back of my UNICEF identification card tells me so: “The holder of this card is an official of the United Nation, and enjoys the protection of the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities.” It also has its rewards. My reward will come in a month when I can personally deliver shoes to the needy, shoeless kids who cheered me as I cycled through their simple settlements during Windhoek’s 10th Annual Cycle Classic Race.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true, I am working. The African vacation is over. Even more bizarre, I am volunteering. My project for UNICEF is to organize the distribution of 80,000 pairs of donated Crocs^TM shoes and sandals to the orphans and vulnerable children of Namibia. My boss is a friendly South African named Matthew who enjoys being outside and active, mostly on a bike. On Friday Matthew tells me that he is competing in a bike race at the weekend, and offers me the use of his spare bike. Before I really think about the endurance required to ride a bike for long distances in the desert heat, I am registered for the 65 km division.

Jarrett ‘The Butterscotch Stallion’ Loubser, host of my Windhoek morning radio show, welcomes the 1400 racers at the starting/finish line with his usual crass sense of humor delivered with machine-gun-like intonation over the PA system. I listen to “The Butterscotch Stallion” every weekday morning, and today his voice is jarring and unexpected. It is eight o’clock on a clear Sunday morning, and I should not be listening to him. I should be in bed, sleeping or contemplating my breakfast menu.

Instead I am perched on the uncomfortable bike seat, wedged amongst hundred of spandex wearing, helmeted, cycling enthusiasts eagerly waiting to attack the course. People, you know the people who should know, claim Windhoek lies inside the caldera of an extinct volcano. They say that this accounts for the unusually moderate and comfortable weather we enjoy. The problem today is that I will have to climb out of the caldera and leave town well behind, before returning to climb the slopes again to finish. It’s been many a year since I rode a bike, and as ‘The Butterscotch Stallion’ says “Ready, Steady, Go”, I fear this is not the way to get back in the saddle.

The 65 km bikers stay compact as we wind through the residential streets of Olympia. At the intersections police officers block vehicular traffic, and wave us through. Most of the cyclists ride sleek bikes made for road riding. I am on a slightly more cumbersome and heavy mountain bike. I am relieved to find out the gears and brakes are working as I breeze through the flat, tree-lined streets. With a left turn onto Robert Mugabe Avenue, however, the breezing is replaced by sheer effort as we begin the first accent.

In the lowest gear of my 24, my legs spin easily, but the mountain bike climbs slowly. I keep my head down and look only at the ground as I pass the familiar wrought-iron fence of the palatial residence of President Pohamba. Wheels approach from behind and pass me continuously along the climb, but it does not bother me. I know I have a long way to go, and I know this is not a sprint. Perhaps I will save some energy for a big sprint to the finish line.

At the summit of the first hill, only minutes into the race I am sweating profusely. What makes it worse is that sweat, mixed with sunscreen, is running down my forehead and into my eyes. I sit up in the saddle as I descend to dry the sweat on my face. The wind feels good as I coast down the hill towards Maerua Mall. At the bottom of the hill I follow the elongating chain of cyclists coasting past my apartment complex, and veering to the right onto Jan Jonker Road.

The Cycle Classic has four divisions: the 20, 30, 65, and 100 km. The 100 km riders went off first, followed by the 65 km division five minutes later, and so on and so forth. Every division has a different prefix on their bib number, to differential which riders are completing which distances. By the time I am pedaling in the up-market, largely Expat suburb known as Ludwigsdorf, and pass Matthew's wife and children cheering on the side of the street, I know how far behind I am. I have already been passed by what seems like the majority of the 35 km division, and am currently being caught by the adolescents in the 20 km division.

After Ludwigsdorf the route runs along Nelson Mandela Avenue before turning north into an industrial area. We pass massive factories, with towering chimneys, and ride a strong easterly wind carrying noxious coal fumes from the Van Eck power station. Beyond the power plant, the road narrows before we are directed to turn left at an intersection by a young man waving a small, red flag. This far outside of town, the police assistance has finished, and young volunteers guide the riders along the course. Of course, I have not seen a map of the course, so I am completely at the mercy of these volunteers.

Further on a girl stands before a ramp leading up the B1 Highway leading south, back into Windhoek. She yells, “30 kilo dis way!” as she brings her extended right arm and red flag from her thigh over her head repeatedly. Ahead, beyond an underpass, another volunteer waves a flag to direct racers onto the B1 Highway heading north. I must have ridden less fifteen kilometers, and assess my physical condition: my legs still feel strong, but my arse is getting sore. I want to turn towards the finish line, but I also want to ride my bike on the highway, just because it seems ridiculous. I pass the girl with the flag, and head to the next person, and merge onto the B1 Highway, northbound.

Vehicular traffic on this Sunday morning is light. Now that the race split cyclist traffic is also fairly light. The chain of cyclist has become a series of drips; one rider 200 meters ahead of me, and another some 200 meters behind. Occasionally I pass someone with a flat tire, their spirits as deflated as their tires. They crouch on the side of the highway, their chins resting on the offending wheel while the flaccid inner tube lies lifelessly on gravel beside it.

Namibian highways are not exactly like US highways. It is not uncommon to have cyclists ride along the shoulders while groups of pedestrians and livestock nonchalantly cross the road ahead of you. Pick-up trucks, known as bukkies, ply the highway with their beds full of people sitting with their heads bowed to keep out of the wind. In the bush highways are little more than two-lane roads, and there are very few exit ramps. While riding towards a weigh station, I glance over my shoulder to see a truck approaching with its turn signal on. The off-ramp is long, and he is going moving quickly with a full load of cattle. He is not going to give way to the Cycle Classic, so I stop the bike and let him pass.

Restarting is hard. My legs do not want to turn, and my arse is unwilling to climb back onto the saddle. There is a wind out of the east that somehow I did not notice until now. I push my legs down with my palms and press on. I slowly crawl along the highway until I reach the small farming community called Brakwater. At the Brakwater exit a young man with a red flag waves me off of the highway, and onto a paved district road. The road heads west towards the coast before meandering south towards Windhoek over red, rolling hills.

I ride through the dry, rocky scrubland, but with each turn my desire to continue lags. I think that I bit off more than I can chew. Old ladies riding alone and young kids riding with their fathers smile as they pass me. It feels like I have been riding for hours, but a glance at my phone tells me it has only been two. As I climb another hill, I see a small settlement on the crest of the hill and a few small silhouettes patrolling the road across from it. The settlement is nothing more that a collection of twenty corrugated iron shacks, each with its door open for ventilation. The silhouettes beside the road are children. I can tell that because they scream with high-pitched voices as another cyclist passes them.

The first child I meet is about two years old. He is overwhelmed by strange visitors that pass him, and can only stand by the side of the road with his fingers in his mouth and watch. The second child, perhaps his four year-old, older brother, starts running as I approach him, his bare toes throwing gravel into the air as he sprints. He sprints without looking where he is going, and only looks only into my eyes as he runs. He screams at me in a high-pitched voice. He wants to communicate something, but I cannot understand what he is saying. I don’t know if he is speaking English, a tribal language or Afrikaans, but I know that my ear cannot decipher his high-pitched squeals.

After twenty meters another boy, perhaps another brother, picks up the chase. This boy introduces himself with a double thumbs and a broad smile before following my bike up the hill. He is more shy that the middle boy, and runs beside me, pleading with his eyes. The four year-old lungs and legs show great stamina as he continues to run beside me and the other boy continues his unintelligible, piercing mantra. Perhaps because he is getting tired, or perhaps because I have time to slow my own rapid breathing, I finally understand what he is trying to say, “Give me CHO-CO-LATE.”

When the three brothers give up the chase, I pass another couple of boys who also cry out for chocolate. Perhaps in the Cycle Classic most riders stuff chocolates in their jerseys to eat and give away during the race. Perhaps that is the normal thing for cyclists to do in Namibia. I don’t know because I am not a cyclist. I am just the idiot who signed up to ride 65 kilometers in the hilly desert without having been on a bike for many years. I do not have chocolate.

After the small settlement the road descends before rising again. As I start to climb the next hill the smell of human feces smacks me in the face. I climb and try to breathe only through my mouth, but it doesn’t help stem the unpleasantness. In the Middle Ages travelers gauged the size of a city by how far away they could detect the smell of human waste. The further the smell carried, the larger the city was. I cannot see a settlement yet, but I know it will be larger than the first one.

The climb towards the settlement is again lined with groups of young children, all hoping for gifts of chocolate. As I pass the first group of children they all hold their hands out into the road. They realize that I don’t have chocolate, but hold out their hands to accept ‘high fives’ in lieu of the sweets. The children are dressed in tattered, soiled clothes, and none of them have shoes, but they all seem happy and wear smiles. They squeal with delight as I touch their hands, and for the time being I forget how tired I am. Having contact with the children is the only fun I have had this entire morning.

Because none of the children have shoes, and I make a mental note to revisit the settlement once the shipment of Crocs arrives, and make sure they get shoes. I am thinking about which NGOs serve children in this area when a vision suddenly hits me. It is the image of a cartoon water drop, bar of soap, and hand that is the logo for the current UNICEF hand washing program in Namibia.

UNICEF figures estimate that every day 5,000 children worldwide die of diarrhea and other diseases that could be prevented by having adequate sanitation systems. In Namibia less than 40% of the villages have these systems in place, and the majority of the vast population practices open defecation. The ability to wash hands with hot water and soap after contact with human waste would eradicate many of these needless deaths. The UNICEF office here recently launched a national campaign to educate the children of Namibia about personal hygiene, and raise awareness of the unsanitary reality within the poorer settlements. Suddenly I am glad that Matthew gave me riding gloves, and I am glad to be wearing them to protect myself from anything the children are carrying, and vice-versa. Sometimes it is good to have all the gear, even if I did not want to wear them at first.

After the second settlement I can see Windhoek in the valley beyond. Down a steep hill, in an area known as Soweto, the neighborhoods turn from corrugated iron shacks, to cinder block huts. Many people wander the streets, most wearing elegant and brightly-colored church outfits. Battered Toyota Corolla taxis prowl the streets looking for fares, and have no intention of giving the cyclists the right of way. At an intersection a policeman directs me left, and I follow his instructions. Approaching the next intersection, however, just beyond the pink compound of Soweto Market, there is no one to guide me, and there are no other cyclists around me.

I am coasting down a hill towards Independence Avenue. I know where I am, but I do not know where to go. It is a four-way intersection, so I have three choices. My house is left, and the town center is left, so, I turn left. Beyond the turn I enter the heavy traffic heading towards the city center. By the surprised look on the faces of people on the streets beside me, I know that I went the wrong way. This is not the way to the finish line. I can backtrack and rejoin the course, or ride home. At a red light, for the second time today, I assess my options and my physical condition.

My legs don’t feel that tired, but when I put my feet on the ground I feel unstable, like I just finished a long boat ride. My arse is sore, and does not want to sit on the thin foam rubber seat anymore. I am sure that I rode through the best part of the race already with the children, and I already have some photos and videos.

I never intended set any land-speed records and I never intended to win anything. I just wanted to do something different, and the Did Not Finish (DNF) label does not bother me this time. The race, for me, ends right here.

I stop at a gas station and call Meg to come get me. She arrives, and we have the bike loaded in ten minutes. I am glad to be done, and glad to be out of the sun. I rode for almost three hours, and that was definitely enough. I do, however, drive to the finish line to have a beer in the tent, and collect my medal. Some might say I do not deserve the medal, but I say I do. In fact, I might say that UNICEF should reimburse my entrance fee since I did research along the way and definitely found great kids who need, and deserve a free pair of Crocs^TM to help them in their quest for CHO-CO-LATE.

Anniversary and Inaccuracy while Skydiving

2009-10-10T08:12:00.001-07:00

Most couples exchange gifts and go out to dinner for their two-year anniversary of dating. Instead, Meg and I are sitting outside the lobby of a guesthouse, waiting to be picked up to skydive. It is 10 o’clock in the morning and we sit silently beside each other while fear and excitement vie for control of our thoughts. By ten twenty our anxiety is replaced by annoyance, and I ask the guesthouse receptionist to call the adventure tourism company to confirm our reservation.

On the tourist trail, there are hundreds of adventure activities to experience because it does not take much money for locals to start a company, and there are always wealthy clients eager to try something new. Some adventure tour operators adhere to safety regulations, while others are just after quick money, and do not. Research can often differentiate the good from the bad, but word-of mouth is the most trusted way of choosing an outfit to trust with life and limb. There is still risk involved, there is always risk, but I always feel a little better about a company when someone I know has patronized the company before, and survived.

Our word-of-mouth recommendation for skydiving in Namibia came from an enormous, and jovial Scottish man, Steve, and his Polish wife, Anetta. Meg and I met the couple on a volcano in Indonesia, only months after they had left Africa. The couple went skydiving in Namibia, and they raved about the company they dove with. Steve specifically told me to jump with his ‘Tandem Master’, Henry. I checked out the outfit on the Internet and found that it met my three necessary criteria, in order of importance: it was cheap, conveniently located, and boasted “an impeccable safety record.” It seemed like the perfect company to help us celebrate our anniversary.

The receptionist tells us that our skydiving reservation was moved from 10 to 11 o’clock because the conditions were not good for jumping yet. Swakopmund is a small, tourist town wedged between the huge sand dunes to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Fog often lingers over the German-inspired buildings in the morning, and dissipates in the early afternoon, and I understand that, but someone should have told us about the change. I start to question putting Meg’s and my life in their hands, and I want some reassurance from the receptionist about the quality of the skydiving company. What I get was not what I expected, or had been told on the Internet.

“Actually, when they first started they did have an accident.”
“Really? What happened?”
She reaches out her arm and points her index finger towards a poster on the wall. The poster promotes the company, and is inlaid with five photographs. Her finger leads my eyes to the photograph in the center of the frame.
“That man in the back is Henry, and he died in a tandem jump. I don’t know the technical details, but I know that he put himself under the woman he was taking, and she survived, but he did not. He sacrificed himself for the client. I am sure you should be fine.”

Meg and I look at each other and force smiles. This is not what I expected to hear after reading about the company’s ‘impeccable safety record.’ Meg and I walk outside to discuss the situation. We have forty minutes to reconsider our decision to dive with them, especially since we have not yet turned over any cash.

Meg’s philosophy on life and death is fairly simple, and despite the recent news her conviction does not waiver. She simply says, “If I am going to go I would rather go doing something fun. This is going to be fun, and we should do it.”
“I am sure we should be fine,” I agree.

A van collects us just before eleven, and we are the fifth and sixth clients in it. No one speaks or introduces themselves as we drive to the company’s office. Meg decides to jump with a cameraman who will film her descent while falling with her, and I opt for the guide to video the jump from a ‘handy cam’ strapped to his wrist as we fall. Once the bills are paid we are all back in the van to go out to the airport.

Actually airport is an overstatement. The van drives west past the town’s small airport, and turns north into the vast, brown desert beyond. After ten minutes we stop at a collection of brown, fabric tents set on wooden palettes behind a ring of green, plastic chairs. In front of the tents, and chairs is a long, narrow swath of worn-down sand marked by a faded, white windsock sticking out of an old oil drum. It is the airstrip.

The six of us sat in the plastic chairs while Paul gave us our safety briefing wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit with gecko printed all over it. He spoke casually, but reverently. He informed us that we would use only state-of-the-art equipment, have an automatic activation device for increased safety, and that every ‘Tandem Master’ we would jump with certified professionals with at least 1000 jumps under their belts.

Then he explains that all we have to do is arch our backs, keep our heads back, and lift our knees to try to kick our tandem master in the ass when we jump out of the plain. “If you don’t do these things you will still survive, but you will have a better time if you do it, so don’t worry too much about it. That is all there is too it. Now I need Meghan and Oliver first.”

While Meg puts on her yellow and red jumpsuit and diving harness a plane lands on the strip of sand in front of the tents. It is a Cessna 206, equipped with a 300-horse power engine that looks like it can hold about five people. The plane has been converted for skydiving by removing the seats and installing a clear plastic door that rolls up like a garage door to open the entire side of the plane. The engine sounds good, and does not sputter. Meg poses for a photo before walking the far side of the plane and getting in last.

I am nervous for Meg as the plane takes 25 minutes to reach altitude and release her into thin air. I am more nervous for her, than I am for myself, and I think about the conversation I would have with her parents if she has an accident. It is not something I want to do, and I don’t think they will find much comfort in me saying, “At least she died doing something fun.”

The heavy morning clouds have lifted, and blue desert sky looms above a light layer of bulbous white puffs. I hear the plane overhead, and then I hear Meghan scream from somewhere above the clouds. It is a good scream, not a terrified scream, and I am relieved to hear the flapping of the parachute, then silence. It opened, and after a minute I can see her canopy come through the clouds, and the two bodies rotating beneath it.

The two bodies approach the landing strip quickly, and at the last minute the tandem master pulls the parachute cords and their momentum stalls inches above the ground, and their feet land quietly on the ground. Their voices, however, are not quiet, and Meg whoops repeatedly with delight, and I can tell she loved the experience. Her tandem master, Craig congratulates her and hugs her, and she comes over to me, still beaming.

Now it is my turn to go up, and hopefully come down as gracefully.

In 2007 Henry Simon was an employee of the Ground Rush Adventure Company of Swakopmund, Namibia. He was an affable and high-energy man of 33 who moved to Namibia from South Africa. He was an experience skydiver, and held a valid license to be a tandem master in Namibia. On the afternoon of April 7th, 2007, he had already completed six successful tandem dives on the day, and had accumulated a total of 1580 successful dives in his career.

Henry’s seventh dive that day was with a 23-year old South African tourist named Chantelle Fourie. Chantelle was only meant to be in Namibia for a week before returning to South Africa, and her life. However, on that April afternoon Henry did not complete his 1581st successful dive, and Chantelle never returned to her life at home. The parachute never opened fully and Henry died on impact. Chantelle succumbed to her injuries in a clinic in Swakopmund four days later.

Following the tragic accident the Namibian Ministry of Works launched a thorough investigation. The Ministry examined video footage from Henry’s handy cam, along with his equipment to determine the cause of the tragedy. In May of 2008 they released their finding; human error.

The report says the Henry and Chantelle were forced into a bad position on exiting the plane that caused them to not be belly-to-earth. This in turn caused the pair to spin in the air. Because Henry was unable to control the spinning motion, the parachute was unable to deploy properly, and the, according to the report the jump was doomed after that. The report continues to recommend more side-spin training for all tandem masters, and increased experience for all tandem masters.

Hopefully, our instructors, and the company took notice of the recommendations, but I do not know about the report as I ascend in the same plane that Chantelle used, because I did not research any further than the statement on the Website claiming an impeccable safety record.

At 8,000 feet Craig slides his body to the back of the plane and tells me to sit on his knees while he connects my harness to him at four points. At 10,000 the sliding Plexiglas door rolls up and the cold wind fills the plane. We crawl towards the gaping hole in the plane against the pounding wind, and I do as I was instructed: hang my legs outside of the plane and cross my hands over my chest. I am not holding on to the plane, and am suspended in place only by the weight my tandem partner, Craig, behind me.

The wind carries my legs towards the back of the plane, and I try to resist and keep them under my body. My view is to the west, to the shantytown north of Swakopmund and the vast Atlantic Ocean stretching to the horizon beyond. I am terrified, but I know it is too late to turn back. I close my eyes waiting for the inevitable push out towards the ground below.

I fight to keep my eyes open as we tumble forward from the plane. The ground and sky flicker in rapid succession like frames on a movie that have been juxtaposed in rapid succession before we finally level out, and my head faces the ground. Moving at 130 miles an hour the ground does not seem to get closer, but the deafening noise tells me that we are moving falling quickly. I try to look around at the beautiful scenery, to store the images in my long-term memory, and not to look down.

Craig directs me to play to the camera but I am too amazed at the scenery to act. The weightlessness of my body falling to the ground, and the speed we are traveling makes any movement difficult. My mouth was open when we left, and now it is as dry as the desert below, but I am having a hard time closing against the force of the wind. I want the feeling to last forever, but after 35 seconds, and 5,000 feet in altitude, Craig pulls the shoot, without warning.

When the canopy fills it feels like we are being pulled up to the plane, instead of only slowing our fall. My harness distributes the force throughout my body, and it does not hurt, but I did not want the freefall to end. Freefall is the most exhilarating experience I have ever had and probably the most fun you can have on the earth. It feels like you are giving up your life for the thrill of the moment but cheat death at the last minute.

The silence of the descent is shocking after the ear-pounding noise of the freefall. We chat while I look around at the 360-degree views of spectaclur desert scenery and blue sky. Craig loosens the grip of his harness on mine, and it feels like I am being loosed to my doom. “You did that, didn’t you, I ask?”
“Yes, don’t worry.”

As we continue to fall slowly Craig gives me the yellow, guide ropes of the parachute, and directs me to pull the strings to steer us. As I pull my left arm down, and the loop with it, our bodies swing to the right. We become weightless as our momentum stalls, our heads listing towards the desert floor below. When and the parachute refills with air and takes our weight again we rotate violently to the right. Then we do it again, this time turning to the right, our bodies becoming almost parallel to the ground below us.

Below us I can see the makeshift airport and tent through a layer of puffy white clouds. As we approach the clouds the air becomes cold and moist. I can feel condensation on my cheeks as Craig takes control of the parachute in case of turbulence. Beneath the clouds Craig guides in towards the tent, and tells me to keep my feet up until otherwise instructed.

Inches above the ground he tells me to put my feet down and ski on the sand until we stop. I put my feet on the sand and slide, but stop more quickly than expected and pitch forward. I end up on my hands and knees, with Craig standing behind me. Not the most graceful landing ever recorded, but, safe nonetheless.

Meg greets me on the runway, and she is still beaming from her jump, and relieved I am alive. We both jumped out of a plane and survived, and both loved the experience. On the ground my blood is still coursing through my veins. I feel more alive than ever before, and I want to jump again. I want to jump all day long, every day. I feel like I can conquer the world and cheat death.

It is not long before I open the celebratory champagne, and Meg and I toast the start of our third year of dating. I know this is not the last of our exciting adventures together, and it may not be conventional, but it is a great way to spend an anniversary. And we survived, so we can definitely recommend Ground Rush Adventures of Swakopmund, Namibia, because there are always accidents, and things can always go wrong, but they did get us up and down safely, and the staff was great fun to be around.

25 Things About Namibia

2009-09-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a short list of things that are curious, amusing, annoying, and potentially devastating about the Namibian reality from an outsider's perspective:

1. Namibian tribal languages have at least five distinct clicking and sucking sounds made by slapping or pulling the tongue from various parts of the mouth. Here a click, there a click, everywhere a click-click. When used in rapid succession an amazed and infantile smile will spread across your face, every time.

2. G4S, the largest private security company in the country, has a fleet of white VW Rabbits that patrol the city with ‘ARMED RESPONSE’ painted in bold, red letters on the side panels. Not very intimidating to criminals with reliable, fast SUVs.

3. You can spend $100 to photograph the game on safari during the day, and then $10 to taste the same delicious creatures at night.

4. Rural Afrikaans men wear Khaki shorts so skimpy that they could only be described as ‘hotpants’ and sturdy work boots on the farms during the week, but the same hotpants and bare feet in the malls on the weekend.
5. All you need is a metal shopping cart filled with burning charcoal and a few slices of road kill on a wire grill to open your own roadside restaurant.

6. Size determines the right of way on the roads, and pedestrians have to avoid cars, cars have to avoid SUVs, and SUVs have to avoid trucks. Deviation from the rules brings swift penalty of death or destruction. Kias avoids all because they would not even survive a collision with a skinny pedestrian.

7. Highways are narrow, two-lane roads that carry car, truck, tractor, ATV, bicycle, animal, and pedestrian traffic. District roads appear on the road atlas, but are nothing more than dirt trails only suitable for goats.

8. If you walking in the street and ask a passerby for directions, be prepared to be escorted all the way to your destination. Even after you protest because you incorrectly assume that you are being lead to you own execution.

9. Choosing between the fifty varieties of sausage at the German meat market can cause uncontrollable salivation, dementia, and loss of speech. You must know what you are going to order, and how many grams you want before approaching angry Teutonic woman at the counter.

10. Albinos are hard to spot and even harder to photograph because they move swiftly through the town to avoid being slaughtered for the healing power of their body parts.

11. Every third vehicle on the street is a hulking SUV with green, governmental license plates. Foreign aid hard at work in Namibia.

12. Despite being hunted to the brink of extinction by Germans, Herero tribal dress for men can only be described as early twentieth century German military. Conversely, Herero woman wear British Victorian era hooped skirts with unique headdress that are made to resemble bull horns across their foreheads. As a couple they are fit for any year of Fashion Week in NYC.

13. Being a Christian country, “God” is a censored word in the media. However, it is also the only censored word, so you can often hear expressions like, “Oh my fucking – beep!” on television.

14. If you like the image of a tall, thin, flat-topped tree posing in front of a glowing red sunset in Africa, you will like Namibia. It is the camel thorn acacia tree, and it is just about the only tree that grows in this desert climate.

15. The ruling SWAPO government of Namibian widely viewed as corrupt, extortionist, and indolent. Unfortunately the governmental agency, known as Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR), manages the premier tourist locations in Namibia with the same aplomb.

16. If you sneak past the security guard, and upstairs to the offices of the Ministry of Home Affairs you will see why the governmental institution is despised more than any American bureaucratic institution or DMV. No one works, or even pretends to work during office hours; unless sitting on desks and chatting and laughing loudly in large groups for hours on end is considered part of the job description for processing visa requests.

17. You always need to make certain that you get the service that you paid for. The only way to ensure this is to stand over workers, and watch them as they tackle a task, in their own sweet time. Thus far the growing list includes; medical lab testing, auto repairs, house cleaning, and photo processing.

18. In Namibia you are advised not drive at night, ever. Number one reason sighted; drunk taxi drivers driving erratically without headlights. Number two reason sighted: animals crossing the road erratically without headlights.

19. Redistribution of immigrant German and Afrikaans farms to local control has caused many previously successful enterprises to fail. Despite the staggering 231,000,000% inflation rate and the subsequent food shortage this caused in Zimbabwe, you hear the same refrain here as there, “Better black and broken, than white and working.”

20. Rush hour in Windhoek consists of four cars waiting at a traffic light, known here as a ‘robot’. The most frequent interruption of traffic flow in the city is a stalled, Toyota Corolla taxi that is being pushed, by its paying occupants, to the top of a hill for a jumpstart.

21. The Namibian version of the Christian faith bears more than a touch of the witch doctor tradition, with Tuesday as the “Come and Receive Your Healing” day, Friday as the “Breaking of Curses” day, and Saturday as the, “Prayer For the Impossible Things and Youth Group” day.

22. Any self-respecting business complex, or home has an electrical fence and a dog to protect it. Locks, keys, alarms, and metal bars across all windows are doors are not adequate means of home security.

23. Electronic roulette is the opium of the masses, and ‘gambling houses’ lined with the blinking, ringing slot machines are the most frequent and pervasive businesses establishments in Windhoek. Being in one and not gambling or drinking is not tolerated.

24. When you park your car on the street, be prepared to a uniformed vagrant wearing an orange jumpsuit $1Namibian to protect it. Protection usually entails the guard sitting on, or near, your car while smoking cigarettes, but you are expected to pay for the privilege.

25. There is one explanation for anything and everything that does not go according to plan, reason, or common sense in Namibia, “You must remember, you are in Africa!”

Sossusvlei and Death Vlei

2009-09-17T03:50:00.001-07:00

Great White Cage Diving, Kleinbaai, South Africa

2009-08-31T05:04:00.002-07:00

Like most stories on the backpacking trail, I heard it in a bar. I was in Sydney, Australia, and a drunk Brit whose name I forget, told me that he recently went into a cage while great white sharks swam all around him in Adelaide. He was so drunk and excited that he spat in my face as he spoke. I did not have enough money to make the trip immediately, but from that day, I always knew I would dive with great whites somewhere, sometime. Ten years later, on the other side of the world, I finally got the chance to do it, and without a doubt the day I had made the wait worth the while.

Kleinbaai is a small fishing village on the Indian Ocean, 260 kilometers east of Cape Town, and the epicenter of great white shark expeditions. As Meg and I walk into a small hotel aptly named the ‘Great White House’ I am both nervous and excited about the possibilities before us. We have reservations to cage dive with great white sharks with a company called Marine Dynamics, and hope that they knowledge to find, and the equipment to keep us safe the apex predator of the ocean.

At the introductory briefing in the loft of the hotel we meet our guide, Hennie. He is a salty South African fisherman-turned-environmentalist who has been working out of the Kleinbaai area for over fifteen years. He is encouraged by the mild weather conditions this morning, and allays me fear for an unsuccessful trip by virtually guaranteeing that we will see the huge animals.

Three kilometers out to sea from the small mouth of Kleinbaai harbor is a small island called Dyer Island, and a rocky outcrop known as Geyser Rock. Between the two masses is a narrow, shallow channel known as shark alley. The alley, and the promise of feeding on seals attract great whites throughout the year. Hennie explains that we will anchor the boat off of Dyer Island and throw out a chum line to attract the sharks away from shark alley to the boat and the cage.

After the briefing the ten passengers and four crewmembers walk together down a sloping road towards the harbor. The street is lined with old, battered cages, and the storefronts display huge sets of bleached white jaws with rows of protruding teeth. The sky is overcast but calm, and there is almost no wind. The narrow road ahead ends at the waterfront, and I see the Indian Ocean before me, surprisingly calm and flat.

Kleinbaai means ‘New Bay’, but there is really no bay at all; just a small channel between rocks, strewn with kelp, leading away from a concrete boat ramp. All the boats of Kleinbaai are stored on land at night, and our custom-built thirty-foot vessel with twin Suzuki 300 horsepower outboard engines, named Shark Fever, is no different. We board the boat via a movable stairway, slide past the cage strapped to the stern, and stow our gear in the cabin before a tractor backs the boat down the ramp to the water to begin the expedition.

Since its inception cage diving with great whites has stirred controversy around the world. Surfers and water sports enthusiasts view it as a threat to their safety, claiming that the practice teaches sharks in the area to associate humans with food. I ask Hennie about this as he throttles the boat out of the bay. He seems annoyed by the question and dismisses the claim. He says that his research shows that the sharks are migratory, and do not spend more than a week in the area before moving on, and therefore does not see the correlation with any of the shark attacks in the area. He is completely confident in his certainty, and I wonder if he has explained his theory to any of the victims of attacks around Kleinbaai.

Chum is a mixture of fish blood, fish oil, and fish chunks that is thrown off the boat to attract sharks. Today the current is coming from the east, so after fifteen minutes of powering through the ocean, the boat is off the eastern shore of Dyer Island, and the crew begins to shovel the foul smelling brew into the water. Hennie then slowly pulls the boat east leaving an oily slick of chum in his wake to attract the great fish away from the island and towards the boat. We anchor sideways to the oncoming current, and the cage is dropped into the water off the stern.

Meg is in the first group of divers. We decided to dive in alternating groups, not to lessen the risk that we would both die a tragic death, but to ensure maximum photo coverage. As she pulls on her wetsuit on in the cabin below, I go up to the observation deck with Hennie to look for sharks; we do not have to wait long. “Got one guys,” he yells after only minutes.

The shark is huge, about fifteen feet long. It’s wide, gray body glides effortlessly below the surface of the water on the port side of the boat. The dorsal fin rises to break the surface of the water with a flick of its tail as the crew ties the cage to the side of the port side of the boat. “We’ve got another shark guys,” Hennie calls. This shark is smaller and circles the boat in the opposite directions to the first shark, its wide pectoral fins raising and lowering it in the water. As the massive, gray sharks calmly investigate the boat and the cage, my heart rate soars and I cannot believe I am finally going to dive with great whites.

Meg is the first diver over the side of the boat and into the cage. She is wearing a full body 7mm wetsuit with hood and booties to keep her warm and has a weight belt slung over her shoulder to counteract the flotation of the neoprene suit. She is wearing a mask to give her good visibility underwater, but has neither snorkel nor artificial breathing apparatus.

Marine Dynamics has a system to attract the sharks to the divers in the cage. The ‘chummer’ attracts the sharks to the boat by constantly throwing chim over the stern of the boat into the oncoming current. The ‘baitman’ tempts the sharks closer by throwing a bunch of fish heads tied to a rope onto the surface of the water only feet from the cage. Hennie, perched on the observation deck, is the ‘spotter’, and calls out the direction and depth of the approaching sharks to the crew and divers below. When a shark approaches the baitman pulls the rope, drawing the bait and the shark towards the cage. He wants the shark to go for the bait, but keep it from his mouth so that he can toss the bait out again to draw another strike. All the person in the cage has to do it drop down to see the strike underwater, and come up for air whenever there is no action.

Initially the sharks are timid, and approach the bait cautiously. They glide close to it, and make subtle movements towards it before returning to their original circumnavigation of the boat. Hennie calls out the sharks calmly, and takes notes on the length and sex of the animals for research purposes. After Meg is in the cage for mere minutes I hear Hennie shout excitedly from above. His voice is changed, and more high-pitched. “Down guys. Down-left. Down. Down. Down, guys.”

I can tell by his voice that a strike is coming, and focus the camera on the bait on the surface of the water in front of the cage. I start taking video; unable to see what is coming from below, but hoping for one of the famous breaches of the South African great whites I have seen on ‘Shark Week’. Suddenly a twelve-foot great white explodes from beneath the bait in an arching succession of head, dorsal, and tail. In a split second the shark is gone and the water is calm, but the air is full of cheers from the cage and the boat. Meg’s head pops up from the water below; her eyes are wide and excited, her smile bright under the tight lip on the black mask. I am jealous and want my turn in the water.

The cold doesn’t hit until I have been in the cage for a few seconds and the water has had time to seep through the neoprene and run down my lower back. I try to ignore the cold and find a comfortable shark-viewing position. The cage is a simple structure with an outer wall of steel fencing and one cross bar inside the cage I can safely hold to move my body above and below the surface. I hook the back of my heels into the steel grid at the back of the cage and lean my head forward against the cage’s flotation foam at the front, while my hands grip the cross bar below the surface. The position is comfortable, and similar to that of a motorcycle racer leaning over the bike to reduce drag. My heels are exposed and poking out of the back of the cage, but all the sharks I have seen come for the bait in front of the cage, so I feel confident that I will not lose a heel.

I do not wait for Hennie to call out for sharks, but keep my head buried in the water for as long as possible, only lifting it out to take short breathes. Visibility is good, and I can see clear blue water at least twenty feet below the metal grate of the cage floor. The first shark that investigates the bait is a male about ten feet long. I can tell he is a male because a pair of white tubular prongs hang from his underbelly as he passes only feet from my face. Despite his size, the shark is well camouflaged underwater, and is quick to disappear from view as he flicks his tail and swims away.

Beneath the ten-foot shark, in deeper water, bigger sharks swim past. They do not come to investigate the bait on the surface, but remain well below the boat, two of them reaching almost twenty feet. They are not fooled by the wrangling of the baitman, and do not rise to strike. Perhaps they are older and wiser, and after a few shark passes I see that most of the curious sharks are injured in some way. One has a missing dorsal fin, another has only one pectoral fin, and another has a large chunk of flesh missing from the tip of its nose. The most memorable shark was the one that really wanted the bait. It is a female with an open wound in the left corner of its mouth and five long scratches across her back. She is memorable because she is the one who gets her head stuck between the bars of the cage, inches from my face.

She is about twelve feet long, and she is the most frequent visitor to the boat. She is more than curious when approaching the bait, and is intent on getting the fish heads into her huge mouth. On one pass, as the bait is pulled above the surface of the water in front of the cage the shark lunges then disengages, turning sideways to us. When the bait hits the water again in front of the cage the shark flicks its tail, pushing a wave of water in my face, and charges the bait again. The rope is pulled and the shark misses the bait and heads away from us to my left. When the bait hits the water again the shark wheels towards us to try again.

The baitman throws the bait again, this time a mere three feet from the cage, and draws it in. The shark follows. Two feet from the cage the shark makes her move and lunges for the bait, jaws and gills wide open to swallow anything in its path. I see her first row of teeth pointing towards me, and the deep hollow of her throat behind. As she lifts her nose, and her top jaw slides down from its lip to seize the fish head. The bait disappears into thin air and she bites in vain. The shark’s momentum carries her forward towards the cage, and before either of us know what is happening, she hits the cage with her nose, pushing the cage and everyone in it violently against the boat.

For some reason I am not scared with the shark’s nose gets wedged between the bars of the cage inches from my face. I trust she cannot get to me, and doesn’t want to get me. I know she wants to free herself from the cage and swim away. As her body pushes into the cage my fist instinct is to punch her nose out of the cage to help her. I raise my hand off the bar to release her nose from between the bars before reconsidering, and returning my hand to the safety rail beneath her mouth. She wriggles her body in a rush of white water and turns her body sideways to the cage, extracting her nose from the bars. In a second she is away from the cage and out of sight.

(youtube shark in the cage)

When the shark is away the five of us in the cage come up to the surface and look at each other in disbelief. We all laugh because uncontrollably like village idiots. I try to process the event, and replay it my head to bury the sequence of events as vividly as possible into my memory bank. This is exactly what we had been hoping for, and it actually happened while I was in the cage. In seconds another shark was on the bait, and we all put our heads in the water hoping to see another strike up close.

Besides the freezing water there is one problem with cage diving: the chum. At times the chum slick flows from the stern directly into the cage. I am powerless to stop it, and I can only stay in the water as the putrid, yellow slick washes over me. I can taste it on my tongue, like licking week old sushi. After a half an hour in the water, other divers are tired of the cold and the taste of chum and get out. When the cage is almost empty Meg climbs in again for a second viewing, and we watch the sharks attack the bait together.

After two hours anchored off Dyer Island Hennie tells us that we are moving on. We have seen at least fourteen sharks, and Hennie has seen multiple sharks breach the water to attack seals in the area. He decides that conditions are good enough to try coaxing a shark to attack his seal decoy behind the boat. When Meg and I are safely back in the boat, and the cage is secured on the stern we trawl for great whites. It is an unusual event for Marine Dynamics, and only happens when conditions are just right, so we all thrilled with the possibility of seeing a breach up close.

The decoy is a piece of wood in the shape of a small seal. It is tied to a rope and dragged only twenty feet behind the boat. The decoy has no hooks, and will not hurt the shark if it attacks. Meg and I are on the observation deck with cameras ready to catch footage of a shark breach the water and attack the decoy. We drive slowly, about five miles-an-hour, and within minutes a dorsal fin appears the decoy. The shark moves in close, but does not attack. After ten minutes Hennie calls off the attempt, and the small decoy is brought aboard.

Before heading home the boat takes us into shark alley, between Dyer Island and the seal colony on Geyser Rock. The seals have recently pupped, and young and old play together on the rocks, beach, and in the water. They sound like sheep as they call to each other as they play. We do not see a predation in the alley, but heading home see come across a southern right whale lazing in the water, and then see a predation a hundred yards beyond it in the distance. The water is a awash with white water as the shark misses his first attempt to catch the seal and struggles to get it a second, third, and fourth time.

We are all completely satisfied with the shark trip, and we are sad to see the port of Kleinbaai in the distance, and the tractor waiting to pull us ashore. Sometimes when you anticipate something for so long, realizing it can be disappointing. Waiting ten years to cage dive with great white sharks built up so many expectations in my mind that I was prepared to be disappointed. This day did not disappoint, and even Hennie, who has lead thousands of shark expeditions, gives the day’s shark viewing a 10 out of 10. I do not disagree.

Whale Watching, Hermanus, South Africa

2009-08-31T05:04:00.001-07:00

Up – Relentlessly Up! Platteklip Gorge, RSA

2009-08-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

Table Mountain looms like a huge, stone castle over the city of Cape Town, South Africa, dominating the skyline of the city, and protecting the route south of the city towards the Cape of Good Hope. The summit is the most visited location in the city, most tourists and African school groups reaching its summit via a cable car system. The summit is often obscured by cloud, so on a clear afternoon Meg and I take the weather as a good omen, and decide to climb the mountain under our own power. It is not until after we are done, and Meg has forgiven me, that I read the warning in the tourist brochure, “Up – relentlessly up! Do not underestimate Platteklip Gorge. The path is not a route to be trifled with; the going can be tough.”

Getting reliable information in Africa is never easy, even when you ask the people who should know. So I am not surprised when the woman at the information office at the base of Table Mountain ignores me, and keeps her gaze fixed on the empty desk in front of her. When she finally acknowledges my presence, and I ask her about trails up the mountain above us, she dismisses me by pointing to a rack of brochures on the wall behind me, and returns her focus to the bare table before her; satisfied that she has fulfilled her obligation to the National Park Service of South Africa.

According to the tourist brochure, the most direct way to the top is along thin, wavy line on the map, called the Platteklip Gorge Trail. It is the only trail that will get us to the summit before sunset, and our only option. The trail is short, only three kilometers, (1.9 miles), but climbs over eight hundred vertical meters, (2600 feet) in that distance. Standing at the trailhead, just beyond the throngs of people waiting at the lower cable station, I warn Meg that the trial will be difficult for her. Big mistake. “Don’t tell me that. I can do it.”

If you want to see a woman ready to spit fire, and leave a trail of destruction in her wake, just tell Meg that she cannot do something. It makes her insane with rage, and ready to go to any length to prove you wrong. She would battle a lion barehanded if I told her she couldn’t do it. I have made the mistake before, and I did not do it this time. All I did was warn her that the trail would be a be easy. That was enough, however, to make her spit venom at me, and start marching to the summit, carrying our only backpack, eager to prove me wrong. I followed, but kept my distance.

The lower trail traverses the mountain on a rocky path leading away from the summit to the east. It climbs steady along the mountain on a well-worn path over small gulley that have only small trickles of water. When the path comes back towards the summit we finally see the entire length of the path ahead. The Platteklip Gorge is a deep fissure that cuts the eastern wall of Table Mountain all the way to the summit. The gorge is wide at first, and filled with green shrubs, before narrowing to a small dark crack that leads to the open sky far above us.

After a few wide switchbacks at the mouth of the gorge we both begin to tire. It is hot, and we sweat profusely as the sun beats on us. A few hikers come from above us, bounding down the trail, and we think that perhaps we should have taken the cable car up and walked down. But it is too late, and I know Meg will not give up now.

After an hour we penetrate the gorge itself and its sheer, stone, walls block out the sun and the temperature drops. We are wet with sweat and chilled by the cold as we rest at each switchback to catch our breath and survey the ascent ahead of us. We are moving slowly, but consistently, and I know that we will reach the summit with plenty of daylight, so there is no need to rush.

Resting on a huge boulder I survey the trail ahead and see the first sign of wildlife. There are always animals in Africa, and Table Mountain is not different. This one, however, is not threatening; it’s only a goat. The goat has long, ginger hair, and he is innocently chewing the grass at the edge of the trail. He has horns and does not look friendly, so we stop to admire him, the view of Cape Town below, and the how far we have come from the road below.

(youtube of goat)

We are halfway up the gorge, and our thigh muscles are getting tight. Our progress slows to a crawl as the trail gets steeper still and narrows. Meg makes little goals for herself to plan her next rest stop. “I’m going to make it to the next corner before stopping.” Sometimes we make it, and sometimes we don’t, but we never stop for long before leaning forward into the mountain, and pressing on. Eventually she gives up the backpack, hoping that the easier climb will make the rest of the climb feel easier.

After two hours of walking Meg and I are relieved to reach the narrowest part of the gorge, and see the sky above us open up. We break walk single file out onto the flat table of rock on the top of Table Mountain and survey see the Cape of Good Hope stretching out before us to the south and the blue waters of the Indian and Atlantic oceans. It is nice to be back in the sun, and nice to be finished with the climb. We are already sore, but satisfied in our achievement.

The summit of the mountain is full of people exploring the rocky plain of the summit, and we feel superior to them as we walk towards the cable car, knowing that they took the easy way up, believing we earned the spectacular views before us. At the western extend of the mountain we rest on a rock wall and look out over the blue rocky buttress to the south known as Twelve Apostles, and the waves breaking on the western shore of the Cape Town beaches. I know that Meg has forgiven me when we pose together for a photo on the southern rim of Table Mountain.

When the cable car is full, the rounded doors slide closed, and we drop out of the tunnel over the lip of the mountain. We are facing the station below us, but the car slowly rotates to give us 360-degree views of the area. At the bottom we walk along the Tafelburg Road that descends to our car. We are happy to be walk down, giving our legs a rest, happy that our day’s exercise finished and we can enjoy the comforts of the cosmopolitan city below.

Stellenbosh, South Africa

2009-08-31T05:02:00.000-07:00

"Intense aromas of stewed plums, cigars, and your grandmother's potpourri"

I thoroughly enjoy wine. I am partial to red, but will drink an occasional white or bubbly if I’m feeling inspired. So it was no coincidence that on our adventures in South Africa, our first stop in Stellenbosch, aka Wine Country.

After driving 14 ½ hours down to Stellenbosch from Windhoek, we deserved a little wine. We decided to join a wine tour that takes you around to vineyards, gives you lunch and cheese, and provides all the wine info one could hope for. So Todd and I readied our palette for our 10am tour, and when we arrived found out it would be a bit of a VIP tour, since we were the only tour who signed up!

We met our tour guides, who told us his name was Gabriel (like the angel) who’s actual name is Gabriel (pronounced with a ha like you are clearing your throat) but everyone called him Harvey. He was sufficiently knowledgeable even if perhaps a bit of a shady character, and gave us his instruction for wine tasting.

1. Swirl the wine in the glass to release the bouquet
2. Nose the wine (aka sniffing -but we don’t use such plain language in wine tasting)

3. Sip the wine softly, not too much, not too little
4. While holding the wine in your mouth, suck in the some air and swirl it around like mouth wash
5. And swallow paying specific attention to the taste and finish

There are three things I should mention up front.

Firstly, there is a point when you are wine tasting when all the wines start to taste good. This is a bad sign. It means you’ve had one too many ‘tastes’ and now you’re just drinking. Therefore, my critiques of earlier wines are much more valid than the latter. Consider this my disclaimer.

Secondly, my suspicion, confirmed in part by our trip to Stellenbosch, was that the people who write wine descriptions like “hits of tar and a finish of rose water” just get drunk and then come up with the most ridiculous things they can think of. Therefore, in my descriptions, I’ll stick to the facts and let you get drunk and create your own ridiculous descriptions of “boysenberry undertones and splashes of mahogany and cigars” when you try the wines yourselves.

Thirdly, I’ve dove into a bit of detail around the wines that we drank and the ones that we liked. Next time you are at the wine store keep a look out for South African wine and think of us!

The first Vineyard we stopped at was called Simonsig, at the base of Simon Mountain and since ‘sig’ means view it was appropriately named. We took a tour of the grounds and into the cellar- where the magic happens. We learned about grapes and fermentation and all sort of good stuff. At Simonsig (which import to CA so keep an eye out in the US) Todd and I tried different wines so between the two of us, we covered pretty much the whole menu. There were lots of good wines, but to pick some favorites…the Pinotage is a South African specialty. It is a hybrid of pinot noir and hermitage grapes- an excellent everyday drinking wine.
The Simonsig Cabernet Sauvignon Labyrinth, was a nice lighter Cab, called Labyrinth because they plant and grow the grapes in the shape of a labyrinth for no other reason than to name the wine. They age the Cab in oak, but then leave it in the bottles at the Vineyard to the tannins calm down a bit so it develops a smoother taste.
Finally, the Tiara Bordeaux Blend, Simonsigs flagship Bordeaux (Bordeaux the region in France where the grapes come from) was a nice blend predominately Cab, but with Merlot and Cab Franc as well. Normally I don’t enjoy Cab Franc and find it bitter, but this one worked for me. Supposedly the 2004 is a good year for this one. (Simonsig had a great list and I enjoyed most wine…or something to close it)

The next vineyard we hit up was Fairview, which is the vineyard that makes “Goats do Roam” which you probably know from the US. I think this was Todd favorite right off the bat, because Todd has a special place in his heart for anyone that gives the French a hard time and liked the play on their Cote du Rhone. They have a bunch of different wines, but the Goats do Roam- The Goats in Villages Red was a great easy drinking red, the Chakalaka in the Spice Route Wines is a great blend (Chakalaka is the name of an African-Malay Spice- as early slaves to South Africa came from the far east) and the Fairview Wines, of which the Mourverde and the Shiraz were particularly good. Todd second favorite thing about this place may have been that they kept live goats outside in a tower like on the label.

Next we went to Boshendal Vineyard. It was set on a nice property with a Cape Dutch farm house and worth it for the view, but overall it was probably our least favorite. We didn’t get to pick our wines, so we were poured 3 very oaky very white, white wines which might have had something to do with it, but if I had to pick a favorite I’d say the 1685 Shiraz/Cabernet blend 2006.

Finally we went to Tokara, the most modern of all the vineyards . For all you white lovers out there, my favorite white wine was here which was the Tokara White 2007, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon- not a huge oak and butter flavor like a lot of oaked whites have- as the Blanc spends little time in the oak. The winning red here was Zondernaam Cabernet Sauvignon 2006- a nice solid Cab and pretty inexpensive (about $ 7 US here, but wine here costs nothing). We have a bottle of the Cab on our shelf getting ready to be drunk in Windhoek when we need a little reminding of what a great trip we had to Stellenbosch.

Fish River Canyon

2009-08-31T03:12:00.001-07:00

As I drive south to the camp at Hobas, I do not worry about the warnings of people in Windhoek who say the Fish River Canyon is too dangerous to walk alone. I am confident that I can walk the sixty miles of rough terrain from Hobas to Ai-Ais without a problem. I have walked long distances alone before, and I know I have packed enough supplies to sustain me, even through minor injury. My fear is that the Namibian Wildlife Resorts officials will turn me away because I do not meet their rigid specifications for hiking the canyon. I should have known better. Namibia is the developing world, after all, and there is always a way around the rules, and things work out in the end if you keep your options open.

Fish River Canyon is touted as the second biggest canyon in the world behind the massive canyon of the Colorado River. The Fish River is in south-central Namibia, and has carved a canyon hundreds of miles long on its way towards the might Orange River, and the border of South Africa. Water courses from its tributaries in the north in the fall to fill the canyon with water in the spring and summer. The canyon is only accessible to hikers for the four months of winter while water levels are low but still flowing.

Control of the Fish River Canyon comes under the jurisdiction of the Namibian government, specifically the Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR). Besides limiting the opening and closing of the canyon due to water levels, they also limit the number of registered entrants to the park to thirty per day. Due to previous accidents in the canyon, hikers must form a party of three or more people, and each member of the group must have medical clearance from a doctor. As I pull the car up to the guardhouse at Hobas camp, just before sunset on a Monday evening, I have no registration to enter the canyon, no group of three hikers, and only a forged doctor’s form, from a fictitious Doctor Perriwinkle, stating my optimal physical condition.

Behind the desk at the camp office is a large black woman with a black and white scarf wrapped around her head and large black-framed glasses. I stand before her and stretch my back after the long 600 mile drive, and smile at her to get in her good graces.
“Long drive?” she asks.
“Yes, from Windhoek.”
“Oh, so you are from Windhoek. Do you hike the canyon?”
“Yes.”
“And after?”
“Back to Windhoek.”
“You are alone?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot walk the canyon alone. But I can put you with a group if I can go with you back to Windhoek. I have to see a doctor on Monday in Windhoek.”
“If you get me into the canyon tomorrow, I will take you to Windhoek when I go.”
“Now we make business,” she laughs.

I stand with my pack at the guardhouse of Hobas as the sun comes up, hoping to catch a ride to the canyon as early as possible. At seven a white pick-up truck with canopy slides to a stop before me and people pile out of both ends of it. It is a Afrikaans school group from a small Namibian farming community with four middle school students and three adults. They agree to give me a ride to the starting point of the hike. We turn our medical forms in to the park officer in the guardhouse and pay the entrance fee. The officer does not look at the documents, but counts to make sure he has the correct number of them. Dr. Perriwinkle has done his job, and I climb into the back to truck to start the hike.

A wide, rocky plain extends for miles around, broken only by a few small hills in the distance. Only on the rim of the canyon do I see the huge scar in the earth that is the Fish River Canyon. I walk to the rim of the drop off and stare at the valley floor 550 yards below, and my eyes trace the route of the river south thought the multicolored rocks. I eat breakfast and contemplate the four days walk ahead of me. I do not have a map to guide me because Luisa ran out of maps in Hobas, but I know that I just have to follow the river for sixty miles to the hot springs resort of Ai-Ais. I stretch, say good-bye to the group, and start the trail in the shadow of the eastern wall of the canyon.

The route is steep and rocky, with chains drilled into the rock face to assist in the descent. After many switchbacks the trail widens and follows a steep sandstone gorge towards the bottom. Quiver trees, a type of aloe tree, cling to the steep rock walls around me as I descend. After an hour I arrive on the sandy bank of the Fish River at the mouth of the gorge. The Fish River is not a river as much as it is a series of green pools connected by trickles of water between them this late in the winter. I am glad to have my water purification tablets, but don’t relish the thought of drinking water that tastes like chlorine for the next four days.

The sun is over the rim of the canyon and the temperature is already up to eighty degrees when I get down. I change into shorts and a T-shirt beside the river before heading off. I want to keep ahead of the group behind me and walk alone. I like to move at my own pace, focus on nothing more than my next footfall, and let my mind forget about everything except the environment around me. I make as little noise as possible to see as many animals as possible along the trail. However, within minutes of re-starting I turn a corner that makes me rethink my decision to walk alone.

I don’t like primates. In truth, they terrify me because they are wild, unpredictable, and often vicious. I know humans are above primates, and should be able to dominate them, but we have long since abandoned living physical existences, and I know that they could tear me to shreds. Most of all I hate baboons. I think it’s because of their beady eyes, huge muzzles and long, powerful limbs. Africa is full of baboons, and full of wild stories of baboons killing children, and even eating babies. So, as I climb a steep, narrow ledge high above the river I freeze at the sight of large, gray baboon staring at me from a boulder ten feet ahead of me.

He knows I am alone. He has been watching me approach, and was aware of me well before I see him. He is not scared of me because I am alone, and challenges me by standing his ground. He is sitting on his rump, his forearms resting on his knees, his small, black eyes staring directly at mine. I have to walk past him, or wait for him to leave. After a long, painful minute I start to walk to past him, hold eye contact with him, and try not to show my fear. His body doesn’t move, but his head follows my every step.

As I approach him his body becomes tense and rigid, and his weights shifts forward onto his hind legs. He tilts his head in my direction and opens his huge mouth, exposing his tall, bright fangs. One more step and he howls, the deep, primal noise that reverberates between the canyon walls and shatters the calm of the canyon. The strain of the howl wrenches his body and quickens my steps.

I pass the angry animal and move slowly backwards along the trail. As I move further from him, he sits back down on his rump, and relaxes. I pull out my camera to document the encounter. I focus the lens on him and he howls again at my insolence. The camera shakes in my hand as he howls again through the viewfinder. The video is short because focusing on him makes him agitated and I fear a charge. I do not check the footage, but back down the trail away from his perch.

At four o’clock I estimate I have walked twelve miles, and decide to make camp on a sand bank below the north rim of the canyon wall, twenty yards from the river. I spread out my plastic tarp, weigh it down with heavy rocks, and unroll my sleeping bag. This is the desert and there is no need for a tent. Within minutes the sun disappears behind the western wall of the canyon and the chill the shadow envelops me. I cook my dinner over my gas stove and eat quickly before laying my pack at my head and lying down. It is not even dark.

In the loneliness of the early evening a quote keeps resonating inside my hyperactive and slightly paranoid mind. An Afrikaans farmer once told me that, “baboons will do anything for food. They go absolutely crazy for anything you have. That is when they are most dangerous, yah.” The statement takes hold of my imagination and spawns a series of questions and terrifying scenarios.

Do baboons come out at night? Will they be attracted to the smell of the food in my pack? Should I make a urine ring around my camp? Should I leave my food away from my camp, and risk losing it all, or leave it beside me, and risk being attacked? How should I defend myself when they come? Where is my knife? Why am I here alone?

Sleep does not come quickly. The fear of baboons is enough to keep me awake, but at on the canyon floor I am also freezing cold. I am wearing every shred of clothing I brought with me, but I am shivering inside my thin sleeping bag. When I think it cannot get any worse the wind picks up and whisks waves of sand across my face and into my eyes, ears and nose. I bury my head inside the sleeping bag and draw the string tightly over my skull just as the rain begins to fall, lightly at first and then more forcefully. The only consolation is that I doubt baboons will come in the rain.

At the first hint of light I am out of my sleeping bag and packing up my sodden gear. It is still cold, and I need to get moving. Baboons howl from the cliffs above me, and I want to leave this spot and its memory behind me. Around the first bend in the river I see the first group of humans since dropping into the canyon. A man and a woman rest on a sandy bank beside the river. Seeing them lifts my spirits, and, despite my desire to walk the canyon alone I am glad not to feel isolated any longer.

The man’s name is Jerry, and within minutes he wants his new American friend to join his group of four South African hikers. Jerry is fifty-five years old. Jerry owns his own automobile repair shop. Jerry has two children. Jerry likes to talk. While we walked together I ask him as many questions about baboons as he asks me about America. He tells me that baboons do not come out at night, and I tell him that all Americans are not all fat and lazy. He tells me not to throw stones at baboon, and I tell him not to throw stones at Americans.

Jerry is not from the city, and looks like most Afrikaans farmers in Namibia, with wool socks rolled over the tops of his hiking boots, short shorts that barely cover his buttocks, khaki shirt with epaulettes, topped with a khaki safari hat. He is overly friendly, and overly excited by my company. By the third time he tells me that he can’t believe he has met a “real, live, American”, I know it is time for me to quicken my pace and leave him behind. I fancied surviving the baboons more than I did his persistent chatter.

With Jerry safely behind me I stop along a sunny stretch of river, lay all my belongings on a warm boulder, and strip down to swim. As my thing and my body dry on a warm rock I regain my composure and appreciate the beauty of the canyon. The scenery is not as dramatic as that of the Grand Canyon, but is still overwhelming when I consider the power and time it took to be created.

The trail varies between wide floodplains to narrow passes and back again throughout the morning. Beside a beautiful pool of green water I come across another hiker. He immerges without warning from a row of trees on the bank of the river as I am passing. We surprise each other and introduce ourselves. He is also South African, but I suspect he is from the city because he is not wearing short shorts, and tells me he has been to the States. His name is Hermann.

Hermann and I walk together and he tells me he is with a group of eleven hikers, all like Herman, about the same age as me. We walk until I want to stop for lunch, and he continues to catch up with his group. I swim again and relax on a sandy beach after eating my sandwich and filling my water bottles. When I rejoin the trail I find the rear guard of his group restarting down a wide stretch of river. “You must be Todd,” the first man says to me as I approach. We talk for a while before I catch another member of the group, who greets me again by the refrain, “You must be Todd.” I feel like Dr. Livingstone.

The group is made of up highly professionals from Cape Town and Johannesburg; five women and six men. None of them wear short shorts, and none of them call me a ‘real live American’, so I accept their invitation to camp with them on a sandy beach on the north side of the river. Pitching camp is easy with a group, and by nightfall we have plenty of firewood, fresh fish to eat, and even pass around Nalgene bottles of vodka mixed with energy drink. The night sky is clear, and the new moon is not yet visible, affording spectacular views of the milky way, the southern constellations, and even an exploding shooting star. Even though there are leopard tracks in the sand around the camp I have no fear of them or baboons as I fall asleep.

The sandstone buttresses around the camp alight with an orange glow at sunrise. I am not tired from the walk yet, and I am eager to start walking again. I leave while the group waits for each other to eat and pack up, happy once again to walk alone. The trail follows wide stretches of river before cutting the corners of long lazy meanders across dusty plains.

The twelve of us make camp together again as the afternoon sun disappears behind the canyon walls. There are only six miles left to walk before the town of Ai-Ais and the end of the canyon, and we all think about ordering food at the resort restaurant, and bathing in its hot spring baths. The night is cool and clear, so I sleep next to the fire, and stoke it at intervals to keep warm. In the morning I stir the coals and put more wood on to cook my oatmeal before heading towards Ai-Ais. My only concern now is getting back to my car in Hobas today. I have heard there is a shuttle, but I am not sure if it is running.

The trail to the end is wide, flat and unspectacular. The canyon has become a valley, and the river no longer has deep pools of water. I do not need to climb out of the canyon; the canyon has run its course and ended. Beyond a low dam I can see stone buildings that betray the resort. There is no ascent to get out of the Fish River Canyon, only a small sandy riverbank that leads up to the tourist resort of Ai-Ais.

The first person I see is Luisa, the manager of Hobas camp. We greet each other like long lost friends with a hug and a kiss. I am not sure why we are so familiar, it obvious that both of us are excited to see the other. Her happy mood suddenly turns somber and she says, “I have bad news Todd. “I cannot go to Windhoek with you tomorrow.”

Luisa does not have permission to go to Windhoek. She was not given time off to see a doctor and was forced to cancel her CT scan appointment that could diagnose her constant headaches. I am sorry she will not be able to see the doctor, but happy to hear that she is returning to Hobas in the afternoon and will be able to give me a lift back to my car. I wait for her in the resort bar and order a Windhoek draught and take off my shoes. My feet are blistered from the hot sand, and my muscles are now sore. I leave the bar and take a bath in the natural hot spring water of Ai-Ais.

The group of eleven trickles in to Ai-Ais as I am packing up for my lift back to Hobas. We exchange emails and say goodbye before I jump into the back of a pick-up truck with cases of beer and Luisa’s two children. As we pull out of the stone bowl that cradles the resort and drive the bumpy dirt roads to Hobas I realize that this is a very fitting end my Fish River Canyon trip; despite my concerns about Namibian bureaucracy and unpredictable weather and wildlife, and not knowing how I will get out of the canyon, everything worked out in the end.

Off the Back Foot

2009-08-31T03:11:00.000-07:00

Otavi Soccer Tournament, August 8-9

Whether people play sports, which sports they play, and how they play them reveal everything about a person’s character. I will play any sport, anytime, anywhere, but I prefer to play a team sports, usually soccer. I have been playing amateur, competitive soccer for thirty years, and cannot imagine a day when I cannot play. Unfortunately, my game has flaws, and last weekend they became evident, but fortunately no one seemed to care.

When I showed up for a soccer tryout on a cold Wednesday evening two months ago, I did not know what to expect. Beneath underpowered floodlights on a well-manicured field I played with nineteen other men, mostly of German descent, and immediately felt comfortable. They played well, and treated me with respect, even though I was a newcomer, and worse, an American. After practice, over a couple pints of German lager in the club bar, the coach asked for my email address. I had passed my audition and became a member Ramblers Football Club of Windhoek.

Over the last two months I have practiced with the Ramblers every week, and have played a few eleven-a-side matches against local rivals from townships around Windhoek. For the Ramblers I play sweeper, the last man in defense before the goalkeeper. I make a good sweeper because I see the field clearly, anticipate the game effectively, and have the speed to take advantage of the opponent’s mistakes. I make a good club member because I am not selfish, I am not overly competitive, and I do not make waves within the club. After playing amateur, adult soccer in 5 countries I know that being part of a sports club is as much about having fun with teammates as it is about winning the games, except in Japan.

Perhaps the most telling thing about the way I play soccer is that I play defensively instead of offensively, off the back foot if you will. I wait for the opponent to make their move, and I react to it to thwart them, and keep them out of my goal. True, I play soccer aggressively, and used to take pride in inflicting pain on opposing players, but always with a defensive mindset. I do not want to own possession of the ball, carry it forward, or even score. I have no designs on the offensive half of the field, and if I happen to find myself there I get nervous and often make mistakes. In essence, I eschew taking responsibility for winning the game, and only accept responsibility for losing it.

In five-a-side soccer, however, there is no sweeper, and no time to wait for the opposition to come to you. Every player must come forward, possess the ball, and play offensively, off the front foot. So, when I accepted the Ramblers’ invitation to join the team at the Otavi five-a-side tournament, it was with some reservations. It is never a good idea to disappoint your club, especially when it is a German club.

Otavi is a small farming community in north-central Namibia with an even smaller community of German descendents. The few Germans attend a private German school in Otavi’s dusty town center, with some children from distant farms boarding on school grounds. Every year the school organizes a tournament to supports its existence and the perpetuation of the German culture for the future generations. All the German soccer clubs from the length and breadth of Namibia attend, and support the school financially by paying to participate, drinking donated food and drink, and making additional cash contributions.

I drove to Otavi with Heiko; a German descendent whose grandparents fought in vain against the Boers in the early 20th century and ended up in prison camps, only to be released once their war was lost. He was raised on a cattle farm north of Windhoek, and also attended a German boarding school in Windhoek because there were no good schools remotely close to his property. Heiko, like all German-Namibians, still speaks German at home, but can speak English, and some tribal languages as well.

We passed the four-hour drive from Windhoek easily, with sporadic conversations about soccer, his family, Namibia, and the tournament. He is affable but quiet and enjoys the simple things in life. We drove in his VW minivan with his three children and wife, but we were the only ones who spoke. We arrived at the farm where we would stay the next two nights well after nightfall. We met the other members of the team behind the farmhouse, and took our places around a campfire to drink beer, eat sausages and anticipate the next day’s matches.

For my benefit everyone initially tried to speak English so I could understand and take part in the conversations. It lasted for the first hour, bus as the night wore on and Windhoek lagers went down, the conversation slipped into German as everyone lost lucidity. I did not want to infringe on the jovial nature of the event, and I tucked myself into my sleeping bag with only my worries of what the tournament had in store for company.

A cock’s crow woke me up around six, and I went outside to see the landscape I could not see the night before. The farm was set in a valley that ran east from the town of Otavi towards Grootfontein. The sandstone valley walls were covered in scrub brush, but the valley floor was mostly clear from cattle farming. I helped our host, Gunther, pick up empty beer bottles from around the fire pit, took pictures around the grounds, visited the captive cheetah, and then settled on the porch for coffee and the traditional breakfast of hard bread rolls known as rusks. Gradually my teammates joined me around the table to caffeinate and prepare for the games ahead. Around nine I drove with Heiko and his family into town, and the tournament.

Otavi town center is foursquare blocks of wide, dirt roads lined with modest, one-story houses. A tall yellow tent in the parking lot of the host school, visible from everywhere in town, guided us to the tournament. When we pulled into the school grounds, the parking lot was filled with athletes stretching in colorful uniforms, mothers and wives preparing their cameras beside the field, and older spectators sitting inside the tent drinking beer. Outside the grounds groups of local black children hung on the chain link fence to get a view of the biggest event on the annual Otavi calendar.

The tournament has three age classifications, each made up of four teams. My team played in the 30-40 year-old bracket and was made up of seven field players and a goalie. We were a good side, with only one weak player, which fortunately was not me. I started the first game and played well, hitting the crossbar once, the post once. We won the game 4-1, and we were satisfied with the result, but should have won by more. During the break between games we all imagined that we would hoist the trophy after the championship game on Sunday.

We lost the next game to a club from Walvis Bay, on the Atlantic coast, by one goal. In the final game we played timidly and lost by two goals to the rival club from Windhoek, the hated SKW, Sports Klub Windhoek. Part of the blame for the losses was mine because I rarely carried the ball forward and did not play enough offensive football. Our hopes of bringing a trophy home to the clubhouse trophy case were dashed, and we would be playing the consolation game the next day to finish worst, or hopefully, second worst.

The result was disappointing, but the benefit was that we could enjoy the German festivities without much regard for the game the next day. Within minutes of the final whistle with pints of German lager in our hands, the defeats were quickly put behind us. There was drinking to be done and songs to be sung, and that was enough to carry us well into the night.

Jagermeister is a German digestif made of herbs and spices and 35% alcohol. I have heard that people in German do not drink it, but in Namibia they drink it as if their German heritage depended on it. Almost every beer bought for me came with a shot, or tot, of Jagermeister, and I reciprocated during my rounds. As the booze flowed the teams mingled with each other, and old, heated rivalries were put on hold. Almost everyone knew each other, and I was the only American at the event, although everyone assumed I was English.

After dinner came an auction, with proceeds going directly to the school. At some point after the auction, after multiple tots of Jager, and multiple, raucous toast made in honor of the Ramblers club, my memory of the events began to blur. I remember being a bit confused on how to find my sleeping quarters, but woke up in my sleeping bag, so all was well. Note to self; do not drink Jager, and definitely do not drink it at the rate of the seasoned members of the Ramblers F.C.

The next day we won our consolation match easily against the only team we beat the previous day, and finished third. At the awards ceremony we collected ribbons for the honor of finishing third, and posed for a team photo. In truth, the ribbons were deserved because the event was not to see who is best as much as it was to be a part of the event. I am fortunate to have been invited to take part in the tournament, and I will bring the ribbon back to the U.S., even though my performance was as mediocre as I had feared it would be. Perhaps one day I will play more offensively, but for now, I will settle for living and playing off the back foot, but relish doing it in good company.

The Kalahari...?

2009-08-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

So unfortunately for all of you, your regular witty and sarcastic blogger is out of town walking the Fish River Canyon (the 2nd largest behind the Grand Canyon) without yours truly, so for this blog update you are stuck with me.

Last weekend, Todd and I packed up the Kia with all of our camping gear and heading about 4 hours south of Windhoek right outside a town called Mariental in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. The Kalahari Desert stretches across three countries (Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa) and the Kalahari Basin extends its reach up to Angola and across to Zimbabwe. The Kalahari, originally named the Kalagari “waterless place” conjures images of extensive and endless fire red sand dunes and camels and other desert-baron like stuff. The Kalahari does, in fact, have extensive fire red sand dunes (smaller than one would imagine); however they are covered in grass and bush, and slightly resemble the landscape of Windhoek. I looked at Todd and said..."this is the Kalahari?"

Despite our surprise, we are never ones to miss out on an adventure, so Todd and I booked the 6 am game drive Saturday morning and we headed off into the desert. Despite my argument that small game would necessitate big game that eats small game, our drive featured springbok, oryx, wildebeest, dixdix, and large group of flapping ostriches -which did, in the end, prove to be very entertaining, if not deadly killers.

The game drive took us over the dunes to some cleared areas where the true radiance and beauty of the Kalahari could be seen in the sand beneath us. These bare and beautiful dunes were few and far between, but seeing them this way made it seem like we had stumbled upon the secret of the beauty of the Kalahari—which you have to experience to know was even there.

Without dune hiking and lion spotting to keep us busy we headed over to lounge around the resort making use of their pools.

For dinner, Todd managed one of his best camping masterpieces yet…steak, corn, and rice-yum!
While this trip may not have been our most exciting yet- it is always fun to get out of the city and camp in the fresh air…and you know us- doesn’t take much for us to have some fun!

A Tale of Two Bakeries

2009-07-31T02:50:00.001-07:00

Tsumeb and Tsinstabis, Northeastern Namibia

Windhoek is a small, modern capital city, with all the conveniences of the developed world, and only some of the inconveniences of the developing world. In order to understand the Namibian reality you need to go outside the capital and into the countryside. The story of two bakeries in Tsumeb and Tsintsabis, told by a German handicap, a witch doctor, a SWAPO flag-waver, two Hei//omn tribeswomen, and an immense Italian woman gave me a better sense of what life is like outside my cushy Windhoek apartment, and the complexities of baking bread in Namibia.

I walked its entire length of Tsumeb, all four blocks, before turning around at a dead end. I retraced my steps and stopped at small restaurant with a fridge stocked with bottles of Tafel beer. The young woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted to drink it in the garden, and I said I did. She led me through the empty restaurant to a South-Central L.A. style, metal, screen door. She unlocked a padlock and led me into a narrow courtyard surrounded on three sides by tall, flaking concrete walls and a metal gate on the front side leading to the street. It was not a garden at all, but at least it was in outside.

I sat down at a long wooden table that lay along the wall of the building and took a long swig of Tafel. The beer was good and cold, and my seat offered me a view of the few people passing by on the street. As I watched the women in colorful, tribal dresses, and the girls in catholic schoolgirl uniforms stare back at me, I became aware of someone else watching me. I slowly spun around and saw two tired, brown eyes examining me through the grate of the metal, screen door, the eyes at waist level.

I don’t like being snuck-up on, and it is even more unnerving when it is a man in a wheelchair doing the sneaking. He did not speak, but looked at me inquisitively as if he was trying to place me from somewhere before, but couldn’t. After an uncomfortable length of time, he spoke.

“Hello. Where are you from zen?”
I told him.
“Ah. American,” as if that answered all the questions in his head.

Then he asked me the question that would lead us to where he wanted to go.
“Vat do you zink of our town ‘Chu-meb’ and our Namibia zen?”

I told him I had only been in town an hour and Namibia not much longer. His tired eyes lit up and his head rolled back in anticipation. He pushed the metal door open with his arm and started rolling towards me. He wore a stained navy blue ‘GAP’ sweatshirt, and tattered green military shorts. He propelled his chair with his left leg, while his withered right leg rested idly on the peddle of the wheelchair. He looked about forty-five years old, but by the deep lines in his face, and unkempt appearance, I imagined a hard forty-five.

I wanted to ask him how he was handicapped, but did not. It was not my turn to talk.
“I must educate you about South-West Africa, or, Namibia as it is called now.”

He introduced himself as Hans, but did not extend his hand when he did so. He spoke slowly, and only out of the right side of his mouth, exposing only the few decaying teeth on that side of his jaw. He spoke slowly and deliberately, his brown eyes searching the sky for the correct words as his hands wrestled each other in his lap. He relished my company, and asked me only rhetorical questions. I felt trapped in my seat, and I would have gotten up and left early on in the conversation if he had he that option as well.

His grandfather was baker from Germany who settled in South Africa in the 20’s. He came by himself to Namibia and bought this bakery in Tsumeb in the 60’s, when Namibia was under control of South Africa. The bakery and the town prospered then because the copper mines outside of town were under the control of a South African company.

When Namibia gained independence from South Africa in the 80’s the SWAPO government came into power and took over the mine. Workers strikes and mismanagement caused the mines to shut down, and the newly elected SWAPO government did not intervene and settle the disputes until it was too late. When the workers returned to work, the mine was flooded and declared useless.

With mine closed, the town and Hans’ bakery began to struggle. There was no money in the Tsumeb, and no workers buying bread. He minimized his baking operation, sold off what he could, and opened the little restaurant. He reverently laid his hand on the table next to my beer and said that it used to be his workstation, and that there were times he worked at it all day long to keep up with demand.

Hans said that SWAPO came to power promising wealth and education to all Namibians, but did not, and could not deliver. He said they crushed the existing industries of Namibia through ignorance, indolence, and corruption. He also claimed that SWAPO made public education not only worse, but also more expensive for the average Namibian. He had particular venom for the former SWAPO leader, and guerrilla leader, Sam Nujoma. It was clear from the empty restaurant and his appearance that Hans was not doing well, but knew whom to blame.

(file photo)

Suddenly the wind changed, and carried with it smoke and an acrid smell. “Dis iz from de smelter,” he said. The only industry Tsumeb has left is the smelting was saved after Independence. Hans explained that many countries do not allow the pollution that smelting produces, and that they ship their raw ore to Tsumeb to be cooked, and shipped back. Without this influx of foreign currency Tsumeb would become like the deserted mining towns that have been swallowed by the deserts in Southern Namibia. As Hans said, “it iz all we have left.”

Just before the bottom of my second bottle of beer, Hans’ wife drove an old Toyota pickup truck into the courtyard and got out. She was short and very round, with long, dyed black hair. She moved quickly for a large woman, and carried armfuls of groceries past Hans and into the kitchen without a word.

Hans reversed his chair into the kitchen and began grilling his wife on the cost of each item he pulled out of a bag. Within seconds they were yelling at each other full force while the young woman who supplied my beer emptied the rest of the truck. When the wife reappeared outside she smiled widely at me and ignored the screams from the kitchen. She wanted to talk to their visitor about soccer, specifically her world champion, Italian national team.

After talking about how attractive Francisco Totti is, she told me that I should get out of Tsumeb because, unlike them, I could. She pulled me into the restaurant and sat me at a table while her chubby fingers rifled though a box of Namibian tourist brochures. She settled on a bush camp called ‘Treesleepers’, located sixty-five kilometers north of Tsumeb near a town called Tsintsabis. She said she had never been, but heard it was nice, and that I had to go. I acquiesced, and said that I would go there the next morning, and I meant it.

Tsintsabis has a population of about one thousand people, predominantly San Bushmen of the Hei//omn (the // is a pronounced with a click) tribe. The Hei//omn, like most indigenous people across the globe forced into a static life, are suffering from poverty, unemployment and alcoholism. However, with the assistance of foreign aid the Hei//omn created Treesleepers bush camp to promote tourism to the region, stimulate the local economy, and give the tribe a chance to protect their culture.

As I pulled into the camp I expected to be see tiny, light-skinned Bushmen wearing only leather loin-clothes, carrying crude bows and arrows waiting for me. I anticipated being greeted by the whole Hei//omn tribe with a volley of elaborate clicking sounds, and curious embraces. Perhaps I would even be welcomed with a traditional tribal dance by bare breasted women with names I could not pronounce. Instead, I got George.

George was eating his lunch of pasta and red sauce when I arrived. He is a young man of twenty-one, and claimed to be half Hei//omn and half Owambo. Given the fact that he was tall, broad, and very dark-skinned, I suspected he was more Owambo than San. SWAPO was originally the party of the Owambo people, and within minutes of our conversation he let me know that he was a dedicated member of his party.

George and I ate lunch together in the shade of a tree at the main reception area Treesleepers. I asked about the obvious construction that was going on, and he said the camp was not completed yet, even though it has been open for three years. I asked him about other guest in the camp and he said that there was only one Dutch family besides me, but that this was the high season. Then he tried to sign me up for a village tour that afternoon and a bush walk with another guide the following morning. I chose the village tour, hoping to see what modern life was like for the Hei//omn.

The village tour came with an instruction sheet. It stated that the village is very poor, and that visitors should respect the families that we visit and bring small articles of appreciation to them. The sheet suggested T-shirts, tea, sweets, bread, cigarettes, and alcohol. As I read the pamphlet, next to the Dutch woman and her two small sons, we decided on giving the families gifts of food; even though we suspected booze would be more welcome.

George drove the Dutch trio and I through the small village of Tsintsabis and then turned away along a small dirt road into open, yellow fields. We approached an enclosure of low mud and grass huts and parked the car. We stayed in the car as George told us that we would meet this first family, and then move on to another family. He told us that we should ask many questions, and that he would translate for us. He said that the family wanted us to visit, and that they would welcome us.

Out of the car George then led us through a barbed wire fence and into the compound of five huts. Children ran into one of the huts screaming as we approached. George asked us to wait outside the hut while he ducked inside to coax them out. Four children came outside followed by two women, each holding multiple infants. Everyone wore soiled western clothes, and dirty faces. One little girl of two wore a set of blue curlers in her hair. They sat on the ground across from us, the children staying close to their mothers, and all played with the sand at their feet. No one spoke. I held a bag of food between my legs and felt very stupid, like an old fool waiting to feed ducks in a park.

Luckily, the Dutch woman took possession of the conversation, and asked her fellow women about their lives, and the lives of their children. The women were both in their twenties, but did not know their exact ages, and both had four children. The women said that they did not work, and that the children did not and would not go to school because they themselves did not like the little schooling they had. They neither farmed and nor made trinkets to sell to tourists. Instead their parents supported them from their government pensions, and only busied themselves with doing laundry (dubious) and cooking for their children.

Within mere minutes they were annoyed by the questions about schooling and the future of their children and were done talking to us. George tried to coax them to speak with rounds of clicking questions, but they were clearly finished with the visit. I wanted to leave, and stood up and handed one of the women my bag of food. The whole encounter was disheartening and disturbing. I was worried for the future of the children, and angry at the ignorance of the mothers. I did not want to visit another family, but George said that the next family was that of the local witch doctor. I had to see that.

The next family lived less than a mile away, down a similar dirt path protected by a low, wire fence. When we approached the compound, the family did not disappear into a hut, but stayed outside and watched us approach. There were three generations of one family, and a father and son from a nearby village sitting around a similar collection of mud and thatch huts. The grandfather, the local witch doctor sat in the sun, while the grandmother, her daughter, and her four children sat under the roof of an open hut, around a wood fire.

The patriarch was very welcoming, waving to us all individually. The matriarch squatted against the pole quietly, but her eyes were also welcoming and warm. The children immediately started playing with the Dutch children, and were confident around them. The Dutch woman asked the same questions and found that the children all went to school, and a little girl of eleven spoke English to us. The women and the children were proud of themselves and proud of their lives. The scene was the same, but the encounter was much different from the last.

I asked the grandfather about being a witchdoctor and he said that it was a good profession, but that those days were over for him, and he was glad to not be bothered by the constant stream of sick people. I asked about how he supported himself now, and he said that he was given a house by the government, but rents it out to local laborers working the new road into town. He also said that he was saving the pension he earned from the government to send his grandchildren to school so they could succeed in the future.

I took pictures of one boy and showed him the images on the LCD screen. He laughed loudly and pulled the camera out of my hand to show the other children. They all lined up for photos, and squealed with delight when they saw their faces on the screen. Then we played soccer with all the children, Hei//omn versus the first world, using a wad of plastic bags rolled together as a crude, tiny ball. Hei//omn won.

As sun set in the distance, and more children emerged from the bush carrying piles of firewood on their heads, it was time to leave the family to their evening routine. We got back in the car, and kept waving back to the family as they kept waving goodbye to us. On the way out of town we passed a two-story white washed building with tall, broken windows and a broken door. It was the only to two-story building in the village of single room cinder block shacks and mud huts, and stood out like a white elephant in a desert. I asked George about it.

The building was a gift from a German development aid foundation called ‘Brot Gegen Not, or ‘Bread Not Misery’. It was designed as a bakery and meant to offer vocational training to the villagers in Tsintsabis who needed a way to support themselves and their village beyond their hunter gathering roots. The bakery operated under the direction of the foundation for the first year before being turned over to Namibian government, and village. George told me that the bakery was prosperous under foreign management but failed due to mismanagement when it was turned over to Namibian control.

George also told me that he expected the bakery to be up and running again, this time with better, local management next year. The foundations website, however, says that they will move the baking operation to Tsumeb to ensure its future success. I wonder what Hans and his wife thinks of this international bakery interfering with their struggling bakery. And I wonder what will happen in the future of both bakeries.

4 Wheeling in the Namib Desert

2009-07-31T02:48:00.000-07:00

Swakopmund, Namibia

The central coastal town of Swakopmund, is about 3 hours east of Windhoek. It's an easy drive, head north 66km on B!, hang a left on B2, and keep driving until you hit the Atlantic. Swakop's proximity to Windhoek and its collection of outdoor activities make it the adventure capital of Namibia, unless there is "East Weather." East Weather basically entails 5-6 hours of intense sandstorms that blow east from the Namib desert in the mornings. The sand storms hampered some of our adventure plans since the whole city basically shuts down until the storms stop at around noon. Todd and I will head back soon and try and hit up some of the other extreme adventures Swakop is known for, but despite the wind we did manage to do some quad biking on the dunes. It was amazingly beautiful and great fun.

Sunset at the Ocean

Hoping for Hippos in the Okavango Panhandle

2009-07-22T04:23:00.000-07:00

Ngepi Camp, Caprivi Region, Namibia

You get a lot of advice while traveling in Africa: some of it useful, some of it not. Sitting in a tiny, unsteady canoe on the Okavango River, I believed my last piece of advice, delivered in heavily-accented, broken English from our Hambukushu guide could prove the most useful advice yet. “If you in water by hippo, go away from boat. If you in water by croc, go to boat.”

The Okavango River runs east to west along the border between Angola and Namibia, before heading south and draining into an inland delta inside Botswana. The bush camps inside the Okavango delta in Botswana are only accessible by charter flights, and therefore tourists with thick wallets. The Okavango delta panhandle, in the Caprivi Region of Namibia is accessible by 2WD Kias, and poorer tourists…namely us.

Ngepi Camp is one of the larger, more established camps on the panhandle. It is famous for its environmentally conscious practices, lively bar, and hundreds of hippos. Hippos are responsible for more deaths in African than any other species, and hippos are the most territorial of all animals. Ngepi is built inside hippo territory, and its boat tours are famous for coming into direct, and sometimes dangerous contact with the animals. Meg and I think both hoped for some hippo excitement as we pulled onto the Okavango floodplain and into Ngepi Camp.

Our campsite lay at the north end of the camp, atop of a steep six-foot bank overlooking the Okavango River. The campsites next to us were vacant while we set up our tent, but within the hour a pickup truck backed into the campsite next to us. The truck was full of Dutch bird enthusiasts, and piloted by a jovial South African tour guide. I asked the guide about the likelihood of seeing hippos, and he said we would probably see many of them in the river during the day, and certainly hear them at night. He also said that we had a great camping location because the steep riverbank at our feet was too steep for the hippos to climb. Nice to know.

Meg and I lunched at the campsite and kept our eyes on the opposite bank for hippos. The first hippo we saw was rock. The second rock we saw was a hippo that eventually dove into the river with a great splash. Then, after noon one hippos broke the tranquility of the setting with a series of tremendous grunts that sounded like a 2-stroke engine sputtering to a stop. The hippo was answered, a minute later, by another series of staccato grunts. The volley continued, but the range of noises increased; sometimes the hippos sounded like bellowing cows, sometimes likes trumpeting elephants.

At sunset the hippos became even more vocal. As we cooked our camp meal of pasta and sauce we watched their silhouettes emerge in groups from the grassy plain across the river and slide into the water. Their communications grew as the night wore on, and their deep grunts came across the water and reached our tent in full force. We both laughed at the strange noises that lulled us to sleep, comfortable in the fact that they could not climb the steep bank with their stunted legs.

Just after sunrise the following morning Meg and I met our guide for the river tour. He was standing on the bank of the river, and greeted us with a warm smile. He was very thin and very dark, and introduced himself as Potso. He handed us bright orange life jackets and waved for us to follow him down the sandy bank to a row of small, brown canoes resting on the side of the Okavango River.

A watu is narrow boat made from the carved out trunk of a tree that resembles a small canoe. It has been lifeblood of the Caprivi tribes for thousands of years, supplying them with food, transportation, and economic stability. However, as I wedge myself into the thin narrow dugout, I feel anything but stable. The boat rolled from one side to the other with every slight movement I made. I gripped the smooth side of the canoe to steady myself and my fingers dipped into the water inches below its rim.

When Meg and I were settled, Potso jumped into the stern of the boat, dug his paddle into the sandy bottom, and pushed us backwards into the Okavango River. After turning the boat into the current, and heading upstream, he began his safety lesson for the day.
“If you in water by hippo, go away from boat. If you in water by croc, go to boat. Okay?”
Meg turned around from the bow of the boat to look at me, her excited face framed by the large orange rectangle of life jacket.

Potso stood in the back of the boat as he skillfully paddled the watu along the slow current of the river’s edge. He kept his eyes on the bank of the river, searching for wildlife in the tall reeds, and only spoke when he saw an animal. Initially there were only birds. Meg was unimpressed by the herons and kingfishers, and I could almost hear the sighs in her head as she deliberately ignored the guide’s demonstrations and scanned the water for the hippos and crocs she wanted to see.

Around the first bend, just beyond the boundaries of Ngepi Camp, Meg saw the first hippo. It was a bull, and he was in the water with its round gray back, and bulbous head above the water. The hippo guarded the center of the river just in front of a sand island. Potso did not stop paddling, and the watu slid towards it.

The hippo knew we were coming. It had been facing us when we rounded the bend, and he continued to watch us as the watu slid silently towards it. Potso whispered as we passed drew just twenty feet from its head. “Stay quiet. This hippo like to attack watu. Hippo does no see blue color, so local people have blue watu to make hippo confuse.” Our watu was brown.

After we passed the hippo Potso turned the watu towards the sand island behind it. The current immediately took hold of the watu and pulled us sideways towards the hippo. Potso leaned into the current and dug his thin, wooden paddle into the water fiercely to keep us away from him. The hippo grunted a warning to us, and soon we were in the calm water behind the island and moving beyond him. He did not attack, and we did not have to “go away from boat.”

In the far channel, behind the island was a herd of hippos lazing in shallow water. There were about ten of them, mostly adults, and a few adolescents. They were more intimidated by us than the male, and charged towards the far side of the river as we turned the corner with a huge commotion of lumbering hippos, open mouths and waves of white water.

Potso pulled the boat onto a sandbar that extended from the island and we got out of the watu to watch them. Once we were on land, the herd became more relaxed, believing that we were at a safe distance. They rested comfortable in the water near each other, and occasionally breached to open their huge jaws in what seemed to be yawning motions. Sometimes they would blow huge plumes of water from their nostrils that resembled spouting whales.

We examined their deep, three-toed footprints in the sand on the beach and I wondered about their awesome power. Potso explained that the males were larger and darker than the females, and that there could only be one male per group. Sons of the dominant male were threats to him, and would leave herd at before maturity, only return to challenge for dominance and the right to mate with his relatives.

Meg and I could have watched them all day, but after twenty minutes we were directed back to the watu. Potso paddled us back across the channel in front of the male, and dug into the water to re-cross the channel. While digging into the water he pointed his chin to the direction we were heading, and said, “croc.”

The croc was lying on the muddy bank, its body and tail out of the water, its head lying flat on the surface in the slow current. It was about ten feet long, and a dark greenish gray color. Potso pulled the boat directly towards it. When we were ten feet away from it, it slid quickly into the river, and disappeared. Potsotso kept paddling for the spot it was lying, and turned the boat downstream where the croc had entered the water. It was directly under us, somewhere in the murky green water. The watu suddenly felt even more unstable and small.

“Croc is not danger now. In wet season you have worry for croc. They take many animals from the village. No now. Too cold.”

The watu slid easily back downstream towards the camp, and passed the male hippo and another herd of hippo without incident. Beyond the southern boundary of the camp Potso crossed the Okavango River again before turning upstream on the opposite bank, along the Caprivi National Park. Along this bank we completed our viewing of the ‘African Big Five’ by catching a glimpse of a male water buffalo hiding in the tall reeds. We also saw a troupe of vervet, or blue-balled, monkeys lounging under a huge acacia tree.

I think Meg and I were both a little disappointed that we did not come face-to-face with an annoyed hippo, but perhaps we should be glad. Many hippo encounters do not end well, and we can tempt fate another day.

Etosha Wildlife Photo Series

2009-07-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

Day three of Etosha was also great, and Meg and I took another trip into the park after her meeting at Mokuti Lodge concluded.

Never turn down any chance to take a drive through Etosha, it is always worthwhile.

Trio of Zebra

Zebra Pair

Zebra Herd at Okaukuejo

Lone Zebra

Flock of Springboks

Ostrich

Oryx or Gemsbok

Male Kudu

Playful Black-Backed Jackal

Impala

Lone Giraffe

Elephant Eating a Tree

Elephant at Watering Hole

Elephant Throwing Dust

Elephant Eye

Fear and Optimism in Namibia

2009-07-16T06:16:00.000-07:00

Etosha National Park, Day 2.

Optimism comes in different forms. Meg expresses her optimism candidly, and out loud. She does not only think positively, she speaks positively. My brand of optimism is more pessimistic. I believe that if I vocalize my hopes, they will definitely be shattered.

So, as the sun rose on the second morning in Etosha she said, “I am sure we’ll see elephants today,” and I replied, “I don’t think we’ll see elephants today”. She thinks I am being negative, and I believe she is being naïve. But, at least we agreed on what we wanted, if not how to conjure it up.

Just after sunrise we drove out of Halali camp, along the access road, and turned left at the main road that of Etosha, following the advice of the drunk South African. The road cut through a huge open plain of tall, yellow grass stretching hundreds of meters. Three trucks were pulled over ahead of us, and we pulled up behind them and stopped. Beside us, to our left, were a few lonely springbok, but we knew that was not what they were looking at, springbok are omnipresent in Etosha.

“Lions,” I shouted, pointing my hand across Meg’s face to our left.

About a hundred meters away, bodies barely visible over the tall grass, a male lion lead a string of five lionesses and two cubs towards the distant trees. The adults moved slowly in the grass. They were not hunting, just moving through early morning plain, taking no notice of the antelopes around them, or the cars watching them from a distance.

The cubs brought up the rear. They followed the females, at their own pace, about thirty meters behind them. Then, they started to play with each other. One would hang back, giving the other time get ahead before launching into a sprint and tackling the other from behind. Then the wrestling began, with both young animals rearing up on hide legs to paw at the other cub’s head, exposing their bright white underbellies before disappearing beneath the tall grass.

Then one would emerge first and trot on behind the pack for a few seconds before the games would continue again as before. The lionesses stopped occasionally to make sure the cubs were following, but the male lion never turned around or altered his pace, he just kept on heading towards the tree line.

After a few minutes the pride was out of sight, and we pulled out onto the road again. It was a great start to the morning, but we were on the hunt for elephants, and we decided to try to follow their ‘tracks’.

Elephant ‘tracks’ consist of impressive piles of dung, and enormous paths that have been trampled through the brush bisecting or lining the roads. Judging by the amount of dung along the roads, elephants prefer to walk along the roads than make their own way through the bush. We examined the piles of dung for color to determine how long it had been before they passed before us. You are not allowed to get out of your car in Etosha, so we could not smell them to truly know the time of their departure, as far as the game warden knows.

Around lunchtime we had seen hundreds of piles of dung, but no elephants. We were getting discouraged until we found the watering hole the South African told us about just south of the Okaukuejo campsite. It was, of course, as he said it was, very impressive.

The watering hole sat at the foot of a huge clearing, and animal herds appeared from our right, drank from the water, and moved off to the left. The viewing area was thirty meters from the water, protected by a low stonewall and lined with comfortable bench seats. We ate lunch on one of the benches and watched the springbok, kudu, zebras, oryx, jackals, fox, come by to drink.

After lunch we took the southern road south to a new, more remote area of the park. The road became a little difficult at times for the Kia, but we just drove more slowly and more cautiously. Before reaching the watering hole at Olifantsbad we turned a corner and were greeted by a group of a new species, Red Hartebeest, lying in the shade just a few feet from the road.

Beyond the hartebeest came more new species of antelopes; impala, steenbok, and finally a male kudu with its tall, curled antlers. Somehow we had stumbled upon antelope alley, and the animals seemed to be perfectly content to travel with each other to the watering hole. The brashest species of the group was the impala. The males frequently blocked the road ahead of us as their females and young crossed the road in front of us. They showed no respect for the destructive power of our puny, Korean car or us.

Unfortunately the watering holes held no elephant herds. It was getting on in the afternoon, and you cannot drive at night in Etosha, so it was time for us to end our seach for elephants, and drive home. We were both disappointed, but had hope for the next day, our last day in Etosha. I vocalized my fear, hoping that the saying would prove me wrong, “I don’t think we are going to see elephants today.”

“I don’t appreciate your pessimism.”

Little does she know about my relationship with optimism.

On the quiet, back road back to Halali there was no elephant dung, and little chance for seeing one. Then we saw a car in the distance pulled over to the left side of the road. The road cut across a wide, yellow plain, lined on both sides by low shrubs. I eased the car about fifty meters behind the other car and surveyed the area.

“Elephant!” Meg screamed, and she was right.

Two hundred yards away, headed right for us was a huge male elephant. Over the two days we had incorrectly seen zebra on the horizon and mistaken their think, sturdy bodies as elephants. Now that we saw a real one, we knew the folly of our ways. This thing was huge, and looked like a huge gray house coming towards us.

My fear of elephants in Etosha is two fold. The first comes from watching a youtube video days before coming. In it a huge bull elephant is charging a tour bus, ears flagging, and trunk bellowing. The elephant towers over the bus as it charges. The driver of the bus reversed as the elephant approached, knowing that he was outmatched by the beast. Our Kia did not stand a chance against it.

The second fear was of Meg’s ‘connection’ with elephants. She squealed with delight at seeing it, and shifted around in the passenger seat, and rolled down the window as it approached. I feared that she might well get out of the car and run towards it to give her ‘brother’ a hug and expect to ride on its back into the bush. I feared for what she would do, and what might be done to her now that we found one.

I had a lot of fear, and soon I realized the elephant was coming going to pass directly in front or behind our car because shrubs between us and the other car blocked his path across the road. Fear for our safety welled up inside me as I snapped photos and Meg struggled against her excitement to keep her video camera still. This was really happening.

The elephant walked directly towards the passenger side of the car. It’s huge head swung from side-to-side with successive stride, the trunk swaying with the motion. He wore a collar around his neck, and I imagined it was similar to a house-arrest bracelet worn by convicts, and I imagined him as a real ‘rogue’ elephant, unpredictable, and dangerous. I whispered, “stay calm,” to Meg, the words meant to calm me as much as her. We sat as still as possible, our hearts pounding in our chests. Five meters from the car it slowed and turned its left flank towards us, and moved behind the car.

At the edge of the road the beast stopped, directly behind us. I looked out the rear windshield and saw only the broken tusk inches from the glass. The tusk moved towards the car, then away, checking his path across the road. I thought it was going to lift the car up on its tusk and toss us aside. I was petrified.

Then, as abruptly as it stopped, it started again to swing its head and began to cross the dusty road. I watched its wrinkled gray flank move across the back windshield with relief. Meg turned to get a view of him from my window and in doing so pushed her seat backwards. The seat had not been set into a secure position, and it slid backwards, its peg a hole in the rail, locking into position with a loud ‘bang’. Meg and I turned to look at each other, and froze with fear. We both expected the animal to be startled and charging us, but could not bring ourselves to face him. We braced for the trumpeting sound of the attack and the imminent impact.

But there was none. When I found the courage to break eye contact, and turn right, the elephant was across the road and moving into the grass. We did not spook him, thank God.

As the elephant moved away, the elation hit us, me as much as Meg. I had to resist the urge to get out of the car and jump up and down, screaming like an idiot. I thought Meg was going to cry. This was better than anything we could have expected.

Hours later, while watching the rhinos at the Halali watering hole we were still talking about the elephant encounter. We still hoped to see elephants at the watering hole until Meg said, “unless an elephant comes up and sits on the rock next to me, nothing can beat what happened today.” And she was right, it was the best day two of Etosha we could have expected, and I was happy my brand of optimism made it all possible.

Moringa Watering Hole and a Sage Drunk

2009-07-15T08:51:00.001-07:00

Etosha National Park at Night, Day 1.

Sometimes my lack of preparation for a trip is intentional; I don’t like to use guidebooks because they detract from the mystery, intrigue, and adventure of traveling. You know where you can sleep, eat KFC, find a drink, find a doctor, and everything in between. I remember sitting with my brother, Bubba, on the bank of the Mekong River in northern Thailand looking across at Laos thinking, ‘what the hell are we going to do when we get out of the dingy tomorrow morning?, and feeling great.

Besides detracting from the adventure, I eschew guidebooks because they are often complete B.S. This time, however, traveling with a partner, we bought a Lonely Planet for Southern Africa, and have used it to keep travels a little safer. I used the guide to select our camp at Halali because its watering hole was touted as the “best best wildlife-viewing venue in Etosha Park”. Of course, for us, it turned out to be wrong.

Once the French guide left our camp we ate lunch and pitched our small tent in the wide space, under a tree guarded by red-billed hornbill birds. Meg was tired from her week of work and the stress of the new job. I was fresh and ready for adventure since I am not working, so while she took a nap in the tent I looked around.

Halali is called a resort, and is fenced in on all sides to protect campers from the animals in the park. It was very comfortable, and catered to the car campers with a restaurant, bar, multiple bathrooms with hot-water showers, western toilets. Our tent was the only low-budget tent on the premises, but we were comfortable with our air mattress, sleeping bags, and bedding from home. As the afternoon wore on the grounds began to fill up with cars and trailers of South Africans on their winter, school holidays, and their screaming kids.

Meg woke up before sunset, and we decided to check out the “best best wildlife-viewing venue in Etosha Park” at the Moringa watering hole directly behind out tent. Sunset is when animals are supposed to be active, so we brought both cameras and high expectations as we followed the signs to the spot.

The watering hole is in a large clearing about the size of a football field, with a pool of water at its center. In this, the dry season, the area of water is no bigger than a large swimming pool, surrounded on all sides by gray rocks. Twenty meters east of the water is a wire fence strung on posts below a low rock ridge. The ridge creates a natural, and safe grandstand from which tourists view the action below. By the time we climbed the ridge the stone stands were full of people looking west towards the watering hole and the setting sun. The mood was subdued and almost reverent, the people totally silent. It felt like being in an outdoor, orchestral concert hall.

The only problem was that there for all the reverence and anticipation, there were only a few small birds and one female Kudu, similar to a deer, drinking from the water. We walked behind the crowd and took places on the rocks away from the crowd. However, lost in all the press about Etosha wildlife is the sheer beauty of place itself. With the sun setting, in the west, and everyone looking to the watering hole I turned around to look east. The inverted, southern moon was rising behind the bare limbs of a tree in a darkening sky, and it was beautiful.

When the sun went down I was disappointed in the lack of wildlife and hungry and wanted to get back to cook dinner over a fire. Meg said she wanted to stay for five more minutes. I relented. Then, right on cue, at five minutes exactly a mother black rhino emerged from the bush with her baby beside her. She sniffed the air at the edge of the shrubs, her nose and horn high in the air, and walked nervously towards the water. They walked side-by-side to the edge of the water and began to drink slowly and silently.

With the low light, and low power of my camera lens, I could not get a good photo of them, but they were great to watch. I am not sure why they were skittish, they are black rhinos for god sake, but they were. They were not bothered by the sounds of cameras beeping, or flashes clicking, but they were clearly scared of other animals, and within minutes they were gone, and us with them, back to our campsite for dinner.

At night Etosha is unsurprisingly cold, it is a desert after all. We layered up at our campsite, right down to thermal underwear, boiled a cup of tea, pulled a sleeping bag out of our tent and returned to the watering hole after dinner. We still hoped to see elephants, but would settle for more rhinos, and hopefully a battle of rhinos for dominance of the watering hole.

The grandstand at night was fuller than it had been at sunset. The garbage can at the base of the rock ledge was full of ‘Tafel Finest Beer’ bottles, and the mood was more pregnant with anticipation. One large black rhino, presumably a male, was at the watering hole drinking alone. He had the place to himself except for a black-backed jackal that circled around the water sniffing invisible scent trails.

Soon we heard crashing sounds from within the bush, and within minutes another, larger rhino appeared at the edge of the clearing. He also sniffed the air and then approached the watering hole. I hoped for a fight between the two, or at least a show of domination, but there was none. The smaller rhino gave his place to the new, larger rhino.

The new rhino was more self-assured, and moved around the watering hole, taking short drinks from every side. He then left the watering hole and came towards the rock ledge, the grandstand, and us. He rooted around in the tall grass, ate leaves from tall shrubs, and kicked large rocks around looking for food. He came just below where were sitting as Meg took a video.

When the rhino left nothing else appeared. Meg wanted to wait, but I wanted to see what the crowd was expecting to see. I did not feel that there would be much more action at the watering hole. I looked around to see who looked like they knew what they were doing to ask about the local wildlife. An older, South African gentleman was sitting on a bench with his wife, a pile of empty beer bottles by his side. Just the man I was looking for.

I whispered to him, so as not to disturb the other people watching an empty watering hole. He replied without whispering. “This is bloody terrible. There is nothing here.” His strong words made more powerful by the beer on his breath. “The watering hole at Okaukuejo is twenty times better, with herds of animals around at all times of day. Go there and you will see for yourself.”

When Meg and I left the watering hole we decided on a game plan for the morning; forget the guidebook and listen to the drunk South African.

A rule to live by.

Gas Panic & A French Wanker

2009-07-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Etosha National Park, Day 1.

In my life I have often put myself into wonderful, precarious, and awe-inspiring places on whims. I have heard of something, or seen some photo, or read an article about a place, and decided to go there. I do very little research after the initial interest, and never prepare my body, mind, or luggage accordingly. That is how I found myself hiking the Himalayan Annapurna Circuit with only an airplane blanket to sleep with, moving to Japan and South America without learning the languages, and most recently entering Namibia’s vast Etosha National Park without enough gas in our car, or a clue where to find the wildlife Meghan and I wanted to see.

One turn and a lot of concentration; that’s all it takes to drive the over 500 kilometers from the capital Windhoek, to Etosha National Park. Just follow the B1 highway 400 kilometers north to the small town of Otjiwarongo, and turn left on district road C38. The concentration comes in the form of passing trucks along the two-lane road, avoiding herds of warthogs, the occasional biker, and the groups of natives loping across the highway at every small village.

You are not allowed to enter the park after sundown, or before sunset, so when the sun dramatically descended on Thursday evening we were forced to camp at a lodge ten kilometers from the gate and wait for the next morning. At the camp the staff tried to schedule us for a game drive the next day, but we had plans of our own. We had reservations at the heart of the park at a campsite called Halali for the next two nights, and we planned to do the safari ourselves. We had no map, and no plan of attack, but we thought it would not be hard to figure out what to do the next morning.

Before sunrise we rose and packed up our camping equipment and got back in the car and headed to the gate. We were the first to arrive, but were quickly followed by large Land Rovers full of other tourists. I talked to a guide of one of the trucks, and he told me to just drive to the watering holes and most importantly stop other cars and ask them what they have seen and where, and follow their lead. He also told me to check in at the first resort, pay the fees, and buy a map that would show the watering holes. Sound advice.

Just after the orange sun rose in the cloudless sky to our right, the gate opened and we drove through the gate into the park. We drove slowly along the paved road, watching our perspective sides for animals. I wanted to see lions and big cats, Meg was hoping to see the elephants. She loves elephants, and feels she has some primeval connection with them. I worry that when we see them she will get so excited that she will disturb them and make them attack our tiny car and roll us. I have seen it on youtube, and it is not pretty. The Kia does not stand a chance against the enormous beasts. I was not sure I wanted us to see elephants up close.

Within a few kilometers of the gate we had our first sighting. A herd of zebra was crossing the road ahead, and as I approached we stopped their crossing and split them between the two sides of the road. We rolled down the windows despite the cold of the every morning and Meg began to reel off a volley of photographs, the camera motor winding at full speed. The contrast between the tall, yellow grass, green trees and their stark black-and-white bodies was beautiful. As we watched other cars and trucks passed us, their riders giving us the look I give Japanese tourists who take pictures of the airplane food lying before them. Undaunted, we waited for the herd to cross the road, and then moved on, one hundred photos, and three videos later.

Further up we saw three giraffes crossing the plain two hundred meters to our side, their awkward bodies following the strides of their huge necks. We were not sure if we would see them again, so again we stopped the car and filled up more space on our memory cards. We thought we made a good start, and Meg was proud of her ‘tracking’ and ‘spotting’ skills as a co-pilot.

At the Okaukuejo camp we registered, and paid our park entrance fees of US$10 per day, car fee of US$1 per day, and camping fee of US$12 per person per day. Considering Etosha is the top draw for Namibia, the fees are pretty cheap in comparison to other Southern African parks. The employees took our entry money easily, but when I asked for information about wildlife viewing they were uninterested, but did direct me to the store where I could buy a map of the park.

The closest point of interest from the resort was the Etosha Pan lookout, and we decided to drive there and see what we could see. The paved road ended just beyond the resort, turning into a bumpy, gray dirt road. The Kia did not like the bumpy road, and I had to take it at about ten miles an hour; thirty max. Traffic was still light that early, and in the wide-open spaces we could see the dust trails of oncoming cars from miles away. The desert vegetation was also light, mostly tall grass, and low scrubland with low, thorny bushes.

At the lookout the white, dry pan stretched out before us, the vista only broken by a few dead and lifeless tree trunks. We saw only large, flightless birds on the pan, a lone ostrich, and the odd-looking and equally oddly named bustard. Our first stop was disappointing, but we had three days ahead of us to catch up.

We headed towards our camp in the middle of Etosha, but stopped along the way at the various natural and man-made watering holes. Now is the dry season for Etosha, and the best season for viewing animals because they need to come out of hiding to visit the few watering holes. Even animals that are usually skittish need to get over their fear of humans and cars to drink. They come at different times of day to avoid their natural predators, but they have to come at some point.

At the first watering hole we found herds of the small, white and brown Springbok surrounding the water, interspersed with some larger, clown-faced Oryx. There were also more zebra, and some birds that were of no interest whatsoever to Meg. She is unimpressed with anything resembling things she can see in the US. We watched for a while and drove back to the main thoroughfare towards our camp.

We took a few detours along the way to watering holes on our left that turned out to be dry and void of animals. I would have felt disappointed and stupid for taking the errant turns but for the fact that huge tour buses often preceded and followed our path to the same barren locations. We were doing the same things the supposed experts were doing, just a little slower, and without the advantage of a lofty view.

Towards our camp the landscape changed a little, and the terrain afforded a few larger trees and shrubs. I thought this would be elephant country, and we scanned the horizons for glimpses of the Meg’s huge beasts, but found none. It was getting on to ten o’clock, and we had not seen anything for a while when we turned a corner and saw another car ahead of us parked along the side of the road; a good sign for spotting animals.

To our right were two giant giraffes five meters from the car to our right. They stopped their eating to watch us approach as I eased the car to a stop directly across from them. The quickly resumed the stretching and bending to chew the thorny trees. We rolled down the window amazed at our proximity, realizing that we would gladly be deleting the distant photos of giraffes we had taken before.

As we focused intently on the giraffes to our right Meg suddenly yelled, “Oh my God, Baby,” and stared out the front window. Ahead of us another giraffe was crossing the road ahead of us to join the others. On the road he seemed larger and more out of place than the others. He stopped as we looked at him and stared at us, as unsure of what we would do as we were, and then continued. I looked further left, and there were more now, six more in all. It was amazing.

When the giraffes moved on, after taking a video for Meg’s grandmother who loves giraffes, we continued on to Halali camp, and our base for the next two days. On the way we caught another zebra crossing (one of many on the trip), hundreds of other springboks, and various other antelope species including cela, steenbok, and kudu. But, as yet, no elephants or lions.

Before the camp I realized that I was running low on gas. I should have filled up at the other resort, but had forgotten in my rush to see the early morning wildlife. I had a jerry can in the truck but it was empty because I told Meg we did not need it, and we did not want to spend three days inhaling gas fumes. She did not agree with me when I did not fill it in Windhoek, and reminded me of the fact when I told her we might not make it to the camp and its gas station. I feared hearing about this incident for the next many years.

The only strict rule of Etosha is that you may not get out of your car in the park except at the campsites. They are fenced in and protected from the wildlife outside. Now I was faced with the real possibility that I would have to walk to the camp to fill the can and possibly get attacked by a lion, leopard, elephant or any other species who did not like me there. Perhaps I should have endured the smell of gas, and avoid the chance of death by animal, or worse the unrelenting wrath of Meg.

I skipped a couple watering holes, and coasted into Halali gas station around one o’clock on fumes. The attendant opened the tank to the sucking sound of a narrow escape and filled the tank. The car was so dusty that it had turned from silver to white, but we had arrived in one piece, and inside the Kia. Thank God.

The campsite we were given, 37, was huge and equipped with a fire pit, a concrete table and concrete stools, and a water spigot. There was enough room for five tents, and twenty people. The only problem was that there was already a white Toyota pick-up truck parked there, and four people were sitting around the table eating lunch. I drove the Kia as close to the table as I could and got out to assess the situation.

In Namibia it is easy to spot the person who is ‘the guide’. They always wear green safari gear, wide-brimmed leather hats, and carry various tools on their belts. Tourists wear the same outfits, but always in khaki. This guide watched me get out and spoke.

“Iz dis your camp?” French. Why is it always the French? Every time I go up in the mountains or to the outdoors around the world there are always French people acting like they own the place, and have a divine right to it because they invented the piton.

They had not set up any tents, so I suspected they were just using the vacant campsite as a lunch spot, so I was not worried. “Yes, but you can have lunch here as long as we can use the table also,” I said, trying not sound annoyed.

Meg got out of the car with our cooler to eat lunch. The ‘guide’ did not tell his clients to move, but sat at the table with them and talked authoritatively.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

He did not ask his people to make room for us. He did not do anything, so I put our cooler bag on the table in front of him and looked down at his wide green hat. He stood up and walked to his truck and I took his seat with his group of three confused tourists. Meg waited by the car, clearly annoyed. She expects what she pays for and is not amused when she does not get it.

The French ‘guide’ then asked a question from behind his truck. “Deed you see somezing today?”
“Yes, we saw a lot. We saw giraffes, springbok, impala, zebra herds, bustards, ostrich and many other animals.”
“So zen you zee no zing. No predators.”

It was the wanker moment I knew was coming. We do not have giraffes grazing yards from my car in Connecticut, and we do not have herds of zebra crossing the road in Washington D.C. What we saw was great for us, and we were pleased with our experience. It was not ‘no zing’, and it was not up to this condescending Frog to tell us what we did, or did not see.

So I politely asked, “And you monsieur, what did you zee?”
“We saw the same azyu,” he said.
“No zing also then monsieur. Not good for a guided tour, n’est-ce pas?”

He got the point. He quickly told his clients that lunch was over and they should walk to the watering hole just beyond the campsite. Then he began to pack up his things as we took control of our table. Within minutes he drove off in his flashy safari vehicle and Meg and I joked about which one of us would play the part of the French, wanker, guide over the next few days.

Photo Essay: Morning in Central Windhoek

2009-07-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

A few things you would see on an early morning walk in Windhoek, Namibia

Early morning in town center

Breakfast ladies on the construction site

A hard-boiled egg and a Dunhill cigarette...breakfast of Namibians

Setting up the street stalls along Fidel Castro Street

Morning service at the German, Lutheran Church

Herero tribeswoman begging in traditional bull-inspired headdress

I count 3 options, and they would all be considered cheap!
(The Local Hair Salon)

Meat pies delivered. Lovely.

Who wouldn't attend this Namibian Christian Church

"Nothing for you here white devil!"

Electronic Roulette, the game of choice in the hundreds of 'Gambling Houses'

God Bless German swine engineering

Home Sweet Home. Electric Fence is armed, take my word for it.

Okapuka and the Lions

2009-06-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

So if you've ever asked yourself, 'can one ever see too many wild animals in Africa?', the answer is 'no', followed by, 'it is always awesome.'

This weekend Todd and I headed out to another game farm, located directly across the street from Dustenbrook called Okapuka Game Lodge. Okapuka is a a slightly more modern, less German game lodge with a beautiful restaurant and bar housed under a huge thatched roof overlooking a huge field of warthogs eating mud.

We decided to go to Okapuka for the lion feeding last Sunday afternoon. They have a full game drive with rhinos, giraffes, and other various game of the antelope type, but with a trip to Ethosha National Park next weekend (the mother of all game drive and animal viewing) we stuck to the feline feeding, for Namibian $75 (US$10.00).

We arrived early to the park and decided to hike around the lodge before the lion feeding. As we crossed over the rickety bridge that took us away from the lodge and into the 'bush' one does start to ponder questions like, 'when the signs say 'Crocodiles and Lions- ENTER AT OWN RISK”, do they really mean that they are just out and about and we could get eaten?'

Needless to say, though we paused to consider our odds, we decided they would be unlikely to let people walk on the hiking trails if there was a good chance you’d become dinner, so we glanced back once more at the “ENTER AT OWN RISK” sign and soldiered on.

One of the first things we came across was a huge wall constructed of dark bricks with benches in front and slats carved out for what we deduced was for peeping. When we saw the array of stripped bones and a contraption that appeared to safely move large animal carcasses into the pit we confirmed that this was definitely the lion pen and the location where the lion feeding would occur later. As we learned last week, it doesn’t take long for these animals to learn when free food arrives, so despite our efforts and our trekking along the outside of the pen where the electricity that ran through the fence was buzzing Jurassic Park style, we had no luck in seeing any lions...yet.

There is one thing that all excellent trackers know; it’s all in the poop. Take my word for it; there is no shortage of poop on the trails at Okapuka and despite my outrageous claims of being an excellent tracker, I actually have no idea what I’m looking at most of the time. Although I will admit that in spite of yourself when you start to see some big poop, I do get excited.

While navigating the hiking trails and looking for game we crossed a dry river bed where we frightened off some springbok and moved up into a huge plain, which is absolutely the picture of an African Safari setting from all the movies. The tall golden grass is speckled with single trees that are shaped so bizarrely they look like they belong in a Tim Burton movie. Another thing becomes immediately apparent when you are on the empty plain which is this: there is no where to hide and there is no way you are going to outrun anything out here. This message only became reinforced when Todd stumbled upon the remains of an antelope leg, mostly bone but some skin and the hoof still intact.

Despite our/my uneasiness about being easy targets for hungry game animals, we spotted a large group of oryx across the plain and decided to make our way over to them to see how close we could get before we spooked them. As we were weaving our way through the tall grass, Todd came to an abrupt halt, and I followed his eyes to the shadow of a tree where two sets of ears were perked up at our intrusion. Now, when ears appear out of the tall grass, obviously my immediate thought was, “Oh God, it’s a lion, we are going to get eaten”, but just as that thought passed, the owner of the ears shot his pom-pom of a tail up into the air and with his distinctive waddle, moved on from us, because warthogs have no interest in us as dinner, we are not mud.

The sun was moving down in the sky...well that-along with my constant refrain to Todd of, “have I mentioned that this doesn’t seem like a good idea,” urged us to move back out of the tall grass into the river bed and back to the lodge to await our lion feeding trip.

Having scoped out the lion viewing situation in advance, we were both a little disappointed that this lion feeding would not be a repeat of the Dustenbrok feedings where cheetahs perched their front paws on the car doors like house pets waiting for a treat, and nothing stopped a leopard from leaping into the seat next to you, expect for the bucket of meat in the front that he was momentarily more concerned with. Even so, we had strategized our viewing arrangements in advance and made our way out to the peeping wall with the rest of the group.

Once we were seated, the guide began to crank back the contraption that safely provided dinner to the lions. At the sound of the crank a massive, massive lion appeared out of the tall grass and began to claw his feet into the ground (a sign of dominance).

There is really no way to describe to you how large lions are, even the photos don’t do them justice. And while Todd claims he could take a cheetah in a fight (one on one), there was no doubt that a lion deserves his place as king of the jungle. As soon as the meat was cranked into the enclosure, the lion grasped it in his enormous jaws and dragged it back into the middle of the enclosure and went to work.

This guy is the only male, and is over 20 years old. The guide informed us that is was rare for lions to live that long in the wild with all the stress of hunting and finding food, but in parks like Okapuka they can live upwards of 30 years.

Once the lion had made some serious progress, and an appropriate amount of respectful time had elapsed a young female bounded down out of the brush, and practically tackled the lion for the meat. Apparently this kind of behavior is rare for a female, but the guide informed us that she must be in heat or pregnant, because that’s the only time the lion allows for her to interrupt his dinner before he’s ready. Men!.

The two continued to feast while a slew of photos and videos were being captured. The lion, similarly to the leopard last week, has this way of looking you right in the eye, and it gives you chills.

About twenty minutes later a second female appeared out of the brush, but she hung way back and watched the two feast. She is the oldest, and too weak to get into a scuffle over who gets to eat first, so she patiently waits in the wings until the second group of tourist show up, and a second piece of meat is placed in the enclosure.

It is difficult to describe the size and strength of the lions in their features and movement, but it was a sight to see, and was definitely worth the trip to Okapuka .

Later, when I arrived to work on Monday, the two local Namibians in my office told me that a few months ago, a guide had been eaten by lions while he was attempting to free a stuck piece of meat in the contraption, and apparently Japanese tourists caught the whole thing on tape.

Düsternbrook Guest Farm

2009-06-25T23:48:00.000-07:00

Düsternbrook Farm is one of the most popular places to see wildlife close to Windhoek. On the farm you can choose between three kinds of game viewing; the game drive where you view animals from some kind of vehicle, a Leopard and Cheetah feeding where you watch cats get fed, or you can hike the property and see the animals on your own.

We booked for the classic game-drive as our first experience to get a broad perspective of Namibian bushveld animals and identify which game we had already eaten at local restaurants.

Düsternbrook is less than 30 miles north of our apartment in so we decided to drive out there on Sunday around noon to be there in time to a hike before a four o’clock game drive. We found highway B1 close to the northern industrial area of town, and merged onto it just as a truck pulled onto the shoulder to pick up a young, provocatively dressed woman. I am not sure who was giving whom a ride, but it let us know that the highway would be a fertile viewing ground.

A few miles outside of Windhoek both directions of the highway funneled into two lanes at a huge stop sign and collection of small huts. I slowed the Kia down, stopped at the sign, and waited for instructions. There were no cars on either side of the road, and the blue-clad policewoman approached the car. I started to roll the window down, but she waved us through without even checking my paperwork, which I actually have. Beyond the checkpoint the highway remained only to a two-lane road, perhaps all the way to Angola.

Clusters of tin shacks broke the monotony of the brown, grassy plains every few miles. The settlements had no official entrance or exit from the highway but were marked by sudden increases in non-vehicular traffic. Kids rode bikes one-handed beside us along the narrow shoulders while couples sat in the median enjoying the Sunday sunshine and 75 mph breeze. Silhouetted groups of villagers, cautiously looking both ways, wandered single-file across the tarmac ahead of us like animals crossing a road at a national park.

After twenty miles along the main north-south highway of Namibia, we turned left at sign directing us to route D1499. D1499 is considered a ‘district road’ and the classification had me worried about the 6-inch clearance of the Kia, the tires of the Kia, and the torque of the Kia. However, the red, gravel road was wide and firm. I took it slowly, but steadily, pampering the car on its first drive in the bush, about12 miles an hour.

We drove through a series of cattle grids, gates and shallow rivers before reaching the Düsternbrook farm property. Beyond the entrance to the farm the road deteriorated drastically. The road became uneven, the hills grew steeper, and the rivers ran deeper. We scraped the bottom of the car only once, forged the rivers successfully, and arrived the farm parking lot around 2 pm.

Our game drive wasn’t until 4 pm, prime time for seeing diurnal animals drinking at the watering holes, and nocturnal animals starting to come out. We planned to walk by ourselves for an hour before the game drive, but two things worried me:

1. How I would be safe from the big cats I knew they had, the rhinos I knew they had, and the terrifying baboons and monkeys I had already seen.
2. How would I drive the road in the dark without getting stuck somewhere in the bush with the aforementioned baboons ripping us to pieces.

So, we decided on the leopard and cheetah feeding tour that started at 2:30, and avoid all primate attacks.

The driver pulled the hunter green Land Rover safari vehicle, complete with three rows of stadium seating and a canvas roof, in front of the brown, sandstone farmhouse. He was a small, light-skinned black man with tight curls of hair tight to his scalp. From what I know of Namibian ethnicity, he looks like a member of the San tribe, but I can’t be sure yet.

The truck could hold ten passengers, but there were only eight of us. Meghan and I climbed in last, and we took the remaining seats in the first and second row. From my position in the first row I looked down over the driver’s cabin and saw a white plastic tub filled with red meat chunks and what looked like the spine of small mammal. There were also three plastic shopping bags filled with dead, white chickens.

We drove west away from the farmhouse along a tall, wall of wire fencing. Within minutes the driver stopped at gate before opening and closing it behind us. He eased the truck away from the fence into a field of tall, yellow grass along the parallel lines of sandy tire tracks. He pointed to his left, and everyone looked out into the tall grass. A shaped moved, and disappeared, and then reappeared briefly. It was a cat. “This is leopard,” he said in a heavily accented voice.

He pulled the car under a tree, and cautiously climbed out onto the hood, carrying the flesh-covered animal spine in his hand. He climbed onto a tree limb, and untwisted a metal wire that held another bone that had been licked clean, and attached the new bone. His hands worked blindly as he looked out towards the grass, trying to spot the cat. He climbed back into the car and wasted no time in backing it out from under the tree. The leopard’s face appeared directly ahead of where we were parked, and stared at us with pale yellow eyes.

The cat was three feet tall and at least five feet long, without the tail. He sniffed the base of the tree and then scaled ten feet to the branch with the meat easily. He walked the thin tree limb confidently as if he were walking on solid ground. He was power and grace combined. The fur that made him blend into the dry grass contrasted beautifully the blue background behind him as he lay along the branch and worked at the bone. He did not tear at it, but stripped it methodically and delicately, licking himself clean between every bite. He eyed us as we watched him eat.

When the bone was bright white he jumped down and immediately came towards us. He strode with his body slunk low to the ground, his chin plowing through the grass. His yellow, bulging eyes were focused on us. I could hear his every footfall, heavy but soft. His muscles were tense, and he was ready to strike. In that moment I forgot that I was in a vehicle, and I forgot that the driver was armed with a bucket of meat. I felt like there was only him and me, and I was his prey.

Just as he was about to leap onto the hood of the truck, the guide tossed big piece of pink meat over the leopard’s head. The cat’s eyes followed the piece of meat through the air as it reared up on its hind legs and changed its direction in one swift movement. He pounced on the meat as it hit the ground at the base of the tree, clutching it between his giant front paws.

In the minutes that followed the driver fed the cat every time it finished with a piece of meat and started to charge the vehicle. The sound of our cameras beeping and our gasps of amazement contrasted the silent stealth of the great cat as it ate its free meals.

When the driver threw a chicken to the leopard he took it in its mouth, walked away into the tall grass, and then stopped to take one last look back at us. He knew the routine as well as the driver. The chicken meant the end of the photo opportunity for the tourists, the end of the visit from the hand that feeds him, and the end of the free supper. The whole thing lasted about five minutes, but it was enough to witness the beauty and strength of the leopard. It was a complete set up for us, the tourists, but it was well worth seeing.

We left the enclosure through the same gate we came in, and headed further west along the dusty road. Again the driver stopped outside a metal gate, drove through and then closed the gate. He drove up a hill and then down a small gully where a small circle of ground was clear of grass and bushes. He parked along on the outside of the circle, and pointed to his right. “They come now.”

The cheetahs also knew what time it was, and there were four of them.

They trotted single file into the clearing, and moved directly to the driver’s side door. The first cat put his front paws up on the driver’s door and lifted his black nose and soft brown eyes close to the truck, it’s wet nostrils flaring as he smelled the meat. The cheetah then began to whimper, the sound like that of a dog waiting for a treat at the dinner table. The driver’s trepidation and caution with the leopard was replaced by an intimacy and playfulness with the cheetah.

The driver threw pieces of meat to each cheetah individually. They sprang into the air to catch the meat in their mouths, their front paws outstretched to balance themselves. The cheetahs were quick, and acrobatic. They each took up a space around the truck that became theirs. They stayed there and waited for meat to be tossed to them. Until, that is, the driver threw meat between them. At that point the whimpers became deep growls and fierce competition ensued; teeth were barred, claws came out, and the action was lost in a cloud of brown dust.

The Cheetah has a sprinter’s frame. Not steroid induced frame of the modern sprinter, like Ben Johnson, more like Carl Lewis. Their long, lean front legs end high above the neck for elongated strides, while the back legs are thick and full of muscle. Their bodies are lean and aerodynamic, with a torso that virtually disappears at the hip. Their resting pose is frequently as if they were at the starting gate of a 100 meter dash; head and forelegs low to the ground, back legs raised and ready to spring towards the glory.

The cheetah is the fastest land mammal, but the ones we saw did not have much stamina. After five minutes of whirling around and gorging themselves on red meat, they started to pant, and stop begging for food. In the lull, the driver gave another speech, “this one father, three are cubs,” and tossed out the first chicken. A noisy battle ensued between all four cats. In the end, the father emerged from the cloud of dust and feathers and trotted into the bush. He also knew the chicken was the end of the bounty, and he left with his spoils.

In his wake the others turned to the driver and waited for their turn. He tossed them one-at-a-time to increase the excitement. Before a chicken hit the ground it was caught, pulled apart and torn between multiple cats. Once a cheetah controlled a carcass cleanly, the game was over, and the losers waited patiently for the next toss. Some carried their prize off into the bush and disappeared, while others opened them up and crunched on the bones in front of us.

Today all four cheetahs got a chicken. Tomorrow they would play before another group of tourists snapping photos under brand new safari hats. And again would have full bellies, and lie down satiated. It’s an easy life in the bush when there’s a chicken in every mouth.

When we left the farm we drove along a broad, gravel floodplain. The sun was starting to cast a gold-red light over the trees, and the animals started to come out of the bush to drink at the river. Meghan spotted the first group of animals, but was unimpressed because they looked too much like deer to be considered game. I think they are called Cela.

Across the river, further upstream was a large dark mass moving slightly. I thought they could be wildebeest, but could not be sure. Meghan told me to stop the car and jumped out. She was clearly not worried about baboons or cats. She scrambled through the underbrush and popped out on the gravel riverbed snapping pictures with her camera.

“There’s lots of poop, but I tracked them and found wild boar too.” They were wildebeest. We continued driving and saw an oryx standing beside the road staring at us. We did not bother him, but it seemed he would move if we approached. Meghan started the video.

It is like she is doing an imitation of David Attenborough on the video, her voice hushed and reverend as she tells me where to drive for optimal oryx viewing. I realized I was hungry. I had an oryx loin before and it was tasty.

Meghan started to jump out of the car again, but the oryx was too far away. Further up we saw a group of five animals cross the road twenty yards ahead of us. By their gate, and their size we knew they were cheetah. Not cheetah penned up for the feeding show, but wild cheetah roaming the land outside the farm. When we came to where they crossed we stopped the car and saw that they were just in eyesight, watching us.

Meghan opened the door and got out to take more pictures. Clearly she was not worried about be attacked by the cheetah. She is now queen of the African wilds, and ready to track, spot, and chase any game.

A Walk On the Wildside of Windhoek

2009-06-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

Almost every developing city has one, and it’s always beyond the grasp of law and order. It is defiant and proud of its incorrigible status, and taunts the city below from its lofty stature. Lovers climb its lower slopes to be steal time together, while further up addicts and thieves stagger up its twisting trails to be alone with their scores. Criminals of all sorts rule these hills, the world over. I know I should not climb these perilous peaks, but I always do. In fact, I always search them out, and look forward to facing them. The mixture of fear and excitement reminds me that I am alive, and not in control. This is how I feel as I prepare to ascent an infamous hill above Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

Windhoek will be my home for the next six months, but so far it has not lived up to my expectations for living in a capital on the ‘dark continent’. During my first here, I have felt nothing but safe: too safe. I was welcomed, somewhat, in most shady gambling houses, and there was no sense of daring walking in the city center after dark. The city is nothing if not orderly, clean, and safe. I suspect the townships outside town are more unpredictable, but I will explore them later. For now, I will climb Hofmeyer Hill, and test my mettle against the unknown upon its slopes.

Hofmeyer Hill is not the towering mountain labyrinth of crumbling buildings I roamed in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro’s. It is a small, sandy hill, without settlements, that rises subtly from behind the Parliament building at the eastern edge of the city. It is, however, dangerous, and my guidebook warns that, “Hikers have recently been robbed along this route, so don’t go alone and avoid carrying valuables.” The local newspaper claims that a man was stabbed there two days ago merely for his cell phone. The U.S. Government’s Regional Security Officer, also, formally forbids all Foreign Service members working in or visiting Namibia from going up the hill. Good thing I don’t work for the U.S. government.

My duffel bag is still bulging and lying on the floor beside my hotel bed. I am in temporary housing, and have not unpacked my things yet. I run my hand through the canvas bag and extract my running clothes. In the cool morning air of a patio over looking a busy street and an ‘Engine’ petrol station, I pull on my shoes and tie my apartment key to the drawstring inside my shorts. I glance at the map of town and find a route to the start of the treacherous trail along the ridge of Hofmeyer Hill.

From the apartment security gate I turn left on Independence Avenue, and then a quick right on Doctor A.B. Mayo Road. At the top of Mayo I make a left on Robert Mugabe Avenue, and then a right on Sam Nujoma Avenue. The principal streets in the city honor the heroes of the recent independence movement, but as I climb Nujoma away from town I turn left at a street that still bears its original German name, Orban Street.

The sky grows wide and pale as Orban Street rises gradually out of the shadow of the hill. The tropical morning heat begins to gather, beneath a cloudless, blue sky as I jog. At over a mile in altitude I can’t be sure if it’s the altitude or my nerves that make me sweat profusely as I approach the ridgeline. Fear mixed with excitement consumes me, and my heart pounds in through my chest. The paved road, and civil law, end abruptly at an intersection.

A metallic blue map stands above me between a wide, dirt road on its left, and a narrow trail leading into the scrubland on its right. The trail is the beginning of the infamous Hofmeyer Walk, the dirt road lead to a telecom tower at the summit of the hill. The map shows two red lines representing trails to the right; an eastern trail leading down the backside of the hill towards the Klein Windhoek Valley, and another trail that follows the ridgeline north and ends abruptly at a somewhere on the rigid.

Klein Windhoek was once an area where blacks who worked in Windhoek were forced to live during South African rule, and apartheid. Now, however, whites have reclaimed most of the valley, and it has become the most expensive and desirable suburban neighborhood in Windhoek. I do not want to end up in Klein Windhoek because it is a short trail, and would not be as dangerous. So, I follow the path along the ridge, hoping that the route is neither a dead end for the trial, nor me.

There is no one around me as I step onto the brown, sandy trail. I have not seen a car or heard a noise other than my breathing since I turned onto Orban Street. I am completely alone with my overwhelming fear for what lies ahead. I wanted to come alone because it is more exciting to temp fate alone, but alone I know that I am an easy target. Now that I am here, I want to stay alone because I will assume that anyone up here will try to rob me, or worse.

I never thought I would move to in Africa. It is one place I never even expected to visit. I am not a big guy, so Asia is comfortable because I do not feel physically threatened. It is also comforting because people are generally non-violent, fearing the everlasting weight of Karma upon them. In Latin and Central America I believe I can diffuse most situations with my bastardized Spanish skills and sense of humor. But Africa, I always thought Africa would be too dangerous.

In Africa there is witchcraft, ritualistic killings, famine, and plague. In Africa, anything can and does happen, usually by groups of machete-wielding men. There are no rules, and there is no order. Despite all this I still chose to move to Africa, and have now chosen to put myself on this dangerous hill, all alone. While my mind wonders if pieces of my white flesh will soon end up in the hands of a witchdoctor eager to cure some tribal elder of gonorrhea, I set my first foot upon the sandy trail.

Used condoms in the sand at my feet tell me that people have been here before. After a few minutes of jogging the trail narrows and becomes overgrown. Tall, golden grasses tickle my knees, and thin, tree branches with long, woody thorns stab at my head. I startle, and am frightened by little birds, small rodents, and fleet-footed lizards at every turn. I realize that I never thought of the non-human threats of the African bush. I imagined guerrillas, or worse, gorillas, waiting to ambush me.

Ducking under one tree and turning along the path to my right, I see what I had feared most. It was a group of silhouetted men standing on both sides of the trail ahead of me. They are tall and broad-shouldered with dread locks piled on top of their heads. I slow my pace and hide behind an insufficient boulder. They have not moved, and I think I can still go back the way I came undetected. I squint to make out their forms more clearly through the bright sunshine.

The Hofmeyer Walk is also known as the Aloe Trail. It is called the Aloe Trail because of the Aloe Littoralis plants, which grow all over the hillside. This particular species of aloe plant, when fully grown, vaguely resembles a large man standing tall and broad-shouldered, and topped with a mass of dread locks. The resemblance is dramatically increased when seen at a distance by a frightened foreigner jogging with an overactive imagination on a dangerous hillside in a strange land.

When my brain recognizes that my eyes are indeed looking at tall plants, and not bandits, I laugh aloud at my own timidity and stupidity. As I get back up to speed, and pass the gang of aloe plants, I remember how the plant has cured my numerous sunburns over the years. I reach out and touch the trunk of one six-foot aloe, and label myself a certified pussy.

Beyond the gang of aloes, the trail breaks over the ridge near the summit and affords a view of the city of Windhoek. The city landmarks come into view below: the red, tile, roof of the administrative headquarters, the sandstone German-Lutheran Church steeples, and the spidery constructions cranes pulling up the new office buildings. To the north, the trail continues on towards a row of brown, concrete reservoir tanks and beyond them, hopefully, a trail off the hill.

I follow the trail northwards to a tall chain link fence that surrounds the first tank. I give the fence a wide berth since it’s protected at its base by coils of vicious razor wire. Suddenly I notice a dark, shining object swaying down the trial ahead of me. It is no aloe plant; it is a tall, black man walking ahead of me down my trail. I immediately stop and crouch down while my heart begins to race. ‘Who is he?’ ‘What is he doing up here?’ ‘What would he do if he knew I was here?’ I listen to my heart pound for a full minute before looking up again. He’s gone.

I do not want to jog anymore and risk catching up to him, so I descend the rocky trail slowly. As I skirt the fence I notice small trails cut through the tall grass and scrub brush leading down to the valley floor below. I decide to stay along the fence because it is the widest and most used trail. I am still scared to meet the person in front of me, or anyone else, but I do not know where the smaller trails lead, and imagine they lead to a cave that serves as a gang’s headquarters.

Beyond the reservoir tanks the trail becomes less worn and harder to follow. It moves under low-hanging trees, and begins to get overgrown. I start to think that it is a dead end when I suddenly hear a familiar and comforting sound from the hidden valley floor below. It is the sound of a car, and it sounds like it is braking around a bend, before accelerating again. I quicken my step, hoping to get off the mountain before I am scared by anymore plants or men, and encounter any more strangers.

Below a rocky bank, piles of human shit, shit-stained pieces of notebook paper, let me know that I am at the trailhead. Just beyond a green patch of prickly pear cactus my feet land on a paved road. I do not know where I am, and I do not know how to get home, but I am back in the safety of the city streets. The trail along Hofmeyer Hill was not a dead end, and I am not dead. I have survived and I will live to test myself against another forbidden hill in another city, another time.

Home Sweet Home- June 18, 2009

2009-06-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

We have been in Windhoek, Namibia, for two weeks, and as of today we are officially in our apartment and settled into our new home. It was a frustrating two weeks, as I will detail below, but things are looking up now; we have an apartment, a car, a few potential friends, and a plan for getting out and seeing some wildlife this weekend.

The Living Situation
After a 28-hour, door-to-door journey, we were collected at the airport and informed that we would not be moving into our apartment as promised. We were being placed in a temporary apartment for ‘some time’ while another Expat was being put into our future apartment. Inconvenient, yes, but also frustrating because the woman occupying our apartment was going to have to move again also when, in ‘some time’, her house became available.

‘Some time’ is never something you want to hear in a foreign country because it could mean a few hours or an eternity. Anyway, we unpacked as little as we could, and settled into an efficiency apartment, called the Jan Jonker, and tried to make the best of it. The building was centrally located, and our unit was stocked with all the appliances and amenities we needed. Unfortunately it also had all the charisma of a midwestern motel room, with grey walls, dirty carpets, and a point-blank view of a neon, gas station sign that burned through our mesh curtains throughout the night. Our future, modern apartment was less than a mile away, but beyond our reach, at least for ‘some time’ yet.

What was worse was that because the US embassy only reserved the apartment for Meghan, the Jan Jonker staff tried to charge us an extra US$30 a day for an extra person, yours truly. For that kind of money in the third world I expect a lot in return, and the Jan Jonker did not deliver. Besides that, I am cheap. So, that afternoon I turned in my key and started my stint ‘on the lamb’ to avoid the charge. Every morning I would leave the apartment, before the staff arrived, and return in the evening, after they had gone home for the night. Once I returned around lunchtime, but I ran into a staff member who asked me for money, so then I just stayed away. Between the multiple coffees, meals, taxi rides, and beer tastings around town, I am not sure I saved much of the US$30 per day, but sometimes it’s the principle of the thing.

Windhoek is small for an African capital. In fact it’s small for any capital with just over 220,000 inhabitants. The city center consists of one main drag, Independence Avenue, a half mile long, lined with shops, restaurants, administrative buildings, and a few tall office complexes. The broad sidewalks are clean and dotted with white and black people heading to work, street peddlers in blue bibs selling newspapers, and tourists in khaki clothing head-to-toe drinking coffee in open-air cafés. There are very few beggars, few people in non-western clothing, and few vehicles. The air is clean, dry, and free of the piercing sirens of Washington, D.C.

When the tropical sun goes down, at 5:10 on the dot, almost everyone leaves the city center and the town becomes empty. Almost no one lives downtown, and with only a few bars and restaurants, and even fewer music venues, I can see why. Nightlife exists, as far as I can tell, inside a mall at the south end of town that houses the movie theatre, an African version of an American Steakhouse complete with cowhide seat covers, and a seafood restaurant that reminds me of Sizzler. In such a city it soon became obvious that Meg and I needed to buy a car to get us out of Windhoek and around Namibia early and often. We would not be able to just get by renting a car once a month as we had thought.

So, during the first week, while Meg attended the Global AIDS Implementers Conference in the swanky conference center, and lunched with the President of Namibia, I stalked every dusty and polluted industrial area of Windhoek and every used car salesman I could find there.

The Kia brand does not conjure images of safaris through the African ‘bush’, and for good reason. However, this is the dry season in South Western Africa, so I only need a two-wheel-drive car, and they say a Kia will do fine. The 2003 Rio has a puny 1.3 liter engine, and does 0-60 mph in somewhere around eleven seconds, and has only three inches of clearance over its 14” pizza bagel wheels. It is right hand drive, like all cars here, and when I test-drove it, the engine spun nicely, just like Charky’s old Singer sewing machine. The Rio also has a four-star crash rating from every angle, and dual front airbags in case we forget to drive on the wrong side of the road. It seemed like the perfect choice, and we could actually afford it, so we decided to buy it.

The Happening Kia

Paying for the car, however, proved to be just as frustrating as our living situation. The problem was that our slightly shady car dealer, Jaco, (pronounced in Yaco in Afrikaans), does not accept credit cards. Security protocol at our banks would not allow us to authorize a transfer into his account from abroad, credit limitations stopped us from pulling the money out of credits cards as a cash advance, and debit card limitations stopped us from pulling the total amount out of our checking accounts. So, despite having sufficient funds to pay for the car, we could not purchase it.

After many days of finding out the limitations of my provincial, North Carolina bank who shall remain nameless, the US embassy said they could cash one of Meghan’s personal checks for local currency. It would cost us no interest points, just a normal transaction as if it had taken place in the States. It was the perfect solution to a frustrating dilemma. Why Meghan has her checkbook with her in Africa I have no idea, but thank Jobu she does because the car was delivered yesterday, and I love that little, silver thing.

What is better is that the car was delivered to our real apartment. The woman living in our apartment agreed to switch with us last Sunday because it made no sense to her that she was living in our apartment while she waited for hers to be made available. Needless to say we jumped on the chance, and are now moved into the apartment.

Sunset in Windhoek

Our apartment is on the third, and top floor of a building that looks like an oversize garage. It is a modern and secure building with a remote controlled gate to the property and an alarm system inside the unit. Coming through the front door there is a guest bedroom on the right, east, side and a long eat-in-kitchen straight ahead. Beyond the kitchen there is a large TV room that finishes at a wall of windows and a set of French doors that lead to a balcony. To the right of the TV room is the master bedroom with its balcony, and the master bathroom. The master bathroom has a shower and separate tub, and enough closet space to make any girl swoon. The tin roof is over twenty feet above us, with tall skylights where it meets the walls. The place is very bright and airy, and the rooms are well appointed. It is perfect, and it is great to be finally settled.

The guest bedroom has twin beds, and its own bathroom, so we are hoping to take foreign visitors out on safari in the Kia in the near future.

Hope to see you in Africa.

Our Apt. from the front door

The Master Bedroom

The Guest Room (all are welcome!)