After two weeks exploring Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the northern part of South Africa, we turned our attention to the southern-most tip of the African continent. We flew from Kruger National Park to Cape Town, where we spent our final few days exploring life at the end of the world.

Cape Winelands
We started our stay on the cape at The Village at Spier, a pretentious hotel and entertainment complex located on a winery outside Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch is a part of the Cape Winelands, a hilly region in the Western Cape province well-known for its chenin blanc, cabarnet sauvignon, and — my favorite — sauvignon blanc.

On Saturday, we settled at Spier, which has been made to sort of resemble a European village. On a quiet, sunny Sunday morning, we boarded a bus for a tour of the surrounding wine country. We drove into the university town of Stellenbosch, where we took time to walk around and look at shops. The population here seemed mainly Afrikaner, meaning the white descendants of the Dutch, German, and French settlers of the area. (This is as opposed to the predominantly black population in Johannesburg, Kruger, and Cape Town itself.) Much of the signage was in both Enlish and Afrikaans. Many people were dressed in their summer finery — because mid-February in South Africa is the equivalent of mid-August in Oregon — going to church services.

Next, we drove to Franschhoek, an even smaller village higher in the wine country. We had a little time to wander around, so Kris and I bought gelato and watched a pair of owls that are long-time residents of a particular tree.

After a brief look around Franschhoek (again, much too brief for my liking), we drove to Dieu Donné, a nearby winery, where we tasted a few wines and then ate a fine lunch.

    

Anita, snapping a photo of three boys outside Dieu Donné Vineyards

Back at the vast Spier complex, Kris and I toured Eagle Encounters, a bird-rescue facility, and Cheetah Encounters, a similar program for big cats. I wasn’t feeling well in the evening, so we skipped the scheduled wine-tasting event to have a quick, quiet dinner in the bar with Coy and Margaret. In the evening, we watched The Social Network on the iPad. We were unimpressed. (What’s the big deal? Why does everyone love this movie? It seems pedestrian, almost pointless.)

Table Mountain
Monday morning, we left Spier and drove into Cape Town. Our bus took us to the base of Table Mountain, where we took the cable car to the top. We only had half an hour to take in the lovely view (again, I felt rushed), of which no photos can do justice.

It’s almost impossible to describe table mountain in a way that conveys its grandeur. Even photos and video don’t really give the whole scope of the thing. But let me try.

Table Mountain makes up the southeast border of Cape Town. It’s a three-kilometer (roughly two-mile) long plateau set a few kilometers back from harbor itself. The mountain is about 1000 meters tall, and is almost perfectly flat. (Well, “perfectly flat” in the grand scheme of things. It’s actually very rough and rock up top, but the overall effect is one of level-ness.) Because of the mountain’s position and its flat top, it’s often covered by “the tablecloth”, a blanket of flowing, white clouds. Again, the effect is amazing, and you really have to see it in person to understand. When the clouds come over the top of the mountain on a south-easterly wind, they cascade down the face of the cliff toward the city. It’s like a waterfall of clouds. It’s awesome.

The clouds spill over the top of Table Mountain

Looking down at Cape Town from atop Table Mountain. The tip of my sleeve is
almost exactly touching the point from which I took the top photo. [Photo by Phil.]

Back at the base of the mountain, we made a brief tour of the city, including a stroll through the Company’s Garden, a large park in the middle of Cape Town. We were then subjected to an hour-long shopping stop at a local jewelry manufacturer. (To the credit of Brian, our tour manager, he applied no pressure here.)

After checking into our hotel, Kris and visited the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, which is one of Cape Town’s primary attractions. The V&A Waterfront is a touristy shopping area along the main harbor. It’s filled with shops, restaurants, singing groups, and more.

Cape Point
The next morning, we set out early for an all-day trip from Cape Town south to Cape Point, then back up the east side of the peninsula. Cape Point is the southwestern tip of the African continent (thought its not actually the southern-most point.)

On our journey, we spent an hour at an ostrich farm, where we listened to short lecture about the birds, looked at some baby ostriches, and then fed the animals by hand. Because this was another shopping stop, several people bought ostrich eggs and ostrich-leather purses.

Ostriches are dangerous — unless you ply them with food pellets.

Next, we drove to the Cape of Good Hope and to Cape Point (which are about 2.3 kilometers apart and visible from each other), where it’s traditionally said that the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean meet. After a nice lunch, we rode the funicular to the lighthouse at Cape Point, where it seemed like we could look off to the end of the earth.

Our tour group at the Cape of Good Hope. [Photo by Brian.]

On our drive back to Cape Town, we stopped at Simon’s Town to visit a colony of penguins.

Cape Town
At long last — on the 17th day of our trip — we had a “free day”. We slept late, which felt great. After breakfast, Kris and I set off in search of Church Street, where it was rumored we could find some antique shops. (I’m still not clear on what Kris wanted South African antiques for or how she intended to get them home.)

Our path was re-routed by road construction, so we ended up at St. George’s Mall, a pedestrian thoroughfare filled with street vendors. We each bought a used book, then made our way through the Company’s Garden again.

At the top of the Company’s Garden, we stopped to tour the South African Museum — our first museum of the trip. (Contrast this to our visit to Europe last autumn, when it seemed like all we did was tour museums!) Our tour manager Brian had dismissed this as suitable only for schoolchildren, but we thought it was well worth the R15 (~$2) admission. We saw a Darwin exhibit, whale skeletons, prize-winning nature photographs, an enormous interactive model of the earth, and a 1970s-era display of Bushmen life.

After a couple of hours at the museum, we found our way to Church Street, though we decided not to browse the antique shops. Instead, we followed the trail of street vendors down to Greenmarket Square, where I spent nearly R1000 on tobacco! (A small shop had clove cigarettes. These are now illegal to sell in the U.S., but popular when my friends I enjoy the smoking porch. When I can find them in other countries, I buy them.) Kris and I ate lunch at the edge of Greenmarket Square.

In the late afternoon, we lounged by the pool. Jim Booth — who organized this trip for Willamette‘s alumni office — hosted a cocktail party in the evening, at which 13-year-old Ruby debuted her brand-new hair-do.

Ruby’s new haircut — note how talented she is!

Robben Island and Langa Township
On our final day of the trip, we saw some of the darker sides of Cape Town.

First, we boarded a ferry for the trip to Robben Island (or “seal island”), which lies about seven kilometers west of Cape Town. For 300 years, Robben Island served as a penal colony. Nelson Mandela spent about seventeen years imprisoned here.

Because I’d spent much of the trip reading about Mandela, I was looking forward to this visit. I didn’t know much about him when we started, but the more I learned, the more I liked. Mandela is a great man — and yet very human. There’s much to admire in him.

Ultimately, though, I found the tour of Robben Island disappointing. It lacked context. It felt rushed. If I hadn’t been done my own background reading, I don’t think I’d have got much out of this tour. As it is, I got very little. Still, after everyone else had gone, I lingered at Mandela’s cell to pay my respects.

In the afternoon, Kris and I took the optional “cultural tour” of Langa Township. Again, this felt rushed. (Can you see how this is a theme of this trip? I loved everything I saw, and wanted to spend more time at each place.) We rushed through District Six, a former inner-city residential area for blacks and coloreds (remember: “colored” means mixed-race in South Africa), which has a rich cultural history.

Ron Rhodes, looking at a map of District Six

The District Six Museum features a collection of embroidered recipes

At the Langa Cultural Center, Kris and I played marimba

But for me, the highlight of this excursion — and perhaps for the entire trip — was our visit to Langa Township. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about townships:

During the Apartheid era, blacks were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as “white only” and forced to move into segregated townships. Separate townships were established for each of the three designated non-white race groups (blacks, coloreds, and Indians)…

Townships sometimes have large informal settlements nearby. Despite their origins in apartheid South Africa, today the terms township, location, and informal settlements are not used pejoratively.

Townships are permanent communities. As part of a township, there might be one or more “informal settlements”. You may know of informal settlements by less flattering terms, such as squatter camps or shantytowns.

For our tour of Langa Township, a young woman nicknamed Sugar (who lives in Langa) described how the local people work and live. As in any community, there are different levels of wealth in Langa. Some folks have relatively nice homes, with yards and garages and fences; we were told these belong to people who have university degrees: teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers. These homes would seem small in the U.S., but are positively luxurious compared to the shacks in the informal settlements just a few hundred meters down the road.

Sugar led us on a short walking tour of some of the government-built housing in Langa. We were able to see two homes. I didn’t see much of the second because I stopped to talk with a girl in the first house (I couldn’t understand her African name, I’m afraid). I started by asking her about her life, but she was actually more curious about me. Where did I come from? Did I like Africa? And so on.

I wanted to know more about this girl; she wanted to know more about me.

I learned so much from this three-hour tour that I can’t possibly share it all here. Besides, you’re probably bored after reading this far. Instead, I’ve compiled this 9-minute video that features Sugar and Sophia (our guides) talking about the daily lives of township residents, especially from a financial perspective. I’ve done my best to annotate things to head off confusion.

I wish more of our trip could have been focused on meeting the people. While others appreciated the birds and the animals and the spectacular scenery, I got so much out of our brief interactions with actual South Africans and Zimbabweans.

Farewell to Africa
Back at the hotel, we were treated to a chaotic (read: African) farewell dinner. The food and wine were served in fits and starts, with some tables (or people) being served their main course while others had to wait for their appetizer. But it was all good. We enjoyed each other’s company, and reminisced about the trip.

On the morning of Day 19, we boarded a plane for Johannesburg to begin our 36-hour trip home.

My typical breakfast: baked beans, beef mince, a sweet roll, and fruit. I loved it!

I don’t think Kris and I really knew what to expect before our trip to southern Africa, but we both loved it. Kris had been wary, I think, worried about violence and crime. But we both came to love the land, the animals, and — especially — the people. I’m glad we did this. In fact, I’d encourage more people to consider southern Africa when they plan vacations. Sure, it’s a bit more expensive and requires a bit more time, but the rewards are worth it. Who cares about a Mexican resort when you can come home with memories of elephants and hippos and bush dinners — and of Langa Township…

The middle of our trip to Africa was spent looking at wildlife. We moved from Zimbabwe to Kruger National Park in South Africa, where we enjoyed two full days driving the preserve, spotting a huge variety of birds and animals.

Humans have been roaming the area around Kruger National Park for about 250,000 years, and it has long been teeming with game. It currently forms the largest portion of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a vast “peace park” that will soon cover nearly 100,000 square kilometers (36,000 square miles). As a transfrontier park, it spreads into more than one country: it reaches into Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

With so much space, there’s plenty of room for the animals to roam free. All the same, there are only small numbers of certain critters. While there are over 130,000 impala in Kruger, for example, there are just 300 black rhino and 350 wild dogs. (Every guide said the same thing: “I can’t guarantee you’ll see any animals today. [beat] Except impala. I guarantee you’ll see impala.”) The next-most populous animal in the park is the blue wildebeest (or gnu); there are 31,000 of them in Kruger. There are 23,000 zebra, 12,000 elephants, 7000 giraffes, 2000 lions, and 2000 hyena (but we didn’t see a single one).

Because the park is so huge, we only saw a small piece of it. On both Thursday and Friday, we spent six to eight hours in safari vehicles, driving through the southern reaches near Skukuza Gate. We entered through Paul Kruger Gate, and roamed the hard and soft roads nearby, searching for game.

We saw all of the Big Five — leopard, lion, elephant, rhino, and buffalo — though some were easier to spot than others. The two leopards we saw, for instance, were both back from the road. One was in a tree, which gave us a better view, but he was still tough to photograph.

This video will give you a ten-minute tour of the park. I took over an hour of footage and have trimmed it to this. Because the animals were sometimes far away, and because we were in a moving vehicle, and because it was sometimes raining, the video isn’t always as steady or as clear as I’d like. But I still hope it’s fun.

I also got some good photos. For instance, here are three photos that show what it’s like to ride in a safari vehicle, looking at animals. The vehicles have high sides, but still offer plenty of space for a passenger to take photos. If it gets too rainy, the sides can be rolled down so people stay dry. (We had a couple of misty periods during which we covered ourselves with blankets.)

Life in a safari vehicle — to the animals we look like one big, lumbering beast.

Close encounter with a lion.

There are only 350 wild dogs in the park; we saw six. They seemed curious about us.

Our guide in Chobe told us that when we’re in a safari vehicle, we seem like one big beast to the wild animals. But if we were to climb out, we’d suddenly become prey. We stayed inside.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the game drives (by the way, “game drives” and “safaris” are apparently the same thing), but I enjoyed them. If anything, they went too quickly. I would have liked to spend a week driving slowly through the park. I never tired of looking at the animals. Mostly they just did boring stuff. But so what? Their boring stuff was still new to me. And sometimes we got to see neat things, like a month-old baby elephant. Who knew baby elephants could be so cute?

I’m not usually a fan of baby animals (except kittens), but even I loved the baby elephants.

Here are a handful of other animal photos from our trip (click on each to view a larger image at Flickr).

• First, the elegant, stately giraffe, which was probably my favorite animal of the trip. I loved them.
• Next, the zebra, in all its psychedelic glory. Apparently, people have tried to domesticate them, but they’re just not good workers. Note that one of the beasts has a huge hunk out of his right foreleg.
• And here’s a baboon, who knows that sometimes you just have to let it all hang out.
• Finally, here’s a photo of a vervet monkey on the porch of our hotel. There were many monkeys around the lodge, and when Kris opened the patio door, they came running to see her. They were hoping for food. This little guy was hoping most of all.

I have many other animal photos, and am happy to bore you with them when I see you in person.

 

 

As I may have mentioned, Kris was enamored with all of the birds we saw in southern Africa. She made friends with Jim and Linda, a couple from Salem, who are avid birders. Together, the three of them cataloged their sitings. Here are two of the common birds we saw at Kruger:

 
The European Roller (as ubiquitous as our Scrub Jay) and the Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill

At first, we were delighted to see the very beautiful European Roller. Eventually we realized they’re also very common. “There’s a roller on every tree,” became Kris’s motto, because it truly seemed like there were. But that’s okay. There’s a blue jay on every tree here in Oregon, and I still like them.

One of my favorite things about Africa was the sky. Parts of the U.S. are known for having a “big sky”, but I’ve never really understood what that meant. Now I know. Namibia had a huge sky. And the skies around Kruger were gorgeous, too.

  
Three views of the African sky — one with impala.

On our first evening at Kruger, we spent a couple of hours getting to know Alissa and Ruby, the mother and daughter from Jacksonville, Oregon. Alissa is an attorney and about our age. Ruby is thirteen, and probably the most talented person I will ever meet. (Well, according to Ruby, anyhow.) She’s also besotted by Justin Bieber.

On the second evening, the group was entertained by a group of young singers from the local area. The Tipfuxeni Youth Project sang traditional songs, and then asked some members of the audience to dance. I knew early on that I’d be dragged onto the dancefloor. I was the closest to the group, and the young woman on the end kept eying me. Anita got some snaps of my smooth moves:

I was as graceful as a rhino. [Photo by Anita.]

Our safari days were awesome. It’d be great to come back to Kruger in the future to drive through in our own vehicle. I’d love to spend a week watching the animals, lingering for an hour to watch a giraffe eat instead of hurrying on to the next photo op.

After three days in the park, we boarded a plane to Cape Town.

Note: If you read my personal finance blog, you will already have read bits and pieces of today’s recap.

After a day in Johannesburg and a couple of days at Chobe National Park (plus several days of travel), we packed up and moved east out of Botswana to Zimbabwe. Our next stop was Victoria Falls, a magnificent natural wonder along the Zambezi River, which separates Zimbabwe from Zambia.

Francis, our local guide, gave us more background information on our two-hour bus ride. (And Brian, the tour manager, added bits and pieces, too.) See the sidebar for some background on marriage customs in the area, for instance.

We arrived at the gorgeous Victoria Falls Hotel just after noon and checked into our room. This is without a doubt the most beautiful hotel we’ve ever stayed in. The halls are wide, the ceilings tall, and everything is impeccable. The grounds are well-manicured, and the staff exceedingly helpful. Plus, the hotel has a “James Bond pool” (the sort of pool you might expect to see 007 swimming in). Kris and I were in awe. We also felt guilty.

We spent three nights at the Victoria Falls Hotel, where the average room costs $618 per night. I’m not sure what our actual cost was — it was probably much less — because we booked the entire trip as a package through a tour company. If we’d paid full price, though, we might have expected to pay $1854 for our time in Victoria Falls.

According to our local guide, minimum wage in Victoria Falls is currently $250 a month. And right now, nobody can afford to pay that, so workers are only being given a living allowance — enough to buy bare necessities.

So, three nights in this posh hotel cost the same as seven months of local wages. Worse, most Zimbabweans don’t even have a job. Unemployment in the country runs at nearly 80%. 80%!! One in five people has a regular job. Perhaps you can see why, despite our guides’ gratitude, I often felt ashamed to be there.

Victoria Falls

After a short respite, the group gathered to see the falls themselves. Victoria Falls was originally called Mosi-au-Tunya, or “the smoke that thunders”. They’re over a mile wide and 100 meters tall (to mix my measurement systems). By volume, Victoria falls is the largest waterfall in the world. And it is awesome.

Almost enough to make me a religious man. (Almost.)

It’s impossible to convey the experience in words and photos. We were there at the end of the rainy season, so the water was rushing at full force. As it falls, it creates a great mist (the “smoke”) which is very much like rainfall. On the Zimbabwe side, you have a grand view of the falls. You can walk along the Zambezi Gorge, taking in each cascade, listening to the sound — and getting drenched. (Fortunately, it was warm — probably 30 or 35 degrees centigrade — so the mist felt awesome.)

We were all like little kids, smiling and laughing at the overwhelming might and beauty of the falls.

It’s actually a bright, sunny day — this is just mist from the falls!

In the evening, we attended a cocktail party and then ate a light dinner before retiring early to watch Downton Abbey in bed.

On Valentine’s Day, my favorite day of the trip, our group experienced three cultural outings. First, however, I swam and Kris wrote postcards. How romantic!

The Open Market

In the late morning, we joined our group for a visit to the Victoria Falls open market, where local residents sell hand-made jewelry, rugs, statues, and knick-knacks. Before we entered the market, Brian gave us a piece of advice: “Think of this as a cultural experience, not a shopping opportunity,” he said. “And don’t just give these folks money. They don’t want your handouts. They want to earn a living.” He told us to use this as a chance to test our bargaining skills.

I heeded Brian’s advice, and did my best to learn more about the vendors I spoke with. When we got off the bus, we were greeted by Joseph, who took us to his stall. He asked if we liked anything we saw. Kris like a pair of earrings. Joseph said they cast $15. “But that’s just my starting price,” he said. “Now you make an offer. But Kris didn’t really want to haggle, so she gave him $13.

Joseph and Kris, haggling over earrings.

Meanwhile, I started talking with Joshua, who had some nice stuff, including a $35 hippo and a $45 cat carved from serpentine. I haggled with Joshua a bit, but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t want to buy a bunch of Stuff. I told him I’d come back because Kris wanted to go visit Florence, the wife of the vendor she’d just dealt with.

Florence showed us several tablecloths, and Kris picked one that she liked. Florence wanted $40 for it, and Kris offered $20. In the end, they agreed to a price of $30.

On the walk back to Joshua, I was hijacked by Moreblessing, who asked me to visit his stall — “Just to look, not to buy.” He and I squatted together to look at his wares (which were much the same as Joshua’s). He had some nice leopardstone stuff, but it was all to expensive. Eventually, I talked him down to $12 on a hippo.

Here, I made Kris cranky. She thinks I was rude to do what I did next (and after talking with my friend Steve after returning home, maybe Kris is right — it wouldn’t be the first time). I left Moreblessing and went back to Joshua. I told Joshua that Moreblessing would sell me a hippo for $12 and asked him to do the same. He did so. Kris came up and asked me to buy a $7 frog, too.

Then I went back to negotiate with Moreblessing, but he was less friendly now, and less inclined to reduce his prices. He still wanted $35 for a leopard carved out of leopardstone, and he wouldn’t come down. In the end, I paid $27 for the cat, a small piece of carved wood shaped like Africa (sort of), and a worthless old Zimbabwean coin he had lying around.

Not everyone liked the market. Some folks were uncomfortable haggling. Sharon, for example, doesn’t like to barter, so she’d pick items and have her husband John do it for her. Others, however, loved it.

Alissa (the only other woman our age) and her 13-year-old daughter Ruby seemed born to haggle. When the bus returned to the hotel, Alissa stayed behind to do more negotiating. And Ruby didn’t spend a nickel. She traded away the clothes she was wearing, including her Lance Armstrong Livestrong bracelet. “It was yellow,” she said. “Everybody wanted it.”

On the way back to the hotel, one of our guides (Francis? Ernest, the bus driver?) made a poignant comment: “It’s nice when people from the U.S. come over and find out we’re not savages, not awful people. Some Americans are scared to come here, but they see we are all very nice people.”

He’s right. Kris and I loved Zimbabwe. The people were friendly and interesting, and we never felt unsafe.

The Government School

During the afternoon of our cultural day, we visited the Chinotimba Government School, where about 25 children sang and danced for us. When they finished, we had a chance to chat with them. (English is the primary language in the countries we visited, another remnant of the colonial past.) One boy was fascinated by my camera, so I let him borrow it; he ran around the room, snapping photos of all his friends.

Photo taken by a boy at Chinotimba Primary School.

Before we left the school, we had a chance to donate school supplies. Kris had brought some pens, pencils, small notebooks, and inflatable globes. I was unprepared. I hadn’t expected to be so moved by the visit. I pulled aside Francis, our local guide (who had attended this school when he was a boy and now has a daughter who’s a student here), and showed him the books I was carrying in my bag. “Could the school use these at all?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Even these?” I asked, holding up four digest-sized comic books I’d brought to read on the plane.

Francis laughed. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll love them. The kids know who Superman is.” So, there’s a grade school in Zimbabwe that has some comic books from my collection now. The school principal, who collected the money and supplies our group donated, seemed touched and grateful.

Back on the bus, many tour members talked about how sad it was that these kids had so little. Brian tried to squash this sentiment.

“Look at the children,” he said. “Are these kids unhappy? I’ll wager that you’ll see the children are happy. They’re happier than any of the children in South Africa. Why? Because everyone is equal. They all have the same Stuff. It’s not one kid has an iPod and another one doesn’t. They’ve got nothing, and we know that. But they’ve all got nothing. They’re all the same.”

Brian wasn’t arguing that it’s good for these people to live in poverty. He was trying to make it clear that it’s possible to be happy even without a lot of Stuff, and that if you give something to one person and not another, you sow the seeds of envy.

A food market in Victoria Falls

“Take my snap! Take my snap!”

Dinner at Home

In the evening, we made a quick trip to a nearby food market, where we spent a few minutes wandering the stalls, looking at the items for sale. (I found two women who were selling used boxes! I asked to snap their photo so I could share it with the guys at Custom Box Service.

After this brief detour, we split into small groups. Each group went to the home of a local resident, where we were served a typical Zimbabwean meal. (Actually, it was a little atypical: We were given the equivalent of both lunch and dinner. Plus, our meal contained more meat than the families usually eat.)

Kris and I dined with Blessed and her family, which owns two homes on adjoining properties. “We are a family of sixteen,” Blessed told us, “and we are still expanding.” She says that “uncles, aunties, misses, cousins” live in these two houses.

Blessed served us hominy in peanut butter, pumpkin leaves in peanut sauce, and sadza with chicken stew. Sadza is a cornmeal pap; it’s Zimbabwe’s staple food. In fact, Blessed’s family eats so much sadza that they buy a 50kg (~110 pound) bag of cornmeal every month. (I think the “mielie pap” we saw in Botswana and South Africa is the same as sadza, but I can’t swear to it.) Fish is expensive, so it isn’t eaten often, and meat seems to be used as a flavoring agent, not a main ingredient.

As we ate, we talked with Blessed and her two helpers, which included a friend and a cousin. Blessed told us that her family is actually fairly well off compared to many in the area. Doreen, who is eighteen, is nearly finished with high school. She just got her exam results. Because she did well, she’ll soon be going to university, and then (she hopes) to medical school. So, in contrast to a lot of what we’d seen on this cultural day, this family seemed to be on a path toward relative prosperity.

This board tracks the animals that have been spotted on the reserve.

The Interactive Safari

As if that weren’t enough, the next day, we headed out for more fun in Victoria Falls. We drove to the Victoria Falls Private Game Reserve, where we spent about an hour tracking down a pair of black rhinos.

Because the Chinese still value rhino horns as an aphrodisiac, poaching is a problem. People are willing to risk their lives to kill a rhino for its horn because they can get so much money. In fact, the five rhinos that live on this reserve have recently been the target of poachers, who planned to kill them with an AK-47. The poachers were cornered by lions, though, and ran away — all except one, who got trapped in a tree. When he was caught, he confessed. Had the poachers actually succeeded, they could have (by law) been shot on sight.

Later, we spent about half an hour riding on the back of an elephant, and then maybe an hour petting young lions. We’d been a little worried that this optional excursion wouldn’t be worth it, but it was actually a lot of fun to have personal time with the animals.

Carole and Francis (our local guide) on an elephant

Basically, if you feed an elephant, it will do anything you want.

I want one.

In the early afternoon, I spent a couple of hours swimming and lounging by the pool — without sunscreen. As those who follow me on Facebook know, I got a bad sunburn, which made life miserable for the next few days. (My sunburn wasn’t as bad as Ruby’s though. Ruby, who is in seventh grade, got scorched. She had the biggest sunburn blisters I’ve ever seen. Poor kid.)

Swimming in the James Bond pool. A few more hours of this, and I was fried.

In the evening, we did two activities I didn’t really enjoy.

• First, we did the David Livingstone “booze cruise”, which was a leisurely boat trip on the Zambezi including a lecture about the explorer David Livingstone. The lecture was good, but I didn’t like anything else about the trip.
• Next, we had a “bush dinner”. A local catering company prepared a buffet meal that we enjoyed under a big tent erected next to the Zambezi. Again, I didn’t care for this event.

Some folks loved the booze cruiser and the bush dinner, but hated the previous day’s cultural outings. I was just the opposite. One highlight of the evening, however, was some energetic dancing with Kris, who was invited to join in a traditional song and dance. You can find her smooth moves near the end of this ten-minute video of highlights from our Victoria Falls stay:

The Foofie Slide

On our final morning, before departing for Kruger National Park, Kris and I recruited Peter to join us on a zipline across the Zambezi Gorge. Originally, I was going to bungie jump from the bridge into Zambia. But I was too chicken. A zipline, I can handle. We got up early, ate breakfast, and then the three of us took the short ride to the zipline station.

Peter was a good sport and learned to fly.

I’m a little unclear as to what it was we actually did. From what I understand, an actual zipline is taut, and sends a person from one point to another. Ours didn’t do that. Ours sagged in the middle, and we never reached the other side. After our initial descent, we sort of swung to and fro (like a pendulum) until a staff member came to retrieve us.

My eyes aren’t closed — I’m looking straight ahead but NOT down.

When he came for me, I asked if this were actually a zipline. “Not really,” he said. “It’s more like a foofie slide, but with a zipline setup.” That made things clear as mud. And searching the internet before writing about this, I learned that “foofie slide” is just a South African term for zipline.

Whatever the case, we did it, and it was fun. The first eight seconds scared the hell out of me, but after that, it was all good. Again, check the video above for footage of Peter and Kris plunging into the gorge.

And come back in a day or two for a photo safari through South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

After less than 48 hours in Johannesburg, we packed our bags for another flight — this time to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, where the airport is even smaller than the one in Belize (though not nearly as quaint).

The Victoria Falls airport — all of it

“Welcome to real Africa,” said Francis, our local guide, as our bus started the two-hour drive to Chobe National Park, and we knew what he meant. Johannesburg had felt like any large Western city. Sure, it had its own flavor, as all cities do, but it would have felt perfectly at home somewhere in the United States or Europe.

But Zimbabwe was hot, humid, and dense with forest. The soil had a rich, red color. (Francis told us the soil didn’t hold moisture.) And, as Brian (the tour manager) had during our tour of Johannesburg, Francis thanked us for coming. He seemed grateful.

“We make our livings through tourism,” he said. “Tourism is our main industry.”

On our drive from Victoria Falls to Chobe, we watched for wild animals. We saw lots of elephant dung, but no elephants. We did, however, see giraffes. And at the border crossing, I had a close encounter with a vervet monkey.

Between Zimbabwe and Botswana, we had to pile out of our bus, walk through a disinfectant (to prevent the spread of hoof-and-mouth disease), then re-board a different bus. While we were doing this, I snapped photos of the monkeys, one of which tried to steal the bag containing my shoes!

After a quick trip to our rooms at the Chobe Safari Lodge, we boarded open-sided safari vehicles for a drive through nearby Chobe National Park. The trip started sedately, with warthog sightings and a variety of birds. But things picked up as we saw hippos and crocodiles and elephants. The elephants and the baboons were the highlights of the drive. Our first safari was lovely: lovely weather, lovely golden late-afternoon light, and lovely company.

At the Chobe Safari Lodge

Ron and Suzanne, on safari in Chobe

  

Back at the lodge, Kris and I fell asleep quickly.

In the morning, Kris felt sick again. She’d been sick in Johannesburg, fine the next day, and now was hit once more with nausea. As a result, she opted out of our morning trip to Namibia, staying at the lodge to do some birdwatching. (Several of our companions made jokes about her “morning sickness”.)

I joined about a dozen others from our group for a short boat-ride down the slow-moving Chobe River to the Botswanan border post (where there’s an anti-HIV poster extolling the virtues of masturbation). Then we made our way to Impalila Island, where we made our way through immigration.

Impalila Island lies at the very tip of Namibia, at the end of the Caprivi Strip, which is a narrow strip of land that runs between Botswana on the south and Angola and Zambia to the north. (Think of the narrow strip that juts out from Oklahoma.)

After the formalities, Richard, our local guide, led us about a mile inland on dirt roads to a Namibian village. Richard told us there are 47 such villages on the island, and they have a very traditional culture. There are few vehicles — we saw just one truck — but I saw several folks using cell phones. (Though no obvious source for power to charge them.) The village we visited has been hosting visitors since 1993; the people are ambivalent to tourists.

In a lot of ways, what we saw of Impalila Island reminded me of rural Canby when I was a boy. There was a lot of rubbish strewn about, the homes and roads were rough but functional, and the people (especially the kids) seemed free and aloof, with a nonchalant, indolent air.

I was especially happy to see two young boys hacking at a root with a small machete (about the size of a butcher knife). These kids were maybe six years old, and were chopping the root to get at the sweet stuff inside, which they’d chew. This reminded me how we used to play with knifes (and broken bottles, etc.) when we were children, something you’d never see parents allow nowadays.

Two boys playing with a machete/knife in a Namibian village

On our return trip to the lodge, I was first back to the boat at the Botswana border post. This gave me time to sit and watch as 12-20 locals tried to cram into a water taxi. They were taking their time, joking and smiling. Many were missing teeth. Some carried large bundles: clothes, dried fish, and so on. One woman had a huge basket that she carried on her head — it contained the stuff she’d just bought in town (Kasane).

As we cruised up river, I admired the wide, blue Namibian sky. It was gorgeous.

  
Africa’s ever-changing sky — just a few hours apart in Namibia

In the afternoon, the entire group gathered for a game-viewing cruise. Though she still felt sick, Kris came along. Good thing, too, because she saw a lot of birds. (With our companions Jim and Linda, Kris watched for birds during the entire vacation.) We spent two hours cruising up the Chobe River, the first hour of which was made more exciting by a heavy downpour. After we reached the same point we’d seen elephants the night before, we headed downstream to the lodge. On our cruise, we saw elephants, crocs, many hippos, and lots of birds.

Our tour group, watching from the boat

Hungry, hungry hippos

In the morning, we ate breakfast with 89-year-old Doug Gordenier, who came to Africa without his wife. They’ve been married for many years, and have traveled together for a long time. They started young and made it a priority, even when they had children. Now Doug’s wife is unable to travel. This was his first trip without her, and it made him sad.

After breakfast, Kris and I walked to the far lookout, at the border between the lodge and the national park. We spent some time watching birds, particularly a weaver (who was tearing apart one nest to build another) and a malachite kingfisher.

Just before noon, we boarded the bus for the drive to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

After three weeks in Africa, Kris and I have returned for the cozy confines of Rosings Park. There was one less cat to greet us this time — which makes me very sad — but it’s good to be home just the same.

We had a great time on our trip, and I took many photos and filmed several hours of video. Rather than regale you with a day-by-day account (and as I have with vacations past), I’m going to get smart and lump major destinations together. So, in the coming days, you’ll get to read about:

• Johannesburg, South Africa
• Chobe National Park in Botswana
• Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
• Kruger National Park in South Africa
• Cape Town, South Africa

It’ll take me some time to piece together each travelogue, but I hope to keep them just a couple of days apart. I’ll post-date them, as you can see. This entry is dated February 10th, even though it’s being published on the 28th.

Enough with the preliminaries! Let’s enter Africa.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Before we’d even left the U.S., I made my first mistake. I decided that I wanted to buy some South African rand so that I’d have a little spending money. At Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., I paid $310 (and a $9.95 commission) to purchase R1800, for an exchange rate of about R5.63 per dollar. At OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, other members of our group were buying getting R7.10 to the dollar (with a R49.95 commission). My $310 would have bought me R2151 in Johannesburg, which is the equivalent of R6.94 per dollar.

“That’s how it always is,” said Sammie, one of our companions. “You always get a better deal at the destination airport. And you always get a better deal at the airport instead of a bank.” I’m not sure this is 100% true, but it was certainly true in this case. Lesson learned.

Our flight from D.C. to Johannesburg was long — 17 hours long, including a re-fueling stop in Dakar, Senegal. I slept very little (because it’s almost impossible for me to sleep on planes). So, after taking the 18:30 bus to the hotel, Kris and I immediately crashed, sleeping from 20:00 to 01:00. We both woke for a couple of hours (and watched Downton Abbey on the iPad) before falling back to sleep at 03:00.

In the morning, we ate a quick buffet breakfast — the first of many buffet meals — before boarding the bus for a tour of the Johannesburg area.

The typical reaction when young men saw our Kaizer Chiefs bus.

Our three-week tour was led by Brian, a native South African. He provided a lot of background and “color” to the trip, which made things more interesting.

For example, he started by talking about race. Following nearly 50 years of apartheid, race is an unavoidable issue in South Africa. The logic behind apartheid was “separate development”: Blacks and Whites lived in different worlds. (Colored people — meaning those of mixed races or from other countries, such as India — inhabited a middle ground.)

In South Africa (and Zimbabwe), all schoolchildren wear uniforms.

But Brian says that race is less of an issue than it was in the past. South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation, and the people take pride in their multi-racial culture. (On the trip, I did a lot of reading about Nelson Mandela, who actively promoted racial harmony, even though he had valid reasons to hate the Whites.) Because there are diverse races and political opinions, people have learned to get along. Brian says that people who disagree politically can still be good friends.

Pretoria, South Africa

As Brian gave us background on South Africa, the bus wound its way north to Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital. (South Africa has three capital cities. Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital.)

We stopped briefly at Church Square before driving up the hillside to the Union Buildings, the official seat of the South African government (and nominally the home of the country’s President). Kris and I spent our time wandering the lovely gardens, looking at the birds and flowers, and enjoying the summer sun. The sweet scent of one flower (we couldn’t figure out which) reminded me vaguely of the orange blossoms in Belize.

Orlando Towers in Soweto. As seen on The Amazing Race!

Soweto, South Africa

After Pretoria, we drove to Soweto, where we picked up S’nothilie, our local guide. We drove through East Orlando, then stopped in West Orlando for lunch at Sakhumzi, where we enjoyed an African buffet and blueberry ice cream. Well, I enjoyed the lunch. Kris was sick. She’d picked up a bug somewhere along the way, and couldn’t keep food down. She was miserable on this day (and then again two days later).

After lunch, we visited the Nelson Mandela House, which is just across the street from the restaurant.

From outside the Nelson Mandela House

Next, we drove a short distance to the Hector Pieterson Museum. Hector Pieterson was thirteen years old when he was shot and killed during the 1976 Soweto uprising against the apartheid government. An iconic photo of Hector being carried by another boy sparked worldwide protest. This museum was fascinating, but we had very little time to visit it. (Note this complaint. It’s one I’ll have again and again. We saw a lot of stuff on this trip, but we were never allowed to linger at any one place, which sucked.)

Soweto was interesting. It started as a township for Blacks drawn to Johannesburg to work on the gold mines. (Soweto is an abbreviation for South Western Townships.) Black and White were kept separate, even before the official policy of apartheid. Though the area’s origins are poor, and many poor people still live there, especially in the “informal settlements” (which most people know as shantytowns or squatter camps). Now, though, there are homes with Mercedes and Lexus cars in the drives. Brian told us that Soweto has more millionaires than any other South African city.

As a result, driving through the townships — both in Johannesburg and later in Cape Town — was an adventure in contrasts. The rich and the poor live side by side.

A typical shantytown in Soweto. Click to enlarge image.

In the afternoon, we returned to the hotel. I swam while Kris rested. In the evening, we had a big welcome dinner, where we sat next to Jerry and Suzanne. Jerry is a former airline pilot, and Suzanne is a former flight attendant. During the late 1990s, they lived for three years in London, followed by a year in Paris. They loved it. The four of us talked about books, photography, travel, and more.

After a long first day in Africa, Kris and I hit the sack, ready to rise early to board a plane to Zimbabwe.

Because we pack light, Kris and I do laundry in our hotel room