Cape town

Travel weary, and well, weary, we tucked our tail between our legs and purchased a Malawi Air flight to Cape town. Never heard of Malawi Air? Neither had we. Our plane ticket cost 80,000 kwacha (about $280) payable in cash. Sound suspect? The next day we got a call: flight cancelled. Then I pick up a paper, Malawi Air files bankruptcy, planes grounded. At this point I’m certain of two things: I just lost 280 bucks and I need another way out of here. Just when things are looking pretty grim an email arrives from my favorite airline. Sticking with their country’s motto, the warm heart of Africa, Air Malawi will drive us 3 hours to another airport where we’ll board a South African Airlines flight..

In light of said travel weariness, we decided to stay in Cape town for a month. On the official worlds-most- radical-cities website, Cape town is deservedly awarded gold medal status; Amazing beaches, big mountains, wine, great food, and gorgeous drives all within stones throw of the city… luckily for us, our apartment came with a 2 person scooter to see them all. As if that wasn’t enough, we reunited with some long lost friends we met in Bolivia 5 months ago.

Our first field trip was to the top of Cape town’s Everest: Table Mountain. The cities natural growth boundary rises steeply 2000 meters above the Mother City below. A late morning start virtually guaranteed the summit would be covered by the “table cloth,” but fortunately the clouds cleared from time to time. Later that week, we met up with Nic and Caroline, our two friends from Bolivia and drove to Cape Point, meeting place of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. It is not only amazingly picturesque, as many car commercials can attest, but also home to the endangered Prada Baboon.

Baboons are mean critters. I double dog dare you to try to get that bag (the owner thought throwing rocks would scare off the baboon. It did, he ran into the shrubs with the purse).

After a few solid days of scooter driving on the left side of the road, I felt ready to drive a real car, which is much more difficult than English films let on. Steering wheel (right side), shifting (left hand), seat belt (right shoulder)… Damn Brits.

We managed to scurry west a few hours to Montagu, where everyone speaks Africaans and some people speak English. Perhaps if the hotel owner spoke English, he could have informed me of this snake

which I nearly stepped on. In fact, I would have had it not been standing up, tongue out, ready to strike. Later inquiries identified the dude as a Cape Cobra... Sixty percent of bites are lethal.

Our final little excursion was a full moon hike to the top of Lions Head, which is basically a lower summit of Table Mountain. The locals do this every full moon, and since Lion’s Head is at our doorstep it was a no brainer. We missed the sunset, but got up in time to snap a few pictures and enjoy dinner and wine. All told, Cape town is a fantastic city. Where else can you feast on Springbok steak or warthog ribs (hands down, the most delicious thing I have eaten), swim with great white sharks, and explore different cultures. Sure, it has some problems, most of which seem rooted in racism. But remember, Apartheid ended in 1994, only fourteen years ago. And while that seems crazy at first thought, recall that southern schools integrated only 35 years before that and look how much things have changed.

Final boarding for flight 8637 to Morocco, better run.... oops, don't forget to check out the new uploaded pictures!

The &%*#!@ Border Crossing

I can’t say that we are happy to leave Brig’s mother and our ever accommodating safari guide, but since technically they are leaving us, we don’t have much of a choice. We board a hot crowded bus, switch on the bladder control button, and head south through Tanzania. We share a couple of days in Dar Es Salaam with our president. Picture a city with four million people, and only the main roads are paved. We visit the U.S. embassy to add a few dozen more pages to our passports and then board a Chinese built train (a relic from the Communist era in Tanzania) bound for Mbeya. From Mbeya we plan to cross over into Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, but praised for their gorgeous and massive lake.
We wake up before dawn and board the only minibus headed for the border. After six hours and fifteen stops where the driver honks madly on his horn in attempt to refill the minibus, we complete the sixty (yes, sixty) mile journey to the border. Did the thought cross my mind that if I could only hijack that rusted bike from the kid carrying a stack of logs twice his size that we could be to the border in half the time? Or perhaps just pay off the driver not to stop anymore. Nope, this never crossed my mind. I love the journey, the experience of having my knees crammed against the seat in front of me, fighting for space with a giant barrel of rice, and the excitement of wagering how slowly something with a motor can get from point A to point B.

Upon finally arriving at the border, we take a deep breath, elbow our way off of the minibus, and prepare for what I like to refer to as “Border Madness” to begin. Brig and I are immediately surrounded by fifteen adolescent African locals, eager to scam our pants off. They are all bombarding us at once with offers to exchange our money, cycle us across the border, carry our backpacks, and on and on. It's just too much for me right now, I look at Brig and want to cry, scream, demand my personal space. But instead I just laugh. I know as well as they know that the only way to have any peace, is to select one of these guys to “help” us so that the rest will leave us alone. We select David, reluctantly hand him a few of our Tanzanian shillings and receive what are presumably counterfeit Malawian kwacha in return. Assuming that our money is now gone, the hawkers disperse, leaving us to cross without further harassment into Malawi.
One cab, two more buses and nine hours later, we arrive in the lakeside town of Nkata Bay. Our secluded lakefront cabana perched on the manicured hillside is in sharp contrast with the villagers thatched huts and polluted river. The local population is poor, and stricken by one of the largest percentages of HIV in all of Africa. The lake is beautiful and the snorkeling amazing, but this discrepancy of opportunity puts a damper on my enjoyment.

Another damper comes in the form of aching muscles, fever and a burning headache. Symptoms that would normally be the sign of an unfortunate flu in America, happen to be exactly the same as the first signs of malaria in Africa. On top of that, the malaria medicine that is supposed to prevent me from getting malaria is also giving me crazy nightmares. Usually some local thugs are trying to kill me, sometimes Brig saves me, sometimes he doesn’t. And occasionally, Brig is the one trying to kill me.

A trip to the local hospital in the back of a pick-up truck and I am pronounced clear of malaria. I switch malaria medicine, and things start looking up. We briefly consider heading to Cape Town, South Africa by bus, but the thought of any more tortuous bus rides overwhelms us with feelings of panic, abuse and cruelty. We splurge for a plane ticket and sigh with relief at the thought of staying put in one city for an entire month.

Safari Part II: The People

Hadza Bushmen (n.)
Definition:
1. An ethnic group in central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. Only 300-400 Hadza Bushmen remain. They are perhaps the last functioning hunter-gatherers in Africa.
2. The craziest thing I have ever witnessed in my life
3. This one’s for all you creationists (a.k.a. Brobergists)

This is a story about a few guys in goat skin vests, running through the forest with wooden bows, hunting for small game to eat for lunch, just like they’ve been doing for tens of thousands of years. This is also a story about a young lady (yep, that’s me) staring dumbstruck as she is invited to observe the daily rituals of a prehistoric culture. This is also a story about how a few days of immersion in African tribal culture can alter your perspective of the world and its inhabitants. Let’s get started.

Safari Cultural Day 1: Five fifteen dawns early, but we are told to be bright eyed if we want to find the Bushmen. And find them we must, because they are nomadic, usually residing in one area for only a few weeks, or until the food runs out. Fortunately we have a lead. Mimoa, a young man from a neighboring tribe, has contact with the Hadza Bushmen once a month when they trade honey for arrowheads at the market. Here he finds out their current location in the forests above Lake Eyasi.

We pick up Mimoa on the roadside and he points the Land Cruiser up steep jeep roads for about an hour. Eventually we pull over, climb out of the jeep and are told to start hiking. Half an hour later we spot a crude shelter made of sticks and brush from a young acacia tree. A few more minutes and we are in the Bushmen camp. The scene is best described in snapshots.
Three small African men in their forties, shirtless, squat around an early morning campfire, in the shadows of a giant acacia tree. They take huge puffs off a wooden pipe, eyes glazed over, laughing. Thirty meters to their right near another campfire, four small but strong men in their twenties with feathers in their hair, sit on a gazelle hide, sharpening arrowheads on a rock. Forty meters behind, two very small women draped in sarongs with two children (one malnourished), huddle around another fire, staring blankly at us, two make-shift huts in the background.
We shake hands with the Bushmen family and they welcome us in the Khoisan language of clicks and grunts. The group of young men gathers all of their hunting tools and run up the hillside and out of the camp without a backward glance. Mimoa urges us to follow while explaining that they are taking us on their morning hunt. They don’t seem to be willing to wait for us while their stomachs growl and so we scramble after them as we glance bewildered at each other. Within ten minutes of squeezing under bushes, leaping over rocks and chasing bird sounds, the Bushmen shoot their first bird, a dove in a tree, with the wooden bow and arrow. The eldest brother doubles back to show us his kill and, stoic as he is, I’m sure I catch a small grin of pride on his face. And then……. he’s off again.

For the next two hours, we struggle to keep up with the Bushmen as they continue to hunt. They hunt not only for birds and small game, but also for honey. This they find with the guidance of a bird that leads them to a specific tree that is pollinated by bees. Upon discovery, one of the Bushmen climbs into the honey tree and begins chopping madly with his hatchet. After ten minutes or more, the limb breaks off and out oozes the sweetest, lightest honey I have ever tasted. The Bushmen go wild with excitement, dipping their fingers in the honey, licking it off and elbowing the others for another taste. Besides small game and honey, wild berries and roots complete the Bushmen diet. They also occasionally hunt elephants, giraffe and other large game.

We finally arrive back to camp where the Hadza women are digging up tuber roots from the soil. The older men are still sitting in the same position around the fire, smoking their pipe. Within fifteen minutes the young men have skinned and cooked their game and are enjoying breakfast while the youngest strums a song on a homemade instrument.
After glimpsing for a few more moments through this remarkable window to the past, we say goodbye and hike back out to the car.

I am unable to explain how this experience affected me, other than to say this: there are people in this world who truly do not care for material goods, societal progress and western ideals, and although we can not understand them, we can respect them and protect their habitat. The Hadza Bushmen are some of the few left in the world, and they have resisted attempts by the government to settle them in villages. They are currently allowed to continue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but their land, and therefore existence is being threatened by overexploitation.

Safari Cultural Day 2: As if our visit with the Bushmen isn’t rewarding enough, we are treated to visits with four more tribal African families during the Safari. We spend a morning with a Datoga family of two husbands, their six wives and seven children. They invite us inside their small dung huts (continuously repaired with fresh piles of cow dung) to participate in their morning rituals of grinding corn and making butter. Later they milk the cows, and we join in as they perform their traditional tribal “jumping” dance. As we leave, I noticed sadly, a young handsome man lying on the hot ground, covered by blankets trying to smile and wave goodbye as he shivers with fever from malaria.

Later that day we share an afternoon with a Hadzabe tribal family who demonstrate how they make jewelry over an outdoor wood fire, heated by pumping homemade leather billows. I walk away wearing a brass ring and bracelet hand made and decorated by my new friends.

Safari Cultural Day 3: Today we visit schoolchildren from the Masaii tribe. They sit crowded on wooden benches, flies covering their faces, and sing happily to us. We also spend time in the village of Mto Wa Mbu touring the rice fields and banana farms and enjoy a traditional African meal of delicious garlic and ginger marinated fish, cooked spinach, roasted eggplant and fresh fruit.

The safari went far beyond animal viewing. It acted as my introduction to the Dark Continent and her beautiful, welcoming people. Africa is so much more than the violence, sickness and poverty portrayed on the news. It is also home to thousands of peaceful tribal cultures who are positive, polite, proud and hardworking.

Safari Part I: The Animals

Safari is Swahili for journey, but the real translation should be more along the lines “damn, look at that.” Other than seeing a few animals, I really didn’t have any idea about what would happen on our safari. I had no idea I would see a giraffe from 7 feet, a lion brush against our bumper, or elephants 20 feet from my shower... Or that I would see all the above within an hour.

A small side note to give you an idea of scale and distance, all of the pictures here were taken with a happy snappy, look what I wore to the costume party camera. No 600, 400, or 200 millimeter lens on a tripod resting on a sandbag.

We met my mom in Nairobi during Kenya’s elections fiasco. Probably not the safest time but our options were pretty limited and (on a good note) the complete dearth of tourists gave us great bargaining power at the artisan markets. After a day in Nairobi we rallied the landcruiser 3 hours west to Tanzania (which we found out, the locals pronounce Tan-ZAN-ee-ya, not Tan-za-NEE-ya) and just a few hours later we were on our first game drive in Tarangire National Park. Within 2 minutes we were treated to our first game sighting, a huge bull elephant slowly crossing the road in front. Yes, elephants are the largest land animal in the world, but the size of the jeep (or lack thereof) gives a better perspective.

That evening we settled into our “tent” on the shore of lake Manyara to enjoy our first African sundowner, a fantastic expression simply meaning to enjoy the sunset and beverage simultaneously. This would be, more or less, the routine for the next 10 days. A day later we left Tarangire and drove up to, and then inside, Ngorongoro Crater, the largest intact caldera in the world. The flat and almost treeless crater floor is teeming with millions of flamingoes, thousands of wildebeest and zebras, and hundreds of elephants, lions, and cape buffalo. Not to mention jackal, hyena, rhinos, gazelle, baboons, monkeys, and countless others.

After two days in the crater we moved on to the great Serengeti, another Swahili word for endless plain, where millions (literally, about 1.7 million to be somewhat exact) of wildebeest migrate across the plain every February in search of water. Accompanying them were not only millions of zebras, but also thousands of predators and scavengers. It was on the Serengeti where we watched lions feasting, cheetahs hunting, and scavengers, well, scavenging.
We spent the majority of our time in the Serengeti, about 4 days, with two game drives a day. In the morning we enjoyed playing with the kittens.


And later we watched giraffes snacking while making hilarious faces.

On the way back we came across the huge elephant family, about 80 in total, that kept us up every night as they marched through or camp. But how could anyone be mad at faces like this for keeping you up at night?

The safari was amazing, far better than we ever imagined. There are so many amazing memories and pictures. Thank you mom not only for this wonderful gift, but also for coming halfway across the world to enjoy it with us.

If you all want to see more pics, check the link on the top right. If you want the memories, you’ll have to go. You won’t regret it. Stay tuned for Meredith’s entry, Safari part II, the people.

Leaving Brazil behind

Well, soon we will be leaving Brazil behind (I had to make up some lame sentence to use this picture, right?).. As our last few days approach, so does Carnaval. Some places ooze culture, but this time of year Salvador sprays it. It´s as if everday is a contest to be the most Brazilian and for better or worse, we leave this town the day it hosts the biggest party in the world. Bold words, I know, but we have witnessed the prologue and it´s hard to imagine the main event. Every night this week thousands of people pack the narrow, cobbled, streets that were paved by their enslaved anscestors nearly 450 years ago. Drummers march past 16th century churches and street vendors selling fried meat, mounds of spicy black beans, and cold beer while dancing locals (and tourists) fill in every last square inch of free space. In short this place is New Orleans on more steroids than an Eastern Bloc powerlifter. Meredith and I are not sure when we will back to celebrate Carnaval, but we will (maybe even next year)... Anyone wanting to split an apartment down here for 10 days next winter?

During the day we really just walked around the historic district.....(We had to walk cause it wouldn´t start)

.....snapped a few pictures of the ladies.... kicked it with the kiddo´s..... After all that walking I was hungry, so we ate the worlds most delicious ugly fruit from ripped old man...... and then to the worlds most crowded beach....... and well, I don´t remember much after that... Sadly, the end of our South American adventure is winding down, in just a few days left we will be running frantically from elephants, lions, and my mom. While we know we could stay longer, we also know another great chapter in this adventure is just a few pages away. We´ll keep you posted.