Endless sun in Africa

Exclusive Camp's Bay, Cape Town, on a blustery winter day (17 degrees)
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I am back and, at long last, Marcfest 2006 has drawn to a close and I am back in Toronto.

The last leg of my trip was Southern Africa - Cape Town,  Namibia and Botswana.

My brother joined me on this trip, fresh from the inward-looking Midwest and the skeptical glances of his corn-bred colleagues.  The plan was 6 days in Cape Town followed by a flight up to Windhoek, Namibia, where we would rent a car for 2 + weeks and drive around Namibia and western Botswana.  Among other things, we were determined to see the famous dunes of Namibia, Etosha National Park and the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Table Mountain looming over the harbourfront of Cape Town
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The common way for most people to travel in Southern Africa is by tour group or exclusive safari.  The former holds little appeal because it involves being stuffed in very large overland truck with a dozen or so random travellers.  The latter is not something we can afford and it is too removed from the actual place you are visiting.  Africa is an expensive place to visit if you dont travel independently - lodges in Botswana charge 100s to 1000s of dollars per night for accommodtion in the Okavango Delta.

our breakfast nook
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We spent a number of days in Cape Town getting used to the idea of being in Africa.  It was my second time and my brother's first on the continent.  It is a beautifully situated city, with some gorgeous neighbourhoods on the side of Table Mountain and along the rollicking and frosty Atlantic Coast.  Those who have money in Cape Town live very, very well.  It is also a very segregated city still, so we needed to get used to that and get comfortable with our comfort zones.  Cape Town also has a great array or restuarants and, of course, wines.  We did our best to see the best of Cape Town, including Table Mountain at sunset, Robben Island where Nelson Mandela served some of his prison sentence and we also did a bike trip down peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope the symbolic if not actual southernmost point in Africa and the historical corner leading to the Orient for European adventurers.  All along we heard about the sharks and the cold water.  There was no swimming or surfing for us in the dead of winter.

Told you it was winter
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The World Cup semi-finals were on during our stay in Cape Town, so we joined the locals and travellers at the Long Street Cafe (despite the name, a bar) on, yes, Long Street to watch the games.  Got a real sense of the different faces ad mixing of South Africa.

After our time in Cape Town we headed to Windhoek.  Neither of us saw another cloud until we returned to North America.  IN Windhoek we rented a 4x4.  We also had to pick up vouchers from an agent for our lodge accommodation later in the trip at Etosha.  This entailed finding an address in northern industrial Windhoek.  It was then that we learned one side of Windhoek (the white side) lives much better than the other (the black side).  We wondered how long this could last, given the events in South Africa and Zimbabwe.  No one really could answer that, but the consensus seemed to be that the standard of living in Namibia was better than those other places for everyone.  Not convinced. We also learned that Daniel is not a map person.  That is OK, as many people are not.  We had a heck of a time finding the street, despite it being clearly shown on the map, all the while driving around sketchy parts of Windhoek.  As a geography major, I suppose it is incumbent upon me to do all map and directional tasks.  However, by the end of our time in Namibia he had learned the keys to map reading and interpretation, as well as the relay of key information to a driver.  Well done, Daniel.

colourful houses of a downtown neighbourhood
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From Windhoek we travelled south to the dunes of central Namibia.  They are spectacular in the low light of sunrise, which casts sharp shadows across the dunes.  See for yourself.

After the dunes we headed north to Etosha National Park to watch the African plain wildlife.  On the way we handed in our 4x4 and instead rented a mid-size two-wheel drive car.  Turns out the roads in Namibia are great and no 4x4 is needed unless you are really going off the beaten track into the bush.  Since 90% of toursists dont do that, the myth that a 4x4 is needed in this part of Africa verges on rental car company extortion, or at least well-intentioned tourist ignorance. We went from $200/day booked from Canada for a 4x4 to $40/day for a brand-new car.

Flowers on top of Table Mountain
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Unlike the Serengetti and other African parks, at Etosha you are able to drive yourself around the park and visit the various waterholes where during the dry season (when were there) animals are near and easily viewed.  We saw rhinos, herds of elephants, dozens of giraffes, endless ostriches, zebras, kudus, gemsbock and springboks and, best of all, a pride of lions up close.  We became patient waterhole watchers, staying in our car and waiting out the procession of animals as they staggered their trips to the waterholes and looking for feline predators in the distance. On one of our late day drives on the way to a waterhole, Daniel looking off in the bush next to the road suddenly yelled 'lion!'  Skeptical I stopped and turned around.  What followed was a procession of a pride of lions crossing the road in the evening light - we counted 13, spaced about 10 seconds apart.  The most amazing luck and sight we had during the entire trip.  We had 36 pictures, of course.  We whittled that down with some difficulty to about 15.

Sunsetlooking south down the Cape
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After Etosha we drove up the Angola border and then down into Botswana to the Okavango Delta.  The Delta is formed by the Okavango River flows south from Angola and meets the sands of the Kalahari Desert where the water fans out in a delta and either soaks into the sands or is evaporated.  The river has no end or outlet in this sense. It supports a profusion of wildlife including millions of birds, crocodiles and hippos.  We spent 5 days lazing at a community run camp in the panhandle of the delta - the only camp in the Delta where the proceeds actually go back to Botswanians (the others are typically owned by South Africans).  During that time we did a 2 day overnight excursion into the Delta on a mokoro (traditionally a hollowed out tree trunk that serves as a canoe - now fibreglass to save the trees) steered by our poler/guide.  We had to keep our hands in the low-riding boat (crocodiles) and avoid hippos, which kill more people in Africa than any other animal.

the brother, Daniel, soaking in the sunset
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From this excursion comes the best story of the trip:  our guide, George, upon arrival at the designated island campsite after two hours of poling, is quite agitated that we dont have matches for a fire.  Daniel and I are confused as lunch does not require fire and we would be out all afternoon anyway.  After a short walk and some not so successful attempts to light a fire with binoculars and dried leaves, matches finally arrive from another poler.  George builds a fire and we go out for an afternoon cruise for hippos, which we hear all around us (they sound like high-pitched donkeys having an asthma attack).  When we return George immediately stokes the fire.  We also notice two hollowed out depressions in the dirt along the shore not more than 20m from our campsite.  George calmly explains that that is where the hippos sleep.  Knowing that most human deaths by hippo occur on land, we were somewhat alarmed to say the least.  Have I mentioned the elephant dung all around the campiste!?  Finally, I clued in and asked George why we needed the fire.  "To keep the snakes, hippos and elephants away.  Hippos will stay away if we can keep the fire all night."  Off we went for more firewood.  Hippos leave deeper lagoon waters for the shores at sundown.  It was about that time that we started to hear several hippos moaning at what sounded like an increasingly close distance.  Sound travels far over water, but when they sounded like they were no more than a few metres away, I asked George how far they were.  His response, "very far, maybe 25metres.  They are angry they cant come to their usual spot."  Filled with confidence we reluctantly went to bed, with George's assurance that he would stoke the fire all night.  After listening to hippos moan and far away elephants and hyenas, we grudgingly dozed off.

travelling down the Cape, south of Cape Town
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We woke up a stoked fire.  George kept his promise.  Not long after breakfast while we were all lazily cleaning up the campsite, Daniel spotted a couple of elephants feeding on trees not more than 50 metres from our camp.  George, our guide, a lifelong tribesman, had not.  "Is that dangerous, George?"  He said, "very dangerous if babies with them."  We turned around and George was now suddenly standing on the mokoro urging us to get in so as to head out for our game walk. That did not inspire confidence. The policy of the Poler's Trust which runs these excursions is that game walks are done without guns because they are guided by experience locals and with guns people tend to get too close. This made us nervous. So did the instructions that if a water buffalo charges, climb a tree (most trees, if you could find one, had lower limbs eaten off by elephans), if an elephant charges it will likely bluff so back away slowly and if an lion charges, stand still. Hardly confidence building. But not to worry, ‘we can airlift you out to a hospital in less than 2 hours!’ In any event, Daniel and I again spotted the wildlife before George did. George seemed more lost than watching for animals.

The penguins of the town of Boulder
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On the way back to camp, we had to share the back of the pickup truck with a German group of militant birders who had just finished their mokoro trip. All decked out like Indiana Jones (as Germans are want to do), they, like many birdwatchers, had taken on the characteristics of their prey – their heads bobbing and weaving like a flock of birsd as they scanned the treetops for their own elusive unlogged species. Once found one would scream “driver schtop!!!,” the only English they knew, binoculars would be swiftly glued to their faces and breathless German would be exchanged among them to determine the species. After about a dozen stops, Daniel and I were ready throw them out of this nest.

The cold surf of the Cape Peninsula
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When we returned to the camp, the English guy volunteering as the business manager essentially said about George, ‘oh yeah, funny thing about George, he is the only poler that has had a client attacked on a game walk. I think she was gored by a water buffalo. But no real harm, we got her to the hospital quick enough.” Daniel and I ordered a couple of beers and stared out to the Delta, happy to be back at the camp, but glad for the adventure.