Nostalgia

I have, on occassion, entered one or two writing competitions (generally the type that gets you a free trip) and while I know that my writing is not prize-winning, I continue to hope that the judge will have really bad flu, be completely fuzzy and oblivious and just choose mine so that he/she can just go to bed already. But it occurred to me that the article I wrote for the last one predated the existence of this blog, so I am now adding it to the repertoire. For a brief time before I headed into Sudan I lived in Kenya, and did a little travelling there as well. What a gorgeous place....

Amboseli Game Reserve


Having never stayed in a Kenyan National Park before, and the sum of my experiences to that point having been South African National Parks, it hadn’t crossed my mind for a second that finding food and drink would be a problem. Until we arrived at our ‘rest camp’, and discovered how loosely they use the term ‘camp’: Waist high fences are your ‘protection’ from the animals, and long drops and cold showers are the extent of your “convenient and adequate ablutions”. Café or food stalls? Sorry, what?

Luckily our driver, Mariepe, was a Maasai man who lacked the ‘safe’ gene, and, ignoring all signs saying “animals will rip you limb from limb after dark if you leave the camp”, with us in tow he headed out into the bush with his panga and found us the local Masaai tribe. To their obvious hilarity and many repetitions of ‘crazy misungu’ (white person), they finally led us to a goat carcass hanging from a tree, chopped us off a couple of hind legs and added some ‘ugali’ (local version of maize meal) to the package. I am sure the price we paid funded the purchase of at least one herd of goats.

With our rather dubious meal packaged in two-year-old newspaper we headed back rather quickly to the relative safety of our camp and fire. Mariepe volunteered to prepare the ugali, and proceeded to cook it into a state not unlike play-dough. By this point I had diced and braai’d the goat, so Mariepe gave us a brief lesson on how to eat. One must pick up a piece of ugali, flatten it in ones right hand (the left hand should not to be used for eating) and use this as a spoon to scoop up a piece of meat, some meat drippings and some salt, and eat it as a whole parcel. Wish some shyness, and much giggling, my travel partner and I complied with instructions and found ourselves eating a very respectable meal.

There are few things quite as beautiful as watching the sun set behind Mount Kilimanjaro, eating something local and surprisingly delicious, and listening to hyenas call to you from the other side of a one meter fence you pray they can’t get over. ..



Passport Stamps!

One of the most annoying things about my trip to the States being cancelled is that I had ordered a brand new spangly passport, had a lovely new exciting looking visa pasted into it, and gone.... nowhere. It has been many many years since I had a naked passport. I was starting to feel uncomfortable.

Enter my friends. One of the awesome things about staying in one place, is that I have now redeveloped a lot of my friendships that had been left flapping in the breeze. Some of these friends are awesome holiday planners. I have traveled with one friend, I have traveled with a boyfriend, but never before have I traveled with a group.

The journey started with a big 4x4 and an overloaded trailer, and LOTS of booze we thought we might not get through. Heading straight from Cape Town up country for 10 hours we landed our asses in Augrabies falls National Park, whereupon the booze supply was rapidly done away with.

Augrabies National Falls

Having rested, got in the holiday spirit, and begun the inevitable destruction of our livers, we headed out two days later in search of game drives, and predators. A brief stop over at a desert camp gave us our last night in a real bed, and a covered porch from which to watch the thunder storms, before heading to Kgalagadi Transfontier National Park.

What was meant to be desert and barren, turned out to be lush and grass covered. With rains that like of which havent been seen in a decade, the dunes and red earth had turned lush and green, with golden grass fronds reflecting the sun and bringing to mind Sting and his Fields of Gold...

Kgalagadi national Park

The only down side was the complete lack of animal sightings. We saw lions twice, but both times they were doing a very good job of pretending to be rocks, and little else stood out above the grass. Could this deter us? Na-ah! A bottle of Tequila became the shot of choice for ever predator spotted, but its amazing what becomes classified as 'predator' after the first few.

"Hey guys I saw a snake! They eat mice right? Well, actually, it was only a mouse. Don't they eat insects or something?... No?.... You sure?.... then it was DEFINITELY a snake I saw. Yup. DRINK!"

A lack of decent tasting drinking water, along with a generally accepted suspension of road rules (aside from the 50kmh limit) contributed to a rather raucous group of passengers, and eventually we felt for the sake of the park rangers and the carefully hidden animals, it was best to head to our next destination. Namibia!

Having used the border post as a spot to turn the car around once, the actual crossing of the border lacked a little oomph, but we all got our stamps, the search of our vehicle completely missed all the cocaine, herion and sawn off shotguns they were sure we were hiding, and eventually we found ourself in Namibia on a road to... nowhere....

Namibia

Blinding heat and a road that stretched endlessly before us was the most significant thing about the majority of the actual journey. Luckily what lay 6 hours ahead of us was a Spa based at Ai Ais Hot Springs, and the gorgeous views of the Fish River Canyon. Second only in size to the Grand Canyon, the Fish River Canyon was a surpising and giddying rift in the flat land we had driven through. Awesome in size and fascinating in its creation and composition, we would have stayed many long hours at the view point, had the wind not been so cold, and the call of the hot springs so loud.

Fish River Canyon

All good things end, and after 12 days of camping and driving through dusty deserts we were a sad group to head home, but grateful that when we got there we could have a hot shower and sleep in a bed that didn't slowly leak air all night.

Next year: Caprivi Strip and Okovango Delta? Or lying on sandy beaches, eating massive lobster and swimming with Dolphins in Mozambique? I love where I live...

Proposal Number 5

Its a little strange to think that after 5 marriage proposals I remain single and unmarried. Because I am. Single and unmarried, that is. Not strange. Well... maybe that too.

I recently ended a relationship, and although there is a large part of me that is sitting curled up in a corner sniveling to myself, there is also a small part of me that is indignant that I have once again ended an engagement and... wait for it... have no ring to show for it!

At the end of the day, what is a good breakup without a little fight about belongings? It gives you something to focus on, really. I mean, you haven't broken up for no reason. Usually its a culmination of all the little arguments, and 'discussions' and tiffs that you have had, but when breaking up its nice to have something new to fight about. And what better than who gets to keep the ring? I mean, THAT argument can keep you full of anger and and in denial about your grief for years.

Alas, so far I have been robbed of that luxury. Five times. By now I should really have a collection of them. To be fair, the first one was a 17 year old boy who thought that because I was the first girl that liked him he should marry me, so the ring would probably have come from a Christmas cracker. That being said, number two was only 20, but he had already designed the house we were going to live in. Still no ring. He proposed to all his girlfiends though, so I imagine that had he bought a ring for all of us he would be eternally broke. I am sure he thought that a house designed 'just' for me was proof enough of commitment. He proposed to a friend of mine a year or two later, and as far as I know he showed her the plans for the house as well.  She got a ring though.

Proposal #3 was a little offhand really. I said yes to this one though, and we had planned to announce it to family and friends after we finished studying. We had a future planned and it involved traveling and he said, "well yes, I think we had better get married, it will make traveling and visas easier." Aren't you just swooning with the romance? No ring, because that would be the same as announcing it...

Proposal #4 was just before I left on travels of my own. I think the reason I didnt get a ring with this one was that I was leaving the country. Letting that R20k investment out of your sight is quite silly, really. Why spend all that money if she stands a chance of being swept off her feet by some half clad Adonis-like Greek on a white sandy beach somewhere? Good thing really, because I didnt make it back to the area for 4 years.

Proposal #5... well. I really should have had a ring for this one. The plan was to get one once I actually arrived in the country (I am still in South Africa and he is across the pond) but since the continental divide proved as large as always expected, I am single and ring-less. We cant even fight about who gets the frying pans, or who the house warming gift was really for, because neither of us is going to send it across the pond anyway. Handing back the others belongings isn't quite the same when its delivered by postman by necessity, rather than as an indication of vitriole and an unwillingness to deign to be in the others presence.  

I am kinda curios to know if there will be a Proposal #6. And if there will be a ring. Let this be a warning to all future prospects... I want a ring. And if you break up with me after I accept it... I am keeping it. Thanks.

Safari Bliss

I will be the first to admit that as a South African I am just a little snobby about this whole idea of 'safaris'. Technically, 'safari' is just a Swahili word for journey. In Kenya one will often say, "Oh I cant wait, I am going safari this weekend" and when asked where to, one would reply "oh to the beach, soak up some sun", for example. For the rest of the world it has come to mean khaki coloured clothing and long hours sitting in the back of a game viewer truck driving past massive quantities of lions and leopards all ready to wow you with their ability to kill, and waiting to pose for your photograph.

The reality is quite different, really. Animals are hard to spot, the rainy season means long grass and low visibility and the dry season is generally at a time of year when people dont like to travel. Going to a game reserve and having high expectations of seeing leopard is somewhat like going fishing and expecting to see a shark. Just because you cant see them doesn't mean they aren't there, they are just hard to spot.

For me, game viewing was always about driving up for the weekend (or long holiday) and spending days with beer in a cooler, driving at super low speeds chilling out in the bush with friends or family, and stopping when you felt like it. I always laughed a little at the tourists piled into their guided trucks stopping to view the abundant impala, and stuck with a schedule not their own.

No more! I have been converted! My company is a tour operator and one of the occasional perks is going to a lodge or on a tour on 'business' to do a site inspection. Which is what a friend and I did this last week. Oh wow, the place was wonderful. Rustic but awesome, we stayed in tree houses! The game drives were not as terrible as I imagined, but rather gave us a wonderful insight into what was going on around us, with guides that keep you informed.

The treehouses were so cool, with separate but private bathrooms on ground level, open air. Showering naked in the bush with monkeys sitting on the branches above you watching with fascination is a rare experience! The first morning we woke up and got out of bed to head down the stairs, only to blearily open my eyes to discover that our little hideaway was surrounded by buffalo! Luckily when we started talking loudly they headed away and I was able to make my way down the stairs, maul free.

That day we spent almost 8 hours in the open  top trucks, and had the most phenomenal luck. A leopard actually just sauntered up to our car! So rare that despite the many reserves I have been to in several countries I have never seen one! And it just wandered up to us to say hi.

One of the highlights of the trip was a game walk. After days of telling you how important it is not to let a hand dangle out of the truck, or step out of the vehicle at any time that isn't prearranged by your guide, they then get you out of the car and walk you off into the bush. Although warned that we were unlikely to see any big game, you cant help but see an elephant in every rock and a hungry lion behind every tree. The idea of the walk, however, is to take in the little stuff, pick up rocks and scare the scorpions, learn about tracks and the animals in the area. The joy of walking through bush that has never been tamed and is home to so much life is just phenomenal.

Lest I gush and suddenly make myself out to have gone soft, I shall end it there. Needless to say, coming home was a little sad, but this country makes me proud to be African. Below are some highlights from my trip. Till next time...