Category: Back to Africa

Henry as usual made friends in Cape Town before we left for the bush…… with this street band, from whom he bought a CD. Love this guy’s outfit!

The Kalahari Desert is not really desert…. It is classified instead as semi-arid savannah.  So not just sand and sun! We went to Tswalu, north of Cape Town and close to the border with Namibia. And these lucky travelers had rain… for three out of four days.  This level of moisture is unheard of in these parts, but has amazing impact….. beautiful bright green grasses and scrub with red dirt, tiny flowers and blue skies.

Mother Nature – once again a “mad scientist”!

So excited to be back on safari….. great animal sightings right off….

A “meerkat encounter” was on the list of things to do.  I feared that it would be a cheesy activity with trained animals, but it was really time spent with wild critters (never fed by people) who simply tolerated our presence in their colony. 

Curious but not frightened or aggressive.  Could have spent hours watching their day-to-day doings. On this clip, watch for the little guy in the back maintaining one of the burrows…..

A beautiful and remote place, with great trackers and guides…… We had so much fun with them!

There is a fine restaurant associated with this reserve…… at a great distance from pretty much anywhere. The chef is one of only two South African chefs who have received a Michelin star (which is a pretty big deal in the culinary world). People fly to the Kalahari from Cape Town or Johannesburg just for this ingeniously-prepared meal. The restaurant is dedicated to the chef’s childhood experience there, utilizing native ingredients… including wine and locally-made cheeses – as much as possible. It’s called Klein Jan, and… well, it’s just an incredible experience, starting with its entrance at what appears to be a farmhouse out in the bush…..

We were amazed at the background music played during our cocktail…… recalling for Henry his childhood in San Antonio, Texas, of all places.

After cocktails, we moved into a subterranean pantry for starters……

And from there to the main dining area, open to the bush to one side, with chefs assembling the beautifully presented food on the other.

After this experience – including a cocktail and at least several glasses of wine – I was thrilled to be allowed to ride in the tracker’s seat at the front of the Land Rover for our trip back to the lodge. A clear, cool, beautiful night.

From here we fly to South Africa’s eastern region…. the Wild Coast!

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Kwa Zulu Natal (aka KZN) is a coastal province in South Africa on the Indian Ocean….. home of the famous Shaka, a Zulu king of the early 19th century who developed a very effective and brutal military.  His army conquered and pushed neighboring tribes out into other parts of the country, creating a ripple effect of migration that permanently changed the ethnic and cultural make-up of the region.

History lesson over……. KZN is possessed of incredible natural beauty, one aspect experienced vividly with a helicopter ride along the coast from the city of Durban down to the Mngazi River.   Tertius came along for the ride (along with his friend and colleague Ty).  

It is a striking and abrupt  transition from the developed areas in and around Durban…….

…… To the bucolic homesteads of the Zulu tribal land further south.  

The lack of industrialization and residential development here means that this stunning coastline is almost untouched, with craggy cliffs, clear waterfalls and  beaches.  

Because of its remoteness, strong tides and rocky beaches, it’s called the Wild Coast, virtually unapproachable from the sea.  It’s hard in retrospect to imagine how to truly appreciate this place’s beauty except from the perspective of a helicopter…….  A lunch on top of a cliff gave us a chance to catch our breath …..

before moving on to a view of a well-known feature called The Hole in the Wall.  

A few days spent at a retreat on the coast……

gave us a close-up experience with….. cows on the beach!  

These bovines are apparently free to roam as they wish, up and down the lush hillsides….. But somehow they gravitate to the sandy shore, where they lounge quite comfortably.  Why?  There is no potable water or food for them there….. Henry imagines that the breeze off the sea minimizes the number of flying insects that could irritate them.  I like to think that – like us – they enjoy gazing at the waves and contemplating their role in the universe…….

From the resort, there are wonderful walks in the neighboring hills overlooking the ocean…. (Please note the cows on the beach.)

Some relaxation

And some lovely sunrises…..

One cow was not dismayed or frightened of the noisy contraption that picked us up for our return to Durban.   She bid us a moo-ving farewell from the Wild Coast……..

No commentary here – just some beautiful wildlife photos that Henry took with his new camera!

(As noted previously, if you get the blog via e-mail, you need to access the on-line version by clicking on the title of the post in order to view the videos. Please do so, as we’d love to share these clips with you.)

What a wet place Africa is! Or at least, such has been our experience since landing in Cape Town, and for three weeks since.

In the Kalahari – where we expected desert conditions – there was rain….. even thunderstorms!….. three days out of four. We enjoyed it then….

But it got old…… we were unable to get out for game drives entirely at several of the lodges we visited, including Thula Thula, where the elephants and other wildlife were hiding from the deluge.

I ended up studying the wildlife field guides while watching and listening to the downpour….

When visiting a game lodge, you are very limited as to other activities when there are no drives to view the wildlife…… but we made do once or twice with a cozy fire and some music.

And the rains continued.

When we did spy animals, they were pretty waterlogged as well.

In the Kwa Zulu Natal province where we have lately been, the rains were devastating, especially around the city of Durban. Roads and bridges collapsed, and a number of people lost their lives. The region continues to feel fallout from the damage. Hope they recover soon…..

But eventually, things work out. After a laughable number of activities and plans have gone unrealized due to the heavy precipitation, it looks as though we will have clear skies for a while.

Cheers!

Still more animals……

Lesotho (pronounced le-soo-too) is an independent country entirely surrounded by South Africa.  

A constitutional monarchy, its king is currently Letsie III, but it is governed in all material respects by a prime minister and representative councils.

Called the Mountain Kingdom (for good reason), Lesotho is made up of the heights of the Drakensberg and Maluti ranges, and lies entirely over 3400 feet above sea level, its highest point being Mount Ntlenyana at 11,424 feet in altitude.

Access from South Africa in the east requires a trek up the Sani Pass and a 4X4 vehicle.  The steep gravel road rises about 4,400 feet over the course of a very rough five miles.

Happy motorists often celebrate completing the route and entering Lesotho at the Highest Pub in Africa (9,429 feet) with a locally-brewed Maluti beer.

The Lesotho flag features a shape that recurs repeatedly throughout the traveler’s experience there……

In the dwellings….

In the formation of sheaves of wheat…..

In the traditional headwear…..

And even in the landscape itself…..

The mountain vistas are breathtaking……

Roadway perils are common……. You never know when you might emerge from a hairpin turn to be confronted with……

Crossing the sole access point across a river from one of the lodges after a night of heavy rain felt treacherous……

Even in the capital city of Maseru, an almost invisible drainage ditch can foil the most skilled driver…..

……making one thankful for well-prepared travel companions.

Why are we here? A common question posed by many of the locals we met, as they get very few outside visitors.

Would you believe that Lesotho actually includes an area that is reputed to have…… banded agates? Our entire crew helped Henry look for the elusive stones in river valleys as cows, donkeys and shepherd boys passed by……

Scooting down a steep hillside on her rear end, our heroine made the find of the day…..

A number of other decent specimens were found as well, but this won the prize!

Tertius was on a different quest entirely……. for a very special aloe plant that he had glimpsed before, but only just now found out was endemic to Lesotho!

He explained his interest to a resident who was observing the rock hunting…..

….. and our new friend invited us to his home nearby, as he just happened to have such a plant that he would be willing to sell!

A good time was had by all as we met and visited with his extended family….. here’s Henry showing photos from our travels on his iPad.

(Disbelief clear on the faces when Ty explains in Zulu that the penguins they are seeing are actually birds!)

Hilarity ensued when Tertius and Ty produced a six-pack of beer, which was immediately claimed for later distribution by the group’s head woman.

I had a grand chat with one of the ladies…..

Henry presented the chief of the clan with a Texas memento….

And Tertius got his special succulent…..

Clearly, the local Basotho people are charming and friendly.

Also of note is the special local breed of Basotho pony, a sturdy creature descended from the horses brought to this part of the continent by the Dutch in the 17th century. They are a very common mode of transportation, both off but mostly on the highway.

We stopped to try some grilled corn from a vendor, Henry imagining a delicious treat…..

…. and ending up a little disappointed, since it was a strain of what Henry calls ”feed corn”, and butter and spices were notably absent…

Since it is quite a cold climate at this altitude, people routinely wrap themselves in distinctive blankets in a variety of special patterns…. called Basotho blankets. We had to have some.

We visited several spots in a commercial center….

….. before finally finding the local source….

Purchases made, we proceeded to the border and back toward South Africa, all of us – Tertius, Ty, Henry and me – sad to be leaving so soon and hoping for another visit to this special place, with spectacular mountains and welcoming people.

The Lesotho greeting as we pass toward the border……

We hope we leave them with the same…….

Two more posts have been written and scheduled for publication in the next week or so. After that, we will be silent for a while as we will be traveling the back roads of northern Namibia. Not sure when we will again have sufficient internet coverage for an update, but please stay tuned.

If you normally correspond with one or both of us by email or text, we will have periodic access, but sporadically.

All the best!

Some random sights along the way…..

Pretty pictures.

An abandoned sea turtle nest, discovered while we were cleaning up a little plastic on the beach….

A rollicking trip in a safari vehicle…. at high speed while the guide tries to find some big game!

A random encounter on a walk in the Drakensberg Mountain Midlands with a horse farm manager, pet pig and a couple of dogs…..

One of the nicest pigs, ever! (The dogs were awfully nice too…..)

An inquisitive goose and a millipede….

A unique overnight stay in a massive converted barn…. this is the entry hall.

We chose to sleep in the larger banquet hall beyond, bypassing the bedrooms for 12 upstairs in favor of a ”Christmas bed” on the floor in front of the only feeble source of heat…..

As the unofficial ambassador from Texas, Henry presented pins from our home state to worthy individuals, like this helicopter pilot who longs for a visit to the Lone Star State…

…. and a young woman in a bar in Durban wearing a NASA patch that caught our eye. She, too, dreams of coming to Texas some day…..

My first shoeshine ever… while I was actually wearing my boots!

In times of shortage, you take what you can get… in this case, cannabis-infused toothpaste, which is legal in South Africa and the only brand available at the resort where we stayed.

A supporter of local entrepreneurs, Henry bought five of these “butter avocados” at a highway tollbooth….. each the size of both my fists bunched together! We ate a couple and gave the rest away.

Finally, Henry and Ty contemplate the possibilities of trying to drive two large, fully-loaded 4X4 vehicles over this washed-out roadway on our way to Durban…..

Prudence prevailed….. we took a detour and actually reached our destination unscathed!

More later…..

Rovos Rail operates several high-end train itineraries; we boarded in Pretoria, just north of Johannesburg, to travel west through South Africa, and then north through Namibia to Walvis Bay on the coast, a journey of ten days.

(The steam engine in the video was just for show at the station – the actual train was powered by diesel and electric power.)

The passenger compartments are very nicely done – each car was salvaged, reconditioned and decorated according to exacting standards of workmanship.

It’s not an historic relic, but rather the dream of a train enthusiast, Rohan Vos, who started the operation twenty-something years ago.

One of our favorite spots was the open observation car at the back of the train.

About 50 travelers were on the trip, here having an off-train sundowner.

Due to mechanical problems, some vandalism on the tracks and scheduling conflicts, travel was delayed or rerouted frequently….. but we nonetheless got to visit all the sights along the way, and ultimately arrived at our destination only a few hours late.

The first and most interesting stop was “The Big Hole” in Kimberley, South Africa, formerly an open-pit and underground diamond mine, the original source for the famed DeBeers Diamond company. It is supposed to be the biggest hole ever dug by hand, at about 700 feet deep and over 1,500 feet wide.

Henry found some beautiful specimens of Botswana banded agates at the associated rock shop…. and we acquired a few, of course.

Fish River Canyon in southern Namibia is the second biggest canyon in the world, after our own Grand Canyon……. Impressive as it is, it just isn’t quite as grand.

Sossusvlei features some of Namibia’s famous sand dunes, a part of the enormous Namib Desert.

Locusts and grasshoppers have been a major problem in southern Namibia lately, with some devastating results for farmers…… dead locusts littering the ground in some places; in other places, they are very much alive.

Included on the journey was an overnight stop and a couple of game drives at Etosha park, around a salt pan in northern Namibia. Here are some of our nature encounters….

Final night on board the train featured a staggering variety of cocktails, many of which we unwisely sampled.

Our fellow passengers were mostly South African, English or Scandinavian. We enjoyed meeting them and sharing travel stories. Only one other American was on the trip. (We think many of our compatriots remain quite cautious about travel.) Del is a bright, charming, funny and curious 93-year-old from California.

She was great fun to be with, and we hope our paths will cross again….. even though her youthful looks and energy make us look pretty creaky in comparison…..

So the rail network finally delivered us to Walvis Bay, where the land portion of our Namibian odyssey will begin!

Namibia is such a spectacular country, on so many levels. One of the attractions is that it is the second most sparsely-populated country in the world (after Greenland). That fact becomes apparent as you drive through the vast expanses of countryside.

This country is also a geologist’s dream. Many phases of its development over eons are apparent on the surface……

Lots of minerals and gems have been mined here… including many kinds of gemstones, diamonds, copper and amethyst, the purple form of quartz. Tertius has a friend who mines amethyst in the Goboboseb Mountains, who gave us a sampling of the mining process…..

Of course, some people can find special specimens without all of that hassle….. like buying from a street vendor in the coast town of Swakopmund…

Or picking some special pieces up on the beach…..

Finding a salt crystal offering on the side of the road….

Or even purchasing a gorgeous piece of the semi-precious stone called pietersite, almost exclusively found in a specific area of Namibia……

It’s also very dry here….. apparently not a very welcoming environment for life. And yet the welwitschia, the national plant of Namibia, is well-suited to the dry terrain. Not a particularly attractive part of the landscape….. Tertius explains here, however, that this plant may well be two thousand years old! Age triumphs over beauty!

And here are the male welwitschia parts, ready to start a new generation in the desert.

And still nature compensates in other amazing ways…..

Cape seals proliferate along the coast in small colonies and large….. as many as 10,000!

Sometimes people ”interfere” with the lack of water…. At this pandemic-abandoned lodge, birds were frustrated at not having access to the water in the plunge pool. Enterprising humans (Ty, Tertius and our guide, Jake) found a way to help them out….

After a generous rainy season earlier this year, the NamibRand reserve in the central part of the country was lush and colorful….. the bare round areas in the landscape are called fairy circles. No one knows for sure why they exist here….. theories of termite infestations or poisonous plants abound. But they remain a mystery.

Not dense with wildlife, the area includes some quite handsome residents — among others, the gemsbok, also known as oryx.

(Sorry for the long time between posts…. much has been happening but internet service has not permitted any posting. Tertius has also done some terrific drone videos…. but not available just yet. Hopefully we’ll get more opportunities to update soon, but if not, please bear with us!)