I've gotten in the habit of beginning these posts with excuses, and I see no reason to discontinue that trend now. So, since my last entry, I opted to take an organized tour (my first in over a year of travel) up through Namibia and northern Botswana to Victoria Falls. The problem with this was several-fold. For one, it was a camping safari, so it's not as if I was in the lap of luxury with any consistent internet access. Secondly, you're herded along like desperate speed-daters in such a way that consciously impedes on your sense of freedom. So on the off-occasion when I'd actually have time to access the internet, it consisted almost entirely of A) checking my bank balance, B) organizing another tenant in my apartment, and C) rejecting Facebook "pillow fight" invitations. Long story short, I (again) apologize for the extended silence.
Let's see. UPDATES!!! From Cape Town, I went overland for 20 days with a group comprised of a bunch of mid-twenties Dutch, two German couples, an older Spanish couple, and a bunch of American college girls. Basically, it only confirmed what I think I knew all along: I drink.
Let me explain. Each night after our day's activities, the first thing I'd do is crack a bottle (or box, as the case often was) of white wine, even before our cook began preparing our meal. By 11pm, I was usually a bottle deep, and catching awkward glances from our guides. The group, however, seemed to react surprisingly favorably to my er-- dependency. In fact, one Dutch psychologist on the tour told me one night "You drink too much. But at least you are funny and enjoy life." I think that's a pretty excellent theme.
Truth is, when I spend half my morning on a tour truck, I am ready to go absolutely bananas by the time I get off. Those who have traveled with me in the past will attest to the fact that I have a near boundless amount of energy, especially when traveling. This, when coupled with time, space, and free-thought restrictions is pretty much the perfect recipe to send me into a downward spiral, in this case abetted by chenin blanc by the box.
In any case, on this tour I did the following (bulleted for indexing and brevity):
- Held a poisonous scorpion in my hand
- Watched sunset at Fish River Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world
- Saw the Namib desert, which included climbing a 200m dune at sunrise. And let me just say that it was about 10,000 times more difficult (and amazing) than it sounds.
- Also in the Namib desert:
- Saw the Dead Flats in Sossusvlei, which looks like a real-life Salvador Dali painting. Words honestly can't describe.
- Barrel-rolled down a dune for pretty much no reason
- Sandboarded (for which I have video and pics, to be posted later) and reached 72kph and threw out my hip. I am now totally committed to learning to snowboard/ski, effective immediately.
- Slept in the bush, under the most intense and intoxicating night sky I've ever imagined. Also had to scare a wild cat off the rock me and three others were sleeping on.
- Ran into some random rock festival that used the rock formations of the desert as an acoustic backdrop. Met some wacky chick from San Francisco that I could swear told me she'd been on amphetamines for three straight days without sleep. She does AIDS research for the Center of Disease Control. Nice.
- Hung out with some Himba orphans and gave helicopter rides to about 30 of them before nearly slipping a disc.
- Had the best safari experience yet at Etosha NP in Namibia. In just over an hour, at a night watering hole, a pack of six hienas came down to drink, then a black rhino who then gave way to a leopard (respect!!!!) which are nearly impossible to spot in the wild. Then two black rhinos boned before getting chased off by a fleet of about 40 elephants. It was like a National Geographic Sunday night special.
- Ate a zebra steak. It's a lot like beef, only better because it's zebra.
- Spent two days in the Okavango Delta. Spent nearly an hour flying above it at 400 feet, watching herds of elephant and buffalo from above, which was seriously incredible. Then camped for two days in the delta, which took a two hour mokoro ride through tall grass and reeds to get to.
- During these two days, I tracked elephant, zebra, and giraffe, had nuts thrown at me from treetops by vervet monkeys, played capture the flag in a field of wooded thorns, swam naked in a natural (freezing cold) pool formed by the delta and sat in a mokoro on a lake full of hippos about 30m away. All this was almost definitely something I would have been unable to arrange on my own. So, maybe organized tours aren't ALL bad...
- Went to Chobe NP and did a sunset game cruise up the Chobe river, spotting tons of elephants (they roam wild, on the side of roads and in villages in Botswana), hippos, crocodiles, and eagles. This was my favorite game drive out of about 20+ to this point, not the least of which because I could consume as much wine as I could carry.
- Saw Victoria Falls. Which is absolutely gorgeous.
I also saw first hand what a cunt Robert Mugabe can do to a once prosperous economy. I saw Vic Falls from the Zimbabwe side. There is so much I can say about how sad it was but I'll try my best to condense it here. For one thing, the store shelves are all nearly bare, because by the time a store is able to sell anything (even perishables), inflation has rendered them unable to recover their cost, so they opt not to carry anything but cigarettes, rice, and bread.
An example of how fucked their fiscal policy is, the first day I was in Vic Falls, you would divide by 800 to get the amount in Botswana Pula. The next day, you divided by 430. The whole economy operates on Pula, Rand, and USD. Unless you want to buy something in the shops, in which case you may end up with a stack of $10,000,000 Zim notes about an inch thick as change from a dollar. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, goes across the border to Zambia to get their fuel and food. And the worst part of this is... this was VICTORIA FALLS!! This is perhaps the biggest tourist destination in Africa, save for maybe the pyramids. If this is what it was like in Vic Falls, I shudder to think what the state of things is like in the villages.
This is also made worse in that Mugabe COULD have left office eight years ago, and been remembered as a great man. He had built sub-Saharan Africa's most prosperous economy, their best education system (which is why many skilled Zimbabweans are able to find work easily in South Africa, kicking off the violent protests of locals around Jo'burg and Cape Town), and blah blah blah he's a fucking cunt.
Other than all that, I also got my first ever pedicure, and before you judge me let me just say this: try it. I lost about a kilo of dead skin off my feet, and I can honestly say that now my feet are beautiful and silky smooth. I wouldn't have it any other way. Judge away, you scaly-footed fucks.
Additionally, I played, and fed and held, lion cubs yesterday. It's a little sad to see them domesticated, but I was assured they will all be released as killers into the "wild" (game parks) once they reach three years of age. In the meantime, I got to hang out with a bunch under the age of eight months. Which, I'll admit, was cooler than I thought it would be.
Lastly, I am currently in Sun City, South Africa, once again traveling on my own. I can't put into words (well, I can, but interpret this as blatant laziness) how good that feels. Anyway, Sun City is supposed to be South Africa's answer to Vegas. Well, the answer is all wrong. I've been to Vegas what, maybe 6-7 times I think? I don't ever remember walking into any casino and not finding a nightclub that oozed decadence and downright sin. In Sun City, there are no nightclubs to speak of, no strip clubs whatsoever, and in general, it's a disappointing place to spend a birthday. I mean, I'm glad I'm here, but it's not what I expected. Oh yea, and ALL the game tables close down at 2am. What is that about?!?! How am I expected to make irrational decisions prior to the 4am hour??
From here I am heading up to Gabarone (back into Botswana) to get a feel for the people around there, since I think this is a really interesting time to see Botswana, and I can't say I learned much of anything about the actual country when I was flying through the Okavango and Chobe at warp speed. After that, I go to the Kalahari for one last ditch chance to see a cheetah run (or at least see something kill something) before going back to Johannesburg, spending a couple days at the museums and in Soweto, then getting to Cape Town and ending this thing once and for all. By then, 13 months of travel will be in the books. I think that's plenty. My wallet thinks so too.
