The Radical Sabbatical: February 2023

Saturday, February 25, 2023

South Africa (part 2) and Lesotho

February 21 through 24, 2023

After a week in Namibia (during which time I just missed Jill Biden's visit here 😅), I returned to South Africa (city of Durban) and met back up with Art for a final few days. I had heard Durban was gorgeous and figured it would be good to see some of the eastern part of the country this time. Glad to report it was worth it and we probably could have spent more time there, especially since the suburban guest house we stayed in was beautiful and modern 😊.

I booked two tours while in Durban, one to the Sani Pass area and Lesotho, and the other to a safari park (Imfolozi) and boat tour. Both were full day tours, which were often longer than 10 hours (I really should know better, they were quite tiring), and involved a lot of driving. The bonus of the first tour was getting to see Lesotho which is a small landlocked country within South Africa. Sani Pass is a steep windy cliff road that connects South Africa to Lesotho, and has amazingly gorgeous scenery. My guide noted that the Sani Pass is not owned by either South Africa or Lesotho, so if we needed to be helped out of there in an emergency, only the UN could do it 😦 Luckily he was a great driver and we had no issues. We stopped many times for (way too) many photos 📸.

In Lesotho we visited the highest pub in Africa (that's right, highest in the whole continent!) and had a drink. I'm a sucker for a landmark like that. It was 2874 meters high, and clearly some enterprising guy saw its potential. They even had a cool board with currency from all over the world (inspo for me?). Next we stopped in at a local village where a Basotho tribe lives and we got to see how they manage their daily life and bake bread (it was delicious); to be honest it looked like a hard life. Getting major supplies (beyond the staples) required a long trek down the mountain to the nearby town. If they sent their kids to school, it required their kids to go live in a town near the school. I found it all fascinating (and not the life for me).

I finally reconnected with Art that evening (he flew in after a week of shows in Cape Town), and then we did a full day tour the next day. The safari was awesome, if a bit of a long drive from us, and the boat tour was relaxing. We saw hippos on the water and numerous animals in the game reserve. Our guide was eager to get us to see the Big Five (lion, buffalo, rhino, leopard, and elephant) since apparently that's what every tourist wants. As it happened, we didn't see all 5 but over the courses of our various trips to Africa, we have seen all 5 so I was satisfied 👍. A highlight for me was seeing the rhinos up close (way closer than the one I saw in Namibia), the zebras, the giraffes, and the warthogs. I'm only mildly regretting sending my big camera back home, but the space issue was really becoming a problem.

We left the reserve around dusk and unfortunately ran into some major traffic at a standstill. As it happens, Durban is near some mining towns so hundreds of trucks transport coal in and out daily (in what seems to be a rather inefficient truck-to-port system). One of the petrol trucks stalled (or had an accident??) and we wound up sitting for 2.5 hours in traffic. Luckily all 3 of us were super-zen about it, had some snacks with us, and eventually we got back to our guesthouse around 10pm (after a quick stop at McD's 😳).

While our guest house was great, other parts of Durban city center felt just a bit unsafe - we did venture out to the Florida Road area for lunch, and checked out the beach facing the Indian Ocean 🌊 Load-shedding (electricity rationing) was as much an issue in Durban as it was in Cape Town, and believe me, the locals are not happy about it. So I got a bit behind in blogging and posting 😐 Actually expecting this to be less of an issue at our next stop ... India 👍

What we've had to get used to: riding in a car on the left side of the road, warm milk, stale cereal, flaky wifi. What I'm missing most these days: my girls (of course), cold milk, real orange juice, smoothies, my cereal, my hair gel, reliable hot water, good car A/C, and great pizza 😊

Deena and Art

Sani Pass to Lesotho

Sani Pass views

Highest point in Lesotho

Lesotho village

Highest pub in Africa

Deena at the highest pub

Sani Pass views

Boat tour

View from the boat

Giraffe at Imfolozi game reserve

More impala

More giraffes

Rhinos up close

Zebra

Hippo

Boat cruise

More hippos

Deena at the entrance to the game reserve

A tower of giraffes

A crash of rhinos

A dazzle of zebras

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Namibia

February 12 through 20, 2023

"Gonna take some time to do the things we never had..." - Toto (Africa)

Namibia was recommended to me by a few people who had visited and said it was tourist-friendly and pretty safe, and absolutely beautiful. It was all of those things in very unique ways. I signed up for a 7-day highlights tour (Art chose to stay behind in Cape Town, which turned out to be the right decision for him) and I joined a group of 6 other solo travelers as part of the Chameleon Safari tour. I learned more than a few things along the way, about Namibia and about myself.

1) I learned that Namibia was colonized by the Germans and later the British, and like much of colonialism, it didn't go well. A large proportion of two major tribes were killed by the Germans in the early 1900's, then they finally left after 1915. Soon after, South Africa stepped in and said they would be happy to run Namibia (which was called "Southwest Africa" at the time). That went reasonably well until the 1940's when apartheid started in full force. Then both South Africa and Namibia suffered at the hands of the Dutch. Finally in the 1990's Namibia broke off and declared its independence (after much fighting) and around 1993 apartheid ended in South Africa. They are many reminders of colonialism in both places, with lots of German architecture and schools still in Namibia. I think the Germans still feel like it's kinda their country 😟

2) Namibia has a rather arid climate and is sorely lacking in water. This was mentioned everywhere we went. Some tribes we visited have no water at all, and manage to clean themselves with a paste of ochre and plant oils. I have no idea if that really works but they mostly looked healthy.

3) We visited a few tribes who still live very traditionally (foods, clothing, etc.). I remember seeing a Namibian family in the movie Babies about a decade ago and I swear it was the one I visited here. They were eager to share with us how they lived and encouraged photo-taking. Mostly they encouraged us to buy their handicrafts (bags, bracelets, dolls). I think they make a very meager living.

4) A big highlight of Namibia is the desert and the dunes which makes up a lot of the country. We got to take a 4x4 jeep ride up and over the dunes which was thrilling and a bit unnerving. I also got to climb some dunes (I really need to stop climbing at my age) and I'm fairly sure I will still have sand in my shoes when I return in June 😜

5) The tour guide we had was very nice which made up for the extremely long driving days and the very bumpy roads (very few of the roads are paved). Happily we stopped enough to break up the long days (Art would have hated the drives) and we got to relax with decent lodging each night (sometimes even better than decent). I learned what a "bush toilet" is and that you should always bring toilet paper with you in Namibia 😳

6) The meals were pretty good (many were made by our tour guide on-site at the desert camps) and we got to try different game (oryx, zebra, etc). That was interesting especially since we had often just seen those animals on game drives the same day 😲 I will admit that one of my favorites was kudu (don't knock it til you've tried it).

7) I had a roommate the whole time - a lovely 19-year-old young woman from Austria - who luckily had similar hygiene and sleep habits. I'm glad I didn't get paired up with anyone with bad body odor (they were some of those in the group 👀). But I also learned that I prefer my own room at this point in my life.

8) Except for the long drives, I was glad to have seen the country. It's definitely worth a visit and at the moment it's pretty uncrowded with tourists. COVID really hurt their tourism economy for sure but they're slowly recovering.

9) We went on many game drives (saw giraffes, rhinos, cheetahs, oryx, zebras, wildebeest, springbok, and much more), visited a popular seaside town called Swakopmund, went to the dunes at Soususvlei (like Death Valley), saw shipwrecks on the Skeleton Coast, stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn sign (cool!), and drove to Sandwich Harbor (where the dunes back right up to the ocean, whoa!).

10) Lastly I learned that I can survive without wifi (which was weak and intermittent anyway). I finished one book and am a third of the way through another. On track for my annual reading goal (of 26 books).

In other news, weirdly my left arm is now aching daily (I think it's either a pinched nerve or a muscle spasm 😧) Whatever it is, it doesn't respond well to my heavy backpack (or to Tylenol for that matter), but I'm managing... I'm behind on blogs (sorry) due to the wifi issues in Namibia. I'll try to catch up tomorrow with my part 2 of South Africa (and we head to India very soon!).

Deena and Art

Namibia night sky (taken by my Austrian roommate Anna)

Dunes

Sandwich Harbor

Deadvlei (dead valley)

Giraffe

Wildebeest (I think)

Springbok

Sunrise

A rare rhino spotting

More springbok (or impala?)

Zebra

Impala

Lion

Resting after a long day

Game schnitzel

Swakopmund (literally: diarrhea of the mouth?)

Sandwich Harbor

German architecture

Skeleton Coast shipwreck

Damara tribe

Sunday, February 12, 2023

South Africa (part 1)

February 8 through 11, 2023

"Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am." - Michael Crichton

We arrived in South Africa after an uneventful flight from Turkey, and kind of feeling guilty that we "left" Turkey to deal with its devastating earthquake (not that I know what I could have done, besides donating to relief efforts). The quake was rather far from Istanbul but since we were in the same country, it felt "close." 😟

We are being hosted on this trip by Steve Sherman (as in the past) and he is delightful and full of energy in his mission to bring maths to the larger population. We are grateful to him for making this part of our journey happen.💜

I tried to pack a lot into the mere 4 days I was in Cape Town, knowing that I would be heading off to (neighboring country) Namibia shortly and knowing that I would get a few days afterward in Durban (also South Africa) as well. I did two full day tours (with and without Art) to cover much of the sights that I hadn't made it to in our last 2 visits to South Africa. Art was invited to do some school shows (which I'll miss while in Namibia) and had a radio interview plugging them (I did get to attend that 👍). He's such a pro at radio interviews and great at ad-libbing; no wonder the hosts love him (especially when they all seem to be math-phobic from the start 😐). We were surprised to learn that South Africa is 3rd from last in the world in maths proficiency. Hopefully Art will change all that 💪.

My tours included visits to Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was in prison for 18 years; a place I've been wanting to see for years); a visit to the V&A Waterfront (upscale shopping/hotels area on the water); a visit to a local township led by a guide who lives there (I was surprised to see that, despite the pervasive poverty, everyone has a rooftop dish so they can watch soccer 😄); Boulders Beach (where the cute penguins live); Cape Point (farthest point south on the peninsula); Cape of Good Hope; numerous beaches and viewpoints 🌄 (there's no shortage of those here).

Our dollar is strong here and we have been able to eat affordably (and even try the local wildlife cuisine - ostrich, zebra, and kudu - oh my! 😋). Art was super excited to find his "Ice" drink for sale at a local shop, and I was thrilled to see Cadbury (and a challah!) again. We actually treated ourselves to KFC the first night because we were so tired and it was local (we're in the suburbs). I'll admit it was delicious 😊 (and a favorite fast food around these parts and other countries nearby, we've discovered).

Our Airbnb is quite comfortable and the host lives on-site and is lovely. The one thing that caught us by surprise here is the energy crisis (alleviated by "load-shedding"). Apparently South Africa doesn't have enough electricity for everyone so, to alleviate this problem, they have power outages every day (usually 2-4 hours each day and not always the same hours and not always convenient times 😬). This is a bit of an issue since it is not only summer, which is a nice change from the frigid temps of Turkey, but it is very hot so having a fan stop working mid-day isn't fun (air-conditioning is not that common here either). Also having wifi cut off at random times isn't great either. I sympathize with the population for having to deal with this on a daily basis. 😔

Fun aside: I've now run into a handful of travelers (on tours) who are also on world trips, most of whom are younger than us (20's and 30's). I think it's due to a combination of the digital nomad life plus the great resignation following Covid. It's been nice meeting, and trading traveler tips, with them 👍. One of them, a cyber security tech, even helped Art fix his SIM card issues 😀.

Other aside: I don't know how I forgot this, but South Africans drive on the left side of the road so that's been something to get used to. We're not doing the driving (thankfully!) but it's disorientating to watch our tour guides drive.

Not so fun aside: Having taken a few township tours now, I can see the huge disparity between the have's and have-not's in this country (high end hotels vs shacks and shanties). I asked my tour guides about it and they said that since apartheid only ended about 30 years ago, they still have a long way to go with fixing infrastructure and inequalities (and of course ridding the government of corruption 😨).

Off to Namibia (while Art's still in Cape Town) on a group safari tour!

Deena and Art