Richard's Travel Blog

Hi everybody.
You could say we got into some deep shit week before last.

This is a typical road situation in a park with rhinos. They like to poop on the road and smish it around. It’s a territorial thing. They are called middens. Wild rhinos are probably gone from Botswana, though they are still unfenced in Namibia, but there are not enough of them to make this kind of clutter.
Speaking of deep shit, we’ve been driving around in Botswana’s Okavango delta. It’s vast swamp, and the road conditions are awful, to say the least. Here are a couple of puddles I drove through.

Sometimes there is a bridge.

Well, after driving through a part of the Okavango from south to north, we were faced with crossing a croc infested river about a meter deep, or being stranded outside the park with no legal way back in. It was going to get dark soon anyway. I chanced it and got stuck out in the middle. The truck stalled and filled with water. Several things drowned to death, like our cell phone (I don’t know, it was lost at sea), one of my cameras and the car stereo. We waded out, but Myung didn’t make it. This is the last photo I have of her. You don’t want to see the close up.

Actually, that’s just some vultures feeding off a cow that was probably struck by a vehicle by the side of a paved highway we were on. There are all kinds of cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and wild animals all around the roads. You have to look out for them.
Back to the drowned truck story: There was a nearby village. They were bemused as only Africans can be. The English speaking (after a fashion) guy who came out said that people get stuck in there all the time. He got another guy with a truck to back into the water only up to his axles, and we attached my tow line to that. He was able to pull it out the way we came.
I didn’t really know what to do at that point, out in the middle of nowhere Africa. The truck wouldn’t start. Everything, including us, was soaked. It was a few kilometers back to the park entrance. (I guess it wasn’t the middle of nowhere, but it’s not like they have electricity or phones there.) The villager with the truck said he might be able to get it going. It was amazing how quickly he drained the carburetor, blew out the lines as best he could with lung power, and cleaned and dried the distributor and plugs the same way. It wouldn’t start, though. I knew we weren’t going to get out that way, but when my back was turned, he dragged it in reverse while it was in low 4WD, trying to pull start it. That turned out to be a bad idea. Anyway, it still wasn’t going to go, so he towed us back to the park gate and we appealed to the park guy for help. To make a long story short, people around there tried for a couple of days to get it going, to no avail. Too much water had gotten into the engine. New oil, which took a day to arrive, didn’t help. A guy with a truck who does maintenance for the park offered to tow us with a tow bar the 160 km back to Maun, the nearest city with a proper mechanic, for a cool $400. I was in a very weak bargaining position. Besides, Myung and I had been allowed to stay for free in a bush camp run by the park service, but it was time to get out of there.
To make the rest of this story short, Maun is a center of activity in this part of Botswana. They have dealt with this probably a thousand times. We stayed where we had stayed a couple of times before when we were traveling around, while a well respected mechanic went through the procedure step by step. I could have gotten away with the repairs of the cheap, probably, but labor is so cheap here, I got what amounts to an engine overhaul. They had to take off the head, so grinding the slightly rusting at that point valves was done. The dragging start attempts forced water through the cylinders, so I was advised to see if it was “hydraulicked”, that is if the connecting rods were bent (which they weren’t). At that point, since the cylinders had been somewhat scored by sandy water, another hour’s work and the pistons were out. So now it’s been thoroughly drained of water, water contaminated petrol, has new rings, freshly honed cylinders, a rebuilt carb, a new starter, and it runs great.
As I’m writing, they are dealing with clutch damage from the dragging. I’m told it will be done this afternoon. I’m crossing my fingers. I’ll add an addendum when it seems I can get underway.
I’m sticking to water crossings less than two feet deep from now on.
The price tag for all of this? Probably about $1500. I shudder to think how much it would be in the States or for a modern, complicated car with electronic ignition and computer.
Maun is, by far, not the worst place to hang out for a couple of weeks. We have been staying a a lovely riverside backpacker place. If you look one way up the river, there is “the old bridge”.

The other way is scenic, too, especially at sunset.

It shady and cool. There are proper showers and toilets, a restaurant and bar, picnic tables and nice lounge chairs to hang out in and read. We don’t utilize the restaurant/bar much because there is a self service kitchen with a refrigerator and stove. The bar is also a favorite people watering hole for locals, so it’s a little loud at night sometimes, but we are sleeping pretty far from them so it’s not bad.
This delta area is beautiful. We have so many pictures. Myung takes many pictures of flowers, trees, and little animals. It’s too time consuming to upload a vast majority of them. Here’s a sampling, starting with a kingfisher, which are plentiful, with it’s catch. After that is a crocodile. They are also plentiful. Too plentiful almost, if you get stuck in a river with many of them, like we did.

Many hippos.

Here are some general scenes I thought were nice.

On one of our loops from Maun, we went east. There are some salt pans out there which have been drying out during this dry season. In general, the scenery and animals aren’t particularly noteworthy, except for the baobab trees. I didn’t remember what these famous trees looked like, but I don’t think I’ll forget now. They are so individually majestic and interesting. Here are a couple of them.

That about brings you up to speed. From here we are going through Chobe National Park, which should be drier. From there we’ll go see Victoria Falls, which is on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Maybe we’ll go around Zimbabwe for a while, though that’s a hassle because of it’s upheavals. Probably we’ll do that a little, then head up through Zambia. Anything could happen, though.
Addendum: The clutch is fixed: It runs bettr than before. Tomorrow I’m going to rough it up on some bad roads and see if anythig falls off before leaving where the work was done. Then we’ll be out of here.
Be well, all of you.

Myung and I are back in Outjo, getting my brakes fixed. They had to order parts, so we went to Etosha National Park, about 120 km north of here (without rear or parking brakes). The scenery isn’t magnificent, but the big animal life is. One night we stayed outside the park. The second night we slept in it. There are three campgrounds in this park. All three are near waterholes. Here is the waterhole by our camp.

This is the dry season, so there are almost always animals at any of the waterholes. At the campsites, they set up low intensity floodlights to allow visitors to see the nocturanl animal visitors at night. We slept in the relatively cheap $50/night tent camping area. For big money, you can get a two bedroom chalet overlooking this. I think sitting on the second floor veranda, sipping a drink with a little umbrella in it, and watching this would be sweet.

Here are other water hole shots.

Like Krugeer in South Africa, this place has no shsortage of big animals to see almost anywhere you look. As you can imagine, we have many, many photos, but here are a few.

There was this one herd of elephants walking along a small road. Threre were three of four vehicles in front of us which were leary about driving by, as an elephant can put the hurt on a car.

We passed the parked or slowly following cars and got by them, barely, as one turned and trumpeted at us. Just ahead were some more, hanging out in the shade.

There are many giraffes there.

Animals often like to go on the road. Here are some zebras and giraffes behing, heading for someplace together. Presumeably, they are going to or coming from water.

The rest of these pictures were taken of animals right by the road. It is like going to Kruger, that is, practically a theme park the size of Isreal. Here’s our first lion sighting. Admittedly, it’s a bad picture, but a tourist truck was rumbling at high speed in reverse to give the passengers a look, and the lion was getting out of there fast.

There are many jackals. They were prowling all around our tent that night, scavenging.

I like this one. It shows how camoflage works. Check out how the horns on these kudus look along with the trees and the color of the terrain.

I could post many, many animal photos, but you’ve seen it all before on TV or wherever. We should be out of here tomorrow, heading north. I’ll blog again when I can. Until then, be well, all of you.

This area is one of the last frontiers in southern Africa. One can see why. There are few people, and most of them are in small tribal groups. The big animals are unfenced. The roads, or should I say tracks, are awful. Sometimes there are no services, no cell phone coverage, no gasoline, electricity or water. You have to carry what you need. There is a decent road up the coast north of Swakopmund. That area is called the Skeleton Coast because of the number of shipwrecks, the survivors of which usually perished in the desert.

Sand and rough terrain have taken it’s toll on my truck and it’s driver.

For a couple of days, we took along a French guy and his mother. While we were with them, we were in the modern world for a couple of days. We based in Uis and looked at 5000-6000 year old rock paintings and engraving at Namibia’s only World Heritage Site, Twyfelfontein.

I don’t really know why I uploaded this one. I guess it just captures how a group looks while they are doing the desert safari thing. This was at a pretty amazing petrified forest, much more impressive than the one in Wyoming.

After going up that way for a while, we headed up to more remote areas, like where that primary school sign was. It was nice to see animals that aren’t in parks. Here are desert elephants and rhinos there, but we didn’t see any of those. We did see many springbok, gembok, oryx and the like, as well as a few giraffes and zebras.

Oh, I have a picture of a 1500 year old flower near Swakopmund. Maybe someone would like to pin this on his prom date.

It’s really easy for first world tourists like Myung and me to focus on the natural splendors, rock paintings, animals, etc., and to hang out with white people. Shoot, so far the whites here are culturally similar to us. They speak English, even if their first language is German or Afrikaans. It’s not easy to connect with the blacks. I’ve found that when we do speak with them, they are working for the whites and there is a socio-cultural divide. It’s more pronounced than in the US. Getting together with traditional blacks is even harder. I can’t say we’ve gotten to know any, but we have visited a couple of villages and talked with one woman for a little while who worked for the owners of a guesthouse (of sorts) in Opuwa. Like all the tourists who get up this way, we take pictures and try not to be geeks.
This is a Himba village.

It’s interesting the way the men wear regular western clothes and the women often don’t. Here is that guy’s girlfriend and her kids. The women have kids whenever and eventually marry someone.

Here’s dadie, looking after her grandkids like most of the other grandmas of the world.

Fat chance Myung was going to try on the traditional clothes, too.

Up here, you don’t have to be in some far flung village to see traditional people. Like in India, Laos or Peru, they go to town.

The women can spend up to three hours a day getting dolled up. they cover their bodies with a mixture of ochre, mud and oil to get than brown glow. The hair is amazing. It’s also fixed up that way with ochre and mud. They take it down and redo it about every three months. They say their scalps don’t itch.

Here are a couple of young girls flirting with the boys. They parade up and down the street, showing off. Too bad it leads to a terrible HIV+ rate.

There are other tribes up here. The Herero have interesting headwear. The women like to become very fat.

After doing all that up there, we came down here a few hundred kilometers to this town of several thousand, Outjo, to have some work done on the brakes. We’re going up to Etosha National Park, Namibia’s premier wildlife habitat. That should be excellent. You’ll be seeing pictures, of course. Until then, be well, all of you.

I can’t remember if I posted this picture of Myung. WE made another DVD of our pictures and ran across this one again. Gosh, I love this one.

Some places are as good as advertised.

As if THAT wasn’t enough, Namibia was a German colony until after WW 1, so there are many people of German decent here. So there’s strudel in the morning! This is Moose. He runs Solitaire, the only stop for 350 km between Sossusvlei and Walvis Bay. You buy gas when you can in Namibia, and definitely don’t pass up the strudel.

After that, you go through an area where it hasn’t rained in 350 years; that is, since the first white settlers came. The other memory card has some pictures, but Myung has that right now. Meanwhile, I uploaded a few pictures of some of the thousands of wild flamingos and fur seals along the coast near Walvis Bay.

This place reminds me of the Sinai, seemingly so lifeless on land, but obviously teeming in the water. The drive out to the seal place would make you think there is no life on the land. Yes yes, I know, the desert is full of life.

That’s what I’ve got uploaded. We’re in Swakopmund now and heading north. Petrol will be a problem for a while. Likely, internet access is doubtful. So I’ll talk to you later when I can. Until then, be well all of you.

Hi, y’all. I’m a little surprised to be able to blog again so soon. We were in the boonies of southern Namibia until yesterday. There was definitely no opportunity to get to a computer. Shoot, there is a lot of nothing in this big country of only 1.8 million where what people there are are mostly in the northern half. This picture is typical of what you see here in the south.

We saw a couple of towns with about a thousand people, and given the size of the print they warranted on the map I figured, okay, no place is big. I can handle that. The capital of Swaziland has only 60,000. One of the five or six biggest cities is Luderitz, on the west coast. We headed for there.

As you can see, it’s not too big, I’d say about 20,000. I went to one internet place and it was so slow I assumed they didn’t have high speed and I was lucky to be able to slowly open my emails. Then I found this place. I think they have satellite. So, I’m blogging while I can. We’re heading for the boonies again after this.
Here’s what one of the few paved highways looks like while driving across this lunar landscape. I may have to kiss my windshield goodbye.

One of Namibia’s premier attractions is Fish River Canyon. If you’ve seen Utah and the Grand Canyon, maybe you aren’t totally impressed, but it’s quite a sight, really.

In some ways, Naamibia is like South Africa. There is a largely white upper class, mostly decendents from the days before Germany lost WW 1 and lost Namibia to South Africa. There is a majority of blacks, many of whom live just as poorly as in South Africa. The big difference is since there are no big cities, there is no large scale urban blight. They have rural blight here. It’s not as bad, but these people are definitely just getting by. Soon we hope to visit traditinal villages.

Despite the lunar nature of much of the landscape, they had a little bit of rain in the late fall, so it’s like springtime in some places. If you’ve ever been to, say, Death Valley, you know that for a short time the flowers are spectacular.

We got to Luderitz in good shape, including going over a hundred miles or so of dirt/gravel roads. (Oh, I’m glad I have this tough truck.) It’s was a diamond mining center until the early 20th century when better diamond fields were found south and north of here. Then it got pretty pokey, and it’s pokey to this day. The most interesting thing about it is the early 20th century art nouveau architecture the Germans built at that time.

There are other quaint views.

We drove around today. There is a rocky seashore which is generally unimpressive. One place had sea lions and penguins out on a little island you. You could see them well with binoculars. Here’s a picture from back near Cape Town. I was tempted to say it was here, but we didn’t get this close this time.

While we were out there, Myung gathered a bag full of snails from one of the tide pools. Man, she likes to gather those. We’re having them again tonight.

In fact, I should be getting over to the backpackers place we’re staying at. Like in South Africa, Luderitz at least has a place to sleep cheap in a dorm and a kitchen to use. Myung should be getting about ready to make snail whatever for dinner. I’m outta here.
Be well, all of you.

We’ve been in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho for a little over 2 months, and will be starting the drive up to Namibia in a few days. Right now, we are in Cape Town enjoying “civilization” while we can. Namibia will be almost entirely an outdoor experience. Oh, before I forget, there’s a Schuckmansburg in Namibia. I must visit that place because my surname is Schuckman, which is not a common name.
Our trip since last time I blogged has been an almost entirely coastal thing. We have walked many hours along beaches, rocky shores and trails through hills overlooking the water. There isn’t much going on in most of the places. One place, Jeffreys Bay, is one of the premier surfing beaches in the world. We enjoyed watching hardcore surfers from around tyhe world do all those cool things you see the great ones do on TV. If you’ve been to Hawaii or any other great surfing place, you’ve seen it. It’s been a while for me, so I was entertained. Myung had never seen anything like it. In fact, she’s never seen anything like South Africa in general. I’ll never be a good phographer, so my pictures of surfers are all blurred. I have a couple of reasonably good pictures to give you an idea. Maybe you can see the two dots on the left part of this crest. Those are surfers. These waves coming in are about 4 meters.

And here is an okay picture of a “tube” as they call them. I don’t recall if there is a surfer in this one.

Another nice place was Plettenburg. There is a lovely peninsula jutting out a few kilometers into the sea. Whale watching is supposed to be good this time of year out there, but it was too rough to see any spouts. There were many sea lions, though, basking on the rocks below. They are too small in our pictures, so I didn’t upload them. After this weekend, we may have better distance pictures, as Myung’s snapshooter gave up the ghost and she’s considering buying one with 10 times optical zoom. Anyway, here is around there.

The hills above Knysna are nice.

That last one is of a flowering aloe. Most of us North Americans are used to aloes being these little succulents that can grow anywhere and have terrific medicinal uses. Well, here, they are practically trees and have beautiful orange-red blossoms this time of year. I hope you can see that in that picture.

Another stretch of Eastern Cape, east of Plettenberg, is called the Wild Coast. There are a few roads into there, but it’s mostly empty except for a few tribespeople, a few hippie types whom society has rejected and the feeling is mutual, and some intrepid long distance hikers. One backpacker ghetto you can drive to is called Coffee Bay. It’s about walking along the near deserted 20 or so km of beach and looking at coastal forest and rock formations. Myung missed it, but I saw a couple of small humpback whales a couple of hundred meters off the beach. I have a couple of pretty pictures of that area.

Also around there is a place called the “Valley of Ferns”. It’s like somethng out of Jurrasic Park, a forest of huge ferns.

We continued west toward Cape Town and went inland to the wine making areas. First we went to Robertson Valley, which is not very commercial. I guess that is because the wine there isn’t as good as farther west around Stellenbosch. We started tasting wines there, then continued to Stellenbosch What a beautiful area that is! I hate to say it, but it leaves Napa/Sonoma for dead.

There are many grand old estate wineries there, some over 300 years old. We spent three days there just driving around, visiting the estates even if we were’t tasting the wines, and of course tasting. In general, the whites are quite good, especially for the money. The good reds are shiraz or mostly shiraz. It wold be easy to stay there for a good long time.

In the Robertson Valley, the tastings are generally free, like in California. Around Stellenbosch, you get six healthy (maybe a little too healthy) tastes for a dollar of two.

Stellenbosch itself is generally quite affluent, plus it’s a college town. So it has an ambience that reminds one of Marin County. Oh, they have great gourmet bread, cheese and the like. It’s one of the oldest towns in South Africa, dating back to the 1600’s, so there are many old buildings the Dutch put up at that time.

Ah, what a perfect place that would be for a vacationer who wanted to golf on the beautiful courses in these settings, then eat fine food and drink wine afterward.
That said, I have to say here somewhere, that the crime situation is appalling everywhere in South Africa. I thought it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it would be like this. Even in Stelllenbosch, outside of right in the cool downtown area, almostno one goes out at night and certaianly not with a wallet or purse, Everybody locks up their car behind a gate or in a garage. Armed security guards are everywhere. Everyone has been robbed. South Africa has the second highest crime rate in the world after Columbia. It’s sad.
Back to the good stuff: Then we went to Cape Town. This is a nice place, really. It’s even halfway less crime riddled, as non-whites were all removed from the city center even before apartheid became official. Most of you have seen pictures of Cape Town. Here’s one picture everyone takes. That’s Table Mountain. We went up there today.

And here is the view toward Cape Point.

You can see why they call it Table Mountain.

The weather turned bad while we were up there.

This was on Signal Hill, an easy walk from anywhere in downtown Cape Town. Myung and I had a lovely time sitting on that bench. I just love benches with a view.

There’s a Muslim community here. The main area in town is called Bo Kamp. It’s interesting because they hae made it so colorful.

Here are striking union workers building the new soccer arena here for the 2010 FIFA championships. There are several stadiums going up in S. Africa. There is concern they won’t be finished on time.

Lastly on Cape Town itself, there’s a San Francisco Pier 39 type area where everybody always goes. There’s a big mall, cutesy and high end stores, many restaurants, street entertainers, etc..

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I’m continuing this a couple of days later. We drove down to Cape Point, the tip of the Cape of Good Hope.

As is true almost anywhere along the coast, it’s beautiful by the water. Cape Point and this are within an hour of Cape Town.

Myung takes wonderful flower pictures. The flowers and plants in general are interesting here. There are six floral zones in the wprld. One is a tiny strip only near the coast of Western Cape. One spectacular flower is the Protea. This picture of one is so sensual.

We have so many great pictures, but things being how they are in South Africa where there’s only high speed internet where there is satellite, that’s going to have to do it for now. I don’t know when I will be able to blog again because Myung’s visa expires the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we’re going to put our heads down, pin our ears back, and make a beeline for the Namibian border. Namobia is a big country with 1.8 million people. There ain’t much there, but if I can write, I will. Be well, all of you.

Maybe I can download pictures! Let’s see.

Woo hoo! Here we are in a relatively out of the way place, Port St. Johns in Eastern Cape, and the connection is fast enough to upload pictures. Great.
One thing for sure, internet access may not be too good, especially after leaving South Africa. It was spotty before, even here, and only exists in Lesotho in the capital. I guess this will make me think a new way about what I blog. Before, I could talk about individual places we’ve visited. Now I think I’ll have to portray the big picture. I know I have way to many pictures to allow them to do the talking.
In short, we spent a few days in Nespruit while I bought a 4 WD pickup with a canopy and supplies for handling our trip without amenities. Myung didn’t want to take the risk of buying something and having a catasrophic breakdown resulting in loss of the investment, not to mention getting stuck in the middle of nowhere (and let me tell you, there is a lot of nowhere around here!). But it’s the only way to go anywhere without a LOT of hassle at best. So, it’s mine. It’s a ’92 Toyota Hilux, a famously rugged off road workhorse. It’s old, but it purrs and feels quite solid. It has lots of new parts, even belts and hoses and new seats.

That tent is where we spend most nights. Accomodation, when it’s available, is more expensive than anywhere we’ve been in Asia except Korea, so usually we’ve been campng even if rooms or dorm beds are available. That tent is really cool. You just let it out of the bag and it pops into what you see. Then it just winds back down into a circle in about one minute.
Myung had never camped before, but she’s adapting well, I think. We’re both getting good at cooking over coals. We’ve been comfortable most of the time, except when it’s been freezing cold in Lesotho. All our stuff goes nicely in the back or in the back seat of this double cab truck. All in all, this is probably going to be fine.
I know I put that picture of the wild animal warning at the top, but it’s pretty obvious that we’re going to have very many wild animal pictures. I’m going to forgo posting more pictures of them for now, even though we’ve seen many. We haven’t seen any big cats yet, but when we do and if I get good pictures, I’ll post them.
We’ve driven well over a thousand miles already. It’s hard to believe. From Nespruit we went down to Hluhluwe-Umofozi National Park in Kwa Zulu Natal, which was beautiful and had lots of animals. Then we went to St. Lucia Wetlands, an estuary on the coast. From there we went to the Drakensberg escarpment east of Lesotho, which is beautiful. Then we went to Lesotho for a week, whigh was beautiful. Now we are back on the coast, in Eastern Cape. I’m going to try to put a southern Africa map link on my home page, but I want to crank this out first.
Despite what I said about having a good internet connection, it’s still quite slow by most standards. Broadband is to be rolled out in south Africa on June 27. So, there aren’t as many pictures as I would have liked to have here. I’m going to skip the wetlands, that park and Drakensberg. Let’s start with the climb over Sani Pass from South Africa to eastern Lesotho. Lesotho is a mountain kingdom completely encircled by South Arica. The eastern part is isolated and the roads are bad, impossible to do without a 4 WD. Here’s the climb to the summit. That zigzag thing is the road.

Lest you forget, it is winter here. Here is the border post. There is very little traffic, for obvious reasons.

Lesotho is one of the poorest countires in Africa, so there are only a few paved roads, none in the east. We slogged across the mountainous middle of the country in two days. Here are some pics of the typical scenery, and one of a frozen hitchhiker huddled in the back seat.

At lower elevations, these are typical scenes.

Most people in Lesotho are subsistence farmers, and the main crop is corn. Many of them eat eat corn meal porridge day in and day out. Here are some villagers threshing the corn, which they allow to dry in the fields.

The climate is considerably more moderate in the relatively developed west. The capital, Maseru, is an absolute dump. I was going to try to use the internet which is allegedly there, but it was so bad with goofballs lurking all over the place, we just bought some supplies and went back out into the countryside, which is like a different country. One popular place, with what toursits there are, is Morijo. It’s a historically significant place, by Lesostho standards, and quite lovely. We went on several walks here and in nearby areas. Here’s a picture of one series on pools and the guide who took us there.

And here’s an artsy shot of some sheep just up the canyon wall a few hundred meters from the pools.

I could have gone for a few more days in Lesotho, but there really isn’t much going on there. And Myung was cold. So we went to here, Port St. Johns. Except for a little rain, the weather is quite nice this time of year. We’re staying in a typical backpacker’s place again, complete with a chill out bar and restaurant, though we cook ourt own food in the communal kitchen and have let the ganja crowd do their own thing. It’s like a tiny Goa here. There are trails and beaches, though you need a wetsuit to go in the water.

From here we are going to what looks like will be a similar place down the coast, Coffee Bay. The plan is to head west along the coast mostly, and wind up in Cape Town. I’ll do my best to keep you posted. There’s so much to say, this is so different. Here I am saying I’ll change to discussing the big picture, and this entry is about the same as most. I don’t know where to start. I’ll start next time. Maybe that plan will happen when I’m in Namibia or someplace where there is no hope of uploading pictures.
In general, we’re rolling along, singing a song. The experience of having our own vehicle is a big change for us. Africa so far has little in common with Asia where I’ve been for three years now. So I’m well entertaianed again. I have more bright, shiny objects than ever to play with. Myung and I are getting along pretty well. I can’t complain.
Until next time, be well, all of you.

That photo may not seem exciting to you, but it’s holy ground for most South Afrcans. It was Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto before he was arrested.

From Johannesburg we went straight to Swaziland which, for the geography challenged, is a little landlocked country between northeast South Africa and Mozambique. It’s famous for being the only absolute monarchy left in the world, though there are obviously many absolute dictatorships. The government isn’t any worse there, it seems, than anywhere else. It seems the king is holding up his end of the social contract. That said, the HIV rate has gone from 4% in 1992 to about 35% now. The culture is such that people are pretty carefree about sex. The king has 130 sisters and 67 brothers. He has only 19 chilodren himself. Still, the culture of do it till you drop contiues. So, it’s still Africa, as they say around here.
We stayed there for three days. Transportation isn’t to easy around here, so we decided to return to South Africa and go to Kruger National Park. While we were there, we went to Mliliwane National Park and looked at the savannah and hills there. It’s pretty compact and only entailed about 12 km of walking. There are no lions, so you can walk. There are many zebras, crocodiles, a few hippos, ostriches, different anteopes and othe anmals. We have pictures, but when I was n a place where I could upload them, the connection was so slow I couldn’t upload everything I want. There will be plenty of animal pictures in upsoming blogs, I assure you.
I have a couple of pictures of the market in the capital, Mbabane.

These distances are not great. Jo’burg to Swazilamd is only about 5 hours by minibus. Back to Nelspruit, outside Kruger, was only about 3 hours, including the border stuff.
In Nelspruit we met a couple form Missouri and rented acar with them to go to Kruger. Kruger is a big park the size of Isreal. It is teeming with life and very beautiful. You drive around almost by yourself. There are a few paved roads and many dirt and gravel. You really doen’t see many other vehickles on the secondary roads. You have to stay inside your car except at maybe 20 designated spots. That’s so you don’t get eaten. Some places post a guard.

We didn’t read the rules when we went in, so for a couple of hours we got out two or three times. Then a passerby informed us we would be summarily kicked out if we were caught outside our vehicle. This low quality picture gives you an idea of the perspective we had on most of the big animals.

I have a good rhino picture, but internet access is spotty and the connection is slow. South Africa is supposed to get widespread DSL in a few months. Anyway, I uploaded some pictures, but really, you’ve seen it all on TV nature shows. I’ll show you what I got uploaded before I ran out of time at the place where I could access a USB port.
We left here with out new friends from Missouri at 5 AM and opened the park at 6. The morning and the evening is the best time to see animals. Besides, we wanted to get the most for our money. We spent two full days driving in there.
Here are impalas and wildebeasts.

Here is a cape buffalo.

Here are hippos and an elephant. After that , you’ll recognize them.

That mother and her calf got irritated with us being there and started movig toward us. I experienced an elephant charge in India. We boogied, preempted any close encounters.

There are so, so many animals. There are a few places with accommodation and camping sites, which we utilized. My father once said about my mother, “Her idea of roughing it is breakfast on the veranda.” Here, you can rough it on the veranda and have an espresso or beer, like Myung and our friends here, and look at the crocs and hippos. Ahhh, it’s sweet.

We left the park I the nick of time. It turns out that if you are on the road and not in a campground by 5:30 closing time, you get fined $110 per person. Yow! We were trying to get to the gate on time, but had to wait for herds of buffalo, impalas and giraffes while they crossed the road. We got out at 5:28.

We camped at a lodge in Hazyview, just outside the park. The downside of traveling now is that it sure gets dark early. Shoot. Oh well. This camping is great. So far, South Africa is really set up for it, with nice ammenites at places which bill themselves as having campsites. I think it will be like that most of the time in Southern Africa. The next day we set out on a drive called The Panorama. It’s a series of views along the edge of the Drakensburg escapment west of Kruger. That was a nice daylong drive. Here are the photos.

I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve uploaded. It really is very beautiful around here. And what I like the most is it just seems different from what I’ve seen before. I’m getting a little jaded so different is good. Even the plants and flowers are different.
Right now, we are hanging out in Nelspruit. I want to buy a car in Mozambique, where they are cheap. A guy here who buys a car every time he comes form Mozambique, which s often, was going to give me his car dealer, but he hasn’t done it yet. Now I hear he’s not returning from whatever he’s doig in South Africa until tomorrow. I guess I’ll go to Maputo the day after tomorrow.
That’s really where we are at at this moment. I’m going to send his off. Be well, all of you.

Greetings from southern Africa. Something tells me we aren’t in China anymore, Toto. We are just getting our feet wet and learning a few ropes. Don’t expect any real insight soon. So far, here’s what we’ve done.
We got into Johannesburg after a 2 AM departure from Beijing and 18+ hourws of travel with a connection in Qatar. Even I got jet lagged. We picked a backpacker place off the net and rested up. the only thing we did was go to a nearby mall to buy a Southern Africa Lonely Planet. Resting up would have been a lot more pleasant if they had running water. THE main water line in “Jozi” broke and the whole city was without till just before we left for Soweto. We didn’t do much in Soweto. Actually, there isn’t much to do there. There is no downtown. There are only places of interest regarding the civil rights movement. We did go to Nelson Mandela’s and Desmond Tutu’s house nearby, and walk around some safe areas. My, it is huge. I didn’t know it had 4.5 million people. Obviously, we didn’t go everywhere. I took a little tour of there and Jozi. That’s about it for that area.
After that we went directly to Swaziland. We have stayed there for a few days and are about to leave for Nelspruit in South Africa. Wé’ll go to the famed Kruger National Park from there and look at the big cats, rhinos, giraffes, etc.. Things change rapidly for us sometimes. Getting around is proving to be a big hassle. We may buy a car. Or, I may. Myung is very cool to the idea. Stay tuned on that one.
There is not enough bandwidth here to upload photos, so that will have to wait. Hopefully, that can happen in SA, but I sort of doubt it where we’ll be. The pictures aren’t that great yet anyway. We went to a national park here is Swaziland yesterday and saw many antelope, a big crocodile, a couple of ostriches and some zebras. If I had a schmick camera, the animal shots would be good, maybe. You’ve all seen National Geographic shows anyway. This park, Mlilwane, east of Mbabane, the capital with 60,000 people, is one of the few that are easily accessible without a car or without buying an expensive safari. We got a ride to the gate and strolled for about 10 km looking at the scenery and critters. Then we hung out till it cooled off, then managed a ride back to where we could get a minibus to where we are staying. If we had more money, getting a car would be a no-brainer.
Other than that, we went around the area and looked at the towns. I went to a village and got a tour and cultural program. I’ll put up those pics if I ever can.
I wanted to blog something, so here it is, for now. I have to go get the minibus to Nelspruit, so I’ll talk to you later.
Be well, all of you

We’ve decided to go to South Africa and are leaving tonight at 2 AM. Ugh. Our tentative plan is to go get used to the African scene in South Aftica, then tour the countries of southern Africa. After that, it’s up in the air. If we like it, we’ll likely go up the east coast, maybe all the way to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria to Turkey. But that all is way in the future. We aren’t all that informed right now, so we’ll have to wing it while we’re down there. Should be interesting. We’ve been killing a couple of days here in Beijing, not doing much of anything. Yesterday we just went around doing a little shopping and sat in Starbuck’s for a while. Myung finally got to see Mao’s body. I uploaded the photos you are about to see. Today is nothing. We’ll get rid of our Chinese money, probably walk around, eat, and get out of Dodge.
Three days ago, I went to the Qing dynasty summer palace. Most of it was built in the 19th century, as previous summer palaces were destroyed by fires and Opium Wars. It’s really quite nice. Rater than give you boring tour guide info, I’ll just post the pictures.

Two days ago, I went to a couple of places along the Great Wall, Jingshan and Simatai. They are about 100 km northwest of here, about 20 km apart. It was nice up there. Often grand vistas in China are obscured by the air pollution, or “Great Pall of China” as LP puts it, You could see pretty well. There were few people at Jingshan, which is not a very popular site. It is rather less dramatic than Simatai. It was about 10,000 km of long, though only maybe 1500 km still exist and most of it has not been restored. No wonder it’s one of the seven wonders of the world. It may not be the technical achievement the pyramids in Giza are, but the amount of work required to build it over hundreds of years is unimaginable. You’ve seen many pictures, of course, but here are some more. At Simatai, you can walk up, which almost no one does. Or you can take a tram about 3/4 of the way up and walk the rest, then walk up to the wall (or not), and return down by tram. Or you can take a tram up and walk along the wall, then down. That’s what I did. Most proplr just look up at it from down low where the wall goes over a river. The picture with the tram gives you an idea of how rugged some of the ridges are, and how you can really sprain an ankle walking up and down. Those are watchtowers along the top.

For what it’s worth, we went to the Olympic park. What a nice set up for the Olympics they had, with the Bird’s Nest, some other stadiums and the Water Cube. There is a huge square, too. Too bad it’s almost completely unused now. It all just sits there looking forlorn. The first even scheduled at the Bird’s Nest isn’t until November. What a bath they took, unless you count the intangible value of publicity.
Anyway, see you in Africa. Be well, all of you.