A trip made to see parts of S Africa, Namibia and Botswana especially the deserts which I am partial to. I have been on many such trips the world over and will write a few of them up from time to time if anyone is interested. Poll for that at the bottom.
Flew into Doha, Qatar. The most liberal country in the arab middle east. So much so, their neighbors boycott them and Saudi Arabia is digging a spite trench on the border. Because they allow women to drive, show their faces in public and practice professions. They are stupendously rich and have battalions of uniformed Philippinos running around chasing any molecule of dirt.
Having a day layover, I took a cultural tour. The airport and every mall featured a glitzy 250$K car on display. We also saw the harbor, the cool modern city center, and, more to my taste, the mazelike souk.
To give you an idea of how liberal is the most liberal Islamic country in the middle east, there was a miscarriage found in the airport, and the authorities demanded pelvic exams of all women in transit there. The US and EU freaked out and they backed off. DBroach this is why I called Islamic nations intolerant.
It turns out to have been a Phillipina maid and a Cambodian janitor. Too bad extra marital sex is illegal, and they had no powerful country in their corner. Jail.
In Saudi Arabia they would have been executed. In fact, so many people are enslaved there, the Philippine government advises their citizens not to even take work there.
Landed in Capetown and hiked in coastal park to de jet lag. BTW in sa, traffic lights are called “robots”...
The next day I hiked in Table mt NP to see this unique fire adapted fynboss ecosystem, full of giant oleanders. Then, I couldn’t resist the naval town of Simontown since its named after me. I saw an old fort with turreted 9” guns and a couple of frigates. I harvested some fat limpets on the rocky coast with my pocket knife. Ate them steamed with garlic butter, salad, and an agreeable yet slightly sarcastic local Cabernet for dinner.
Then it was time to head North, first through wine and cattle country, over the Drakenberg escarpment and then through the Karoo desert toward Namibia. You want to do this in the wet
season to see the flowers. I passed
through the Greater Karoo seeing huge swathes of them including those at the right, and then the Succulent Karoo where I saw the Kockerboom, tree, aka aloe or quiver tree that people used to use the skin of for arrow quivers.
That’s the title image for this story.
Continuing N you eventually cross the Namibian border and are almost
immediately plunged into the fearsome Namib Desert, hundreds of miles of sand, dirt and rock, one of the oldest and driest on earth.
In such places you must bring plenty of water and your own own shade, to survive car problems and check every pedestrian or disabled vehicle lest you leave them to die. My route began with 100K of dirt road. Now our story takes an unpleasant turn as I picked up a hitcher and discovered she hadn’t eaten in days...I stuffed her full of sandwiches (its impossible to starve in the desert because of the sand which is there.) and found she was heading to my destination, Luderlitz, a charming German colonial town on the coast to take a
teachers exam. To the right you may see how the sand in the Sperrgebiet or Forbidden Zone blows wild across the road. For over 100 years only diamond company mining personnel have been allowed here and rumors abound about drug crazed murderous criminals hired as security.
The sand will take your paint off eventually and your skin much faster. Even brief exposure is unbearable. The town has a garage with equipment to dig the road out every time it comes to blow. I dropped off my new friend at a shanty town with a bag of food and $100 Namibian so she wouldn’t have to take her exam on an empty stomach. The town was full of cool old German style buildings and is the home of Shark Island, where the Imperial German government detained many thousands of Herero and other tribes people after the 1904-07 rebellion against colonial rule, killing thousands. After the war, Namibia became a colony of S Africa, a colony of a colony, attaining independence only in 1990. It is the driest and one of the poorest countries in southern Africa, I made a habit of carrying plenty of food around for hitchers. There is virtually no agriculture leaving the economy dependent on a little diamond mining, tourism and a zinc mine.
Leaving, an ostrich ran parallel to my car, clocked it at 25 mph. I headed back inland to Keetmanshoop where I spent two nights in a 10usd hotel (scared to camp cause of hyenas, chocodiles and the deadly ostrich) and hiked over the local rocks and quiver tree forest. The white streaks are shit from the Hyrax or rock rabbits which look like stout, ugly rabbits but are related to the elephant. There are massive weaver bird colonies in many of these trees, almost a honey comb of nests.
From there I headed North to Windhoek (windy corner Ger.), the centrally located capitol, picking up an adorable young teacher and her mother going there. They looked middle class and had money for food and a cab from the suburbs, so I guess the public transport must be bad enough that everyone hitches.
I spent half a day at the excellent National Botanical Garden and headed East to Botswana. Got stuck at the border for hours as their computer was down and they wouldn’t let me fix it. Finally they processed me by hand so I would stop asking and I was immediately pulled over for driving while white, tased and racially profiled. No, they don't have that. Primitives. Botswana is much better off than Namibia, mainly thanks to more and better diamond mines. They are two of the safest countries in Africa.
I drove to the dusty windswept cattle town of Ghanzi, where I ate fricasseed wild game and local veggies with porridge or glutinous maize glop. It was delicious as was the elephant fruit liquor which tasted a bit like Irish cream. Namibia and Botswana abound in nice German style lagers btw. The hotel had free condom dispensers against hiv but I didn't test them for you.
Now it was time to cross hundreds of miles of the Kalahari, which looked like this. I picked up a young family of bush meat hunters who may have provided my dinner and their butchered antelope, delivering them home before getting a broken down car load of Botswanan soldiers on their way to their antipoaching camp. I was promised if I hiked in the desert I would be messily and gruesomely devoured by lions, but I didn’t even see a pug mark. Then, I had to pay nearly us rates for a hotel cause all the diamond miners ran the prices up. I had delicious oxtail stew, maize gloop, sauteed spinach and an adorable yet regrettably passive aggressive Shiraz. BTW if you don’t drink or eat meat, all you have to do is love animals to share three traits with Hitler. Just sayin’.
Now our trail takes us South, back into SA, down the Drakenberg escarpment
about a mile lower to a plain full of antelope with occasional rivers. Crossing this (two days travel) you come to the Indian Ocean. The coastal route here is called the garden route and is reminiscent of southern California, with tonier homes and towns.
A bit inland is Knysna elephant Park, when I turned inland to see it I was in hills covered with forests of giant euphorbs, invasive prickly pear and
giant aloe. Some of the euphorbs are poisonous enough to use their sap as arrow or dart poison and locals harvest the aloe in your lotions etc, by cutting the outer leaves of the aloes and letting them drip dry their aloin unto a sheet of plastic. They get $5US per pound, a valuable renewable economic resource. I picked up two giantesses in dashikis and delivered them to their village. I told them to tell their friends they'd won the lottery and bought a new car, being scared to drive it, they hired an ugly white boy to chauffeur them. It worked! Everyone laughed their asses off.
Knysna came about almost a century ago when grumpy elephants were tearing up farms and orchards, the government hired a hunter who killed one and upset people. Farmers and locals donated land for a wildlife area and the more aggressive elephants were culled until the survivors no longer attack gardens and orchards. The area now abounds in wildebeest, Cape buffalo, lions and antelope. Signs claim the lions will gobble you up if you dare step out of your car, but even though I doused my self in A1 and called “Here Kitty, kitty” I never saw one. It was neat to see everything else, especially the elephants pulling up and munching trees next to your car.
From here, I turned inland, through big hills and small mountains to the Kleine Karoo. A bit like a desert Switzerland, riddled round with mountains, a notorious artists colony. Every town has museums and galleries, especially charming Barrydale. I couldn't help noticing though, the charming parts were majority white and the shantytown all Black.
I now drove back to Capetown and, walking around was delighted to discover a Uranium street. Selfie time. A uranium atom walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says “We don't serve unstable nuclei. Can't afford the insurance.” So, the uranium splits. Ahahaha. I made that up myself and I'll do it again if you're not careful.
I spent my entire last day in the massive and wonderful Capetown botanical garden. It abuts Table Mt NP, and trails go up into it. I walked most or all of the trails in the garden proper and it took all day. The garden had great art too, sculpture throughout, and small galleries for graphic work.
I managed to see all
the plants I’d missed, including the intriguing welwitschia, which can live for over two thousand years, so long they carbon date it. It looks like a weathered cork with two long strap like leaves up to 13 feet long on a mature plant, often curled into a heap several feet tall. Its endemic to a small and very dry part of the Namib desert, parts of its range have never recorded rainfall. It survives there off ground water via its long taproot and occasional sea fogs.
In the middle of my visit I stopped at their cafe for a beer and a bunny chow, popularized by E Indian immigrants this is a breadbowl full of curried meat and veggies. My waiters face was all carved up-he'd tried to resist a mugging and woke up in the hospital.
Capetown has much more to offer, but my three weeks were up, time to go home.
A note on safety: SA is a fairly violent place and its not safe to pick up hitchers in SA, I was lucky not to be mugged and wouldn’t do it again. It helps to be 6’2” and look mentally diverse. Its safe in Botswana and Namibia, where even unaccompanied school children do it. When I got back to Capetown, I found a grocery in the area I'd stayed had been burnt and looted, killing two.
Paved roads are good and I saw no road rage in thousands of miles. The roads are good enough to tempt the leadfeet. Beware. I got a couple automated camera tickets. $20us no court costs, payable online.