Some final thoughts, observations, anecdotes

We are home now, after a 16 hour flight from Cape Town to Atlanta, a layover, and a last two hour leg home. It is Delta's second longest flight, the longest being from Johannesburg, not much longer. It wasn't as grueling as we had expected. With meals, movies, writing, sleeping, the time seemed to pass. A few things that I neglected to write about before: The Maasai We passed a number of Maasai villages in our drives. The typical houses are small, with cone shaped thatched roofs. We frequently saw Masai people along the road and in the fields, men, women, and children. Many times they were herding cows and/or goats, men and also teenage boys. They wore typical clothing, bright colors and a cape-like material tossed over one shoulder. We also encountered them at the rest stops along our drives, often selling souvenirs and jewelry, or, especially the women, offering to pose with us for photos. We also saw them at the lodges, where the women were making and selling beaded jewelry. At one lodge, I marvelled at the skills of two Maasai women making a basket. One woman strung tiny gold seed beads onto a wire from a pile in her lap. The other one coiled already threaded wire into a basket. I had already purchased a beautiful basket at another location, and have been trying to limit my buying and even letting go of some of my collected handicrafts and oddities. But I of course bought another basket from the women. Beaded handicrafts are found everywhere we went, and are also common in other African countries. I know of beaded jewelry from a number of places. In Tanzania we saw jewelry, baskets, coasters, animals, much more in hotel and rest stop gift shops. At the airport yesterday I saw a life size Nelson Mandela made entirely of beads, very impressive. And also a not quite life size but also impressive giraffe. In the crafts market in Cape Town, the same crafts were available and many more. Many were the same as the ones we saw in Tanzania. I am not sure if they make the same crafts in both countries, or if some are imported from other countries. There were clothes, wooden carved masks, animals, furniture. And a variety of stone carved items. And paintings, none very appealing to us, that we guessed might have been made in China. (Loring read a book a few years ago about the industries in China producing art and crafts for foreign countries.( ie paintings of Paris scenes) And much more than I can describe. One shop had a vast quantity of beautiful African beads like the antique clay trade beads. I was tempted but resisted. I asked and was told that they came from Ghana. One shop had designer clothing both in stock and that could be custom made. I saw on their website that they had pop up shops yearly in Berlin and New York. I tried on several and was told they could be altered in a few hours, but didn't find the right one. And they were two or three times the price of clothing I'd seen in other places. On our last day, I did purchase a tunic made specially for me from material I chose, with the vendor assuring me that he could have it done and delivered to me in two hours. (we were leaving then.) I gave him a deposit and then had second thoughts about how wise an idea that had been. But true to his word he delivered it to our hotel only five minutes late. And I love it. There was one huge shop and gallery in Tanzania that we stopped at two different times, obviously arranged for the tourists. They had a vast array of many kinds of art and crafts, much of which liked, mostly quite large. They assured us the works could be removed from their frames and rolled up to be able to be carried home. But my concern was more the lack of wall space at home to display anything more than what we already have collected over the years. I think I was pretty reserved in what I did purchase, although not as much as I hoped to be. A couple of baskets, the towels with recipes I already described from the museum in Cape Town, gifts for the kids and two year old Julian. Carolina had requested, jokingly, an elephant and a warthog. We got her a small beaded elephant. Warthogs were harder to find, probably because they are ugly. We did find a bottle opener with a handle made of a warthog tooth. I think she'll like it. We got a set of wood nesting bowls for M and M. Julian gets a T shirt from Tanzania, and a shirt with a safari truck and elephants from South Africa. Loring bought a shirt with with an African pattern, probably the only clothing item other than t shirts he's ever purchased in our travels. I had wanted to buy something with a tanzanite stone, a gemstone found only in Tanzania. But I had no interest in a fancy expensive piece of jewelry, a good thing since tanzanite is very expensive. Most pieces ranged in the thousands of dollars. What I found is a silver ring in the shape of the African continent, with a tiny tanzinite stone marking Tanzania. The perfect souvenir! A few words about clothes, the ones we brought. We were told to wear neutral earthy colors, browns and beige and green. Supposedly bright colors attract the animals' attention. (But didn't we want to attract them?) And no blue, because that attracts the tsetse flies. Tsetse flies, shit. I was worried enough about mosquitos, to which I have a bad, sometimes allergic reaction. One of the first days on safari, I was bitten about a dozen times by insects that looked like house flies. I asked Nixon, our guide, what tsetse flies look like. He said these were tsetse flies. I felt sleepy for a while but think it was all in my mind. And sleeping sickness has a lot more symptoms. We rarely encountered any mosquitos, and hardly any tsetses after the first day or two. All of the lodges had mosquito netting around the beds, romantic but unneccesary. We were also told to bring our things in a duffel bag, I am guessing because they are easier to cram into the vehicles. We did, and fit everything into ones that are carry-on size, the way we like to travel. But ours were by far the smallest bags in the group. And some people were staying for less time than we did, and not going to a city in addition to the safari. What do people bring, unless they bring a separate outfit for each day of a trip? One more thing: let me describe some of the names of groups of animals we encountered, in addition to a tower of giraffes. A group of zebras is a dazzle, one of hippos is a bloat, a group of elephants is a parade, and one of flamingoes is a flamboyance. This is not something I learned on our trip, but something I learned about long ago. I don't know if these words or their equivalents are used in Africa or anywhere beside the United States. One more thing to research. But I have long thought of writing a children's counting/alphabet book that uses these group names. Maybe this trip will inspire me. I think I will end this account here, although there is so much more I could tell. I write this blog first for myself, as a journal I can look back on to remember where I have gone and what I have done. But I am pleased and flattered when others read it, so thank you. I hope I have entertained and informed you. And now, time to start thinking about my next adventure.

Around the Cape of Good Hope

One of the most popular excursions from Cape Town is a nearly daylong trip around the Cape of Good Hope with several stops along the way. Many people do it by bus tour. We decided, not being big fans of bus tours, to hire a guide for the day. The hotel referred us to Franklin. It was interesting just to ride with and talk with him during the drive. I told him we'd been to the District Six Museum. He said he lives in the district. He drove us past his apartment building. Much of the area had been rebuilt with business buildings after the desecration. And some new houses had been built to rehouse and recompensate people who the government had displaced years earlier. There have been some reparations made, but not nearly enough and it sounds like a complicated process. I am not sure whether Franklin's building was part of that, but don't think he had been due any recompensation. We drove through a number of townships and towns, some poor, some affluent, and in at least one case, one of each on facing sides of the road. Although actual apartheid ended decades ago, the contrast and inequities between races is striking. Whites comprise 7% of the population, and more than 90% of the wealth. Some of the towns close to the city are extremely affluent, with large fancy houses built into the cliffs facing the ocean. And then there are literal tin shanty towns. One of the many forms of local art consists of little tin houses made from soda cans, with a painted background. They range from about 6 inches square ( I bought one, of course) to huge works of art with incredible details. I asked Franklin if the elite neighborhoods welcomed black neighbors. He laughed and said that money talks. It sounds like money is more important than race in determining acceptance. Franklin was frank(haha) about thoughts about Mandela. He said that many South Africans do not consider him a hero because he didn't go far enough in demanding and implementing equal rights. But he himself did admire Mandela. He talked about many things, including his daughter, who is autistic and non verbal. That came up when he showed us his favorite beach, which he prefers to take his daugher to because it is quieter and a little harder to access than most of the other, more popular ones. We stopped at another spot famous for its penguin colony. We could have paid to enter at one spot for a supposedly better view. But Franklin indicated that we could get virtually the same view for free. We saw a few penguins, just at the side of the path, and they were neat to see. Maybe we were jaded by all of the wildlife we had seen the week before. My feelings about the tour in general were that I am glad we did it, just to get more of a sense of the area. But the stops were all overtouristed, although I can't really complain as I am one myself. It is a shame to have to wait in a short line to take your picture of the Cape of Good Hope sign. And we opted not to take the gondola to the top of Table Mountain, which provides and impressive view of the city. But it is not far from the city, and on a sunny day when there is a view, it is overrun with visitors. Their website gives a wait time for the trip up, and the trip down. It was over an hour each direction. We decided to wait and perhaps do it on another day on our own. But in the end, although we did have another sunny day, we decided to forgo it. Overtourism is not an issue just here. We have encountered it frequently in recent years, in places as disparate as Vietnam and Bar Harbor, Maine. It's partly due to the rise of the internet and influencers, and then those influenced, needing to document and share the perfect image of themselves. We've seen people posing and preening on beaches, for hours in some cases, and also sometimes narrating their experiences outloud as they pose. It's not just the influencers and influenced, I know, but the internet has certainly changed the way we travel. I did thoroughly enjoy Cape Town, although the typical tourist parts were the least of it. Franklin did take us to one neighborhood that was famous for its artists and its colorful houses. The story was that Bo Kamp householders painted their houses once they acquired ownership, to indicate their pride and achievement of ownership. It was touristed, too, but less so, and I found it more interesting. Partly due to the art, I'm sure. The center of the city is more visually attractive than I expected. There is a variety of architecture, including that influenced by the Dutch and the British. (the British fought and kicked out the Dutch.) There are a number of Victorian style buildings from the turn of the 20th century, including our hotel. Many are decorated with gingerbread adornments, and many are also painted in bright colors. The waterfront area, another tourist destination, is very modern and still growing. Lots of construction. It is where most of the large modern and chain hotels are located. There are also many large apartment buildings that are probably condos. It is not what I'd consider a neighborhood, and I am very glad we didn't stay there. All in all, an interesting city, one I am glad to have visited, despite my reservations about overtourism.

Cape Town continued

There were several places we knew we wanted to visit in Cape Town and the area. One was Robben Island, another was the District Six Museum, and Loring particularly wanted to do the all day drive around the southern part of the country to the Cape of Good Hope. We did visit all three and more.

Robben Island is probably the most well known location in Cape Town, at least for visitors. It houses the prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for over two decades, along with many other political and criminal convicted men. This includes what in South Africa is known as colored, people of mixed ethnic heritage.  I don't believe that includes mixed white people. Whites were not imprisoned there. 

It is about a twenty minute ferry ride to the island, The boat holds over 200 people. Like a number of locations around the world, it is visited by more and more tourists, and reservations are necessary. 

We waited  about an hour, partly because the previous ferry had been delayed.  There was a video about the prison on the way, and another on the return trip. The visitors were more white than black, and mostly tourists. But there were also several school groups of local black high schoolers. I wonder what they learn and think about the struggle to abolish apartheid. 

On the island, we took a bus around the place before going to the prison itself. There were numerous buildings,  a neighborhood of sorts that had housed the prison workers and their families. The video showed a few accounts of people who had grown up on the island whose parents worked at the prison. They recalled an idyllic childhood,  wandering in the fields,  never mentioning the prison itself. I wonder how much they even knew about it. The video certainly implied the irony.

There was even a church that is still privately owned, by Methodists if I remember right. And people still get married there. I asked the guide why anyone would want to get married there. Her answer was there were a variety of reasons, but she indicated that the main one was the novelty. 

Our guide through the prison was a former prisoner, which I found intriguing. He had been sentenced to five years, when he was nineteen, tbu had been released after four. He mentioned being asked by prison officials at some point if he had any remorse, and he answered honestly that he didn't. His crime had been burning some records that implicated people in resistence.  He introduced us to two other guides, also former prisoners, who were 17 and 15 when imprisoned. I would love to have heard more about their experiences.  

The highlight ( I say ironically)  of the tour was the cell in which Mandela had been imprisoned. It, and all the others, were furnished with a mat (not a bed) and not much more.  I don't believe the prisoners were allowed to have books. Our guide made clear that conditions were slightly better when he was a prisoner than when Mandela had been. 

We were shown a copy of a menu of the meals prisoners were served. They were different for the black prisoners from what the colored prisoners were served, less quantity and not all the same variety. 

The previous day, before our trip to the island, we visited the District Six Museum. It is not nearly as visited as the prison, but I found it especially interesting. It was housed in a former church that had been a haven for political protesters during the District Six removals of the 1970s.  District Six is an area of the city whose black population was forceably evicted by the goverment, followed by the bulldozing of virtually every building in the neighborhood.  It was then declared a whites only area. 

A portion of the museum is an exhibit documenting the memories of women who'd lived in the district.  Their recollections were accompanied by recipes written in the women's own hands and embroidered with illustrations.  In the tiny gift shop I found dish towels printed with some of the recipes. They were folded on a shelf where only a portion was visible and it wasn't clear what they were. I bought several as gifts, and if you visit I encourage you to check them out. I wish they'd been displayed better so more people would notice them. I may write and suggest that. 

The man in the shop said the towels were produced by a women's collective supported by the museum and that the money went to them.  That made them all the better. 

From District Six we went to another museum, the Iziko South African Gallery.  It is one of a consortium of museums. Iziko means hearth. There, we happend upon a retrospective by South African artist Sue Williamson, now in her 80s.  She has worked in a variety of media, including photography, printmaking, mixed media, installation art, more. This exhibit, called "There's Something I Must Tell You" documents the contributions of various women anti-apartheid  activists, whose names and stories are not as recognized as Mandela and many of the men. There were a number of women who were also convicted and imprisoned for their activism. 

At the waterfront, near the Robbens Island ferry, we had noticed another contemporary art museum, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, (MOCAA)  housed impressively in a converted waterfront granary building. It was already closed for the day. We went back by taxi the following day. There were a variety  of exibits, some  by South African artists, others by international ones. One exhibit was by a Vietnamese American artist. Most impressive, though, was the building itself, and how it had been converted from a granary. If you do go there, make sure to visit the bottom level, the tunnels, which house the school program. And maybe the best of all were the bathrooms, Each stall in the women's was tiled in a different color, with corresponding toilets and sinks. Loring was equally impressed with the men's, featuring urinals in all the colors. One of the neatest bathrooms I've ever seen, rivalling the industrial themed ones at Mass MOCa at home in Massachusetts, also in a former industrial building. 

On our last day in South Africa, our flight didn't leave until evening. We asked for a late check out from the Granddaddy, for which they charged us the equivilent of $5 an hour, or $25.  It was an excellent decison. We were able to relax in our wonderful Grandaddy Suite for a few more hours. Okay, I spent a portion of the time perusing the nearby crafts market. And wound up ordering a kimono style (that's what they called it) jacket in the material and design of my choice, which they made for me in two hours. Our taxi driver was already waiting for us, and Loring was having his doubts about the arrangement, when the man arrived only five minutes late bearing the piece exactly to my description. 

Cape Town

We spent our last five days in Africa at the Granddaddy Hotel in Capetown.  It was the perfect contrast to our days on safari. There, we had been with a group, larger than we had expected, close to 40 including  a school group from Florida, from the school that Dolly and Paul's daughter had attended over a decade ago.  We travelled in groups of about 6 each in Landcruisers, so spent most of the day  in small groups.   

In Capetown we were on our own, with not much planned in advance. It was a pleasure to not have to wake up early and be on the road by 8:30, although with all the wildlife it wasn't very hard to wake up and get going. (after a sumptous breakfast.)

   In addition to the three floors of the hotel there is a roof bar, and, oddest of all, six airstream trailers, each with a different decorator and different name and theme. The idea had originally seemed appealing. But we were awfully glad we chose the suite. Not only are the trailers small, but the bar often hosts events, two just in the five days we were there, a wedding and a Ghana tourism event. The events are noisy, and the hotel guests and trailer occupants are not permitted at the roof bar during the events. We did get to spend a fair amount of time at the sky bar, so it wasn't really an issue for us. But we did hear that one trailer occupant asked to switch to another room during the Ghana event. We were also kicked out for the event, but the Ghanians subsequently invited us to join them. 

The Granddaddy has been a hotel since it was built in the 1890s, but has undergone several ownerships and identities.  I saw from old ads that it had previously been called the Daddy Longlegs, but couldn't find much more information than that. 

There was art by local artists on the hallway walls, although none particularly appealed to me. On the stairwells, though,  in plexiglass cases, were two outfits, a dress and a suit, comprised totally of maps. The suit  jacket had prominent maps of Boston and New York. 

A more than ample breakfast was included, with about a half dozen choices including omlettes, pancakes, and a breakfast bowl with scrambled eggs. Plus a buffet of juice, fruit, cereal, muffins, and more. And cappuccino as a beverage choice, with no extra cost and free refills! As I've said before, all the meals included on our trip were sumptous and more than I could eat, even in small portions. I expected it more at the safari lodges, which were catering to well off foreigners. But the hotel restaurant at the Granddaddy served both tourists and locals, and I had less expected it there. 

The Long St. location is central and in walking distance of some of the city's attractions. There is also a daily crafts market a couple of blocks away, which I tried my best to avoid. (unsuccessfully.) We saw vendors hauling away massive crates of merchandise at the end of the day. Incredible to think they do that daily. And so many merchants in competition with one another. It is hard to imagine how any of them make a living. They do, however, seem to work somewhat cooperatively. If one doesn't have what you are looking for, they will lead you to someone else who might.  I assume they get a cut of the sale. This has been true in many of the places we've visited over the years. 

To be continued in the next post. 

Final safari recollections and reflections.

We have moved on to the second stage of our travels.  We are now in Cape Town for our last five days of the trip. Before I begin to tell you about our adventures here, let me try to catch up with some more recollections about our time in Tanzania on safari.

And to apologize if this account is somewhat repetitive or disjointed. A few reasons - I had little time to write because our time was pretty filled with activities plus I unintentionally forgot to save a couple of posts and had to recreate them. And so much has happened that has been hard to recollect and record everything. 

First let me recount the places we stayed.

Our first stop was at the Serena Hotel in Arusha which was actually about 10 miles outside the city. We drove down a dusty and bumpy road to arrive there. Once there we went thru a gate with a guard to a lush and elegantly rustic lodging .

We stayed there two nights. The rest of the group came a day later. We had  come a day early to relax and recover from the long trip before beginning the safari.

The next two nights were at the lodge in Tarangire National Park, where we saw a wealth of wildlife. (see previous posts.) That lodge consisted of tent accomodations.  To us it was what we would consider glamping. But it's all a matter of perspective. One of our group members was so excited because she'd never been camping before. She seemed relieved that she'd made it and enjoyed it.  The tents had several spaces, bedroom, toilet, and shower room.  The exterior and interior walls were canvas. There was running water. The toilet worked like one at home or a hotel. The shower was pretty funny, consisting of an attendant who came at our request with a bucket of hot  water and stood on outside on a ladder to mix it with the cold. It was quite a decent shower. All the comforts of home.

The meals there and everywhere were sumptuous with a great variety. My only complaint is that there was too much food. I constantly wondered what the staff thought about all the rich white foreigners and our consumption of goods and experiences.  Everyone was friendly and didnt seem servile, and yet... I hope they earn enough for their families to live a decent life. 

We returned to Arusha to meet up with the rest of the group. In the following days we stayed  the Ngorongoro Safari Lodge , the Serengetti  Serena Lodge,  the Ndutu Lodge, and   the Lake Manyara. We went on game drives at each and between destinations. On our drive between Ngorogoro and Ndutu we stopped at the Olduvai Gorge where Mary Leakey did much of her archeological research, from the 1930s up thru the 1980s finding some of the earliest evidence of humanity. She and her husband Louis had earlier worked in Kenya. 

All the lodges were beautiful and elegantly rustic, if that makes sense. They were constructed with a variety of local materials in quasi traditional style.  

Every day was an adventure. We never knew what sightings a day would bring. The long drives, through rough terrain at times, were never boring because we were always on the lookout for wildlife, and spotting a great variety and quantity every day. Although the sightings became common the experiences never felt commonplace. Each spotting of giraffes or zebras or baboons or wildebeests was a treat.  The baboons were often sitting in the middle of the road, totally nonchalant about our presence.  Once a little one climbed up on our truck and sat playing with the antenna.

We saw hordes of migrating wildebeests, close up and in an endless parade along the horizon. The were often accompanied by groups of zebras. Nixon explained that the wildebeests had good hearing and poor eyesight, the zebras were the opposite. So it was a symbiotic relationship. We saw pools of hippos, lions, cheetahs, and one elusive leopard lounging in a tree.

 I wouldn't be able to lists all the species of animals we saw, but here are some of the twenty types of antelopes found in the country that  we encountered- from the tiny dikdiks that look like miniature deer and are the size of a small to medium dogs, to the eland, the largest,  there were Thompsons and Grant's gazelles, impalas, topi,  and more. Other species included storks, flamingos,  blue balled monkeys, mongooses, and others that I have mentioned before.

The giraffes were without a doubt my favorite,  so elegant and beautiful poised against the landscape. And almost unearthly,  so unlike any other animal. It felt almost like a dream to be watching them.  The whole experience, in fact, seemed dreamlike,  so different from our normal reality. 

At our next to last stop, our group of nearly 40 ( not what we'd expected) including a school group,  split into several, some returning home, others going to places like a beach resort, a one- day gorilla trek in Uganda, and more. And us here to South Africa. 

The contrast between here and the safari trip is striking; one urban,  the other largely wilderness. We are here on our own compared to the large group. And we are here for five days in one place, compared to being almost constantly on the road.

The hotel here is great, funky and in a central location. It is called the Granddaddy.  Today is our second day.  We are about to head out on a ferry to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and many others were imprisoned. I will write more later. 

A Tower of Giraffes

Did you know that a group of giraffes is called a tower? Every animal,  it seems,  has a group name. Some make sense, some are whimsical,  and some seem strange. A group of crows, for instance, is called a murder.

 A tower of giraffes seems appropriate.  

Of all the African  animals, the one I wanted to see most were giraffes. I wasn't sure we would because they weren't mentioned in the literature for the trip. 

But we have seen them, many times often at quite close range.  Tower after tower of them. 

On our first day of the two day pre safari we were totally unprepared and astonished by the quantity and variety of wildlife we saw. There were zebras, giraffes, a variety of antelope species,  and perhaps more impressive of all, a herd of elephants that we saw first from a distance and then later, they came in a procession up the hill to right beside our land cruisers. They were literally close enough for us to touch them, although we didn't.

The thirteen of us agreed that nothing  could top this first day, and perhaps we were right. But no day has been a disappointment.  We have seen more and more species, and more of each one, every day. On the second morning we saw a pair of lions close up, just at the edge of the path. They seemed as docile as pet cats, lounging and not a bit concerned by our presence.  We sat watching for quite a while. it could have been fifteen minutes,  or a half hour. I lost all sense of time. Eventually  the male stood up, and mounted the female. The mating took perhaps five seconds.   Our guide Nixon (yeah he was born during Nixon's presidency) said they would mate repeatedly, every half hour or so. So we watched and waited until they did it again. Easy to miss if you had not been watching closely.

We've seen lions a few times since then, at times a pair,  other times a couple of males. Each time they have been equally languid, although they probably wouldn't be if we ventured beyond our vehicles. We wonder if they have just become used to humans.  

Where the wildebeests roam, and the zebra and the antelope play

The wildlife we have seen on the trip have been incredible, far beyond my expectations. I tried to keep my expectations low, or not to really have any expectations. But if I thought about it I would have said we'd maybe see wildlife from time to time from a distance, maybe just from a distance.

Instead it's been almost constant sightings, of individual and group sightings. We've seen more species than I can remember. But I will try to list as many as I can. There have been lions, cheetahs, elephants,  giraffes,  warthogs, antelopes, baboons, rhinos, storms, wildebeests, hippos, hyenas, and ostriches , jackals, and more. There are 20 species of antelope in the country of which we have seen about a half dozen. Not sure I could name them all, quite sure I couldn't recognize them all.

Yesterday we saw our first kill. We didnt actually see the animal being killed,, but the immediate aftermath was impressive enough.  First  we saw a cheetah, then two more.  We later found out that they were three males known to the rangers and referred to as the three brothers. We could see blood on their faces. Then we saw the victim, a wildebeest,  although unrecognizable as one. We could see the ribcage and some of the innards. A black backed jackal slowly approached, taking its time, cautious.  It then took its time picking the parts it wanted.

Meanwhile an eagle circled overhead. More big birds approached, vultures and storks, more and more of them. The birds waited their turn patiently, while the jackal continued to pick at the carcass. When it had its fill the jackal moved off and the vultures moved in. In turn, the storks waited until the vultures were finished. The storks attacked the wildebeests' intestines with a couple each pulling on an end, stretching it out between them. It was almost comical to watch, but also rather unsettling to the stomach. 

I will continue with account tomorrow.