The Heart Of The Day

June 15, 16, 2002
James make an unbelievable maneuver with the truck into the Lions Head Lodge & Backpacker Compound around a corner and in between parked cars on both sides of the street. We are amazed! He has done this before. He parks beside several other trucks. And we can’t believe the trip is over! I will miss the crew.

Cape Town, about 40km from the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of the continent, is a beautiful city up against the 1000 meter high giant Table Mountain. Lonely Planet calls the city a “volatile mixture of the Third and First Worlds. The cafes on Long St. and the bars at the Waterfront could be in any cosmopolitan capital but the townships on the bleak, windswept plains to the east of the city could only be in Africa.”

We all eat a last meal together at a wonderful seafood restaurant in the upscale Victoria and Albert Waterfront Mall that evening. Bob and I come back to the compound and fall into bed; the others find a hip hop club and dance and party until 4:00 in the morning. Boy do we feel past that stage!

June 14, 2002 My birthday
The Baths is a health spa about 16 km from Citrusdal in a pretty wooded gorge. It is a long weekend in South Africa; Monday is Youth Day-(SA has 13 public holidays) so Rod’s wife Brenda drives up from Cape Town. Bob and I, Sarah and Adrian and Heather and Fi upgrade to a chalet-$6 each and it’s wonderful to sleep in a bed.

Around the camp fire that night James and George teach me how to say “cool banana” in Swahili: Poe Matoke!

There is a cold swimming pool and another swimming pool fed by the hot springs so we sit in the soothing warm water awhile before going to bed.

The next morning at breakfast Bob shows me a note he has written: “Happy Birthday,” which takes me by surprise as I had forgotten what day it was.

Then the truck takes us into Citrusdal where we experience a wine tasting of South African wines, including one made of Rooibos Tea which tastes like medicine. There is a nice break in the weather and we have lunch out on the front porch; the food is wonderful and half of us order a second entre which startles the woman restaurant owner!

That evening back at camp Bob appears with a cake and one candle and Nikki gives me Apricot jam and a piece of handmade soap made of goat�s milk and ylang ylang that we can use in our apartment in Cape Town. Think she must have seen me eyeing these things in the little wine shop…I am very touched by
everyone�s good wishes!

Then everyone walks up to the Baths again. Just as Bob and I were getting into our tent, though, Rod drives up and tells us there has just been a cancellation in one of the suites in the hotel…so off we go to yet another night in a real bed on my birthday! Turned out to be a really good thing though because Bob was up about 10 times that night with diarrhea.

The facilities are nice-big grassy campsite and there is a lapa (open air shelter) covered with green leaves of a plant with purple flowers within which to eat and wash dishes. At camp we eat left-over Kudo steak sandwiches ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 12, 2002 To the South African Border In the morning before we leave camp, three guys walk up to our campfire as George is frying bacon; I walk up and introduce myself. Two ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 11, 2002 On the way from Serus the topography is incredible--perfectly formed mesas and buttes-almost Utah-like. We stop in the tiny wide spot in the road called Bethanie. Bob mails a card ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 10, 2002 After a night camping near Sesriam, everyone else is up at 5:00 to go hiking in the Dunes. No coffee and no "breaky" (breakfast). These are the largest Dunes in the world ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 6-8, 2002 How are you today mommi? George and James do a pretty good job looking after me-making sure I'm happy so I don't unglue on this trip and make a problem for ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 5, 2002 The next morning James drives us back to Outjo, the small predominantly German/Afrikaner town we had stayed in before and we buy apple strudel and real drip coffee in the bakery and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sunday June 2, 2002 near Outjo Yesterday the truck broke a spring so we stopped in the Afrikaner town of Outjo to find a mechanic and pick up some groceries. James drove us to ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 2002 So African Intervention in Namibia Namibia used to be part of South Africa and South African incursions into Angola and Namibia continued from 1975 until well into the 1980's and I tell you this ... [Continue reading this entry]

June 1, 2002 Yainguaz Camp near Gobabis, Namibia The countries of Botswana and Namibia are very different geographically from Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The topography is flatter even than Botswana and much of Namibia ... [Continue reading this entry]

On the way back to Maun Botswana in the Safari truck, Rod explains that the area around Maun is in the fastest growing area in the southern hemisphere because of the discovery of diamonds ... [Continue reading this entry]

The Makoro Trip through the Delta By the time the 1300 km long Okavango, southern Africa's third largest river, enters Botswana from Angola, through the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, it begins to spread and sprawl as it is absorbed by the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Wed May 29-30 , 2002 Can't stop in Maun to check email because nothing opens until 10am. Gary takes us into the Delta on his Safari wagon with two long seats back to back ... [Continue reading this entry]

Tues May 28,2002 To Sitatunga Camp near Maun Botswana Up at 5:30 again. Had wieners, eggy bread (French Bread) with honey and canned spaghetti for breakfast. James is doing his usual antic-body stuff ... [Continue reading this entry]

May 27, 2002 We see the 3000km of 1.5 meter high "Buffalo Fence" along side the road on the way to Okavango Delta in Botswana. It�'s actually a series of high-tensile steel wire barriers ... [Continue reading this entry]

The border crossing from Zambia into Botswana is at the border post of Kazungula. The truck ride on the Kazungula Ferry across the Zambezi River is not much of a hassle. Rod ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sun May 25, 2002 Up at 5:30 for the sunrise micro-light (motorcycle with wings) ride to view the falls and the geologic formation left by them over thousands of years. The half hour ... [Continue reading this entry]

We pull into camp outside Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We listen to CNN...TV for the first time in weeks and hear yet another warning about terrorism in NYC...funny-Josh never mentions anything in ... [Continue reading this entry]

In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa your car "hoots" not honks. Hoot, I tell them, is what an owl does! Rod says Geese "honk" and cars "hoot!" We laugh. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Tues May 21-22, 2002 Long Drive to Lusaka the capitol of Zambia Up at 5 am again and on the truck by 6:30. Take the whole day just to drive to Lusaka-about 12 hours or ... [Continue reading this entry]

May 20, 2002 Then to Yellow Chicken Campsite and dinner in the dark. The charming camp, in the middle of a huge 40 year-old German farm, is run by a Brit and his wife who ... [Continue reading this entry]

2002 Rod warns us the roads in Zambia are even worse "shit" than in Malawi-which we found hard to believe but he was right. Most of these roads we are on are not paved. ... [Continue reading this entry]

May 11-15 2002 City of Stone Town Island of Zanzibar The tropical island of Zanzibar has a more cosmopolitan and warm and open ambiance than other African countries we have been in-more like the islands ... [Continue reading this entry]

I love the remnants of the Swahili cadence in Victor's English. Giraffe: "It is raining and he is very happy there-he is getting a shower." Bob watching elephants: "This makes you feel badly there are zoos. Topi: lives up to 20 ... [Continue reading this entry]

May 5, 2002 We left for the 4000 mile seven week trip in a Mercedes Benz truck overland from Nairobi to Capetown. As Bob suspected there would be, there are 17 kids all under ... [Continue reading this entry]