Kurt Johnson

Susanne on a dune, De Hoop Nature Reserve.  See our South Africa album 

South Africa photos are up.  Our itinerary wasn’t too adventurous, remaining solidly on the tourist track, but the landscape is spectacular and even in mid-winter the weather was too warm for anything but a light jacket.  Cape Town earned our admiration for a fantastic poly-ethnic food culture at reasonable prices – like Houston but maybe even better.

From Cape Town we did quick day trips around Simon’s Town, Table Mountain, Cape Point, and the wine country.  After a few days we headed southeast to Hermanus and from there to De Hoop nature reserve.  Although we were only on the cusp of whale season we saw at least a couple dozen whales and a few dolphins and harbor seals as well.

A Topi antelope watches a Hyena trot away with scraps in the Serengeti.  Tanzania photo album #1 (of 2)

Our first stop in Africa was Tanzania, and like most visitors we headed out for safari in the country’s national parks.  Although the country is one of the poorest in the world the safari experience consists of jumping from park to park in a daisy chain of good food, good accommodations, and innumerable wild animals.  Fees for the national parks are fairly high, limiting the number of folks crowding the roads and restricting the demographics of visitors to those willing to pay a for hot water and good food.  Thus we experienced a weird juxtaposition of “luxury” and “roughing it”.  About half of each day was spent getting knocked to pieces driving on rough and dusty roads, insects were always a problem, and amenities like internet service were unavailable.  Conversely the “tents” we stayed in had hot showers, 4 course dinners, and an army of wait staff to handle our bags, serve us coffee, or anything else to generate a tip.

Out in the parks we managed to see some incredible things; swarms of thousands of dragonflies, mating lions, herds of elephants, frolicking troops of baboons, and a bunch of predatory cats sitting around doing absolutely nothing.  Our favorite site was definitely the Ngorongoro Crater – it is just amazing to descend 2,000 feet into the crater of an extinct volcano and see a huge plain of grassland, marshes, and wild animals.  The natural boundaries in and out of the crater make it feel like the most incredible theme park I’ve ever seen.

The most surreal experience of our entire summer consisted of visiting a small band of Hadzabe Bushmen near Lake Eyasi. There are less than 800 Hadzabe people remaining and they all live in small nomadic groups on the barren volcanic highlands around Lake Eyasi.  After picking up a local who spoke their language and knew where to find a current campsite we took the Land Cruiser up to find them.  The hour or so we spent with them felt like something out of National Geographic – a “click” language, bare breasted women, an 11 year old bride, and using two pieces of wood to light the herb for their stone pipe.  The men go out hunting in the morning with poison arrows and, as you can see in our photos, managed to bag a frickin’ leopard with an arrow a few weeks before we got there.  My clunky writing skills make it impossible to convey how cool it was to visit the group but it is definitely something worth detouring to check out.

The new bride, age 11 or 12.  Tanzania photo album #2 (our Hadzabe visit)