The need for a Plan B

Back in South Africa and time seems to have flown past, suddenly were on our fourth, and last week of our 4x4 holiday . From the border we drove south firstly to  Bligh River Canyon and then onto Drakensberg just south of Johannesburg -this is a region where the mountains that edge the eastern side of the isolated kingdom of Lesotho dramatically abut the flat plains of South Africa and was one of Megans must do's.  Fantastic scenery as you can drive in around the base of the peaks.

Whilst we were there we also had an early celebration for Megans birthday (since we're going to be in different countries when it occurs in a few weeks time) by going up market for one night and staying in a luxury lodge. Key selling point of the chosen place was the included superb six course dinner followed by three course breakfast the next day - this was B&B in style - even I, who am not much of a foody, was impressed. As an aside I also found it equally impressive that most of the guests were staying several nights and managing to eat that amount every night: for both of us once was definitely enough - at least for awhile.

After our day of luxury it was back to the reality of travel with a drive of several hours back up the highways to Johannesburg where the plan was (i) that night for Megan to catch a plane out to Ghana (where she was due to join a tour in a couple of days time) and (ii) the next day for me drive the 4x4 the 1400kms back to Cape Town before collecting my bike which I'm told has safely arrived there.  Unfortunately when we got out to the airport there was a snag, Megans visa was wrong and she was refused boarding to the plane. Ok we thought,  make a quick visit to three Ghanaian embassy the next day and it will all be sorted.  Oh niave people. Certainly it can be fixed they said, but only back in Australia,  just ship your passport back there.  That obviously wasnt going to happen in the required time-frame so its time to come up with plan B.

Zimbabwe - the surprise package

When I was a kid my uncle and aunt returned from living in Southern Rhodesia and that kindled a desire to go there sometime. Well Southern Rhodesia is now called Zimbabwe and nearly 50 years after their return I've made it.

We only spent 5 days in Zimbabwe but by the time we left it had in many ways become my favorite of the countries visited; not because of the sights and the scenery, good though they were, but for the people. They were universally cheerful, friendly, welcoming despite often being under obvious great personal economic hardship.

Economic hardship is one of those handy euphemisms you adopt as you travel in Africa to try and protect yourself from some of the brutal reality of the difference between your tourist lifestyle and the locals -what it really means in the case of Zimbabwe is that 50% of the people are mal-nourished, many obviously seriously so. The frequently given justification is that being there and spending money is making a difference to people's lives,  which is a valid point but fails to address any of the bigger ethical issues about the disparity of wealth distribution between nations, nor the fact that by being there you are to a certain extent rubbing people's noses in it.

Back to the touristy stuff. First stop over the border was Vic Falls,  which somehow manage to both live up to its billing and slightly disappointed at the same time.

Onwards from there to Matobo National Park - this has been the unexpected green of the trip so far. A reserve full of stunning (but largely unphotographable) scenery, giant balancing granite boulders and the place almost entirely to ourselves.

From there it was next the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, after the pyramids the largest stone structures in Africa and probably the greatest ruins you've never heard of (go on Google them because my photos do it no justice). A bit of an eye opener because I had never learnt about southern africans pre- colonial city state history.

I enjoyed Zimbabwe so much I plan to go back for a slower and broader explore when I get on the bike -which is not long now.

On safari - part 2

We headed north east from Etosha to up near the Angolan border to allow us to reach the crossing to Botswana. Soon after leaving the park we crossed the "vet line" -a fence that stretches the full width of Namibia and has been maintained since 1905 as a boundary to prevent diseases in the cattle of the north impacting the farmed herds of the south. I'd read it was an economic divide but was surprised by the abruptness of it; south of the line, whilst very arid and in many cases empty and unpopulated,  it had been a land of small towns, both substantial old white towns and more insubstantial black and coloured dominated towns; whilst, to the north, it was suddenly African villages from the pages of National Geographic,  groups of small reed huts inside small fenced compounds.  There was a palpable change in the orderliness of it all and an obvious drop in average income level - poverty in the south had been disguised by the existence of a slightly richer up and coming group, here in the north that layer was largely absent and the basic subsistence level of many people's life much more obvious.

In Botswana we headed towards two of the main game parks - first Meremi,  then Chobe.  Botswana has a different policy towards game park tourism compared with Namibia's mass market approach,  they prefer low volume- high value tourists.  Here it's quite easy to pay several thousand dollars a night for the lodges and equal amounts for the extra such as fly in/ fly out. Tourists like us in 4x4 are catered for, but to a much lower level and still at a stiff price; bare bones camp sites in the national parks were between  US$30 and US $50 per person per night (plus daily park entry fees).  The upside though was we had some fantastic individual animal sightings in the parks; up close and personal within 2 or 3 metres of two elephants grazing on a freshly pushed over tree was off highlight,  as was another  when we found ourselves  driving (carefully) through a herd of 40 spread across the width of the road.  But it wasn't just elephants, we saw giraffes, zebra, hippo, wildebeest and countless types of antelope type animals.

Driving around,  and between,  the parks also brought the 4x4 into play, with lots of thick sand to negotiate. We managed to avoid getting bogged (sometimes only just) and even managed to tow out someone who was.  Great fun,  I can now better appreciate the fun of 4x4 driving - something to do when I decide I'm too old for bikes?

Safari - lite

Over the last week we've continued or way north through Namibia with our first destination being to see stone age rock carvings at Twyfelfontain. Many are 6000 years old so go back to the middle of the stone ages.

These carvings remind me of how long man has been wandering this planet; but also make me wonder- it took nearly 100,000 years for early homo-sapiens to reach this stage of deliberate painting, it took another 8000 years to reach the industrial revolution,  only 200 more to the computer; are we capable of successfully managing this  the current exponentially increasing pace of change? It's a thought I've had before but seeing the disparity between the average locals lifestyle and what most aspire to (courtesy of today's instant communications), the scarcity of resources and the obvious fragility of the local environment makes it more obvious and worrying.

Enough philosophizing. After  that it was on to see one of the major drawcards of the country, Etosha National Park, described by the Lonely Planet guide for southern Africa, as one of the must sees of the region because of the density and diversity of animals in a comparatively small area.

On the way Megan undertook a little retail therapy local style.

Etosha didn't disappoint, it is "safari lite" and set up for mass tourism, not a remote wilderness experience where you have to spend all day battling to get somewhere,  but for us it was perfect; when you start getting slightly blasé about seeing another elephant, zebra, rhino or giraffe you know you've been spoilt.

We spent three nights all told in the park, each at a different  campsite - slowly working our way from the parks west side to its east. Each campsites is in reality a large fenced resort with both chalets and camping areas available located next to a large water hole where you are almost guaranteed to see animals, especially now at the dry time of the year. You are shut in at night,  but during the day free to roam the roads and tracks. Each days routine was similar; up early to go to the waterhole adjacent to the camp, then spending the cooler hours at each end of the day driving around between the other waterholes of the park simply seeing what was on the move. There's a real excitement in turning a corner and seeing the animals of your childhood picture books simply strolling across the plain, or sometimes the road,  in front of you.

Now it is onwards to Botswana where we're hoping that we'll see more game including the big cats which have elude us so far.  (And hopefully by then I'll have worked out how to get the much better photos I have on my camera as well as these from my phone on to the blog)

Wandering north playing the tourist.

Now in Namibia after a very easy border crossing and slowly heading north to the game parks.

On the way through we stopped first at Fish River Canyon, the second (or third, depending on which source you read) largest after the Grand Canyon.  Impressive gouge in the earth's landscape - and apart from 50m either side of the minimal visitors centre not a safety rail to be seen to stop you plummeting 550m at the deepest point. Parked on the rim to watch sunset you took great care making sure you selected reverse as you moved off.

After the canyon it was on to Sosouvlei to see the sand dunes of the Namibian red desert. Again reputedly some of the largest in the world, but after Morocco and the Sahara at Christmas for me a bit of a disappointment, predominantly not because of the dunes themselves, but because how controlled the access was. No driving off the access road, no climbing the dunes except at a fixed tourist point. You were very much the herded tourist and felt you might have well come by bus. (Could have been worse though, they didn't even let motorbikes into the park, so if we'd been on those we would have had to go in by bus).

At the moment we've reached Walvis Bay on the coast. The Lonely Planet guide book struggles to find any positive contents about is architecture but I quite like it in its own way, it's a (relatively) buddy commercial town getting on with life and after a diet of tourist sites that's rather nice. The one tourist thing in town, and part of the reason we're here, is that it also features one of the largest concentrations of flamingoes in its bay.

To end on a much more positive note the roads here have been great. Vast majority are gravel but generally good condition so progress is reasonably rapid. Scenery is constantly changing, but here in the southern half of the country very dry and arid. A scenery lots of people find boring but generally I don't mind as there are always slow changes happening.