The Namib Desert

The sky was beginning to glow, white, in the northeast, sharply defining the jagged silhouettes of surrounding ridges. A near-full moon ahead, on our left, backlit the scrub bushes and sparse Camelthorn trees that dotted the broad, flat valley. The small truck raced along the loose gravel road, raising a ghostly cloud of dust in the soft light of pre-dawn.

Around us, no human light or enterprise marred the landscape. No litter decorated the ditch. We seemed alone –just our little truck, the white gravel road and the glowing horizon.
Our Namibian host and driver, Jan, twenty-something and all blond, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered Afrikaner bravado, was taking us deep into the red dunes of the Namib Desert at Sossusvlei to catch the low morning light define the dunes and to search for the abundant desert life before it slipped too far into the cooling sands.

The Namib-Naukluft National Park is one of the largest in the world, stretching along the southern coast of Namibia – the size of Belgium and Scotland combined, according to Jan. It protects a huge variety of landscapes, from the semi-arid scrubland that we were racing through on this morning, to the vast sand sea we were heading into.

We had arrived late the day before after a punishing 5-hour drive on loose gravel roads across a seemingly endless landscape of scrubland and jumbled ridges of rock. Jan’s family’s farm, now the Little Sossus Lodge, is a cluster of red stone huts clustered around the dining hall, in the centre of a broad bowl where two roads meet. The view from our hut’s picture window had been of a few tall, lonely thorn trees, standing like twisted umbrellas in a vast expanse of rippling golden grass. The distant ridges encircle the landscape, red-black and barren.

After a welcome shower and nap, a gin and tonic and robust farm dinner of Oryx meat and farm-grown vegetables, we had hit the sack early in anticipation of our early morning excursion.
And here we were, after our race across the darkened valley, cooling our heels at the Park’s main gate while the government guards decided when they felt like admitting us. The sun had broken over the horizon with a stark white light, but the chill still kept us bundled in our fleeces and scarves as we took turns photographing each other against the entry sign.

It was, at last, officially deemed dawn, and the gates were opened to about a dozen other vehicles like ours who then edgily raced each other onto the blacktop – the first we’d seen since leaving the main highway out of Windhoek.

Within minutes we had spotted our first animals – a few meters to our right, a Springbok bounced comically all four feet together over bushes while just as close on our left, a black backed fox slinked through the grasses keeping a wary eye on both us and the too energetic antelope. A little further on, a stately tan, black and white Oryx stood grazing – its long straight horns reaching almost a meter over its head. And here and there, big black dots hovering over the grasses turned out to be massive ostriches, their stick-like legs and necks visible only as we got closer.

But the highlight of the drive were the immense red dunes, carved to razor sharp ridges by the winds, their sinuous lines lit in stark black contrast by the low morning sun. Gold dust of desert grasses cover the lower slopes and speckle their sides, never reaching the less stable crowns. Most of these dunes are ‘off limits’ to climbers to preserve the delicate plant and animal life that makes its home here.

But there are two dunes that are accessible – Dune 45, “the” place to climb, with its cluster of vehicles at the base and long, ant-like line of tourists, and “Big Daddy”, at the end of the road and at 280 meters, considered one of the tallest dunes in the world.
We bypass both, agreeing that we need neither to check off the ‘famous’ dune nor to challenge ourselves with a 2-hour trek. Instead, we choose to explore the wind-blown sand patterns and abundant life with Jan.

He parks the truck and we trek into some low dunes, stopping frequently to study the spoor of the animals that come out at night – beetles, mice, lizards, rabbit, foxes, Springbok and Oryx, even a leopard! We comb through the “desert muesli” – nests of grasses and seeds blown in from beyond the sand that provide a ready source of food for the smaller animals. We dig into the sand, following tunnels of the dune beetle, trying to catch him as he burrows away from us and watch a ‘left right’ beetle scatter sand one way, then the next, in search of something to eat or sand suitable for a mid-day burrow.

After a short hike along the ridge of the smaller dune, Dead Vlei comes into sight. A ‘vlei’, is a white pan of calcite where the rivers that may run once every 5 or 6 years, come up against unbroken dunes and form shallow, life-giving lakes, before sinking into the sands. Dead Vlei was cut off from flowing water 600 years ago, but its white bed is still dotted with the stark black skeletons of the trees that once drew sustenance from the infrequent floods.

It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

In the white desert light, amidst the towering ochre red, wind-smoothed dunes, under an impossibly clear deep-blue sky, the solid white lakebed and wind-blackened tree skeletons paint a stark 4-tone abstract of colour and shape. I feel alone in the immensity of place, as if I’m standing on a brightly lit sound stage in a set that Dali would have imagined.

On the drive back to the lodge, as the rising sun softens and then eliminates the shadows, we feel that we’ve truly seen one of the most beautiful sights in the world. We felt no need to ‘prove’ ourselves against the harsh elements of a 2-hour climb. Instead, we stopped, looked down, dug into the shallow sands and learned a much more about the world around us.

Wine and Whales: Stellenbosch, Montagu and Hermanus

The fame of South Africa’s vineyards has spread around the world – and with good reason. The earliest Dutch governors planted vines on their estates in the 1600s, and the French Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution arrived not long after with refined vinter skills.

Today, a wine tasting expedition is a ‘must’ – and Steven, our local guide, chose the Rastenberg winery to show us the craft at its finest. The approach to the estate is impressive. At the fortified gate, our credentials and reservation are checked and we begin the long climb between small workers cottages, fields of crops and grazing cows and dense woodlands, before arriving at the bottom of a sweeping lawn.

Above us, set against a backdrop of mature trees and the sheer cliffs of the “Red mountain”, sits an impressive white Cape Dutch manor house, built several hundred years ago and still the seat of the wine-making family. Their other passion, it turns out, is gardening, and several acres beside the house are given over to vast formal gardens. During the South African spring, the beds are awash in colour.
We’re led through our ‘tasting’ by an experienced sommeliere whose passion for the wine is rivalled only by her desire to tell us stories of her own safaris to Kruger. Once again, we feel the genuine warm welcome of South Africaners. Francisco, of course, picks up 4 bottles, some of which he plans to bring home in his luggage, among them a smooth un-oaked Chardonnay called “5 soldiers” and an amazing red called Pieter Barlow 2006.

From South Africa’s famed Stellenbosch wine region, the little village of Montagu is a short drive over the mountains. Here, the air is crystal clear, the light is an artist-friendly white and birds create the sound-track. Far from the main highways, life moves at the pace of a by-gone era.

It sits at the gateway to the Little Karoo - a semi-arid region that is sunnier than Capetown but cooler than the arid regions further north. Set comfortably in a broad, bowl-shaped valley, it is surrounded by the Langeburg mountains, red and green flecked ramparts of fractured, folded sandstone that thrust jagged chimney profiles into the clear, blue sky.

During more prosperous times, European settlers built compact, beautiful houses in styles that reminded them of home, but using local materials:

- Cape Dutch with the steep, reed-thatched roofs and false-front ornate facades or half-hip gables
- Cape Georgian, flat-roofed, with bold, square, 2-storey facades, a central door and five large windows,
- Cape Victorian – 1 ½ storey cottages with gingerbread ironwork on steep-pitched gables and long, low porches.

Each of the houses is whitewashed and surrounded by red and orange bougainvillea-draped walls and well-tended gardens awash in riots of roses, protea and other exotic, unfamiliar flowers. Towering Jacaranda trees add a faint dash of purple to the sky overhead.

During a pre-dinner walk, the surrounding cliffs glowed ochre in the setting sun, we felt we had the entire village to ourselves, happily walking down the centre of the broad avenues to get the best camera angles.

Our lodgings for the night were at the Montagu Country hotel - an elegant set-piece of 1920s post-colonial South Africa. The entrance lobby opens onto a tidy bar, furnished in the clean angles and massive shapes of original Art Deco furniture, where we had cocktails with owner/manager Gert Lubbe before dinner. He clearly takes pride in the skilled pianist who serenaded our martinis with familiar show tunes. We moved into dinner in the candle lit, white linen draped formal dining room, to enjoy an elegant, lengthy meal, with local delicacies (lamb stew perfectly delicate in a just-right pastry purse, and minced beef under a cap of savoury custard) washed down by a fine wine from nearby Robertson, all served by lovely, well-trained staff. Digestives, in the lounge elicited colourful stories from Gert of his decades in the hospitality industry – but always with an ear open to the needs of all of his guests. A hotelier in the true sense, Gert sees the Montague Country Hotel as a reflection of the free-wheeling intra-war period –a deco, anything goes elegance when “style” was a means and an end.

The drive back to Capetown the next day, took us through some of the most exhilarating landscapes we have ever seen. We skirted steep, clean-sloped mountain ranges, endless walls that brushed the clouds, and when they opened up to broad, rolling, wheat-gold fields we drifted down to the sea.

Hermanus’ steep cliffs and deep bay are a favourite breeding and calving spot, for the Southern Right Whale in the Indian Ocean. No sooner had we arrived at the cliff top promenade, than a massive tail rose out of the water a few hundred meters off shore, and languidly saluted us before slipping below the surface.

Over the next few minutes we were treated to a number of additional sightings, and entertained by an adolescent calf who breached repeatedly and fell back-first into the water for several minutes before snuggling against his/her mother.

The town turns its face to the sea with a well-kept promenade and numerous glass fronted restaurants. So we took the time for a leisurely lunch with clear sightlines out to the deep bay and its huge inhabitants.

And as if that weren’t excitement enough, our drive along the South Western coast took us through a landscape that could only be compared to Big Sur – Steep-sloped mountains sweeping down into the pounding turf of the open ocean – in a long sweep towards Capetown. With so much to take in, it was still a struggle to keep from dozing off. Luckily Steven was at the wheel.

I don’t know where to start. After 2 days, I feel that we hit most of the high spots, yet have barely scratched the surface.

Our stylish little inn, called Cedric’s Lodge, is in the renovated old Malay Quarter where freed slaves had built their tiny huts outside the city walls. Restricted from bright colours when in servitude, they went wild when freed and historical accuracy now dictates that house sports a vivid paint job. On a quiet dead end street, the inn is only steps from some of the nicest little restaurants and shops in a quaint historic context. Yet we are only steps from the city centre and the touristy V&A Waterfront district.

Through a combination of an easy afternoon walk and a ticket on the convenient ‘hop on hop off’ double decker bus (a service offered in most tourist oriented cities), we hit many of the city’s ‘must do’ sights.

Long Street has some of the flavour of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The main shopping street, it is lined with wrought iron Victorian balconies and carved stone commercial facades proudly sporting their late-19th century construction dates. A short block away is the Greenmarket Square, defined by some lovely deco towers and bland ‘70s office buildings and given over to crafts most days. Beyond that, the green swatch of the Company Gardens, created by the Dutch East Indies Company to grow vegetables to provision its passing trading ships now houses hundreds of unique plants from around the world.

This is where you’d find a succinct resume of the Cape Colony’s history in architecture – the Slave Lodge where the Company kept 1,000 of its slaves at a time, the impressive red-brick and stucco columned Legislative building, the beautiful Dutch Colonial National Gallery (right) and beside it, the impressive Great Synagogue. The latter is still used every day by a proud, progressive Orthodox congregation that numbers over 1,000. It’s also home to the South African Jewish Museum and Holocaust Centre.

The Museum documents the history of a community that played a central role in the economic and political development of the country. We learned for example, that many of the early white anti-Apartheid activists were Jewish and watched a warm video message from Nelson Mandela.

The Holocaust Centre tells a vivid and effective story of how another policy of “apart-ness” led to mass murder in Europe , using the stories of survivors who settled in South Africa. The parallel with Apartheid is not accidental and is meant to sensitize future generations to the dangers of intolerance.

A few blocks away, we slipped into the District Six museum to learn how an entire sector of the city, a ‘messy’ melange of recent arrivals, different races and all religions, was displaced and bulldozed when the zone was declared a ‘whites only’ area. The clearing done, a public outcry prevented much of the planned re- and the blocks surrounding the museum remain an open wasteland of grass and weeds today, a sad memorial to the harsh impact of racial policy.

The bus tour was a welcome opportunity to sit and relax, in a somewhat cold and blustery Cape spring, and watch the natural beauty of the city’s environs whiz by. The Kloot Nek Road along the paws of “Lion’s Head”, the Table Mountain Road up to the base of the cable car – with a magnificent vista over the city and Table Bay, and Camp Bay Drive, down the backside of Table Mountain and along the beaches. This is the South Atlantic and the water is perennially too cold to swim, but the cliff-side homes are magnificent and so are their views over the white sand beaches and pounding surf.

We ended our brief visit to the newly gentrified Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (still don’t know how Alfred bumped Albert?!) for a dinner of the freshest Calamari, fish and chips I’ve ever tasted, sitting on a picnic table over the water, while the sunset behind Signal Hill (or the Lion’s Rump) paints the clouds overhead a vivid pink and the grey clouds that clothe Table Mountain slip over the edge and into the city.

What did we miss? The sobering visit to Robbins Island where Nelson Mandela was held for over 2 decades, was out of reach because tickets on the ferry are booked weeks in advance, and the high springtime winds kept the Table Mountain Cable car grounded. And what of the residents of Capetown? Our very superficial interactions with them have been full of warm smiles and eye-contact – a sense that genuine connections can be there, if we give it some time.

With only the surface scratched, we’ll clearly need to return some day.

The First Saviour - The Jo'burg Porter

The brutal introduction to South Africa is a long 11 hour flight from London. Done overnight, with a little blue sleeping pill, it seems to fly by, but the creaking bones and stiff muscles let us know that we’ve slept upright in narrow airplane seats.

We might not have made it if not for a very effective airport porter in Johannesburg. Our flight out of London, had been delayed by the weather (rain of course), and the need to fly around French air space (a strike, of course) which left us barely more than an hour to make it through immigration control, retrieve our bags, dash to another terminal and check in for a domestic flight. Predictably, we were steered away from the most logical direct route by an airport official who said there were shorter lines “just up stairs”. Up stairs turned out to be the entire departures area… how to find our next flight?

Having ignored the phalanx of porters on our way, I was ready to do so again when the skeletal little porter spotted our baggage tag and said “Capetown sir, this way, ya. You have your boarding pass sir?” He seemed to know exactly where our minds were and frankly, time was getting short. Before we knew what was happening, we had skirted around behind some counters, he had me putting our bags on an unsigned weigh scale and he had Fran standing at a counter with our passports and boarding passes issued in London. With the luggage weight approval slips, our bags were on a conveyor belt before we knew what was happening and he was steering us towards security while I dug frantically through our a knapsack for South African Rand for a tip.

Unsuccessful, I stuffed a British 5 Pound note into his bony hand … “British pounds sir? The bank will take so much in exchange. But OK just give me another 5 Pound note”. I figured almost $8 dollars was good enough for 10 minutes of service … particularly since he had me do all of the lifting and carrying. He smiled, pointed us to the gate and wished us a good trip.

A 10 minute dash later, we were through the relaxed security and on the boarding ramp – and with a moment to catch my breath, I thought “worth every pence”.

A whirlwind tour of London

Before continuing on to South Africa, we treated ourselves to two days in London. For museum rats like us, two days was hardly enough to visit the seat of the British Empire, the origin of countless colonial expeditions, the storehouse of extensive foreign spoils . Knowing we were planning to return, our friend Prit insisted it wasn’t even an appetizer, more like an amuse bouche.

We focused on the two most famous museums. The Victoria and Albert, known as the Nation’s Attic was only a few blocks from our perfectly located hotel in Kensington. It is a labyrinth of popular, ultra-modern, themed galleries (we jumped from Leonard da Vinci’s notebook in the Renaissance gallery to Adam Ant’s pirate costume in the Theatre section) and dusty, florescent-lit storage rooms that seem to go on forever with collections of ironwork, carpets, and statuary that no one seems to have looked at for eons.

The Casts Room was particularly impressive – actual plaster casts of huge monuments, including Trajan’s Column, Michelango’s David and the entire façade of a gothic cathedral. The jewellery exhibit led us on a tour of precious adornments from pre-history to 2010 – all glitter and gold. Elsewhere, lesser known works by Rodin were scattered amongst those by sculptors who influenced him, and those who reacted (positively or negatively) to his work (See Frederic, Lord Leighton's "The Sluggard" below).

By contrast, the British Museum, updated and capped by an impressive Norman Foster-designed central plinth and roof, is tidy and orderly. With thousands of archaeological artefacts and only two hours, we jogged through Ancient Egyptian, Abyssinian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman displays, pausing to squeeze up against the Rosetta Stone, skim the Elgin Marbles, gaze at a mummy and cower in the shadow of a Babylonian Lion gate.

And between museums we walked by Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square and St. Martin’s in the Field, Big Ben and Westminster, St. James’ Park, Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. Did I mention that we only had 2 days?

And the highlight? A simple dinner party, celebrating Manuela’s birthday with her, Prit and their friends. A chance to get to see where and how they live, meet an odd mix of modern Londoners (Swiss, French and Malaysian?) and enjoy some really good (Lebanese) food.

An amuse bouche indeed. Looking forward to the main course

A conversation in the Tube

A elderly man, red-rimmed eyes darting above an unshaven face, stumbles onto the Underground train. He trips slightly on our array of backpacks, almost losing his grasp on the dented can of beer in his right hand. I hear him swear not-quite-under-his breath and as he swings into the empty seat across from me he barely misses hitting several people with the guitar case strapped across his back.

Settled in, he turns to the rather proper 60-something women in the next seat and suggests, rather directly, that we all should have left our bags at the end of the car. "You can't" she says, "you'd be blocking the exits".

Thinking that this is the start of what might be an arguement, I avert my eyes and hunker down a little lower in my seat.

"Where you from?" the old crust asks his seatmate. "Leeds", I hear her say, following by a string of village, river and other landmark locators. "Oh, is that near ..?." the conversation continues. "Have you ever been to....

I'm surprised that in such a small country, there is so much geography, and that origins appear to be so important to understanding who each other is.

Credentials established, the conversation turns warm and meanders through music, performers seen, family, jobs (he's a busker, she's a retired teacher). By the time they part, they sound like they've known each other for years. And perhaps, having placed each other in time and geography, they have.

And We're Off

The first, and probably hardest part of any trip is packing for it. And ouash, what do you pack for 9 weeks on the road? Well it turns out you pack exactly the same as you do for a 2-week trip, and just plan to wash more often.

I've be putting off the inevitable "final pack", perhaps thinking I would be hit by inspiration; getting increasingly nervous as our departure neared. Do I bring jeans or not? Do I need both pairs of Tilly pants? What is the optimal number of shoes - minimizing weight while maximizing utility. Hasn't someone invented an 'ap' for this?

For this particular trip, it's complicated by a 33 lb weight limit on some of the lighter aircraft we will be taking. Today's final weighin brought me to 35 lbs, not counting my carry-on ... which does count! I'm going to have to lose something along the way. I think I can do it by discarding books as I read them, giving away some t-shirts and sending some clothes home with Francisco when he heads home.

But I did get through the final case 'packing-jitters', muscled the zippers on my backpack closed, and didn't even blink when Uncle Fernando was 15-minutes late for our ride to the airport. We made it with loads of time, and are now sitting at the gate, drinking Starbuck's hot chocolate, and watching flights load for Istanbul and Abu Dhabi.

And I'm feeling very calm, knowing that all I have to do is get onto the plane, fall asleep for a few hours, and get off in London. Piece of cake. :)

What to do on Day One?

I have planned for this for over 5 years. I've read guide books, studied maps, talked to others who have set out on similar adventures. I disposed of my house (temporarily) and purged my office, said goodbyes and promised frequent updates.

Today is Day One of my real sabbatical ... now what?

Apparently I don't feel a need for any symbolic "slipping of the tethers". Instead, I've found my way across town to a Second Cup coffee shop on Toronto's young and chic King Street West where a super friendly barista teaches me how to order my Vanilla Bean Latte "half-sweet with homogenized milk" (not skim!). A sweet woman with vivid red hair looks over her paper and, with a smile, informs both of us that "skim holds the foam better".

On the sidewalk outside, black-sheathed creative types in their 20s and slim financial sector clones with good hair and the latest pastel shirts wait for the streetcar to their Wednesday morning ambitions. It's a cool-humid, overcast day and everyone moves heavily.

Around me, others are absorbed in their coffees and laptops... I feel like I've joined a cult. And my initiation is this sweet little black and white netbook that I've just connected to a wireless network for the very first time! So far, so good. But I have so much to learn.

I know friends and colleagues are wondering "how does it feel?".

Clearly, it's too early to tell. I have errands to run today - buy a backpack, adjust a downspout, pick up some dry cleaning, vote, maybe go to the gym. But I'm relaxed and confident that I can disengage completely from work - my team is on top of everything. It's still a week and a half before we fly to Africa for a highly structured tour that from here looks like just another vacation - albeit a lengthy one.

My first step on this adventure appears to be a tentative toe dip off of the beaten path. An expedition to a new part of town, a coffee I've never ordered before, and a nervous venture into new technology.

Perhaps fittingly, the pure tones of Nat King Cole's "I'll be Home for Christmas" waft through the coffee shop. [Wait, it's only October!]