A Mozambique Roadtrip

After the relative orderliness of South Africa, the chaos of the Mozambique border crossing is a plunge into the Africa we had expected to encounter. Long shuffling lines full of anxious local travellers, multiple counters with forms to fill out and officials to send you to yet another line, and touts with official looking vests who offer to ‘speed your way through’ for a fee.
We are lucky that we are travelling with an experienced guide, who can plant us in the appropriate line and manage the officials with firm courtesy.

With visas and forms stamped, and surprisingly, no additional fees to be paid, we head off towards Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city. It first appears on the horizon as a gleaming line of white high-rises, more Miami than tropical outpost. However, as you near, it’s developing world credentials become more apparent.

The main road passes first through shanty towns, alive on a Saturday morning with impromptu roadside markets teaming with colourful life. Then entering the downtown, we’re struck by the broad, European avenues, lined with mature trees and tall apartment and office towers.

It appears very modern and cosmopolitan until you take a closer look. On the multi-story apartment blocks, the concrete is crumbling, the paint has faded, windows are broken and the breeze block grills are shattered or missing. Relatively modern buildings from the 60s or early 70s have seen little care since then.

The reason is that when the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal fell in 1974, the colonial masters simply abandoned Mozambique and fled home. What they didn’t take with them, they sabotaged (concrete in wells and waste treatment system, for example). And they had done no succession planning; no one was in charge. The resulting chaos and civil war, pitting a socialist government against right wing rebels supported by neighbouring South Africa and Rhodesia, left the country tattered. Now, with peace barely a decade old, there’s still a lot of rebuilding to do.

The city’s core is still quite lovely- from a rococo Manueline museum, to the Beaux Arts city hall, from the soaring white Catholic cathedral to stunning deco movie theatres and office buildings, there is so much to admire. Throw in a few quirky details, like an amazing domed train station designed by Gustav Eiffel (and his iron State House that, under the tropical sun, has always been too ‘oven-like’ to inhabit), a charming Victorian arched City Market , and a cooling botanical garden and there’s lots for a traveller to admire. But between these barely maintained sights, structures are crumbling. Roofless ruins may have trees growing from their interiors and still viable shops tucked into corners of the ground floors. Like Havana, it is a sadly beautiful city.

Unhindered and hassle free, virtually ignored, we wander streets visit the Nucleo de Arte collective and settle comfortably into a shady sidewalk cafe. The occasional vendor walks by selling towers of electric converters, but for the most part, no one even gives us a second glance. Foreign travellers here are rare enough that they have yet to obtain the bullseye targets they’ve acquired in more touristed spots.

After a lovely dinner of grilled seafood, Vino verdhe and chorizo, and a good night’s sleep (well-guarded by the US ambassador’s security detail with some Marine Corp banquet event in the ballroom), we headed out of town for the long drive north to the Barra Peninsula.

For 7 hours, we drive across the green rolling hills of Southern Mozambique, passing through small plots of Pineapple, Maize, Cassava and plantations of coconut palms and scattered wild cashew trees. The agriculture is more subsistence than enterprise, and the cultivators live in small clusters of huts amongst the fields.

The predominant structure is a round hut with a conical roof, all made of the thick reeds that grow in the river floodplains. Occasionally the huts turn into squares, and even more occasionally the reed walls are replaced with cinder block or large red bricks. The bricks themselves are made in the beehive kilns we see scattered by the riverbanks, constructed of the same materials they are used to fire. North of Xie-Xie, as palm trees become more common, the reeds give way to palm fronds.

It hits me that none of the huts, in fact none of the villages we see in the distance, have roads to them. Their only connections to the outside world are meandering footpaths.

And the coast’s highway we follow, a solid multilane blacktop, is the most important pathway of all. It is Sunday morning, and along the entire route, women in white suits and floppy hats and men in wide ties and ill-fitting shirts, walk along the shoulder or plod single file along footpaths in the ditch on their way to some unseen church perhaps miles away.

In the small towns we pass though, the main streets are lined with picturesque Portuguese colonial structures from the 20s and 30s, with broad porches and fading paint. Women wrapped in colourful sheath skirts balance plastic pails on their heads, little boys run through the dust pushing toy trucks made of bent wire on tin can wheels, affixed to handles that rise to their skinny waists. Small buses, packed with those travelling to neighbouring villages stop to disgorge and pick up passengers while vendors crowd up against the open windows trying to sell everything from fruit and beverages to personal care products.

And there are occasional sights that tug on the heart-string. A young boy, no more than 7, balances a cinderblock on his tiny bald head, trudging along a path behind his older brother. A few miles further on, an even younger girl walks behind her brother, both with large bundle of sticks for firewood balanced on their heads. The schools we see are large, solid fenced structures that seem inaccessible to the children of the hut dwellers.

As we breeze through the vast rolling country side, Johannes Kerkorrel singing his Liberal protest songs in Afrikaans on the tape deck, we never feel completely alone. There are always people by the side of the road, walking at a careful pace, or vendors, reaching out into the road, imploring us to stop at their ‘shops’ – roadside trees decorated like Christmas with white plastic bags of cashew nuts or stands with glass bottles full of yellow liquids (petrol?) or milky white beverages (coconut wine?), and ramshackle stands of the local hot sauce (Piri piri).

We drive straight through, stopping only twice for beverages, and by mid-afternoon, have reached the turn off at Inhambane. From here, the road enters the Barra peninsula – a broad arm of white sand dunes and palm trees that reaches up into the Indian Ocean. The people here by the side of the road, suddenly appear more relaxed. Men in shorts (new to us), occasionally shirtless, work on small construction projects (one pounding metal into something in front of his open shop, another threading palm fronds through wooden up-rights to create a hut). Young boys leap gleefully into the bay from a breakwater, women sit in clusters under trees turning to watch us as we bounce by on the red dirt road.

And just when you think it is all timeless and exotic, we are reminded of the global culture; young men in loose pants and young women in tight jeans, walking along the pathways near town, their heads bowed, and arms raised in that ubiquitous texting gesture.

It is an easy drive, but a long one, so it is a relief to arrive at our destination. Our bags are transferred from Steven’s truck into a Land Rover and are taken to the very tip of the peninsula. Our hotel, the Flamingo Bay Resort, is a fantasy: 20 open cabins on stilts, balanced over the tidal flats a hundred meters out from shore across a rickety wooden walkway. We arrive at high tide, and the turquoise water is 20 feet deep and teeming with fish below our cabin floor boards. From the balcony a wooden staircase leads directly into the water and the first thing I do is don my mask and snorkel and wash off the road dust in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

The first rains in Africa

We were honoured to be invited to a ‘brei’ by two South Africans staying in the next bungalow. The Brei stand was readied, the starter chips lit and the wood piled on. While the flames danced and the coals began to glow, we drank Castle beer and talked of the weather.

As I’d said, it has been hot and dry. Very hot, very still, very dry. The scrub brush is for the most part a ghostly grey, and the grasses where they still stand, are a golden yellow. But where animals have worn away the ground cover, the dry red sand dominates.

The bleakest vista is the burn … generally controlled burns to encourage tender new shoots, but in places, vast tracts of blackened grass and scorched trees where fires appear to have burned out of control.

One of the black park rangers, “Lucky”, drove his safari vehicle up onto the brown grass beside our bungalow, was handed a beer, and joined our little circle. He too spoke of the need for rain.

The coals ready, our hosts placed an empty cast iron pot on one side of the grill. The smoke rising straight into the now darkened sky, they first laid out a single long link of beef sausage. When it was deemed ready, it was dropped into the pot to stay warm. Next, lamb chops, onto the grill, turned at regular intervals, and added to the warming pot. Chicken that had been marinated and ‘par-cooked’ landed on the grill, and then joined the other meats to stay warm.

Finally, a white bread sandwich with salmon, tomato and onions – flipped by quick fingers to grill lightly on both sides.

As we sat down to eat the brei feast, accompanied by a fresh green salad prepared in a frying pan, the air started to stir. No sooner had we popped open another round of beers, then the wind came up. Glancing out from under the thatched roof of the porch, we noticed the dome of stars had been obliterated by clouds and on the horizon, white flashes of lightening.

While in Canada, we might have worried about rain ruining our planned activities, our South African hosts spoke of hope that the rains were starting. October is the hottest, driest month, and therefore, the best time for game viewing because the animals congregate at waterholes and leafless trees open up longer vistas. But it is also known as suicide month because the 40 degree heat is oppressive. The water holes were dry and the rains were already late.

That evening, when the first few drops fell, you could feel the landscape let out a collective sigh. We moved our makeshift table under the roof, but the meal was abandoned as the South Africans stood out in the thickening rain, faces turned to the sky, open cans of beer in hand, slowly getting drenched.

As the first drops dampened the dust, we were enveloped by the smell of thirsty terracotta. The wind stirred the tree tops and turned cool and our hosts laughed.

We’ve seen the first rain in Africa, and felt the joy of those who await its arrival.

The Wealth of Kruger National Park

Kruger is the crown jewel of South Africa’s National Park System. This vast swath of land the size of Wales on the border with Mozambique remains in a pristine state. It had never been settled by the colonizing Dutch, Boer or English because of the deadly tsetse fly – now thankfully eradicated – so the landscape looks as it has for millennia.

Today, the park is the place to go to spot the “big five” – Elephant, Buffalo, Rhinoceros, Lion and Leopard – and hundreds of other animals and birds, but to do it in comfort.

The park’s accessibility, only a 4 or 5 hour drive from Johannesburg, gives South Africans a nearby opportunity to connect with the land from the comfort of their own vehicles. Most of the main roads are paved, and even the dirt side roads are graded on a regular basis. So we share the roads with families in Audis, Toyotas, Volkswagens and BMWs.

We are spending 5 days here, moving from Satara Camp to Skukuza Camp and finally to Lower Sabie Camp. Our accommodations are rustic compared to the “Private Reserves” that many well-heeled tourists stay in, but are downright luxurious compared to accommodations in our own Provincial Parks. Each party is assigned a Rondevaal, a round brick bungalow with a steep, conical thatched roof. Inside, the living space has twin beds, a ceiling fan and air conditioner – welcome relief from the 40 degree mid-day high – and an en-suite bathroom. On the porch is a little kitchen with a sink, 2-burner hotplate and fridge, and a cupboard equipped with 2 of every type of plate, cup or glass you could want as well as a small slat table and two chairs.

Most importantly, there is a ‘brei stand’ in front of each rondevaal – a shallow waist-high pan with rotating grill on which our South African neighbours burn firewood down to red-hot coals and barbeque their evening meals. After the sun sets at 6:30 and the gates in the encircling fences are closed, the 25 brei-stands in front of the 25 bungalows in our circle are virtually all alight and leaping with flame, and an hour later, 25 couples sit at the 25 identical tables on 25 identical, dimly lit porches around the circle and eat their evening meal while discussing the game they had spotted that day.

And the game is there to be spotted! On our 4-hour slow drive today from Satara to Skukuza, we spotted all of the ‘big five’: NB all photos by Francisco Juarez.
1. a massive Square-lipped (or ‘White’) Rhino squatting in the shade of a thorn-tree while a herd of Impala meandered by in the fore-ground,

2. a Hippopotamus lolling in a small river rolled over on his back and waved all four legs in the air, pink belly exposed (our experienced guide had NEVER seen that before),

3. two male lions resting in a grove of trees by the side of the road, panting and grooming their paws,

4. a leopard, very difficult to spot, stretched out in the crook of a Sausage Tree, tail twitching, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see what we were up to on the road, and of course,

5. elephants in the bushes, elephants on the roadside, elephants at the waterhole, elephants tearing down trees.

While spotting all of the big 5 is a badge of honour, we had a great deal of fun watching:
=a road-side mother giraffe orchestrate the stately withdrawal of her yearling and 2-year old babies,

= waterbuck tentatively stepping into the knee deep mud by the side of a river to drink as massive Nile Crocodiles floated on the surface only a few meters away,

= huge Ground Hornbills, a meter in height, wandering onto the road, with brilliant red neck pouches, their glossy black feathers fluffed to admit a cooling breeze,

= A tiny adolescent Steenbok, usually skittish, standing calmly under a thousand year old Baobab tree and posing for a wonderful shot, and

= Endless herds of sleek Impalas (or as our guide Steven calls them “Nafi”s – Not another F’ing Impala) everywhere.

And we see all of this, dressed in sandals, t-shirts and shorts, sitting in the Africa Outing touring van, with Steven, our Mel Gibson doppelganger guide at the wheel, me in the front seat, camera and binoculars at the ready, and Francisco in the back seat, sliding from side to side to take shots every time we spot an animal and stop. And with his 18 times zoom, his shots are amazing. So good, that I generally leave my little 10x zoom in the case and simply watch.

As I write this at 4pm and it is a bright hot 40 degrees. I’m seated at the table on the porch of our Skukuza rondevaal, watching a dragonfly float by on the warm breeze coming off the Sabie River. Fran is taking a nap (of course), Steven, his duties completed for the day, has discretely slipped away, and I’m looking forward to a dip in the swimming pool before the other visitors return from their afternoon drives and the camp gates are locked for the evening.

The Elephant roadblock: Chobe Safari

On a dry sandy road on the banks of the Chobe River, the elephants set up a road block.

A massive bull backed up against a dry, grey tree, draped his trunk over the back of the mature female backed up against him and firmly nudging her trunk. Leaning against her was a smaller female gently sheltering a baby between her knees. Behind them, a cluster of ears, trunks and legs showed there were several other adults in this mass of tough, wrinkled grey hide and swaying body parts stretching right across the loose sand road merely meters ahead.

And in the bone dry forest around us, in clusters and alone, were more than two dozen other elephants, eyeing us warily, flapping their enormous ears and sniffing the air with their trunks.
Sure I was nervous. We had just driven the Land Rover right into the middle of this herd. These were not the domesticated work elephants I rode on trek in Thailand, these were wild African elephants, easily able to overturn our truck with a single swing of their long, pitted tusks. Was I imagining, or were they agitated?

Presley, our experienced driver and guide, had warned us to stay still, stay quiet. As long as we looked like one solid object to the elephants’ poor eyesight, we were safe, but if we looked like a collection of vulnerable individual animals … he didn’t finish the sentence.

And then, a large female, one of her tusks turned sideways in some unfortunate incident, trotted out of a cluster of trees, heading straight for us. Forgetting Presley’s advice, I let out a gasp and leaned in; further into the open Land Rover. She passed, mere inches from me. She neither broke stride nor looked at me and in a second, was gone.

That’s when Presley decided to break the road block. He gunned the motor, and took a run at the female on the left. She raised her head, flapped her ears and took a step back. Then two steps towards us, swinging her head. The tight cluster of elephants on the right seemed to shift, opening up space, and as we watched, the sheltered baby, no more than 4 feet high, ran through the corridor of legs and into the bushes.

Presley backed up. This seemed to relieve some of the pressure. A few of the mature elephants followed the baby into the bush. But the one with the shaking head, and the massive bull remained, facing us, still blocking the road. Presley gunned his motor again, and 4 wheels spinning in the sand, started to move slowly towards the bull. Towards his hind quarters. The female seemed to rear slightly, then backed, shook her head one more time and turned into the bush. Presley didn’t let up – continuing to head towards the bull. And then, with what might have been a derisive toss of his trunk, he too turned and trotted off into the forest.

The road was clear. It had taken only a few moments, but the images will forever be burned into my memory.

This challenge, this close contact been vulnerable humans and the migrating wildlife, is what makes Chobe National Park in Northern Botswana so special. The Park sits on the banks of one of the main tributaries of the mighty Zambezi River, and contains one of the most concentrated collections of African wildlife in southern Africa – drawn to the meandering river and broad, green floodplain, particularly during the dry season.

Over the course of two game drives and a river expedition, we watched a lone male giraffe strip new leaves off the tops of a tree a few feet off of the track, looked into the gaping mouth of a Nile Crocodile as it sat on the bank cooling itself in the breeze, felt the surge as huge Hippopotamuses, moments earlier grazing peaceably on the riverbank slipped clumsily into the river and submerged. We slowed as a family of Warthogs ran single file across the road in front of us with their tails held high in a ‘follow me’ signal and paused to watch hundreds of Zebras trot across the open grasslands, and three Black Backed Jackals cross an opening in the woods in single file.

And the African (Cape) Buffalo, like a big cow in a funny headdress, but really one of ‘Big Five’ because of its short temper and sharp horns, sar in the shade of a tree watching us. Or the metre long Water Monitor, looking for croc’s eggs with a darting tongue.

All around us, so numerous that they became common, were herds of Impalas, Waterbucks, Kudus, Red Lechwes, Steenboks, and the very rare Roan and Puku antelopes.

And the birds: the magnificent African Fish Eagle, coppery Carmine Bee Eater, Red Billed Hornbill (flying chilli pepper), the turquoise Lilac Breasted Roller, the Go Away Bird, and the Red Billed Francolin, the hovering Pied Kingfisher, the tall Saddle Billed Stork, the ‘pinging’ Blacksmith Lapwing, the really stupid looking Helmeted Guinea Fowl, the African Harrier Hawk, Hooded Vulture and Mariboo stork. And the list goes on. All names are my interpretation of Presley’s beautiful accent.

Our base for this intriguing expedition is the beautifully situated Muchenje Lodge, a row of wooden cabins with steep thatched roofs arrayed in a line along the crest of the valley ridge. From the front porch of each cabin, guests enjoy an almost endless vista over the broad Chobe floodplain. The staff join guests for communal meals where the days sightings are compared, questions are answered, and informal political discussions are sparked – like the one we had about the potential impact on South Africa of Nelson Mandela’s eventual passing, or on Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe’s eventual “end”. Our fellow guests were Belgians, Australians and Americans and every day, a new cast of characters arrive.

Chobe is one of Africa’s lesser-known parks, lacking the accessibility of Kruger, or the popularity of Serengeti. But the concentration of wildlife, and the ability to drive for 5 hours and not see another tourist, makes this a secret worth keeping.

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!]

Paris in July

In the dappled shade of the manicured trees, the free-wheeling strains of Stephan Grappelli jazz tumbles over a small crowd. Relieved to be out of the white, July sunlight, they sit back in green metal chairs, their tapping feet raising small clouds of white dust.

Place St. Jean is a formal, tranquil Parisian park proudly tucked between the eastern tip of the Ile de la Cite and the impressive gothic tracery of Notre Dame. After a day of wandering the beautiful streets of the Right Bank, I've paused in this peaceful little space to listen to a relaxed, young quartet of musicians entertain an eclectic audience of tourists and Parisians. Around me, slim young lovers in skinny black jeans, lean against a plane tree linking fingers and swaying in unison to the music; corpulent tourists in colourful shorts try to discretely select camera angles without bloking the views of others; a little boy, a blond putti in blue, tears around the dusty white court looking for sticks to use as swords; older women in conservative skirts and tailored jackets, their hair tinted and coiffed in a proper style, sit with their handbags on their laps and lean in to exchange observations.

It's a perfect end to a meandering day. My sole objective had been to watch Paris at play on a warm July Saturday. And there was so much to see. The courtyards of the Louvre and the Tuilleries saturated with camera-happy crowds from around the world; the quais of the Seine remodelled as "Paris Plages", teeming with strolling crowds, watching and being watched by others stretched out in imaginary-vacation mode on wooden beach chairs on truck dumped sand beneath boxed palm trees; shoppers laden with their afternoon spoils squeezing by each other along the broad sidewalks of the Rue St. Honore and Boulevard de la Madeleine.

I find pockets of tranquility as well: a quiet side street, and a sandwich bar with a few sidewalk tables; the sanctuary of La Madeleine, where the organist is practicing for this evening's recital of Mozart's Requiem; the green refuges around the Tour St. Jacques and in the courtyard of the Palais Royal; the startling exhibit of Evard Munch's journey from realist landscape painter to "The Scream" at the oddly named Pinacotheque; the quiet corner of a Quai where a young couple share earbuds and dance a languid tango to their own private music.

It is the quiet corners of Paris that I prefer, the green spaces, smaller museums and narrow back streets that give me at least the momentary impression that I am Parisian and that this infinitely beautiful city, this epitome of sophisticated urban design, is mine. That I belong here.

On Townsend Common

It's early evening on Townsend Common, a manicured square of green grass and towering oaks at the heart of this 300-year old town in Northern Massachusetts. Two churches, one of white clapboard, one of brick, punctuate the turquoise and pink evening sky. The bunting on the local tavern across the street, quivers in the gentle breeze.

In the gingerbread green and white band shell, the Townsend Military band tumbles through John Philip Sousa and George Gershwin. Their rotund band leader shivers with joy as each piece builds to a crescendo. A toddler, braced by his broadshouldered dad, clings to the railing for an upclose view of his mother playing Bassoon.

Out on the grass, as the light fades and the lamps create pools of warm yellow light, the fresh-faced teens gather in clusters to flirt and tussle. Their younger siblings run foot-races through the adults, who are settled comfortably into folding lawn chairs and sprawled on blankets and munch contentedly on fried dough, cotton candy and giant pretzels.

There's a gentle current of low conversation and staccato laughter that mingles with the brassy music of the band. Neighbours catch up, boys challenge, girls exclaim, children shout.

This is the Thursday Band Concert on Townsend Common. The lead-up to the Fourth of July. A Norman Rockwell vision of a tranquil town, where people connect without electronics, teens wear belts and hear without earbuds, and the band plays Sousa until the sun sets and the children begin to yawn.