Ride the Hippo

We can’t say that we weren’t warned ahead of time. An ex-colleague swore that it would happen to us. The guidebooks that we read before our trip cautioned about it in bold type. Our first host in Johannesburg – a hardy realist who pulled no punches on her opinions said that she could see it coming with us after just a 5 minute conversation.

Well, she was right. Here we are back in Europe, hopelessly afflicted. Africa - this vast, backwater, incredibly complicated continent has somehow managed to imbed itself firmly under our skin. And that is only after 16 days in 4 countries. We want to go back. We need to go back. The place is so fantastic!

I don’t even know where to begin. It’s almost too overwhelming. We saw and experienced everything that I wrote about in my last blog entry – the crime, the beauty, the corruption, the wealth, the poverty, the hostility, the hospitality, the real wildlife, the tourist parks - but it all exists within a context that is somehow lost in the popular media representations of it.

In other words, we see a film clip of a mud hut and a woman that must walk 1000 meters to get to a pump to get the drinking water for the day and we think “poor Africa. How can they live like that?” But with only the picture, and of course some sentimental musical accompaniment, we miss the broader context. We miss the cultural implications. We miss the pride and the community surrounding that mud hut and the daily walk to the well – we miss the reality of all the things that are slipping away in large swaths of the developed world, but that still exist in these communities.

Don’t get me wrong. It is very complicated. They need more wells. They need more clothes. They need more food. They need more medicine. But the last thing that they need is Western First World standards imposed upon them. Those standards just don’t fit, and by applying them universally as good or desirable we are impoverishing their spirit and culture more than they, or we can ever imagine. I know this will be a controversial statement, but it is a blog and I am allowed to express my opinion, right? When we were driving through Chobe National Park in Botswana we went through a rather large village. Mud huts, shared wells, etc. They did have electricity so it was a relatively well off village. But then I saw a section of newer concrete block houses - a subdivision for lack of a better word. There were 12 or 15 structures, a bit larger than the mud huts, with shingled roofs and electricity and private toilets. In front of the sub-division was a large, colorful sign – Another Habitat for Humanity Project.

It was the most pathetic thing that I saw on our whole journey, including a walking tour of the squatter slums of Soweto outside Johannesburg! Not because it spoiled some tourist’s notion of an African village, but because it was devoid of their culture, their soul, and their daily activity. I know that a project like this is always well intended, and most likely well received by the locals. But to me this type of thing robs them of their own identity by projecting some sort of western notion of advancement or success on them. It’s about context. Theirs is not ours, and just as importantly, ours is not theirs. In my opinion there are much better ways to help.

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“Will Mr. Glasstetter please step away from the soapbox!”

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Ok, on to the trip itself. Of course I took hundreds of photos and video of animals and scenery, and there are also hundreds of stories and experiences that are worth mentioning, but I will limit my posting to a few dozen, mostly of people and events that had a memorable impact and that you might find enjoyable. I can already tell that this will be the longest posting in the three year history of this blog. If you want more, come on over with a few beers or a bottle of wine and we’ll be happy to show pictures and tell stories into the wee hours of the night.

I’ll start with animals, since that is the first thing that most people think about when someone mentions a trip to Africa. We saw arc loads! The wild animals are mostly in parks, but the parks are enormous! To give you an idea, we travelled for 5 days in the Okavango Delta and Moremi Wildlife Park and saw less than 10 other vehicles. It was truly wild country, with truly wild animals.

A classic scene - Zebras will hang with anyone, including lions.

We came across a large group of baboons sunning themselves on a cold morning. There were maybe30 or 40 of them. But these two were hilarious. The guy on right kept getting up and moving a few yards away from the guy on the left. The guy on the left kept getting up and following him, trying to sit as close as possible. After watching this group for half an hour, there is no doubt in my mind that evolution is real.

The first few days in the delta we didn’t see any hippos. We could hear them every evening so our anticipation was building. Our guide warned us how dangerous that they are…only one other animal kills more people in Africa. So on our last evening outing with the makoros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makoro) we went hippo “hunting” and we found them! It was in a large pool and there was a mother hippo who kept surfacing and spouting air to warn us to stay away. I kept hearing the theme song from Jaws everytime that she went back under water and we couldn’t see her. Our adrenaline was pumping at full capacity during the 30 minutes that we watched her. It turns out that we ended up seeing hundreds of hippos in Moremi and Chobe…but I’ll never forget that first one that was only meters away and we were in the water with nothing more than a small wooden canoe.

And the deadliest animal is related to a cow?! Crazy! But these water buffalo are big, mean, and very aggressive. They don’t mock charge like most animals. “If one starts at you, you better run your ass off ‘cause he ain’t gonna stop till you are under hoof.”

We lived with the elephants for the three days that we spent on an island in the Okavango Delta. They were constantly around the camp site eating the palm trees and drinking from the hanging shower. They may look cute, but these suckers are intimidating as they crash through and shake the trees. And their stomachs make these strange roaring sounds that sounded like lions, until we heard the real thing a few days later. Trust me, they are not tame. Just hungry and too big to care about a little campsite.

Beautiful! Just an overgrown housecat, until you hear them roaring at 2:00 AM not far from the tent. More impressive was the leopard that we saw, but none of those photo’s came out.


Warthogs! I loved these guys! They are so damned ugly…


One evening on the makoros we rounded a very small island to see this monster crocodile hanging out in the bush. We had to stand in the boat to be able to see him. At one point we thought that he was a planted animatron that would soon open its mouth and let out a fake roar. But then our lead guide poled us around the back of the island so that we could get a closer look at the croc. It was enormous! Maybe 15 feet long. We were all snapping photos when the thing sprung up and dashed into the water. I was glad when our poler started to push us away from the island. I didn’t want to be in the water with that thing! But then instead of moving further away from the island, he steered us around the other side to chase the croc! Holy shit! Luckily, we didn’t find him again…

…but we did find his vanquished foe. This dead croc was in the reeds across from the island. It was a few days old and stunk to high heaven, but our guide was fascinated with the battle that must have taken place between the two and had to lift the corpse out of the water for a picture. It was the only picture that we took over three days that he asked for a copy of.

I know that this photo won’t mean anything to anyone, but we were with our makoro crew for three days and they were instrumental in making the Okavango Delta one of the highlights of our trip. These guys were a hoot! I think that they were more excited than we were to see the animals.

Just in case you didn’t follow the Wikipedia link above, here is a picture of a makoro…with a hot African babe trying to navigate it. Don’t laugh! It’s harder than it looks. Although we did have a makoro race amongst us tourists....and the winner was.....makoro Dan!

This is a typical campsite that we stayed in. Most places we set up and broke our own wilderness camp, leaving nothing but footprints behind. We always put our tents in a “magic circle” to keep the wild animals out at night….it didn’t work for the elephants.

We all expected to lose a bit of weight on this trip, but our fearless leader was also a hell of a chef and I ended up putting on a kilo! Look at that pot of noodles…lot’s of improvised meals.

You can’t see much in this photo, but campfires were a big part of our day. It got dark around 5:30-6:00 so we spent many hours in front of the fire, eating, drinking, and telling stories. Gezellig!

We also camped a few nights without the tents. This time was on a huge salt pan (visible from space). You can see the next couple sleeping over in the distance. At first it was a bit intimidating (and cold!), but once you were snuggled into the sleeping bag, with the expansive milky way rolled out above you, it was a fantastic experience. I’ve never seen stars like that before.

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, we did hit a few very nice lodges in between our wild camping. This one was in Nata in Botswana. Swimming in the afternoon. Steak and wine for dinner....seriously roughing it.


A typical house in the Botswana countryside. The mud comes from termite mounds.

We walked through one of the local villages to get a better feel for the place and just like in the movies, the children swarmed around us. At first they wanted candy, but then they just wanted to play. All that I had to do to get hysterical laughter from them was to take off my hat and show them my bald, white head.



We filled our water at the village pump just like everyone else.

We did get out for a few walking safaris where you could get up close and personal with the animals. We had complete confidence in our guide and never doubted that he could stop a charging elephant if needed. “Don’t run. They always mock charge. If you stand firm, they will veer off before running you over. If you run, you are most likely dead.”

Taking a break after a morning hike.

We flew in and out of the Okavango Delta via these little bush planes. The flight was incredibly scenic. We could see herds of elephants, water buffalo’s and giraffes. It was like an Animal Planet documentary.

We based ourselves out of the small town of Maun in between the Delta and the other parks and took an opportunity to shop in their market. Note the looks that we’re getting for a) being white, and b) using a camera.

What do you do when your safari truck runs out of gas in the middle of freaking nowhere? You set up camp, catch some sun, and rely on the generosity of strangers to bail you out.

Oh yea, and you watch the wildlife along the Chobe river.


The easiest job in the world must be photographer in Africa. It’s really quite hard to find a bad shot.



Unbelievable! Victoria Falls. This is one of the most incredible natural things that I have ever seen. A mile long gash in the earth where the Zambezi River crashes into a deep gorge only a few hundred yards wide. It creates its own tropical rain forest climate zone and produced the only clouds that we saw on our entire trip. I’ve never been that wet before without actually falling into the water. Even the baboons enjoyed the scenery.


We decided to join the primates for a ride on the vines.





We also took an opportunity to white water raft the mighty Zambezi. It had been closed for the past month due to high water but had just reopened before we got there. The hike into/out of the gorge was fantastic and the white water was rough. Rapid 16a,b, and c (The Terminator I/II and Judgment Day) was a kilometer long frothy ride with a class 5+ 16 foot wave right in the middle. I swear that we caught air coming off that thing! Unbelievable! Our kayak support crew took some video and also played a mean game of volleyball on a deserted sandy beach at lunch time.

Our fearless leader Hendrik took us out on a sunset booze cruise on the upper Zambezi for our last night in Vic Falls.

The night quickly deteriorated into trying to drink shots as different animals might (here a giraffe drinking)….


…until we ended up dancing at a dusty bar somewhere in Zimbabwe. Some stories are better left untold…

When we got back to Johannesburg we had an extra day before our flight so we decided to tackle our stereotypes and fears head on there as well. We signed up for a local to take us around the city and give us a feel for the place. What a contrast! The downtown has been completely abandoned by whites, with 1000 room hotels standing boarded up and office buildings completely vacant. But the city thronged with life as immigrants from all over Africa flock there to seek work. The suburbs are now all filled with the houses of whites surrounded by 10 foot walls topped with razor wire and protected by armed security with attack dogs. It was surreal. There was palpable tension in the air, yet somehow it also held optimism. Another unexplainable complexity.

We also toured around the squatter tracks of Soweto and saw the rising middle class areas. In these places, there was no razor wire or walls or dogs. Here, oddly enough, we felt safe and the people were very friendly. Again, context. (by the way, in the background of the first picture is a slag pile from one of the many huge gold mines in and around Jo'burg. How's that for complicated context?)

But what really made the trip was the group that we travelled with. 3 Dutch, 3 Americans, 2 Danes, a Swede, and a South African. Who’d have thunk it? Daniel, Tina, Sean, Sandra, Sune, Maria, Lea, and Hendrik…Thanks for one of the best experiences that we’ve ever had.

Anticipating Africa

Bokito

Well, we’re headed off this Friday for a three week safari in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe and I thought that it might be interesting to capture some thoughts before the trip and then compare them to how I feel when we get back. This little venture constitutes quite a few milestones for us – It will be the longest vacation that we’ve ever taken; our first time south of the equator; our first time to Africa; the fourth continent that we’ve ever travelled to; the first time that we’ve hired a local guide for any kind of travel; the first time that we’ve camped in tents in an area where we’re hoping to see predators in the wild. (no, we never camped in grizzly country in the western US).

I guess that it all should add up to an exciting time. In all honesty I’m most nervous about the time that we’ll have to spend in Johannesburg, South Africa for some of our transfers. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it used to be, but I still remember the news reels of the carjackings and muggings and assaults and murders that sent Jo’burg to the top of the list of the world’s most dangerous cities. But that was right after Apartheid crumbled and the country was in chaos, right? One can only hope that it has gotten better…

I am expecting to see a lot of animals, but I truly hope that it still feels wild. I am a bit worried that it will feel like an animal park, where the animals are so tame that they come to the window of your car for a handout - like in Yellowstone. But even in Yellowstone Beth and I were able to get that “wild” satisfaction by simply taking a few steps off the beaten path. Just a few hundred yards from the paved visitor parking lots there were no tourists and there were no sounds of cars or cameras and you had to be quiet in order to get a glimpse of a wild animal doing what wild animals do. Then it felt real. Then it was typical “Dan and Beth”. We’ve lived our entire lives off the beaten path. We love it. It defines who we are.

But now we’re going to Africa. The third world, not the first. We’ve hired a local guide to help us get around but will it be possible to really get off the beaten path there? Wait a minute. That’s the wrong question. Of course it’s possible, but is getting “off the beaten path” really desirable there? Maybe I shouldn’t have just seen the movies “Blood Diamond” and “The last king of Scotland” before taking this trip. Both of those movies were based upon brutal historical events in Africa. But they were made by Hollywood, and we all know how Hollywood can embellish a story to keep a fickle audience’s attention.

I’ve seen and heard so much about this huge continent that I sometimes feel like I’ve already been there…and in my false memory it wasn’t all that pleasant of a place. North Africa, Sub-Sahara Africa, South Africa, jungles, deserts, mountains, savannahs. It doesn’t matter where, I’ve been told so many times in movies and in news stories that Africa means poverty and despair and AIDS and hunger and hatred and violence. It’s pounded into you. But then you see a cool show on Animal Planet and are shown that it’s also a place for white folks to go and rent Land Rovers to drive around well defined game parks where they can get a peak at the remaining, basically caged wildlife. Is it really going to be like that? God, I hope not.

So the biggest question in my mind as I prepare for this trip is, “What is the real Africa?” Don't get me wrong. I'm really phsyched for this trip. But I really am wondering if there is something beyond the tourist hype? Is there something outside of the sensational (and always bad) news? There most certainly is, but the real question is…can we find it?

A quick update

Just a quick photo update this week...

The Subaru is finally gone! We signed the transfer papers to the new owner on Friday.

A trip to the cheese town of Edam last weekend was a big success. Sage enjoyed most of the trip, except when we had to “park” her outside this restaurant while we went in for a drink.

We also drove down to the infamous “South” of Holland to visit our friend Esther and see her new house in Eindhoven. It turns out that she has a huge nature area just steps from her front door. … and contrary to popular belief over here, Eindhoven wasn’t THAT bad. Apparently there were interesting shops...

Sushi and drunk driving

Our plans for last Saturday night were for a low key evening with our friends Barry and Maria. Little did we know that it would turn into a harrowing encounter with a drunken sushi delivery man who kept singing the same Swedish love song over and over and over again. Is that what you expect after reading the title of this week’s blog entry? Well, titles are only there to get your attention. The real story went something like this…

We were thinking about a few games of darts, maybe a firepot in the back yard and laying out a nice spread of sushi, sake, and Japanese beer with Barry and Maria. Well, even with the deluxe new kitchen that we just had installed I’m still a bit a sushi neophyte and certainly don’t qualify as sushi chef (yet), so the plan was to call our local sushi delivery guy - The Sushi Man! At about 7:30, I cracked my first beer and hopped into the shower after a nice long run with the Sage. It was time to relax. By the time that Barry and Maria rolled up on their bikes at 8:15, I was already working on my second beer.

A few drinks were handed out to Barry, Maria, and Beth and we pulled up the menu of The SushiMan on the Internet (http://www.sushiman.nl/sushimenu.html) to figure out our order. Wow! What a spread! This was going to be a feast!

But when Maria dialed the number and was connected to the Sushiman, we all saw the utter look of horror cross her face. It was a recording – the Sushi Man was closed for his holiday….he was gone for the entire week. Complete devastation! A frantic search of the internet revealed only one other Sushi delivery joint in Amsterdam and there was no way that they would bring their little delivery scooter all the way out here to Haarlem.

Now, I understand that the gravity of this situation might escape some of you. I mean, it's only food, right? But there are those among you who truely understand this dilema (is Sue Cox still in the audience?) But we had sushi on the brain. It was like a deepest, darkest desire at that point. The notion of some other sort of delivery food such as pizza or Turkish shoarma was almost revolting. There would be no substitute. There could be no substitute. We needed sushi.

Our favorite Japanese restaurant here in Haarlem serves sushi, but it is more of a Benihana type setup, with large grills and chef shows….hardly a take-away kind of place. But it was our only hope, so we gave them a call to see if they could put together a sushi platter for home dining. With much relief, the girl on the other end of the line said that she could help us out. It would be a bit expensive, but she would see what she could do to satisfy our craving.

It is less than 3 kilometers from our house to the center of Haarlem and I can count on one hand the number of times that I have driven it. After all, we're now living in Holland. We bike everywhere under 15 kilometers....and some places further than that. But tonight the front tire of my bike was flat and we were in a hurry. So with no further thought, I took the last deep pull from my beer before Barry and I jumped into the car to go pick up the order.

Do you see where this is going yet? Funny how this type of shit happens to me, isn’t it?

Barry and I were pumped up, the music was going and we were having a raucous little chat as we rounded the corner just beyond Haarlem’s Central Train Station.

What the ....!

There they were. Lined up in the middle of the road, blocking any possibility of turning onto a side street. Three uniformed police officers were directing all traffic into the drinking-driving checkpoint.

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So, at 8:20 on Saturday night, stinking like beer, I pulled the car over.

A gruff, no-nonsense officer - not a day over 25 years old - approached the window and started to rattle off his well rehearsed speech about the drunken driving checkpoint. In Dutch. I began fumbling around the car looking for my (illegal) US drivers license and generally didn’t catch a word of what he was saying. By the time that I found my wallet he had grown a bit impatient with me. It took me another minute of confusion to realize that he was not at all interested in my license (thank god!) , but only trying to get me to follow some apparently simple, and fast procedures to test for impairment.

But when I didn’t answer him directly, he stopped and quietly sized me up. He seemed to sense the concern on my face, and surely smelled the beer on my breath. He finally asked me in perfect English…”Have you had any alcohol to drink today?”

A rather unpleasant experience 22 years ago at IUP flashed through my mind...but it didn’t stop my lips from moving. “Yes sir. A half a beer,” I lied.

He let out a condescending, “hrmmph” that I knew meant, “Well, we’ll see about that now won’t we you foreign bastard.” He then pushed a dark little contraption into my face and told me to take a deep breath and blow into the tube until I hear it ‘click’. Don’t ask me how, but I misunderstood these simple instructions and took my deep breath in through the tube. Big mistake! Hardly any freaking air came into my lungs and when I tried to act nonchalant and began exhaling back into the tube I knew that I didn’t have nearly enough air to reach the ‘click’ point. I was sure that he already sensed that I was drunk so I dug as deep as I could and kept exhaling until the damned thing finally ‘clicked’. I wonder if he noticed that I almost passed out in the process.

He stood there, looking at the display on the little black contraption. I looked at him. He looked at me. He looked back at the contraption.

“It’s ok,” he finally said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. Then he shook his head and added with forced pleasantness, “Please pull back into the traffic lane and have a nice evening.”

The blood alcohol limit for drivers in The Netherlands is .05% (it’s .08% in the US). Looking at a chart on Wikipedia, I would guess that my BOC was pushing .04% …except that maybe most of the last beer was still in my stomach and not yet in my blood. I certainly didn’t feel impaired and never even think about it here because I am always on the bike if I’m out and about after drinking. But the more that I think about it, the more thankful that I am for that little black contraption that officially measured my BOC. If the officer had just gone on probable cause (smell, nerves, etc.), I’d have been spending the night in jail.

But all is well that ends well. The sushi was delicious, the night was full of laughter with friends and once the car was parked, the warm sake was excellent.

Phew!

We had an interesting trip back to America last week. Of course it was great to see family and spend time at our property in Western Maryland – it always is, but what caught me off guard was the feeling of how large the separation between these two lives that Beth and I are living has grown. It actually threw me into a bit of an identity crisis. A sort of Dan PMS. I suppose that it shouldn’t have surprised me this much because our plan was always to try and share the best of all worlds - country life/city life/Europe/America. But the differences of who we are in each of those worlds have become so pronounced that the “hop” between them is not as seamless as we first anticipated. In fact, the “hop” has turned into a “leap” and it seems to require a longer and longer running start to get the momentum up to make it. Once landed, and after a few deep breaths, then the old feelings of comfort return. I am curious to see if this is just a transitional feeling or if chasm continues to widen…

But enough philosophy! On to the update! We spent the first few days up in Ligonier. All of us “kids” were able to come in for the weekend and we got to take this rare family portrait.

We also had some great meals and went with my parents to buy a new house right smack dab in the middle of town. They’ll keep the property out in the hills, so I guess we’re not the only ones who will be going between city and country.

Down in Maryland, our first day at the house was a bit of a hard one. The water pipes had frozen in a late cold snap and when I turned on the well pump water sprayed all through the basement. I almost called a plumber, but when I saw that all of the damage was done to plastic piping, I thought that I’d give the repairs a shot myself. Well, just call me Plumber Dan (without the asscrack showing). The repairs went well, including changing the elements in the water heater, and we were able to use the commodes and take a hot shower by the second day.

They have also started up the new artificial whitewater river on top of the mountain at Deep Creek Lake. It was looking pretty cool with a nice rapid every 100 feet or so. I’m going to send them the pictures of surfing in Munich as a suggestion for expansion. I think that it would fit in nicely here.

Traffic in the mountains.

Yes, I bought a video recorder. Mostly for our upcoming trip to Africa, but you never know what might show up on YouTube in the future!

Cheers!