far far away

So how did this start.  I think it was an article in a travel magazine read sometime ago. A one page story about how a remote coastal village on the edge of the desert subsists on diamonds and tourism. A cold water bay inhabited by seals and seagulls, where atlantic mists roll in at a moments notice blanketing out the bright sunlight.

Here intrepid deep sea divers hoover gravel off the sea bed with giant suction pipes attached to robust trawlers. The gravel is sifted for diamonds, and these are brought to shore and sold to the concession holders. The trade is strictly controlled.

Diamonds can cause so much trouble.  They are glittery and gorgeous, and their main use is to adorn the lobes and limbs of the rich and famous. Somewhere on the path from seabed or diamond pipe, to end user - there can be a wealth of stories involving skullduggery, ingeniousness, and master craftmanship.

Blood diamonds are those taken from war zones, and traded for weaponry to continue violent wars that are often about the diamond resource itself.  They sparkle just as much as legal diamonds.

We became intruiged. Port Nolloth had to have a few intreresting characters walking about. We hadnt been to the west coast in a number of years but as a destination it was very far away.  Then there was a birthday, and that called for something out of the ordinary.  'Lets do it - even if its far?'  'right'.

It was two days solid driving.  Firstly circumventing the city sprawl of Gauteng, and then the endless corn fields of the north west province.  When we got into the wine growing regions along the orange River the view became a tad more interesting. Its always good to see how much effort goes into growing wines.  

From here the towns became progressively smaller and the landscapes grew into vast ancient seabeds where black rock mountains floated like glaciers.  We left the other road users behind for a time - there was just us, the giant landscape and the endless blue skies. Desert was all around and we felt ourselves slowly dropping in altitude with each mountain pass.

We fuelled up in the little town of Springbok. It was close to sunset and this was some of the most dramatic scenery of the trip.  Rocks and boulders with strange desert plants towered close to the road. This area is famous for wildflowers in the winter but we were three months too early.  We wound down through successive mountain passes  and then there was sand. And then there was the sea.  A small settlement of houses, like coloured boxes nestled behind the dune and the town.

It was quiet here. The sea crashed on rocks beyond the bay, but nearby it was gentle and calm.  Strands of kelp lay on the beach or rolled lazily in the waves like seals.  We spent two days here in this tiny town where time appears to stand still.  Due to recent rains there was no diamond hoovering in progress as the river mouths were too clouded with soil from flash floods; and thus many of the diamond divers had left town.  We drove along the coastline to Alexander Bay. A diamond settlement at the mouth of the Orange River border with Namibia. This town used to be high security. All along the way were diamond diggings. This desert landscape  of lichen fields and fossils,  has been successively poked, proded and excavated in a perpetual search for these earth born treasures.

We chatted to the few locals we found. We went to the little museum and looked at relics from shipwrecks and pioneering mining efforts. We even looked at property for sale.  We ran out of time and buckled up for the long road home, promising ourselves a rerun  when the whales pass by and the desert sands are speckled with fields of flowers.

changes

'Dreaming while dawns left hand is in the sky'

from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Those words have been nudging at my brain these past days.  They had to nudge hard because the old grey matter has been clogged with flu, but is fighting back hard and  emerging triumphant.

This little book lives by my bedside now. It belonged to my father.  The small leather bound, travel worn, edition was a gift from my mother to him in 1943.  It never left his side through all his journeys.  I love the words.

1943 - what huge changes and perils people were living through then - hardly daring to hope for a shining future, but pressing on anyhow. And here we are in a tumultuous time of change again - with the added drama of climate change and prophecies of the Ends of Days.  Change is in the air - its the only certainty.

On a smaller scale, news from here is that a swarm of bees has moved into  one of the old leadwood fencing posts in our driveway.   I have been leaving them dishes of sugar water to make them feel welcome.  The lions have been back, keeping us awake in the dead of night with their deeply reverberating calls.  It really makes you appreciate being tucked up in bed within a bricks and mortar dwelling.

The grass is drying out fast now, and the green is turning yellow.  We have one guinea fowl left now in our domestic flock and he is looking quite traumatised. For the first few days after his pal was taken by an eagle, he just ran around calling madly. Now he has settled down a bit. Anyone have some guinea fowl for sale?

As winter takes hold on the southern continent, the Okavango River continues to rise with water pushing further into the Kalahari Basin and the ancient lake beds.

Perhaps we will see the return of a waterworld here in the desert.

I like to think that Dawns Left Hand is in the sky and to remember that our time is finite and precious anyhow.

dreaming

twin calderas mark the view

This morning I woke up from an incredible dream. I dreamt I ran away from the troubles of the world. I packed a small bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush (and a few things besides). The bag was so small there was no room for a book - or even an extra mosquito.

Then I climbed into a metal bird, and flew high into the hazy blue sky, looking down on some of Africa's best places as we flew by.  Big powerful rivers like the Limpopo and Zambezi meandered off into the distant haze;  lake malawi shone with cloud reflections; mountains, plains, salt lakes, craters, all finally obscured by giant billowing clouds.

We climbed down from our metal bird in a smoky city filled with the noise of industrialisation.  We pushed through some crowds of people; passed through a couple of check points and then climbed into a smaller metal bird escaping once more to look down on the world man has made.

We landed at last in a sea of yellow grasslands where the light was so bright and crisp it pinched the eyes. 360 degrees of wide open horizon brimming with possibilities and discoveries  all presided over by a giant mountain capped with snow.

I rode on a white horse whose name was 'elephant' - and whose ancestors had been knights chargers in the times of the crusades. Giraffe stopped browsing to watch us pass and strange stunted thorn trees tugged at our clothing, but the singing sunwashed grasslands would not be denied and we rode out into the endless plains kicking up puffs of volcanic dust.

The Chyulu hills were our home for this dream time.  By day we climbed up to the crumbling edges of ancient volcanic craters, and explored mystical caves formed by tendrills of lava flows.  Here the molten lava had turned to stone forming ceramic walls moulding shapes of faces and fantastic creatures, all overgrown with creepers and lichens. The lava tube flowed downhill like a waterfall of caves sliding in and out of bright sunlight and cool damp darkness crunching dust and bones underfoot.

At night the star scapes obliterated the daytime scenes of wonder.  Sunrise and the big mountain taught us humility and awe - putting us firmly back in our tiny place on the planet. A giant landscape that felt somehow strangely familiar - as if I had always known it.

All too soon the iron bird droned into view. It lifted us up and away from the kind faces and new friends, the singing grass and the purple hills. We landed home with a bump last night. Today I am picking up the pieces as reality nudges its way back in, but I am hanging onto my dream pictures and tonight i will ride away on my white horse again.

It just is

waterlilies at sunrise

The last few days have been grey, overcast with soft drizzle and rain - and its been cold.  This is unusual weather for here and we have had logs burning in the fireplace non stop to chase away the winter chill. Thank goodness for the fireplace.  The weather somehow has matched my mood - or my mood had come into line with the weather.  Perhaps it was the global consciousness of so many riotous and tragic occurrences spread about our beautiful world.  Or perhaps it was because of those mighty planets whirling about unseen over our heads pulling on our tides and exerting their influences on our microscopic lives. Or maybe its something else altogether.

 Definitely it had to do, in part, with the rhino poaching war reaching our doorstep. Its is heartbreaking to see one of these massive yet vulnerable and shy creatures that has been caught in a snare on its back foot for days. The bush all around the anchor tree has been flattened in attempts to escape. Finally falling into a donga (ditch) headfirst to die slowly of thirst and fear - all for the sake of two tiny growths on its young head.

  Rhinos are dropping like flies these days. They are so easy to catch and find and kill. But it's not only rhinos - suddenly the whole war on wildlife for human greed just became too big for my brain. I am better now but sometimes it just gets too much.   Getting sad doesn't help however - we have to keep thinking.

So anyway, We have been experiencing late rains here - which is really a happy event as it fills the waterholes just before the dry season.  There have been huge rains in the Angolan highlands apparently and the Okavango River in Botswana is in flood already. We went to have a look and to try and reach the island where our boat lives. We were hoping to hire a river taxi from Sepupa to get there, but the jump off point was unreachable.  The river itself was a huge swirling eddying surge of water pushing into riverine forests and ancient water courses.  It was so huge and mighty it looked as if it had a meniscus like a glass of water filled to ultimate capacity - a sort of bulge barely contained within its floodplain and papyrus bed banks.

Botswana is filling up with water again these days. After a few excellent rainy seasons the floodwaters of the inland delta have been reaching into forgotten corners bringing them back to  life. Massive flocks of birds follow the headwaters, and fields of water lilies adorn newly drenched flood plains. It makes our primate hearts happy and calm to see sparkling water coasting by.

Today the sun came out. The monkeys are here again visiting, eating the corn we put out for the birds, playing around the windows and thundering on the tin roof again.

It's continuity. It's 'this too shall pass'.  It just is.

white rhino group

taking it to the streets

Drive by pictures of street vendors and market scenes along the way in Mozambique

chokwe market

mangoes and bananas

and a place to watch the world go by

off to market

hawking to bus passengers

shade tree boutique

stop me and buy one - but dont wake the baby

fashion and plastic

bit fuzzy but nice baskets

hot stuff

piri piri (chilli sauce) vendors

markets are noisy and colourful places

the music was really pumping!

Mozambique Idyll

These monkeys ducked to Mozambique for a few days.  We had to visit the school  and see the progress of the new building - it was a year since our last visit and i was craving some Mozambique time.

wall art

The weather report showed us a possible cyclone developing right over Vilanculos. Oh boy. But it was too late to change the plan and we packed our rain gear just in case. On the way, as we were negotiating 100kms of badly potholed tar between Massingir and Chokwe, a phone call came in. "Did you hear the news?" No. "Do you have a radio in your car?" No. "Well then I will tell you anyway - there has been a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan - the biggest ever. Its breaking news!" from then on we checked the headlines wherever and whenever we could. The news sounded unreal and ontop of the already disturbing developments in Libya, cast a shadow over every thought.

market scene, Chokwe

At sunset the following day we arrived in camp. The evening sun casting the serene waters into shades of gold and turquiose made world events seem even more remote and impossible but the news was insistent.  The neap tides were almost imperceptible as if the sea was holding its breath or had used all its energy in Tsunamis. So we canoed on glassy waters looking at fish looking at us - jumping when they shot out of the water like silver bullets. ha you guys are not getting my sunglasses this time - no way man!

It was hot - melting hot. At night the mosquitoes tried to carry us away.  The dolphins came by - fishing in the deep channel and leaping clear of the dark waters. I canoed out to them. Dophins  - they tingle the emotions somehow. Even the hardiest  among us is not unaffected. They came to visit me, diving under the canoe and surfacing to suck air - a sound like blowing a kiss. 

I read Treasure Island for the first time. It was a book that came from my father's house. The handwritten date inside says 1910; its dark red leather embossed cover shows signs of wear and tear, but the story stands the test of time. Yohoho and a bottle of rum! Blind Pew and Billy Bones, Long John Silver and Captain Flint the parrot. They were so real. 

dolphins

Two days before full moon the tides woke up and made their climb up the silvery beach, stretching out among the barnacled roots of the mangroves. We had to leave. It was far too soon. I took a last walk down the boardwalk. The weathered planks moved under my feet like a bleached out xylophone.  The sand is soft, cool, luxurious. The canoe slipped out onto the glassy water enticing me to stay. But I was on borrowed time, and we had miles to go before we slept that day. 

The cyclone never showed. We were lucky.

separation anxiety

It is a cool overcast monday morning after a steaming hot few days. An elephant slooshes and wallows in the reedbed out of sight, but filling the view with his sounds.  Its time for us to move again. Tomorrow or the next day - whenever there are seats available on an outgoing plane - we will lift off from the dusty strip, soaring over the palm trees and wild sage grasslands.  We will hum steadily, high above the meandering arms of the Okavango Delta, interlaced with hard etched elephant paths linking muddy waterholes.

Then we will land in Maun. The sprawling metropolis of safari town yielding a cacophony of traffic noises and charter aircraft arriving and leaving in a wheel of never ending transit traffic . Maun is the safari spring board of northern Botswana.

Just opposite the airport is a cafe bistro  where tourists, safari operators and pilots meet and linger - filling time between ETA's and ETDs - or just linking with friends passing through.  It is rich in people watching opportunities against the backdrop of the river of traffic.

But for now the rhythmic heart beat of a turtle dove calling overlays the orchestral symphony of bird calls from water and woodland. These sounds soothe the soul and lighten the heart strings. 

The grasses here smell of wild herbs and water - sage, thyme, basil. I wish i could bottle it and take it with me. My body loves to breathe it in. And each time we return I am overwhelmed by the fragrances and sounds that contrast so absolutely from the sounds of our man made world.

(sorry no pics this time - internet too slow)