Africa Travel - Part 7

Visiting Karen Blixen’s Farm in Africa

Karen, Kenya

by Marcia Walker

Often, as a teenager, before drifting off to sleep, the first lines of her novel floated through my mind: “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.” I read Out of Africa, Karen Blixen’s memoir chronicling the struggles on her Kenyan coffee farm, when I was sixteen. I read it and re-read it and read it again. Twenty-five years later, it was one of the rare books to survive my fourteen moves. My copy was creased and worn with age, stained from my old leaky waterbed and had so many dog-eared pages it puffed out like a fan. I had not read the book in years but her farm, her Africa, had become part of the geography of my mind. A place forged out of teenage longing.

It is dangerous to visit the places of novels, especially those read in the tender, impressionable years of high school. So it was with trepidation that I traveled to Kenya and found myself driving up the curved brick driveway of Karen Blixen’s farm, now a museum. She moved here in 1914 and was forced to leave in 1931 after enduring a series of cataclysmic events (divorce, syphilis, World War I, the Depression, drought, a fire, and the sudden death of her lover). I knew the place in my mind was probably nothing like reality; yet, I felt compelled to visit.

It took two hours to travel the twelve kilometers from downtown Nairobi to Blixen’s farm. The main highway, currently being re-built by the Chinese government, was under heavy construction. Whatever romance I had expected was wiped out by the intense drive. Horns blared. Thick smog reeked of car fumes. Engines idled without any forward movement. Men selling everything from magazines to bananas pressed up against the car. My driver advised me to keep my window closed so I wouldn’t be robbed. With one of the highest crime rates in Africa, Nairobi has the infamous nickname “Now rob me”.

Once distant from Nairobi, the city has swallowed up the writer’s 6000-acre coffee plantation. It’s now part of a wealthy suburb called Karen (named after the writer), surrounded by posh private schools, palatial estates, and tourist attractions. I asked the driver if there were any wild monkeys or gazelle still around. He shook his head and told me they were long gone.

Still, as we drove up the laneway, my palms grew damp and I felt anxious, like I was meeting someone I had not seen in several years and was worried about making a good impression. Such is the odd relationship between a reader, a novel and the novelist. The reader feels a tenderness that is one-sided. Loving a novel is always unrequited.

As the house came into full view I recognized the stone bungalow farmhouse with the wrap around veranda. The cinnamon coloured tiled roof soaked in the morning sun. The floor to ceiling windows opened up, like doorways, so the wind blew dry dust through the house. I half expected Blixen’s Scotch Deerhound to run up barking beside the car.

When I opened my door, the spicy smell of Cypress stung my nostrils. Norfolk pines and columnar cypress lined the immaculate grounds. Cultivated shrubs with fushia foliage bordered the front lawn. Delicate blue flowers opened to the cloudless sky. The wide lawn stretched across the front and the back of the house. There was a lot of activity as workers erected great white tents in the backyard for a craft fair on the weekend. The property is popular for weddings and special events.

Several tourists milled about the front yard taking photos. I followed a small hand painted sign that said “museum”. Behind a rickety desk sat a young man, looking bored. He changed his face to a smile when he saw me and offered to take me on a tour of the house for a small fee. When I declined, he stopped smiling.

I wandered through the house alone. Like most museums, it was strangely devoid of sound. An occasional bellow from one of the workers echoed through the living room. The dining room table was covered with a cream coloured lace cloth and set with blue and white patterned china as if friends were expected for tea. Red roses wilted in a glass vase next to two unlit candles. In the study, behind a sturdy writing desk, leather bound books with the initials DFH on the spine filled the floor to ceiling bookshelves. A small black and white photo of a young Karen Blixen, taken before her ill-fated marriage to Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, leaned up against the wall. I tried to imagine the writer living here but found it difficult to imagine anyone living in this staged atmosphere.

I walked into the bedroom. There was a tiny, white bed with a hard looking mattress. A pair of riding boots stood in the centre of the room. Several British tourists shuffled in behind me following their guide. They had paid for a tour and were fans of the 1985 movie, based on the novel, starring Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen and Robert Redford as Denys Finch Hatton, her lover. The guide began his spiel.

“Karen Blixen sold most of her furniture to her neighbours before she left Africa so these are all replicas. One of her relatives in Denmark owns her bed. When they filmed Out of Africa, the film crew generously donated the furniture to the museum. Those riding boots weren’t Karen’s but Meryl Streep wore them in the movie.”

The British tourists and I stared at the polished black boots. No one spoke. I stifled a laugh. My literary pilgrimage had brought me to an abandoned film set.

I slipped out through the small gift shop after buying several of her other books. They’re still published under her pen name Isak Dinesen. After meandering through the front garden I sat next to a juniper tree. Several rusted tools used in the early 1900s for coffee plantation were littered around me. A large wagon teetered with half of its front wheel embedded into the soil. I leaned against it, gazing back at Blixen’s house. I felt no closer to the writer visiting her home. I had no grand epiphany but the warm sun felt good on my body and I felt released from expectation. I peered above the house and recognized the dark outline of the rolling Ngong Hills. They stood, unchanged and immovable, against the vast blue sky.

Out of Africa Tour: Giraffe Centre and Karen Blixen Museum from Nairobi

If You Go:

Museum:
For information on the Karen Blixen Museum in Nairobi

Food:
For a good restaurant nearby try the on-site cafe at the Utamaduni Crafts Centre
or The Karen Blixen Coffee Garden

Interests:
Other worthwhile stops in the Karen area of Nairobi:
The Giraffe Center
Kazuri Bead Factory
Utamaduni Craft Center
The Elephant Orphanage

Nairobi National Park tour David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage Giraffes And Karen Blixen Museum Tour in Nairobi

About the author:
Marcia’s writing has appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail, skirt! magazine, Artscape and the CBC radio programs DNTO and The Wild Side. Come visit her at www.marciawalker.ca.

All photos are by Marcia Walker:
The Farm House
Closeup of the Clock
Dining Room
Picture of Karen Blixen
Bedroom

An Exotic Overland Trek From Tangier To Kenya

Africa

by Ian Packham

I was on the Kenyan coast at Malindi, having followed the African coast west from Tangier, Morocco’s seedy port of entrance for so many Europeans. I was attempting to complete the first solo and unsupported overland circumnavigation of the continent by public transport, an expedition I had christened Encircle Africa. But all the while, through eight months of travel from Tangier to Malindi, I was aware others had been there before me. Vasco da Gama reached Malindi in Kenya after nine months in 1498. He was on his way to the Malabar Coast of India. I was on my way back to Tangier, through East Africa and across the Mediterranean coast. For much of his route he followed passages determined by the earlier explorers Diogo Cao and Bartolomeu Dias. But while Dias returned home to a feeling of failure, da Gama returned a hero, celebrated like the Apollo 11 astronauts on their return from the moon.

The three Portuguese explorers I would continually cross paths with may have been the most visible, having positioned padrãos (navigational pillars) around three-quarters of the African continent, but they certainly weren’t the first. It is believed the Phoenicians made it so far, in the sixth century BC, as to be able to provide the first known description of the gorilla. Chinese ships rounded Cape Point from the east in 1421, decades before the Portuguese would do the same from the west. And Kenya’s coastal civilizations had been in contact with other continents for centuries. But it was Europe’s Portuguese explorers that opened up the continent for all that was to come, including my own personal exploration.

The padrãos had several intentions, as did the voyages around the African continent themselves. Portugal, surrounded by hostile kingdoms, turned to the sea to find a new route to India’s spice trade that eliminated greedy middle men. The padrãos not only acted as navigational aids, but proclaimed the land around them as Christian, and belonging to the Kingdom of Portugal. They were also a handy source of ballast, generally only positioned on a voyage’s homeward journey. The carved inscription on the Cape Cross padrão reads: “In the year…1485 after the birth of Christ, the most excellent and serene king Dom John II of Portugal ordered this land to be discovered and this padrão to be placed by Diogo Cao”.Namibia’s Cape Cross was Cao’s journeys end. The next 15 years would see countrymen Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama forge a sea route to India’s Malabar Coast. Each explorer was dependent upon the discoveries of those who had gone before and the padrãos they had positioned.

My first chance to cross paths with these explorers came after only two weeks, in Western Sahara, at the town of Boujdour. I missed any chance of even a glimpse of the town Cao had visited, since my only way south from Laayoune was a direct overnight coach to Dakhla. It would become a theme of Encircle Africa. Our paths didn’t cross again until Cap Vert, Senegal, the most westerly point of the African mainland.

Cao was able to sail straight to Elmina, Ghana from anchor at Cap Vert. I had had to struggle through the ever improving but often muddy dirt roads of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia just after the rains.

I didn’t get close enough to feel their influence until reaching Soyo on Angola’s northern border, the southern bank of the River Congo, four months after beginning. It took Cao about the same length of time by sail. Even then I was unable to find the fragmentary remains of his padrão which are said to exist.

Cao and Dias made several different forays into Angola, with Cao stopping at Benguela and Cape Santa Maria, and Dias further south at Tombua. Yet the closest I came to the explorers in Angola was Diogo Cao Road in the heart of colonial Benguela. I reached the end of Cao’s expeditionary advances without getting any closer to them.

I relaxed knowing that for 500 years people like me had in some way or other been following the African coast. Whether it was Boujdour in Western Sahara or Benguela in Angola, people with far less knowledge of their environment had returned home. Those explorers used tiny ships called caravels. I didn’t have my own transport, but I had maps which the explorers didn’t, and a cell phone. We were both dependent on the locals to provide food and water.

Dias used Cao’s discoveries to continue, taking anchor 75 miles further south at Walvis Bay, a town still dependent on ships anchoring today. On its outskirts, monumental stylized rigged ships celebrate the town’s earlier European visitor.

Dias and his crew became the first Europeans to round the southern Capes. A beach at Cape Point, facing south towards Antarctica celebrates this fact, being named Dias beach. It’s a beautiful, blustery, cold place even now. For me it marked six months of travel, and Encircle Africa’s halfway point. Dias was reaching his end.

He landed at Mossel Bay to take on fresh water, on February 3 1488. The town is home to a replica caravel inside the Dias Museum. Dias was eager to continue his voyage, but his crew was not. His three caravels ended their outward journey at Kwaaihoek on March 14.

It was perhaps Dias of the three explorers that knew Africa best. Ten years on, Vasco Da Gama didn’t make landfall on the African continent until Saint Helena Bay, now a northern suburb of Cape Town, where a simple granite monument to his achievement can be seen.

From Mossel Bay da Gama faced unknown seas, passing Dias’ endpoint on December 16 1497. It was coming up to Christmas, so the coast da Gama spotted on his left hand side was named Natal (birth). His four caravels continued up the East coast of Africa eventually reaching Mozambique Island. Here on the island’s eastern end, facing a small, later Portuguese fort, I encountered the remains of his padrão. This was the closest I had come so far to one of the original navigational aids.

Da Gama went on to reach Mombasa in Kenya, a town hostile to his intentions that forced him further north to Malindi. There, after much searching, I found a tourist office hidden around the back of an ugly building complex. I tentatively asked, knowing my success in locating signs of the explorers so far has not been great, if they knew about the padrão placed in the town by da Gama. There were baffled looks as the three staff members conversed. “You mean the pillar?” one of them suggested.

My search for the Portuguese explorers was finally over. I took a three-wheeled tuktuk to the padrão. The intervening years between me and da Gama had not been kind to it. Instead of the slim column of Lisbon limestone, it had been variously altered so it now resembled a giant white traffic cone topped with a Greek cross. Yet there it still stands on a rocky outcrop. One of the only original Portuguese padrãos I had been able to find during my own exploration of Africa 500 years on. From here da Gama went across the ocean to India. His mission complete, he returned home to report his successes to the king of Portugal. I still had to cross to Egypt, and follow the Mediterranean back to Tangier to Encircle Africa.

Mombasa Full-Day Guided City Tour

If You Go:

♦ See the map for details of the original sites of padrãos. A padrão from Cao’s explorations can now be viewed at the museum of the Lisbon Geographical Society, Portugal. The Cape Cross padrão is housed in the Deutsches Historisches Museum (Zeughaus), Berlin, Germany. Dias’ Kwaaihoek padrão de Sao Gregorio is to be found in the library foyer of the University of Witwatersand, Johannesburg, South Africa. These padrãos have been replaced by replicas at their original sites.

♦ The Dias Museum, Mossel Bay, South Africa also houses an aquarium, shell museum, Dias statue and the post office tree dating back to 1501. The museum complex is open daily except Christmas Day and Good Friday. There is an additional cost to enter the replica caravel inside the museum.

♦ The closest International airports to Malindi, Kenya are located in Nairobi and Mombasa. Several airlines provide flights from European and North American cities. Kenya Airways (a division of KLM) is the national carrier. Malindi is easily reachable by road from both cities.

Overnight Shark Cage Diving Excursion for Small Groups in Mossel Bay

About the author:
Ian is a biomedical scientist turned traveler. He is very much a ‘normal guy’ with no specialist expedition training. Encircle Africa was his first expedition. A member of the Royal Geographical Society, London, he enjoys off-beat off-season travel, preferably by public transport. He is still in the process of writing scientific articles, as well as fiction and non-fiction pieces. He aims to build on his current travels to develop a career in writing. Website: www.encircleafrica.org

All photographs copyright Ian M. Packham:
Map of my Encircle Africa route, and the routes of Cao (his second voyage), Dias and da Gama, depicting padrão sites.
Pointe des Almides, Cap Vert, Senegal. The most westerly point of continental Africa.
Dias entered Walvis Bay, Namibia on December 8 1487. A monument on the outskirts of the town marks his visit.
Cape Point, South Africa. Dias was the first European to round Africa’s southern capes.
The remains of da Gama’s padrão, Mozambique Island, Mozambique.
Da Gama’s padrão, Malindi, Kenya.

Morocco: Listening to the Wind and Imdezan in Essaouira

by Inka Piegsa-quischotte

The name alone is pure poetry: Essaouira. Let the syllables roll of your tongue then listen to the sound as it is blown away by the wind. Because, you see, wind there is plenty.

Not for nothing is Essaouria called ‘City of the Wind’ as well as ‘The Moroccan Woodstock’. History, culture, art, crafts, music and a sin fin of water sport — all these things define the Moroccan port town on the Atlantic which has fascinated as diverse personalities as Winston Churchill, Orson Welles and Jimi Hendrix.

It’s a straight run from Marrakesh to Essaouira which makes for a great day trip if you are based in Marrakesh. The distance of 105 miles is covered by a nearly ruler straight highway which cuts through shrubs and the desert. This road is no coincidence though, because Essaouira is something of a historical curiosity.

The present city with its much admired walls and Medina is a creation, a purpose built sea port, commissioned by King Mohammed III during the 18th century. He wanted to develop trade with Europe and beyond and to establish a counterbalance to Agadir, whose inhabitants favored a rival of him. For twelve years, the king instructed and oversaw French engineer and architect Theodore Cornut, who designed the modern city, the medina and the international quarters. At the time, Morocco depended heavily on the caravan trade, which brought merchandise from sub-Saharan Africa to Timbuktu, then from there through the desert and over the Atlas mountains to Marrakesh and, finally, making use of the straight road, to the thriving port of Essaouira.

The word ‘highway’ has to be taken with a pinch of salt though. It’s fine for the first few miles out of Marrakesh, but then there are stretches which are so uneven and full of rubble, they make your teeth rattle. Our diver referred to that jokingly as a prime example for a Moroccan

Despite the more recent design which gives Essaouira its present appearance, the city has a long, long history. Excavations have revealed a prehistoric settlement. The Romans left their traces and, most importantly, Essaouira, then called Mogador was already an important port town under Portuguese rule during the 16th century.

The French followed and finally the Moroccans. Although the importance of Essaouira as a sea port has been reduced when the caravan trade ceased, it’s still a fishing port. One of the first things to do when arriving, is to go to one of the many shacks along the waterfront which offer the latest catch. You walk along the display, point at what you want, sit down on one of the communal tables and enjoy eating with your fingers and chatting other tourists and locals alike.

The long stretched island of Mogador protects Essaouira from the strongest Atlantic winds, but there is still plenty around to make the place a paradise for surfers and kite surfers. The wide, white beaches invite to sunbathing, swimming and any other imaginable kind of water sport.

The medina proper is entered through a vast stone gate and then you find yourself in a labyrinth of small alleys, lined with galleries, craft shops of wood carvers, leather shops and tiny cafes. The difference to the hustle, bustle and noise of the medina in Marrakesh is striking. Not only do clocks run slower in Essaouira, they seem to not run at all. Whereas the vendors in Marrakesh run out and shout, sometimes even grab at you, their brothers in Essaouira just sit patiently in their shops, smoke, drink mint tea and generally couldn’t care less if you buy anything or not. Everything is slightly run down, paint is peeling, the odd window pane is broken and the ambience of a favorite hippie hang out it once was definitely lingers. I call it the’ decadent charm’ of Essaouira which, I think, describes the atmosphere.

Small wonder that this picturesque, sedate and slightly melancholic city attracted such divers personalities as Churchill, Welles and Hendrix. Orson Welles even got honored with a statue, although his nose is now missing.

Music plays a great part in Essaouira culture. Each June there is the gnaoua music festival which not only attracts performers of traditional Moroccan music but also international, contemporary singers and bands; hence the moniker ‘Moroccan Woodstock’.

Imdezan explained

If you miss the festival, you can nevertheless enjoy Moroccan music on a daily basis. As typical as the fish, the imdezan are omnipresent in Essaouira. An imdezan is a group of four Berber musicians, with a lead singer and the others playing their drums and one string fiddle. They walk around the medina, from one café to the other and if you throw them a few dirham, they’ll be very happy indeed.

Full-Day Tour to Essaouira – The Ancient Mogador City from Marrakech

If You Go:

The best time to visit is between May and October. Due to the wind it’ll never be too hot and this is the time of year when it doesn’t rain much.

On your way to Essaouira, stop at one of the cooperatives which produce argan oil products. The argan tree is endemic to Southwestern Morocco and the oil is a luxury item difficult to obtain outside the region. It’s used in fabulous crèmes and lotions which you can buy in the cooperative’s shops. You can also observe the labor intensive process of extraction the oil from the fruit.

Bring your swim suit and make time for a spot of water sport on the fabulous beach.

If you want to spend more than a few hours, there are a few modern hotels along the beach and small, converted riads within the medina. Consult a list of hotels on www.tripadvisor.com.

About the author:
Inka Piegsa-quischotte is an ex-attorney turned travel writer and novelist. She writes for online travel magazines and has two novels and a travel guide to Galicia/Spain published. She lives between Turkey and Miami.

All photos are by Inka Piegsa-quischotte.

Travel in the Time of Coup

Madagascar

by Doug Downie

At the airport in Antananarivo the immigration kiosk was closed. A sign on the window told us that visas were €62. A handful of us waited, promised that someone would be coming to attend to us. It was hot and humid and most passengers had left for their varied destinations. Two men leaned against the kiosk and talked to each other of the business ventures they would be attending to in Madagascar. We smiled and sweated, nodding to each other with a strange air of camaraderie as we waited. I finally got impatient and strolled over to a man in uniform.

“Visas?” I asked, palms up, fingers splayed.

He immediately moved into action, speaking French to a group of loitering officials, and we were herded to the customs desk. The visas would be paid for upon departure.

Our guide to the hotel spoke a bit of English and periodically fed us tidbits about Antananarivo and the Malagasy people but his English was poor – we shouldn’t leave our room because of the political unrest. The traffic was the typical African phalanx of weaving cars and combis, pedestrians stitching their way through the speeding boxes of tin, a breath away from impact, rickety bicycles and rickshaws ambling along the roadside, men pulling carts of produce. As usual I was awed at the absence of collisions from such tight trajectories. We passed through rice paddies with compounds on patches of solid ground looking like hobbit houses. Great cones of dried rice husks sat among the houses. A Zebu or two plodded through the paddies or vegetated on the grass by the roadside. Bright mosaics of laundry were left to dry on the embankments, littering the grassy slopes with shirts and shorts and undergarments. The hills and houses of the city rose before us like a sloppy layered sandwich, rich with life.

We would be at the Residence LaPasoa our first and last nights in Madagascar. The name had a funny resonance for me that would grow over the next nine days, and on our last night, a day after the coup, lush with Three Horses Lager, I went out onto our balcony overlooking the narrow street and called out to the standers and strollers and hawkers below, “Residence LA-PA-ZOaa!”

The kind and gentle Malagasy people below smiled.

We were the only guests at Residence LaPasoa, as we would be elsewhere. There’s nothing quite like the threat of cyclones and a coup d’etat to keep the tourists away. After the coup, the journalists poked their noses into the pub, Ku De Ta, just for the name. It was all quite wonderful for us, but not for those gentle people who lived from tourism. But there was little to be nervous about. Life goes on; people go about their business because that’s what they have to do.

Unlike in Antananarivo, the porters at Ille St. Marie airport knew what the word no meant. A driver was waiting to take us halfway up the island to La Crique.

Marc, the owner, greeted us. “Welcome!”

We were almost alone. A French couple building a bungalow about 10 km up the island were having lunch. Rainy seasons and coups are terrors for the tourist business.

“But you came.” said Marc, as if we were courageous. He’d had more cancellations than he cared to remember.

I’m sure La Crique is lovely at any time of year or season of political unrest, but it’s especially nice in solitude. A group of women came for a night, a couple for a day. Mornings beneath the palms, the sea swaying and drumming a steady beat, the fishermen and sea traffic passing in lithe pirogues, as graceful and smooth as ice skaters, days crunching on broken coral, or ambitious snorkelling around the rocky islands ringing the bay, fine open-air dinners every night to the music of the ocean, nights filled with love and fun, by candle light after the generator was turned off. Marc loaned me his nylon stringed guitar after we’d jammed and I played beneath the herringbone of the thatched roof with rain beating down. It rained almost every night, but the days were filled with sun and splendour.

There are not many tourist activities on Ille St. Marie. Renting and touring on a motor bike is one, and there’s the pirate cemetery, or the zoological and botanical gardens. We chose to walk, in 40ºC heat, to have lunch at La Paradiso. It’s a small island but getting across its 10 km width is a mission. A new road has been built since cyclone Ivan but it’s difficult to imagine anything other than assault vehicles making the trip.

We had the dogs of La Crique with us, three of them, led by a little mutt who was a terror for chickens. With the emergence of a lanky Malagasy chicken from the rice or bush his ears perked and in two seconds the chase was on. The other dogs followed. They killed a chicken on that walk. I felt like I’d stolen from somebody. They weren’t even our dogs.

We passed a small village, people working in the fields, their backsides to the sky. They smiled and waved at us, or asked, “You need boatman?” high above the sea. There were patches of indigenous vegetation but the land has been well worked over.

We were greeted by Florance, who led us to his mother’s restaurant. Throughout lunch he regaled us with the many things he could do for us, for very little Ariary. But we had no wealth to spare; we weren’t that kind of tourists. What a lunch it was! Chicken in coconut sauce, shredded crab in the shell, unprocessed rice, Three Horses, a finger bowl with purple petals, and peace. All harvested locally and cooked fresh, every bite a delight. As we ate the little mutt chased a village boy and bit him on his ankles.

We walked a long way next day, 20 km, looking for a restaurant at the top of the island. But there was no restaurant. We walked through villages with houses built on platforms above the sandy soil that would course with the water that flows to the sea in the storms. Despite a nagging feeling of invasion of privacy, especially with the dogs of La Crique along, I was glad for those walks and the life we’d seen.

When our time at La Crique was over, everyone piled into the bakkie: Joseph, Serafine, Venise, and a mysterious old man who had appeared two days before, with a typewriter perched at his back window. On the one-lane road we encountered a large red lorry and as various manoeuvrings and jockeying for position were executed we finally saw a giant chameleon. Its blue and white body was poised on a fallen palm frond. With left boob on my thigh, C leaned over to take the picture.

You get to the tiny island of Ille aux Nattes by pirogue, though you can walk the channel. The boatmen line up and beseech you to vote for their boat. We stayed at Baboo Village, next to a place owned by a South African, Ockie. He too had only two guests, Dutch with some business on Madagascar. They were aimlessly chilling with Ockie, watching DVDs on the widescreen in the evening and in the mornings sitting on the deck with coffee and whiskey watching the pirogues cross the channel with their cargo.

There’s a sandy trail that circles the island and you can walk it in a couple of hours. Stop by the Maningory Bar and Restaurant and you might see one of the few lemurs left. You can take a pirogue around the island, stop for a bottle or three, for you and the boatman, swim in the clear water where the Madagascar Strait meets the Indian Ocean, and make it back to the lodge before sundowners and yet another French meal.

On the plane back to Joburg about a half dozen journalists were on board. The coup was over and they were headed on to the next story. We waited on the tarmac for twenty minutes for the last of them, carrying his satchel, talking on his cell phone as he mounted the stairway. A woman across the aisle from me lifted her flaccid arms and clapped, slowly but loudly, as he entered the cabin. There were calls and jests. I got the distinct feeling that they all thought that they were the only ones on the plane, the other passengers more like faceless manikins than real live people. At the queue at customs they were whisked off like royalty.

I thought of two little girls who walked with us, trudging barefoot to school ten kilometres across Ille St. Marie, a journey they made every day, with empty hands and stoic hearts, and smiling villagers on top of the hills asking; “You need boatman?” I thought of the woman at a spaza shop; “You want three, four…” I asked C. “…or five…” said the smiling woman as she opened the shop. I thought of Paki the pirogue man of Ille aux Nattes, and Joseph at La Crique, and musty cemeteries with midget crypts, and the lithe climber who pulled down coconuts to fall on the sandy trail, and the shopkeeper who couldn’t understand our requests for the title of the almost rumba music we heard as we passed, and the sage guitar of Manhi at the Zebu Bar and Lounge on our last night in Antananarivo – and many others we’d encountered, and I thought that the journos had missed the story, and I was glad to see them go, like cockroaches underneath the molding.

Coups come and coups go, but the people soldier on, barely blown by the breeze.

Don’t hesitate to go.

Cooking And Cuisine Tasting From Tana-Malagasy Fine Foodie Madagascar Tour

If You Go:

During the coup flights to Antananorivo were curtailed by many airlines. Things have stabilized somewhat since then, and it may be easier to get there. One can always fly to Johannesburg, and then on to Antananorivo on South African Airways or Air Madagascar. From Antananorivo flights are available to Toamasina on Ile St. Marie. La Crique will transport you to their premises. They will also take you to the beach on the south end of the island where you can catch a pirogue to Ill Aux Nattes. Check here for info about La Crique: www.lacrique-saintemarie.com and www.tripadvisor.com. Package deals are available. Languages spoken are Malagasy and French.

About the author:
Doug Downie is a semi-retired evolutionary biologist and entomologist,currently living in Sacramento, California, after eight years in South Africa. He also writes poetry and prose. Four books of his fiction can be found at www.lulu.com

Photo Credits:
All photographs by Claudie Hiles.

Durban: A Slice of Africa

South Africa

by Julie H. Ferguson

The city of Durban on the north-west coast of South Africa does not feature in most travelers’ plans. It is steamy in summer, allegedly unsafe, a bit dirty, and the beach strip is rowdy. So why go? To experience the “real” urban South Africa and enjoy value for money. Good highways, an excellent game reserve close-by, and warm hospitality are other draws.

Durban throbs with the rhythms of Black Africa that are not as accessible on the typical tourist track. The aromas wafting from stalls and cafés are unidentifiable, but worth exploring. Street vendors sell everything from beadwork to biltong (spicy, dried meat). The African taxis, actually ten-passenger vans, clog the city streets hawking for business and owning the road. Women carry grocery bags on their heads and kids on their backs. It’s high energy here and crowded.

Durban is price-friendly: a bottle of Heineken costs 13 Rand (Cdn $1.86), and the ubiquitous bed and breakfasts average about R300 to R400 per night ($48-$57), even in high season, and are clean and welcoming. The Indian Ocean boasts good surf on white sand beaches and a water temperature of 25C but, best of all, Durban is an easy drive in a rental car to one of the best safari parks. Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is cheaper, but no less comfortable than the famous and bigger Kruger National Park. You can see the Big Five here – lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and Cape Buffalo – and it’s malaria-free.

Instead of staying in a western-style hotel on the beach or in central Durban, I choose to overlook the yacht basin in a hotel that is a Black empowerment project. Durban Manor’s faded grandeur acts as a time warp. Built as a Victorian gentlemen’s club in the 1890s, its twenty-foot ornate ceilings, massive furniture the size of rhinos, and threadbare carpets over marble floors are more British than Britain ever was. An ancient cage elevator is original. The hotel’s hearty breakfasts are straight out of a Victorian country house – silver chafing dishes filled with kidneys, kippers, and kedgeree on a vast buffet; however, dinner is the worst of 1950s British food. The Manor’s rooms are large, clean, and air-conditioned, if shabby. In tropical downpours, buckets catch leaks in the public rooms and bath towels sop up the rain pouring in around closed windows. I quickly appreciate Durban Manor’s eccentricities, price, and location, as well as a hotel staff who face their challenges with a cheerful shrug.

On day three, I take a city tour recommended by locals. Richard Powell and his Zulu assistant, Sthembiso, of Street Scene Tours treat me to a five-hour tour that costs under $40.00 including lunch. This is not your average tour, but an experience that exposes the beat of African Durban. The pair work as a tag team: Richard explains the city’s layout and history as we pass the colonial landmarks, and Sthembiso describes the African outlook and way of life as we meander through the Zulu markets and Muslim arcades.

We walk as much as we drive, which makes the experience better than most city tours and ensures good photography. The highlight is my visit to Warwick Triangle – the tangle of markets where Africans shop. Everything is for sale here – food, folkloric remedies, ceremonial items, electronics, and aphrodisiacs. This is not an area in which to walk alone or take photos freely due to illegal items on sale and some African’s fear of cameras, but I feel completely safe with my guides. I pass monkey carcasses and goats’ heads on sale in the Muti (meat) Market, balls of white and red clay used for body decoration, dyed horsehair for weaving, and all manner of plants and tree parts for traditional healers spread out in the Herb Market.

In the narrow, winding arcades nearby, I see brilliantly coloured skirts for Zulu virgins to wear at initiations, beads and weapons for young warriors, and vast quantities of housewares available to purchase for lobola or “bride-price.” Sticky and tired after wandering here for a couple of hours, Richard whisks me off for lunch in a Gujarati cafe.

Since Durban was settled, the large East Indian population has offered its traditional dishes all over the city. Their most famous is Bunny Chow. The Indians who caddied at the Royal Durban Golf Club never had time to stop for lunch, so Mr. Bunny created a unique curry sandwich they could munch on the go. He scooped out the centre of half a loaf, filled the hole with a spicy curry, and stuffed the bread back on top. I eat mine with my fingers, mopping up the hot sauce with pieces of bread and loving it.

Richard describes his tours as “Alternative” and, if his others are like today’s, they will be worthwhile. I’m sorry to miss the Township Tour but I leave tomorrow for my first safari. The Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve is the oldest park in South Africa (est.1895) and once the hunting grounds of Zulu kings who later introduced the first conservation laws. Its name is pronounced “sh-shluey,” preferably with a spit! When a family of warthogs greet me and my travel companions at the park gate, our excitement surges. We wind up and down hills on the seven-mile road to Hilltop and encounter zebra, Cape Buffalo, and a tree full of squabbling weaver birds. Here regulations forbid visitors to leave their vehicles for any reason.

The thatched Hilltop Lodge overlooks a wide valley and is blessed with all the amenities of an excellent hotel, including delicious breakfast and dinner buffets. As I push open the door of our roomy cottage, my first sight is a warning about marauding baboons – the robust grills over our windows speak volumes. Harmless Vervet monkeys gambol all around us.

Game drives set out at dawn and dusk, so our meals have to fit around them. It makes for long days, late dinners, and short nights. A nap in the heat of the day while the animals sleep is mandatory if we want to survive; so are insect repellent, sunscreen, snacks, and water.

At 5:00pm, armed with my camera, a long lens, and binoculars, I scramble onto a high seat in the back of a 10-passenger Land Rover. The canvas roof shields the sun, but otherwise it is an open vehicle that delivers excellent viewing above tall grasses and shrubs. We drive along winding, rust-red trails over hills covered with lush vegetation and through treed valleys with rushing streams.

Abruptly the park ranger stops and points out a couple of Nyala (antelope) on a distant slope. Even with binoculars I can barely see them – is this as close as we will get to the game? Then over the next rise, a Black Rhino grazes not 50 feet away. We turn another corner and nearly run into a giraffe. After that, the game appears thick, fast, and close until the sun sets. But the best comes after dark, when we disturb a lion lying in the middle of the trail. He hightails into the bush but stops ten feet away and, with the aid of a spotlight, I can count his teeth when he yawns.

Over the next two days, the safari never stops thrilling – at dawn, seven White Rhino on a hilltop and two cuddling in a wallow, an elegant male Impala with his harem in a sun-dappled glade, five giraffe loping along ahead of us, owls and vultures peering from trees, a crocodile half-submerged in a stream, huge herds of jet-black Cape Buffalo, and one Spotted Hyena scavenging a lion kill.

We quickly learn where and how to spot game, and use our rental car to do a game drive through the southern section of the reserve before returning to Durban. We never see leopard or elephant in Hluhluwe, but the latter are to come in vast numbers – another two weeks of South African adventures lie ahead.

Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve Day Tour from Durban

If You Go:

KwaZulu-Natal Tourism Authority: www.durban.kzn.org.za
Durban Manor: www.durbanmanorhotel.com
Street Scene Tours with Richard Powell: www.streetscenetours.co.za
Hluhluwe- Imfolozi Game Reserve: www.sa-venues.com and www.kznparks.com
Amatikulu Tours: our package at Hilltop (Hluhluwe), which included two nights in a comfortable two-bedroom cottage, delicious breakfasts and dinners in the main lodge, and two game drives, cost Cdn $410.00 per person. (Additional drives – $42.00 each.) The baboons and vervet monkeys are free. For those who don’t wish to rent a car, packages are also available with transport from Durban. www.amatikulu.com
Car rental: Europcar from the airport or central Durban– www.europcar.com
Bed and Breakfasts and guesthouses in South Africa: www.bedandbreakfast.com

About the author:
Julie H. Ferguson is an addicted traveller, a serious photographer, and the author of 17 books, four of which are about Canadian history. She invites you to visit www.beaconlit.com and www.flickr.com/photos/beaconlit.