Es-Cape-ades

The next day in Cape Town, our plans to visit the looming Table Mountain were dashed when we discovered that it was closed due to poor visibility and high winds (a subsequent visual inspection revealed a large circle of ominous gray clouds hovering at the peak). Thereafter, we called for tickets to Robben Island (where several prominent ANC political figures including Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned) only to discover that tickets were unavailable until the 14th. Rolling with the flow, we changed our plans midstream and decided to continue exploring more of the city itself. We confidently boarded our trusty local minibus and ventured to Bo-Kapp, a Muslim part of town identified by distinctive, pastel-colored houses. A resident of the area served as an informative guide and gave us a tour of the Bo-Kapp Museum before we made our way through the neighborbood on foot.

From Bo-Kapp, we stopped in at the Gold of Africa Museum to see the famous Golden Lion, which proved to be a little over-hyped in our humble opinions (the lion was roughly the size of a baby head of lettuce). We then walked over to the Slave Lodge where Kaberi took in the history of the slave trade as well as the memorial for slaves held in the lodge itself. From the Slave Lodge, we worked our way down Long Street to the South African Missionary Meeting House Museum (the first church to teach literacy to blacks) and the Palm Street Mosque (which we could only admire from the outside as it was closed to the public).

As we wandered along Long Street, Kaberi indulged in her desire for souvenirs, rationalizing that we were in the final stretch of the trip and could carry any purchases for the duration (Vik disagreed but was summarily ignored). We soon poked our head into the overwhelmingly-cheesy Pan African Market before finding a slightly more upscale retail venue. Vik staunchly opposed prospective purchases of beaded wooden fertility dolls or recycled soda-can toy cars, leaving Kaberi to furtively search for one or two items that would pass muster. We capped our day with a drink at the lazily-named Long Street Bar before catching a minibus back to Sea Point at dusk.

We awoke the following morning to a spectacularly-cloudless, sun-drenched day, and subsequently made a bee-line for Table Mountain. Having been closed to the public for several weeks for annual maintenance, Table Mountain greeted us with a seemingly mile long queue of apparently every other tourist in town. Despite arriving at 10:00 a.m., it wasn’t until noon when we finally managed to buy our tickets and stand in a second line to board the revolving cable car heading up to the mountaintop. Upon arriving at the peak, we were met by a fierce wind and incomparable views. We soon set off on an easy, two-hour hike to different vantage points of the sprawl below encompassing the city center and waterfront, Robben Island, Signal Hill, Lion’s Head and the Twelve Apostles mountain range. We were stunned by the beauty enveloping us and reveled in the picture-perfect weather conditions for Cape Town’s top attraction.

The next day was not nearly as clear as its predecessor, but we still chose to visit the Kirstenbosh National Botanical Gardens. As we arrived, we were dismayed to see the clouds rolling in behind us. Without missing a beat, the skies opened just as we were commencing our tour. Our guide was completely unfazed, however, continually jumping in and out of our golf cart to pick leaves and blossoms for us to feel and smell. We soon learned that South Africa’s oldest botanical garden housed one third of the world’s floral species and represented the first botanical in the world to be designated as an UNESCO World Heritage site. The most striking flower of the several that we saw was a colorful one named for Nelson Mandela. However, our favorite part of the outing came after the tour concluded, when we raised our body temperatures by sampling mugs of the Kirchenbosh Tea Room’s sinfully-rich hot chocolate.

On a slightly overcast day later in the week, we took the local train down to Simonstown to see the African penguin reserve. Unbeknownst to us, we chose to make the journey on a national holiday, National Women’s Day, and soon found that rail service was interrupted. Our train stopped in Fish Hoek, several towns north of our final destination, from where we were shuttled to Simonstown on an impossibly-crowded coach bus. From the bus stop, we walked through the center of town to Boulder Beach, an outpost located on the outskirts of town. While we admired the penguins in their natural habitat (especially the furry babies), we were overwhelmed by their stench. We sought olfactory relief on the walk back into town before stopping in at The Meeting Place for an upscale casual lunch. When the threat of rain from foreboding, overcast skies mounted, we quickly returned to the bus stop to reverse our course. The return journey seemed longer than we remembered, but our kindly fellow passengers reassured us that we were headed back in the right direction.

One of the most pleasant surprises of our stint in Cape Town was interacting with the locals. We found ourselves constantly chatting with friendly fellow passengers on various transport modes including trains, Rikkis (British-style fixed-rate shared taxicabs) and minibuses. The locals (of all skin colors) we encountered were exceedingly personable and helpful, and helped put our minds at ease about our reception in a former Apartheid state. We also managed to patronize a number of the restaurants recommended by local benefactors. We found that the city’s culinary scene did not seem to boast a fusion culture, but rather, focused on preparing a number of distinct cuisines well, including sushi at Tank, Indian at Bukhara, pan-Asian at Haiku, fresh continental at Savoy Cabbage, and African-influenced international at Five Flies, the restaurant where we belatedly celebrated our fifth anniversary. In Cape Town, we soon came to learn that neither a friendly face nor a satisfying meal were very hard to find.

Southern Comfort

From Dar Es Salaam, we made our way three hours south to the Republic of South Africa. Stepping down at Johannesburg Airport, we played forty-five minutes of hide and seek with the driver tasked with meeting us before finally chartering a car and driver on our own. Forty-five minutes later, we found ourselves on the doorstep of Kaberi’s vivacious Carleton friend, Kgomotso, in the charming and artsy northern Johannesburg suburb of Melville. After several rounds of ear-splitting squeals and exuberant bear hugs, Kaberi and Kgomotso finally settled into rapid-fire chatter that persisted throughout dinner and drinks. Vik’s intermittent renditions of sketches from The Chappelle Show acquitted him well with Kgomotso and contributed to the evening’s funloving tone. A few hours later, Kgomotso helped us ring in our fifth wedding anniversary as the clock struck midnight. With the night having flown by, we looked forward to a week with Kgomotso in Johannesburg at the end of our stay.

The next morning, we celebrated our anniversary by first taking a 90-minute South African Airways flight west to Cape Town and then making our way to Kgomotso’s flat in the northwestern district of Sea Point. The charming and vibrant apartment served as our headquarters for the next two weeks and we quickly made ourselves at home. Residing a mere block from the beach, we strolled along a grass-lined promenade featuring views of energetic breakers crashing along the rocks. Apart from the frenetic shoreline, the surroundings reminded us more than a little bit of Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive.

A block or so inland from the promenade, we discovered New York Bagel, an eclectic cafeteria-style haberdasherie with plenty of cheap food options and Internet-capable PC’s. Over the course of the two weeks (to Kaberi’s chagrin), we spent many hours uploading photos, making travel plans and tracking the Boston Red Sox quest to hand yet another division title to the bleepin’ Yankees. On our return walk home, we happened upon Woolworths, a South African retail hybrid of Sears and Whole Foods where we found microwaveable Indian butter chicken dinners which soon became our daily indulgence on rainy nights.

As it turned out, we were fortunate to have the luxury of time in Cape Town, especially since our arrival coincided with the city’s rainy season. Cape Town proved to be the single most fickle city we had ever encountered on a weather basis, far surpassing Boston or San Francisco with its vicissitudes. One friendly local confided in us that his hometown boasted four seasons in a single day, and his pronouncement was hardly an exaggeration. Nevertheless, we found that the city’s wet interludes were perfect excuses for holing up on Kgomotso’s sofa with a warm blanket and cable TV. Apart from one particularly-rainy night when we braved the precipitation by venturing out to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront to see the newly-released Bourne Ultimatum, we mostly stayed dry indoors.

On our first sunny day in the city, we began our adventures by catching at the corner one of the throbbing-with-hip-hop minibus taxis making their way down Sea Point’s Main Street. We found the ride to be a rite of passage as we joined eight other passengers squeezed into a miniature van with an impatient driver and an attendant endlessly hustling for business. The 4 rand per passenger journey (approximately $0.53 each) brought us into Cape Town’s surprisingly-gritty downtown where we disembarked.

We soon made our way to Cape Town City Hall, the steps of which served as the site of Nelson Mandela’s first speech after being released from prison in 1990. After navigating the nondescript, gridlike streets, we found our way to the District Six Museum. District Six was formerly a culturally-vibrant but less affluent inner city neighborhood housing 55,000 “colored” (defined as non-white but not black) working class residents. In 1953, the neighborhood was razed by the despicable Afrikaaner government in order to create whites-only housing. The resulting international outrage over the destruction and forced resettlement was so great that the area never really developed. The District Six museum was housed in a former Methodist church that escaped demolition. It contained numerous photographs and personal effects of the former residents that gave us a real sense of their former lives. The museum space itself was dominated by a poignant map created by former residents documenting their homes and surroundings and a nearly complete set of street signs that were surreptitiously rescued from imminent destruction.

After our visit concluded, we set out on an uphill walk to Tamboerskloof to meet up with two of Kgomotso’s Cape Town friends, Cassandra and Jonji, who warmly welcomed us with a bottle of wine and a dinner invitation at Addis in Cape, an excellent Ethiopian restaurant run by a successful female Ethiopian entrepreneur. We reveled in the delicious meal and good company, and hoped that our auspicious start was a sign of more good things to come.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

From Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, we continued our adventures with CC Africa and made our way to Klein’s Conservation Camp astride the Serengeti near the Kenyan border. Our 7:00 a.m. jeep ride to the Manyara airstrip was followed by another exciting journey in a diminutive prop plane (where we literally sat behind the pilot to enjoy a clear view out the front window). Our noon landing at Klein’s involved touching down on an airstrip simply marked with a black and white wind flag and a strip of grass matted flat by repeated plane landings. Our accommodations at the aptly-named Klein’s Under Canvas were located ten minutes away at a mobile camp site in the midst of the actual conservation area.

A bit unsure of what to expect from two nights in a tent with no electricity or running water, we were thrilled to discover that our lodgings represented a cavernous and thoughtfully-appointed canvas tent. We found our tent furnished with a comfortable bed, a working indoor toilet, a basin and large brass urn filled with gravity-induced “running” water, a ground-level outdoor shower deck (consisting of a suspended, upturned brass water container) and a private butler (named Moses) whose duties aside from parting nearby bodies of water included fetching boiling water for our showers.

After an efficient picnic lunch near the camp’s hub, we retired to our tent just before the skies opened to unleash a massive thundershower of spectacular force and fury. Over the next several hours, not a single raindrop encroached the inside of our tent while we were lulled soundly to sleep by the pageantry of the crackling skies above.

As luck would have it, we awoke just as the rains ended and just in time to make the scheduled 4:00 p.m. afternoon safari ride. Our capable guide Massek chauffeured the two of us in a convertible-roof Land Cruiser through the conservation area, a private concession area leased exclusively to CC Africa. Unlike our excursion in Ngorongoro Crater, the Klein’s safari ride afforded us the opportunity to off-road and approach the animals at unimaginably-intimate distances. Within mere minutes of setting out, we were graced by two families of African elephants with a baby in their midst and by a herd of curious giraffes. Seemingly everywhere we looked, a cornucopia of animals – ranging in scale and ferocity – emerged from the bush. The excitement that we felt the prior morning at Ngorongoro Crater was soon eclipsed by our amazement at the sheer number of animals sighted in the conservation area.

The pinnacle of our safari ride was soon to come. On the basis of a radioed tip from a fellow guide, we made our way deeper into the preserve to a clearing of tall grass. Nestled in the midst of golden stalks, we found a pair of enervated lions (a male boasting a conspicuous mane and a female boasting long eyelashes) several hours into their extended mating cycle. From Massek, we learned that during mating season, single-minded lions copulate every 15 minutes for three straight days, even going so far as to forego meals and extended sleep. We also found out that a single alpha male pairs with each of the females in his herd (lionesses actually initiate the process) on a rolling three-day basis. This responsibility invariably takes its toll as male lions have a life span 14 years shorter than their counterpart lionesses. When Vik remarked that this was quite a way to go, Massek nodded in knowing agreement.

As if on cue, the two lions on which we were eavesdropping began their activity. The two appeared to both share an exhibitionist streak as they ended up consummating three times in the twenty minutes during which our voyeuristic eyes were trained on them. In each case, the physical exertion phase of the mating lasted less than a minute (lions are not especially keen on foreplay or endurance). After the third coupling, a second male lion approached from the bush at the rear of our vehicle. Initially expecting a fight between two aggressive males, we were somewhat disappointed to observe the second lie down casually ten yards from the pair. At this point, Massek suggested that lion number two was the alpha male’s brother keeping a respectful distance after being summoned by his sibling. Throughout, Kaberi snapped away furiously, capturing no less than 250 shots in short order. After the show, albeit tired, we had to admit that we were not nearly as worn out as the lions.

The subsequent night drive was a bit anticlimactic, although we did manage to see bushbabies for the very first time. We summarily returned to the camp to make a bee-line for the warmth of the roaring nightly campfire. Huddled just out of reach of the flames, we enjoyed chilled drinks and handfuls of spicy Bombay mix as we chatted first with Ladislas, the camp’s acting director, and then with the Schiffmans, a funloving American family of five who inspired us with their annual tradition of exotic annual family vacations. After the staff coaxed us away from the fire and our enthusiastic conversation, we assembled for dinner in the mess tent.

Not surprisingly, considering our remote location, we found that our meals, despite the significant effort of the camp staff, did not compare with those we enjoyed at Ngorogoro Crater. The atmosphere and conversation, however, were nothing less than enthralling. Massek joined us for dinner and waxed enthusiastically about CC Africa’s ethical conservation and community-building efforts. His heartfelt testimonial was convincing, and we both felt quite pleased to have chosen a top-flight, environmentally-conscious operator.

After finishing dessert, we said our good nights and returned to our tent. After changing into long thermal underwear and fleece tops, we turned in for the night. In contrast with the chill of the night, our bed was delightfully warmed by the presence of a hot water bottle. Despite the lack of electricity, we lacked for none of the comforts of home; we enjoyed cotton sheets, soft pillows, a substantial duvet and, remarkably enough, overhead lights, powered by a large external tent battery. Feeling embarrassed by the extent to which we were “roughing it,” we gratefully fell asleep.

As the sun rose, Moses appeared outside our tent attired in a heavy winter coat and bearing a kettle of hot water for our outdoor shower. We could scarcely believe that we were actually taking turns stepping into 40-degree temperatures in our birthday suits to bathe in a canvas-enclosed shower stall. Drawing the short straw and the second shift, Vik unfortunately encountered rapidly-cooling water flowing overhead. Meanwhile, a wet and shivering Kaberi curled back into bed with a lukewarm water bottle desperate for heat from any source. Reverberating in the back of our heads, were the voices of our mothers warning us that this was exactly how one caught a cold.

After a quick breakfast of cereal and yogurt, Massek and our tracker Seleu took us through the conservation area where we checked in on the aforementioned lions who were still dutifully engaged in their business. Soon thereafter, we crossed the threshold of the Serengeti (meaning “endless plain” in the Maasai language) to witness the famed annual migration.

After a couple of hours of bumpy driving, we came across a massive clearing with wildebeest scattered in droves as far as the eye could see, their movements motivated by the search for water. Interspersed with the wildebeest in the inexorable march north to Kenya were zebras, antelopes and gazelles. A few miles up the road we observed several greedy vultures bickering over access to a recent wildebeast corpse. An hour or so later, with our appetites sufficiently tempered, we stopped for an uninspiring picnic lunch in the bush where we attempted to dodge sizeable animal droppings and swat away relentless tsetse flies.

The next morning, we were grateful to be able to sleep in until 8:00 a.m. (even resident early bird Kaberi enjoyed the extra shuteye) and to awake to warmer temperatures. After a more tolerable outdoor shower and lukewarm pancakes, our departure time approached. We said our warm goodbyes to the staff and bundled into the convertible Land Cruiser for the last time (at least for the foreseeable future). As we left the camp’s borders, we were struck by the vivid sight of three Maasai warriors from the nearby village, each brandishing a tall spear, walking together in the jungle. Once airborne on the return flight to Dar Es Salaam, we both agreed that the fertile landscapes passing below had exceeded our lofty expectations, hardly an easy feat in the seven-month mark of our travels.