Africa 2001: Week 1 - Bewildered wildebeests are only the beginning

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From an airplane at 5AM, Lagos, Nigeria looked a lot like Newark, New Jersey: sprawling, bright, and vague. Once I cleared the jet lag out of my head long enough to think, I clamped down on one important difference: the lights, the people hidden in the quilt of buildings, the air I was breathing, they were all in Africa. It was July 2001 and I was a long way from home. Farther from home than I’d ever been, in more ways than one.

Ever since, the trip has come up in more conversations than I can count. Many people have asked why I haven't published a journal of some sort. I am one of those people, so here it goes. If you're interested, read on. I've left out a lot, and it's impossible to capture it all anyway.

It is only possible to recap:

Week One
After our Lagos stopover, Tim* and I arrived in Johannesburg in early afternoon. I was on leave from work, Tim on leave from working. Our only concrete plan was to make the most of six weeks of freedom. In fact, we didn't even have a place to stay that night. After a few confusing phone calls we went to a hostel to do as the locals did – stay inside, away from the streets, behind cement walls topped with broken glass and razor wire. The danger outside was real, the stories were common. We ate pasta and talked to an easy-going Scandinavian girl named Nina. She told us all about her last six months traveling with a friend, every word sweetened by a mischievous accent and an energizing smile. She was gorgeous. She was nineteen. I was a very uncomfortable 31. It was time for bed. I slept fifteen hours.

Tim and I decided that our first significant act of tourism would be a guided trip to Soweto (Southwest Township). We piled into the sightseeing van with our guide, a local named Neo, and thought of Bono: “Living in a shantytown outside of Johannesburg.” Well the Soweto I was in isn’t so easy to categorize, mister!

We started with a walk through an area called Mandelaville, a name that was part tribute and part protest. Unemployment was 80%. Fresh water was rare, toilets shared. We went into one shack: a mother and son lived there in a shared bed. The wallpaper was soup labels, there was no electricity and the gas light made our eyes hurt.

The sorrow swung at us like a hammer but it all felt a little voyeuristic: “Oh look! Poor black people! Get the camera!” I mean, have you ever gone to a squalor-filled trailer park just to talk to welfare mothers and see how miserable life can be?

Neo was quick to point out that this misery was only part of the picture. In fact, that's why he gave tours. Soweto is three times the size of the city of which it is a “suburb”** and housed the full spectrum of humanity. There were shantytowns like Mandelaville, sure, but millionaires, too. It was home to one of the largest hospitals in the world, and one of the largest breweries, too. It had the only street in the world with two Nobel Peace Prize winners on it. That’s what CNN didn't say. It’s what Neo wanted the world to know.

We got back in the van to see more. Horns were going everywhere, polite and civil. It’s a conversation: “Go ahead. Thank you. Need a ride? Hey man, how’ve you been? Excuse me....” We passed stores that sold nothing but access to a phone. There were live chickens for sale on the corner. Guys with a wrench and a hammer called themselves mechanics and sat idle on the side of the road. Soon enough we were at Nelson Mandela’s old house. Bishop Tutu’s place is just up the way.

To understand the brutality of apartheid, all you need to know is that while Nelson was in jail his wife Winnie used to wave a broom out the front door before going out for the paper, some milk, or just some air. If government snipers shot at it, she stayed inside all day. This was long before she decided to steal from the ANC coffers, betray her husband’s dreams, and lose the respect of her entire nation.

Neo showed us the school where the Soweto Student Uprising went down. He was 11 at the time. The police killed his friend of the same age, sparking days of riots and launching the anti-apartheid struggle to new heights of violence and adamance. Neo later ran guns for the ANC. He didn't apologize for it.

The next morning we were up at dawn and into another van. After lots of stops at hostels (called "backpackers"), 16 of us were hurtling towards Kruger National Park. Wide highways surprised. Fast food breakfast disappointed. Lunch in the mall hurt.

Then we got to the park. Therein lies the Africa I had seen on TV. For three days the 16 of us -- Brits, Canadians, and Americans all -- did little more than stare out the van windows. Our driver and guide, Wim, didn’t speak much beyond telling us what we were looking at.

Just inside the gate, an impala! Over there, a giraffe: did you know they give birth standing up? Zebras, the females are white then black and the males black then white. Ahhh, tour guide humor. There’s a herd of impala. Elephants, bigger than you imagined, challenged the van with mock aggression. We hoped it was mocking, at least, as he walked towards us ears a-flapping. Rhino, kudu, badger, hyena, baboons, monkeys, even a cheetah. Oh man, not another impala. 150 cape buffalo blocked the road. Now to the water. Hippos! Faster than they look, they kill more people in South Africa than any other game. One tried to kill Wim once; he barely outran it. Nearby crocodiles were motionless. Wim said they can change the gender of their offspring by adding or removing sand on the nest to alter the temperature of their eggs. Not bad for a dinosaur brain.

Between it all, on the giraffe’s side, the elephants back, the trees, the bushes, and the water, were the birds. Green white red amazing, huge small, loud quiet, darting gliding hiding soaring. Birds like you’ve never seen. Everywhere, even through mammal-free hours of "nothing."

On the night drive all that was still there, but all you could see were occasional eyes. You just tried to stay warm and enjoy the Zen trance of it all.

We drove, ate, slept, and repeated for three days, seeing only a tiny fraction of Kruger, which is about the size of Israel. 2000 kilometers of road only let you see 10% of the total acreage. Boredom never came. Neither did lions or leopards.

After Kruger we went to a private game reserve where the guides drove off-road and we were allowed to get out and walk freely. The animals were elsewhere. My intestines hung tough as the food got more African and the water more dodgy. Next we saw Blyde River Canyon (it’s deep but not quite Grand) before Wim left Tim and I at Nelspruit, the major town near the park, with four others -- Mark and Josh, and Ellen and Emma.

Familiar but not yet friendly, all of us were waiting for the BazBus, a van that does laps around the incredible network of South African backpackers and connects the entire country on the cheap. It was late because it runs on "Africa time."

When it came we sardined aboard with 20 others in what passed for 22 seats. Tim and I wedged ourselves into the front row next to a French couple who looked way too old for the crowd (they must have been all of 45). We couldn’t turn, couldn’t move our legs, couldn’t talk to anyone in English. We just read and read and eavesdropped on the conversations behind us. In joyous contrast to the silent safari van, the Bazbus was a rolling party of accents and adventurers swapping tales, tips, and jokes. Someone let the Brits control the stereo: Crap house music for everybody! The joint was jumping.

Five hours later, Swaziland.

That's when I learned Swaziland is a country. In fact it’s got one of the last powerful monarchies on earth. We checked into a backpackers inside Mlilwane National Park. Our gracious host Bob darted around the place keeping everyone happy. He burst into our dinner and told us to hurry if we wanted to see the dancing. What dancing!? Off I dashed. At a nearby hotel (same owners as the hostel, much better dressed clientele), Swazi people danced and sang and banged drums. The men wore fur skirts on their ankles and waists and danced to the wail of their own singing. The big move was a clap under a kicking leg, revealing the red Adidas under the animal skins. The women wore long dresses and sang along while passing the hat for donations. Overall, it was about as authentic as colonial villages I went to on elementary school field trips. The tourists, like me, ate it up.

As I waited in the van to get back to the backpackers, a pretty young Brit leaned across my legs, put an elbow and healthy breast on my thigh, and chatted with a bloke standing outside the sliding door. When she finally sat up she apologized and laughed a great happy laugh that said, “We’re all friends here.” Enter Marti.

Back at the hostel I met her friends, Nicky and Anna. Two Dutch guys they knew, Vincent and Roy, were knocking back beers. We discussed the dual English meanings of “dyke” and whatever else comes up when you’re in a bar full of strangers in Swaziland. Mark and Josh and Ellen and Emma were still around. The conversation turned to next destinations. Word had it that despite the 17 year civil war and floods and land mines and corrupt cops, Mozambique was a great place. Someone who’d been said we must go. Nine of us agreed.

Last call happened. then sleep, then morning. It was time for a mountain bike ride. The Dutch guys set the pace. We rifled up and down red dirt roads, pausing only to wait for our panting guide. Vincent was showing off his speed, missed a turn, and disappeared into the tall grass. He crawled out laughing harder than anyone. Antelopes ran alongside us, fear in their eyes. Birds took flight at our approach. Ostrich trotted away. Bewildered wildebeest didn’t know where to turn. Zebra fled. The hippos and crocs paid us no mind. Young black boys waved from the other side of the park fence. It was, simply put, the best bike ride of my life. Tim, Vincent, Roy, Anna, Marti and I joking, smiling, and sweating our way through the Africa I'd imagined. Who the heck were these people?

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*To quote Mr. Martin, my high school English teacher, "Names have been changed to protect the guilty; the innocent don't need protection." If you know these people, or are one of them, you'll figure it out.

**Most facts like this are unverified. They are things people told me along the way that were accurate in spirit if not in the details.

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