Odds-n-Ends

A few, hopefully somewhat interesting/amusing, notes I've been meaning to share:

- On our first night of camping, Kathleen & I asked some of the Aussies if they could show us the Southern Cross (we'd never seen it). They looked and looked and talked about what it looks like, and looked some more. About 30 minutes after they'd given up looking for it, I pointed up at a cross formation and said, "Is that it?" It was. I was psyched. They were crushed it was found by Team America.

- Xavier Rudd is a great Australian artist with a CD called "Food in the Belly." We heard it a number of times on the camping trip, and I recommend it.

- On our second night of camping we saw two HUGE scorpions. Our leader, Emma, said she'd never seen one, so she was a bit freaked out we'd seen two run through camp in one night. Thankfully, no one fell prey.

- Back in Cape Town, after we climbed Table Mountain and took the cable car down, we were so excited about the great afternoon we'd just spent that all 5 of us walked right past our rental car without realizing it. We walked and walked along the road looking for it, and finally turned back with a heavy mood cloud weighing on us, talking about who would call the police to report the stolen car, etc. Boy were we excited (and a little embarassed) when we found the car practically right under the cable car station we'd left the mountain from!

- Our driver on the Overlanding trip, Aloise, is a Kenyan Maasai, and when he did his customary lion hunt at age 12 (part of the circumcision ritual that marks a boy's passage into manhood), he and his friend were attacked by a large female lion. His friend died, and he has huge scars on his back and a small one on his face.

- Bed bugs are real, and are super nasty! One of the young British girls on our trip, Jessie, had been attacked during the night at her hostel in Cape Town. She had hundreds of bright red bites all over her face, arms, legs, back, stomach, everywhere. They aren't dangerous, but are terribly itchy and mustn't be scratched. The poor thing was a great sport about it, and while the bites were still visible 10 days later when we left the tour, they were much lighter in color. The doctor she saw in Cape Town said to always select a bed near a window b/c the bed bugs don't like light. Duely noted!

- On our tour of Robben Island in Cape Town, the prison where Nelson Mandela and all other black prisioners of Apartheid were held, our tour guide, who was a former prisoner himself, kept drawing comparisons with his experience and Guantanamo Bay (being held without proper charges or a trial, etc.).

- Our campsites in Namibia were all very remote, and the desert doesn't have clouds, so we saw the most stars we've ever seen in our lives at night. My favorite was seeing the white cloud of the Milky Way stretch across the sky (by the way, the Southern Cross lays just below the southern tip of the Milky Way, so if you can see it, it's easy to find the Cross!). One night several in our group even slept outside of their tents on a simple tarp the driver & cook used every night. Kathleen & I considered it b/c there was no breeze in the hot tents, but the bug-factor kept us zipped up inside. There are some LARGE critters in the desert!

- After nearly three months of traveling with them, I still can't tell the difference between an Australian and a British accent. I'm horrible at it. Oh, and a little game British English speakers often play when they hear our accents is to ask us to say the phrase, "out and about." That's how they test their ears to tell whether we're American or Canadian.

- I firmly believe all good Hollywood set designers have spent time in Africa. The crazy bugs look like alien creatures from movies. The landscapes look like those out of Star Wars and such, etc.

- There were tons of shipwecks off the coasts of Cape Town, and some were so close to the shore that you could see rusted top of the metal remains sitting above the surf.

- On any trip it's tough to learn everyone's names right away, but it's especially tough on trips like our last Overlanding adventure where we had two Amys, two Karens & an Australian Carla (that sounds like Karen w/ an Aussie accent), two Lauras, an Emma & a Gemma, and a bunch of girls with traditionally "guy" names: Charley, Jessie & Sam! It was so tough keeping everyone straight. We finally had it down when it was time to leave!

- In Swakopmund we went to the beach and put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean and waved hellos Northeast to our friends & family in the U.S.

- Australians don't ever say, "much" or "a lot." It's all, "heaps."

- Brits don't ever say, "I agree." or "me too." It's just, "same."

- There was a British guy on our tour who had been working in the states and was in a horrible motorcycle accident in Miami. He said the biggest mistake of his life is that after his first weeks of critical care, once he was stable, he returned to England to be near family & friends. He said the level of care he received fell off dramatically, and he regrets not staying in the states where we have it so good. Remember that next time you complain about your health care!

I'm now staying in Johannesburg at the lovely home of a couple Julie & I met in Zanzibar, Mandy & Stephen. They're wonderful, and have a beautiful home with two great kids. I'm loving it. Will share pics soon!

xoxo,
Mere