A touch of the Colic

One of our friends is about to have a baby, and I guess Stefan was feeling a mystical connection with her, because at 3 am in the morning he woke up in excruciating pain, He wasn't crying or screaming but he may as well have been, he had a sharp pain in his back or left side that didn't feel like an intestinal thing, he was inconsolable and nothing could make it stop. And Bernie had to watch and couldn't do anything to help, it was the middle of the night and we were at a national park campground in the middle of nowhere. Finally we found the manager's house and woke him up--he was quite helpful but told us that the nearest doctor was 150km away. He let us use our phone to call Stefan's emergency medical and evacuation insurance helpline, which wasn't much help at all (the first person wanted his email address to send us info, and we finally got to talk to a doctor, he just said to go see a doctor). Luckily we had some ibuprofen along with us, and we had made friends with a couple of South Africans who gave us another kind of pill. By 8 am we decided to head for the doctors office, which took about 2 hours. We weren't kidding when we said the nearest doctor was 150 km away--we didn't see a house or any kind of building until we had driven 60 km, and we didn't even see another car until we had gone another 10 km past that. The pain lessened and then came back during the drive, but by the time we were sitting in Dr. VonSchauroth's office Stefan was feeling much better. It was a little oasis of calm in a dusty and spartan grocery store building. Of course he had to wait an hour to get actually see the doctor, but after she heard his story and had him pee in a cup, she gave him the good? news that it was very likely a kidney stone that he might have already passed. Just as Bernie claims to have suspected right from the beginning! And the pill that the South Africans gave Stefan was exactly the right painkiller, and she gave him 12 more of these, and some anti-imflammatory pills too. All this for only 182 Namibian dollars, or about US$26!
What a terrible experience but oh how great that it's over and that it wasn't something worse. And by later that afternoon, we were recovered enough that we went all the way back and finally saw the Fish River Canyon--"second only to the Grand Canyon in Arizona"--you be the judge.

Orange River and Fishhikers

In case you can't tell from the pictures, southern Namibia is a lot like the Mojave desert in California, especially around Death Valley. Except maybe not quite as vast...but very impressive. We took the less travelled way out of Luderitz to the Fish River Canyon National Park, driving on a newly paved road as far as the town of Rosh Pinah where there is a thriving zinc mine (the mine's original prospector was Jewish and he named the town).
Next we followed the Orange River which has its headwaters in Lesotho and is one of the major rivers of South Africa flowing west across much of the country before forming the border between South Africa and Namibia and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. It was so beautiful and green and remote, with just a few fishermen visible on its banks from time to time. We never stopped for hitchhikers in the rest of the country, and maybe felt a little guilty about it, but these two guys looked so desperate and there was almost no one else driving on the road, so we agreed to take them as far as the turnoff to the national park. So far so good, but then they said--wait, we need to get our fish! and they ran off into the bushes and returned with two huge bundles of dried fish. Except it wasn't completely dry--and they got a little fish water in the back of the trunk! Just a little, but it sure does stink, even 3 days and several shampooings later. Now we know why there are big signs saying "No Fish Cleaning" in every campground and parking lot on the Namibian coast.

Like San Francisco in 1850

Lüderitz (glad that we've resolved the spelling issue!) is probably our favorite town in Namibia: it's on the coast but isn't routinely covered by a thick marine layer of fog like Swakopmund and the northern coast. We had enough of fog in Santa Barbara!!
It's like a boom town that fizzled out. It's supposedly the oldest German settlement in Namibia, and it's named after a Herr Luderitz, but it's one of the few places in the country where you _can't_ tune in the German-language radio station. (Speaking of which, Stefan just loves that station. There is a woman named Uli who must work 15 hours a day preparing and hosting her radio shows. She intersperses festive German "Schlagermusik" with interesting tidbits about lemurs in Madagascar and how to make your onions taste milder. But the best part of the day is "Hallo Kinder!" where she plays happy songs about brushing your teeth and hosts a call-in for small children to talk about subjects like their allowances, their diaries, or if they ever make a "Liverwurst Lip" when they don't get their way!)
Luederitz, and the nearby town of Kolmanskop, both got their wealth from diamonds which were just sitting on the thin gravel soil waiting to be picked up! They say that on a full moon, the diamonds would shine the brighest, and the mine workers would have to collect them by crawling on their hands and knees with a can tied around their neck.
Summertimes are supposed to get very windy in Luderitz, and although our time there was calm and mild, our tour guide was certainly dressed for extreme weather!

Hi from Luederitz

Just like home

We left Northern Namibia after spending 3 nights in Etosha Nat'l Park, where we saw Black Rhinos, tons of Elephants and Giraffes, DikDiks, Steinboks, Springboks, Impala, Gemsboks (Oryx), Kudu, Red Hartebeests, Wildebeests, Warthogs, Banded Mongoose, Lions, Black-backed Jackals, Spotted Hyena, Scrub Hares, Ground Squirrels, Pearl-spotted owl, Bataleur, Tawny Eagle, Helmeted Gunea Fowl, Ostrich, Bustards, tortoise, and more that we can't remember. At one of the night-lit waterholes we watched a Jackal examining a Python that was waiting in the water on two seperate nights.

After Etosha, we went back to Tsumeb to spend one last evening with Stefan's 87+ year old Tante Dorle, and her son Klaus and his family. It was great to see Dorle in relatively good health, and Stefan believes she could live to 100 if she wanted to.

Klaus and his wife Wendy were very gracious arranging accomodation for us in Etosha and for the rest of our time in Namibia. If anyone decides to visit Southern Africa anytime soon, they should be sure to check out their travel reservation website at http://resafrica.net/.

After leaving Tsumeb yesterday morning, we drove across southern Damaraland and then across the desert to the Skeleton Coast town of Hentiesbai. We spent the night in a chalet with good facilities, and spent a short while on the beach yesterday afternoon. It's just like California with it's cold current offshore causing unswimmably cold conditions and cool fog. The only difference is that the beach doesn't really end right at the coast, instead the beach merges with the expanse of the Namib desert for at least 100+ km inland.

We have spent this morning in an internet cafe in the coastal city of Swakopmund, which almost everyone in Namibia has told us we should be sure to visit. Grease is playing over the radio and we are drinking coffee, a small bit of home for us. Speaking of home, Stefan has enjoyed missing 4 months of the eternal US presidential race, and the lack of 24 hour cable news is quite refreshing (although we do occaisionally get to watch BBC world, Deutsche Welle, or CNN international). Stefan thinks for profit cable news in the U.S. is a big downer and does as much harm to American society as good.

Anyway, tonight we stay just south of Swakopmund in the former South African enclave of Walvis Bay, then tomorrow we drive back into the interior bush of Namibia spending the night in a place called Solitaire, then the next day to the largest sand dunes in the world at Sossusvlei, then another night in the bush near Helmeringhausen, then a night on the southern Namib desert coast town of Luederitz, then a night at Ai Ais. After that, a few more nights in South Africa before heading to Mauritius!

Thanks to everyone for reading and posting comments!

Namibia

Hi everyone,

Wish we could be more thorough, but internet access is limited. We rented a car in Cape Town (Stefan had to learn quickly how to drive on the wrong side of the road), and spent 3 nights driving to Tsumeb via Grunau and Windhoek, Namibia. We are spending the weekend with Stefan's relatives in Tsumeb, then 3 nights in Etosha national park, then several nights in the bush traveling through western Namibia back down to South Africa. We are having a great time, Namibia is a beautiful country.

South Africa

South Africa is great so far. We have been in Cape Town for 2 nights, and already we have seen ostriches (not sure if they are feral or wild), babboons, some sort of antelope like creature, penguins, whales, seals, lots of birds, and lots of rabbits.

On Sunday we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, which has the fuzzy geographic distinction of being the most southwesterly point of the African continent. We hiked around the stunning scenery and huge crashing waves for a couple of hours. There is a world atmospheric station of some sort there (one of the global network that measures carbon dioxide concentrations), and it was interesting to imagine that there was nothing but ocean in between us and Antarctica.
Tuesday we went to the newly reinvigorated Cape Town waterfront where we embarked on a ferry ride to and a tour of Robben Island (now a world heritage site), where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held for many, many years. Part of our tour was led by a man who was a prisoner on the island for seven years. His crime (for which there was no trial) was "terrorism", and apparently he was involved in some of the education riots which Stefan thinks he has read about or seen a movie about. It was a very interesting experience which included Nelson Mandela's jail cell on an island covered in introduced rabbits (tens of thousands?) and native penguins. The ferry ride included the largest ocean swells that Stefan or Bernie have ever experienced, estimated by us to be at least 20 feet (if there are any geographers reading this perhaps they could get ambitious and get a buoy report for Monday, September 10th around 13:00 UTC). We can understand how our friend Seth got into surfing in his formative years spent in Cape Town.

Tomorrow we leave Cape Town for the drive north to Namibia. We will take about 4 days to drive the 1900km to Tsumeb.

The pontiff is everywhere..

Coincidence would have it that we are currently in Regensburg, Germany which is where the current pope Benedict XVI is from. We are traveling by train later this morning to Vienna, where the pope is currently making a visit. Weird.

Royal Socks

Bye bye Troy, hello Wolfgang

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Troy in Vienna at 4AM. We then went back to bed and slept a little longer, then got on our train to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart. Actually, we've been on a bit of a Mozart pilgrimage on our European odyssey. Mozart was very successful in Prague, where Don Giovanni debuted and the Marriage of Figaro was very successful. We all know about Mozart in Vienna (Troy and Stefan went to one of Mozart's apartments in Vienna while Bernie was birding), and Salzburg is all about Mozart. In Salzburg, we went to see the Magic Flute performed by marionettes and then to see Mozart piano concertos in the Mirabel palace the very next night! The Belorussian pianist performed both concertos from memory.

Oh, we forgot to mention that Troy and Stefan went to the catacombs under the Stephansdom in Vienna where they saw piles upon piles of black-death infested bones and the important organs of the Habsburgs

Salzburg was filled buckets of 45 degree (F) rain, and we haven't seen the sun since we left Vienna.

Never to fear, tomorrow evening we travel to Amsterdam where we will leave for sunny Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday morning. I don't think we have mentioned it yet, but one of the primary reasons we are flying to South Africa is so that we can drive to Namibia to visit Stefan's great aunt Dorle who lives in Tsumeb.

Martin No. 2

On Sunday, Bernie went off another Martin he had never met before--this one was a birdwatcher from the BirdingPal website. We spent the day in idyllic countryside near the border with Hungary and Slovakia (its capital city Bratislava is on a hill and was in sight for most of the day).
Martin says this is the westernmost part of the east--of the steppes of central asia--and we saw some great falcons and eagles. But the only bird I got a picture of was this pigeon near where we stopped to each a lunch of wild mushroom salad.

Martin No. 1

After days of castles and museums we decided it was finally time to meet a real Czech. Well, too late for that, since we were already in Austria! So, we settled for an Austrian--and asked Bernie's sister Anne to arrange a meeting with her friend Martin. Martin went to graduate school at Michigan State with Anne, Anne's husband Gustavo and lots of other people we know thru Anne and Gustavo.

Anyway, Martin is a great guy and got on his bike and rode downtown (Vienna) to show these three american strangers around. He thought we should go to a traditional place and eat some heavy food, so he took us to the 12 Apostelkeller which has these brick-arched basements that go down several levels below the sidewalks, and it makes you wonder why the city hasn't caved in yet!

I wonder if Martin is a vegetarian--he encouraged Troy to get Schnitzel and us to get the Houseplatter of porkbelly, bloodsausage, ham, liverwurst, meatdumpling, saukerkraut and a hotdog, but then Martin just got some light cheesenoodle for himself! Then he said we had to have the prunedumpling for dessert, and then he took us to an ice cream place, and he didn't have any of this himself!

Maybe it's just his sense of humor?

We have seen the rest of Europe since our last post!

Well not really, just more of Vienna and then Salzburg and then Regensburg, Germany. We can't possibly write about all of it at once, so here are some nice pictures for you to enjoy!