Random Rambles

Sometimes it seems as if this trip is turning into a checking-off of bucket list destinations. We have wanted to visit Fernando de Noronha for a long time. (For one thing, we like islands.)

It’s about 360 km off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Noronha is an aspirational destination, kind of like a Hawaii for Brazilians. Not everyone can afford it, and it’s more expensive than the mainland. But almost everyone would like to go.

(We can imagine in five years or so, Noronha being featured in the weekend edition of the Globe and Mail as an ‘undiscovered gem’.)

We spend nine days here. Our accommodation is modest but comfy and conveniently close to ‘town’.

The ‘town’ is Vila dos Remédios, more of a village. The full-time population of the island is a little over 3,000.

A big deal is made about Noronha being closer to Africa than it is to São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. True or false? <Checks Google> Distance from Fernando de Noronha to São Paulo: 2,670 km. Distance from Fernando de Noronha to Cabo Verde (another former Portuguese possession): 2,489 km.

Really, the main attraction of Noronha is its beaches.

After a few excursions, we’re happy to go to a different beach each day and do nothing but relax and sip caipirinhas.

I remember years ago, Morrissey recorded a song in his signature angst-ridden style called The Lazy Sunbathers. In it, he berates vapid, selfish people pursuing a useless activity (non-activity?) while the world faces serious problems.

While walking, we meet one of Maria’s yoga buddies (see below). We are swarmed by her trio of mutts.

Our island tour takes us to Praia do Sancho.

To descend to beach level, you have to clamber down a couple claustrophobia-inducing ladders.

This is one of several Noronha beaches voted by Trip Advisor as the ‘Best In The World’. We are immediately wary of ‘Best In The World’ claims.

Still. they are very nice.

We stop for lunch at a ‘shark museum’. We can’t resist this mermaid-tail photo – it’s so appropriate for Maria.

Many places on the island are closed to people because they are being rehabilitated for wildlife. After all, most of the island is a national marine reserve.

We see the fuzzy young of some kind of seabird, very low on the branches of trees and ignoring the attention of people.

One day, we take a boat excursion to Sancho Beach.

On the way, we’re accompanied by troops of show-off spinner dolphins.

Another view of the ‘two brothers’, the island’s iconic rock formation.

On our last full day here, I set up shop on Praia da Cacimba do Padre. I close my eyes for a minute or so, and when I open them, there’s a black dog lying quietly at my feet. He stays with us for four hours.

We may have to change the name of our site to ‘The Global Dog Blog’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Maria likes to participate in yoga sessions whenever she gets the chance. While here, she gets to attend sessions in three special places.

1. On the beach overlooking the Baía dos Porcos.

2. Another at a nearby pousada under the full moon.

3. Inside the 18th-century fortress that overlooks the ocean

So here we are, at the fazenda Barranco Alto.

This place is very special. Its founding family were Swiss. The management and administration of the fazenda passed down through several generations. The current patroa is Camilla, a former music teacher (in Switzerland) who leads the farm staff in stretching exercises at the daily morning meetings.

There’s a prevailing laid-back, gentle vibe. The lodge staff are interesting hybrid European-Brazilian mixtures. By default, there are no locks on the room doors. We’re too remote to attract criminals.

A life-saver for the fazenda during COVID: an extremely popular telenovela was made about the area, called -aptly – Pantanal. Many of its 167 episodes were filmed on location, providing work for the surrounding farms, lodges, and transport companies.

The fazenda also provided meals and accommodation to firefighters during the recent wildfires.

Our accommodation is half of a spacious duplex with a beautiful flame tree – an African import – outside.

You don’t have to go far to see wildlife. This crab-eating fox saunters casually outside our door in the morning..

Guided excursions are included, using different methods of transport. One morning we go upriver by canoe. Yes, those are caimans on the shore. There are thousands of them around here.

Caimans of all sizes are everywhere – on the shore, in the river, crossing fields and forests, walking down the dirt tracks. The Brazilian Portuguese word for ‘caiman’ is ‘jacaré’.

Here’s one munching on a catfish.

The long-sleeve shirt and pants are necessary to avoid being devoured by mosquitos. Lucky for us, they only seem to be a problem after a heavy rain.

The most common animal on the river – after caimans – is the capivara. (Capybara in Spanish. And English.)

Capivaras always seem so relaxed as they spend their days dreaming by the river.

There’s usually a dominant male around. He has a gland on his snout that he uses to mark his territory.

I have some capivara-skin shoes in my closet at home, from an earlier visit to Brazil.

We also see some resident giant otters. They’re hard to get close to, so no photos. And ‘giant’ is a relative term – they aren’t house-sized. Just larger than normal otters.

The Pantanal is a Mecca for birdwatchers. The stars of the show are the hyacinth macaws.

We don’t have a telephoto lens, so there are no dramatic close-up shots. Fortunately, the fazenda has a shelf full of high-quality binoculars for the use of the guests.

Hyacinth macaws spend a lot of time on the ground, looking for seeds and nuts.

There are many, many birds in the Pantanal- 656 species, according to WWF Brazil. Our guides seem to know the names and characteristics of all of them.

Here are a few other birds that we come across.

There are toucans around as well, but seldom close enough to photograph.

An alternative way to go is on horseback.

Maria, being a gaucha, knows her way around a horse.

I can’t make that claim, but manage to stay in the saddle.

There is also the option of going for early evening safari drives. Sundowner drinks are included.

Our Belgian fellow-guest, Jasper, is an academic at the University of Ghent. Besides having a great sense of humour and being a keen hiker and birdwatcher, he’s one smart cookie. He contributes to scientific papers with titles such as: ‘SpliceRover: interpretable convolutional neural networks for improved splice site prediction‘, and ‘Few-shot Learning Using a Small-Sized Dataset of High-Resolution FUNDUS Images for Glaucoma Diagnosis‘.

We figure he’ll win a Nobel Prize one day. In a world in which large swaths of the population of Western countries don’t believe in vaccination, and barely-functioning idiotic sociopath Donald Trump holds a Svengali-like sway over an army of the unthinking, it’s refreshing to know there are a few bright sparks in the darkness.

We are fortunate to see a tapir. Tapirs are often elusive. We track him on foot at a distance.

Tapirs always make me think of the opening scene in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. They look like some creature from times long past, even though – nerd alert! – tapirs are found only in South America, not Africa.

A creature that is really elusive is the jaguar. Like most ambush predators. We see very fresh tracks several times, but not the big guy himself. (One of the staff says ‘You might not see a jaguar while you’re here, but there’s a good chance a jaguar has seen you!’) They show up regularly on the fazenda’s wildlife cam.

In consolation, there’s a very friendly tabby cat on the premises named Spike,

Sight or Insight of the Day

It’s a fact that the main reason there is so much wildlife here is because of its remoteness. It’s a challenge to get to, and a challenge to get back to civilization.

Because it has so few people, it has lots of animals. As soon as humans begin settling in an area, every other form of life dwindles.

And according to WWF Brazil, it’s still under threat.

In this country, as in many countries in the world, people with the right connections could buy the entire Pantanal and turn it into a parking lot or a shopping mall. We hope this doesn’t happen for a long time.

We have wanted to come to the Pantanal for years. Decades, actually. Probably the biggest inhibitor is the considerable expense of visiting here. But we feel it’s time to bite the budgetary bullet.

The Brazilian Pantanal is a unique wetland, one of the world’s great ecosystems, brimming with flora and fauna.

Like many places, it has suffered grievously from the changing climate. After years of severe drought, it was ravaged this year by extensive wildfires. (More info here.) This takes a sad toll on the abundant wildlife.

We arrive from Porto Alegre (via São Paulo) at Campo Grande airport. We like these tropical airports where everything is al fresco, including disembarkation from the aircraft.

Campo Grande isn’t on many people’s list of must-see cities, but has its attractions. One is the aquarium in the Campo Grande Biopark.

It claims to be the largest freshwater aquarium in the world.

Brazil used to have public telephone booths known as ‘orelhões‘ or ‘big ears’. Like most telephone booths worldwide, they are nearly extinct. We find one – minus its phone – in the shape of a hyacinth macaw.

Did we mention that our hotel has an enormous dog named Thor? He spends most of the day trying to cool off on the tiled floor.

We visit the Dom Bosco Museum, which has artifacts from what used to be the local indigenous people.

The most fascinating is this collection of funeral masks. The description says they are rare because the ritual is no longer used by the people involved, and that they used to be burned after use.

An interesting cultural note: Campo Grande was at one time the home of a coterie of Japanese immigrants. As a result, soba noodles are a local specialty.

Another local delicacy is pastry filled with alligator meat. (More accurately, caiman meat.) We try one at the mercado municipal.

The adventure begins. We wake up at five AM for the grueling five-hour 4X4 drive to our fazenda. On the way, we are blocked by a sea of the regional cattle.

These are wrangled by the local cowboys known as Pantaleiros. They aren’t quite as fancy as the Gauchos in Rio Grande do Sul.

On the drive in, we see a giant anteater far off in a field. They look as if they’re wearing very comfy pajamas.

After hours of bouncing around like dice in a cup, we arrive at Fazenda Barranco Alto. We first heard about this place from a very interesting and well-traveled Hungarian woman we met while visiting Bhutan in 2019. She had nothing but good things to say about it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

This is going to be a short one.

A few days ago, the people of the United States of America inexplicably voted for Donald Trump to be their President.

May God have mercy on our souls.

We visit Maria’s cousin Marilia in Gramado, a beautiful town in the hills.

Here, Maria and Marilia admire the view from a lookout.

The lookout is covered in lembranças. Surprisingly, Wikipedia – which has information about almost everything under the sun – has no info about these common Brazil-wide souvenirs, but an informative page can be found here.

Gramado has an unusual thing about Christmas. Months before, the city is decorated like a sort of Southern North Pole. This, among other attractions, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors.

It’s very clean and safe. There are a lot of chocolate shops in this town. They are all good.

There is a generally alpine/Germanic look about the architecture.

Because it’s in the hills, the climate is cooler than the coast.

We are still in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, so there gaucho culture is on display everywhere. For instance, this ornate leather saddle.

And yes, plenty of meat is consumed. We go out to the restaurant MLBK (‘Malbec’ – get it?) and score free t-shirts from the owner, thanks to Marilia’s connections.

We return to Porto Alegre and from there drive with Zequinha to Candinho’s fazenda in Capivari.

This is Candinho’s house.

We enjoy sitting outside in the morning, drinking coffee, reading, and listening to the hundreds of birds around the house.

For some reason, I really like this gaucho-style stool. It looks very folkloric.

Not far away are the multiple silos of Candinho’s successful family seed business.

Besides the seed business, Cadinho farms many hectares of rice, soya, and corn.

They also raise beef cattle.

As is tradition, we are treated to another feast of meat. Candinho’s son João Vitor returns from a 12-hour shift in the fields – it’s planting season here – to prepare a wonderful churrasco.

…aided by his charming wife, Gabi.

Soon, it’s time to depart from Rio Grande do Sul and fly to Mato Grosso do Sul.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Today is October 31st – Hallowe’en. Appropriately enough, US presidential candidate Donald Trump is cosplaying as a garbageman.

If Mr. Trump doesn’t get elected, he’d better get used to wearing orange.

Of course, he has a hard time heaving his ungainly, elephantine bulk into the cab. The golden-tongued former president then shares some words of wisdom with the press about how disappointed he is that the opposition is using disparaging terms to refer to his followers.

Many people are familiar with the gaucho culture of Argentina and Uruguay. The same culture thrives in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. In fact, people who come from this state – like Maria – are known as gauchos (pronounced ‘ga-OO-shos’) or gauchas.

This is our nephew Fabricio, presiding over an event at his horse-training centre.

(Vento Negro belongs to Claudia, Fabricio’s charming and accomplished partner.)

A pair of contestants compete in a paleteada. The idea is to keep the calf in between the two riders (after he runs out of the chute) for a certain length of time and distance.

This is just one of the buildings where the horses are trained and stabled.

There is a lot of fascinating horse tackle hanging from the walls.

I attempt to make friends with some of the horses.

Needless to say, we also like to make friends with the dogs of the house.

We enjoy the hospitality of Maria’s elegant and warm-hearted sister Zequinha and her partner, the affable and uber-generous Candinho. Candinho is clutching another gaucho staple, a gourdful of maté tea. Wherever in the world you find gauchos, you’ll find maté.

Another vital aspect of gaucho culture the art of churrasco – that is, BBQ. Luquinha, an employee of the stables, tends to an inferno-fueled grilling of carne for the workers.

We’ve been eating Homeric amounts of meat since we’ve been here. Fabricio and Candinho prepare another feast in the house.

This is not a good place to be if you’re counting your calories.

We visit César and Circe, two of Maria’s oldest friends, where we are treated to excellent Argentinian wine and more superb churrasco.

In Fabricio’s apartment in a hi-rise building, the charcoal BBQ facility is standard. (We also saw this in certain buildings in South Africa.)

Sight or Insight of the Day

We go out for a restaurant meal at a location close to the airport. On display is a vintage VARIG DC-3.

This appeals to my amateur interest in civil aviation. VARIG at one time had the same flagship airline status for Brazil as Pan-American Airlines had for the United States. (You have to be a certain age to remember either of these airlines.)

VARIG is an acronym for Viação Aérea Rio-Grandense, that is, Rio Grandean Airways. It’s interesting that an airline that began in a state that was not the pre-eminent state in the nation grew into a global airline.

Similar to QANTAS, the Australian flag carrier that began life as the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services in the remote outback, far from the more populated states of Victoria and New South Wales.

And of course, the DC-3 itself has a glorious history. To quote Wikipedia:

‘Perhaps unique among prewar aircraft, the DC-3 continues to fly in active commercial and military service as of 2021, eighty-six years after the type’s first flight in 1935.’

So this year’s winter journey takes us to South America.

We begin with a flight from Ottawa to Chicago. After a 10-hour flight from Chicago, we meet our niece Manoella at Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo,

We then fly south to Florianopolis. The original idea was to fly to Porto Alegre – where Maria’s family live – but the airport there is still closed from the floods earlier this year.

Florianopolis – more accurately, Santa Catarina Island – is a popular vacation spot. We take a 90-minute boat ride to Campeche Island. This departs from the fishing village of Barra do Lagoa.

The port is inhabited by some kind of sea-bird that looks like a genetically-modified penguin.

Campeche island is a nature reserve.

Racoon-like animals called coatis roam the beach, raiding the picnic baskets of the unwary.

It’s not difficult to spend the day here.

The weather wasn’t this great on our first day: rainy, windy, cloudy, and cool.

On another sunny day, we head into Florianopolis for the afternoon.

We visit the Mercado Público for lunch.

A samba band entertains the diners in our restaurant.

Which reminds me – Sergio Mendes passed away recently. He’s probably most well-known outside of Brazil for popularizing the Brazilian classic Mas Que Nada. See you in another life, Sergio.

Interestingly enough, Paul McCartney is playing here at Ressacada Stadium – well, tonight, in fact.

A man staying in our pousada is a sound engineer involved in the performance.

After five days in Florianopolis, we take a deluxe intercity bus to Porto Alegre. The trip takes about six hours.

In Porto Alegre, we stay at Maria’s sister Lucia’s place in town for a few days.

Sight or Insight of the Day

The November 5th US presidential election draws ever closer.

It’s a coin-toss between a fairly unremarkable, articulate professional woman and an unhinged, low-IQ man-child narcissist with two impeachments, multiple criminal indictments at the state and federal levels, and a felony conviction. This doddering spray tanned old fool is, to boot, an insurrectionist, a threat to democracy worldwide, a misogynist, racist, a compulsive serial liar, a rapist, and possible child molester. With a private army of gun-toting nutjobs.

Man, if we were Americans, this would be a tough one. Decisions, decisions.

Fun fact: the photo above originally featured a Biden sign before being manipulated into a Trump sign. Just goes to show how no truth is safe from the machinations of people with an agenda.

Another voyage is drawing to a close. It’ll take some time to get used to a non-nomadic lifestyle. But it’s always a pleasure to come home.

No longer camping, we spend a few nights at the Kleinbosch Lodge.

Our last visit is to Rust en Vrede wine estate. Very classy.

Back in Cape Town, we visit the South African National Gallery.

We visit the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden for the first time.

The Gardens were built on grounds originally purchased by Cecil Rhodes.

Speaking of that arch-imperialist, we’re surprised to find an intact statue of the man in the Company Gardens in Cape Town. Among the kind of people who love to destroy statues of all imperfect men, his statues usually top the list.

Nobody turns down his scholarships to Oxford, though, as far as we know. (Which are open to all races and religions, as specified by Rhodes himself.)

Anyway, back to Kirstenbosch. According to Wikipedia:

‘Kirstenbosch places a strong emphasis on the cultivation of indigenous plants. When Kirstenbosch was founded in 1913 to preserve the flora native to the South Africa’s territory, it was the first botanical garden in the world with this ethos, at a time when invasive species were not considered an ecological and environmental problem.’

After visiting the gardens, we go for a pizza at Ferdinando’s, in the trendy Observatory district. The pizza is delicious.

Maria finds a place for yoga sessions on nearby Waterkant Street. (Nearby to where we’re staying, that is.) The hillside neighbourhood has pastel-coloured vintage houses, cafes and restaurants galore.

The polar opposite of central Cape Town is the slum of Khayelitsha, which we pass through driving on the N2.

Khayelitsha is one of the most notorious slums in Africa. Having said that, it’s still South Africa, so note that there are electricity poles and satellite dishes for everyone.

Let’s just say we’re happy not to have a break-down here.

Our last full day in Cape Town, we visit the SANCCOB seabird sanctuary.

We pay extra for a personal tour. This includes a ringside seat to feeding time.

The penguin feeder is easily the most popular human in the centre.

Birds are cared for in all stages, from ‘still in the egg’ to release. This woman spends her day hand-feeding baby penguins.

There are veterinary surgeons at hand. This poor little guy needed to have a pin inserted to heal a broken foot. (We can sypathize – we both have titanium pins in our ankles.)

They set him down to assess where he is in his healing journey.

Sight or Insight of the Day

The SANCCOB centre is in a neighbourhood named ‘Table View’. From here, you can see how Table Mountain is flanked by Devil’s Peak on the left and Lion’s Head on the right.

The next day, we fly home. A 15-hour flight direct from Cape Town to Washington, DC, then a brief flight to Ottawa.

We have a feeling we’ll be back.

We spend a few days in beautiful Plettenberg Bay. There has been a lot of shark activity here recently.

There is a thick sea mist covering Plettenberg Bay for most of our time here. It finally lifts to reveal the surrounding sea and mountains.

Mossel Bay is our next stop.

The Bartolomeu Dias museum has a replica of his ship. This vessel sailed from Lisbon to Mossel Bay in 1988.

Cape Agulhas is the southernmost point in Africa.

There’s a lighthouse you can climb.

You get a great view from the top.

The trip from Agulhas to the wine country goes through the Overberg region, full of golden rolling hills and vast grain farms.

Wineries on our list to visit include Boschendal, La Motte, Alto, and Rust en Vrede.

While driving from Franschhoek to Paarl, we discover that when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, it wasn’t from Robben Island – it was from Victor Verster Prison. It’s still a working prison.

Speaking of Nelson Mandela, we are walking along a street in Stellenbosch when we come across a pair of his shoes in a shop window. It seems they were auctioned off for some fundraising event.

In Paarl, we visit the Afrikaans Language Museum, which is less than riveting. But brings us to an interesting – but purely anecdotal – observation: about 80-90 % of the (white) South Africans we meet are Afrikaans speakers. (Most of whom speak perfect but heavily-accented English.) What happened to all the English South Africans? My theory is that many of them probably had access to British or other passports and left the country.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Our last camping experience is in Franschhoek. This is all the stuff we acquired for our comfort and convenience while on the road. As usual, there is a big giveaway.

We’ve camped about half the nights of our trip. Almost all of them delightful.

This photo is a visual reminder for any future voyage. We had precisely what we needed this time around.

After we re-enter South Africa proper, we spend a few days at the ultra-civilized Yellow Sands Caravan Park.

We revisit Addo Elephant Park. ‘Revisit’ because we came here on one of our previous visits. There are lots of elephants in Addo – over 500. So many pachyderm pics follow.

It’s good to be back in a game park. The first thing we notice is that the elephants in Addo are used to being close to people (in their cars, that is.)

Even mama elephants with young ones don’t become tense and anxious.

Not only elephants. Many animals in the park that are usually very skittish and bolt at the first approach have become accustomed to carloads of visitors. They stand calmly a metre or two away while you admire them.

Like this zebra.

And this ostrich.

But elephants are still the stars of the show. We are amused by this elephant that doesn’t want to share his waterhole with a family of warthogs.

Every now and then, he sprays them with a blast of water to drive them away. They keep coming back, refusing to be bullied.

Of course, with a lot of elephants comes copious amounts of elephant dung. Addo is also home to the rare flightless dung beetle.

And oceans of urine, too. Apparently, elephants can gush out gallons of the stuff. According to Global Sanctuary for Elephants:

“An elephant will urinate approximately 13 gallons (50 liters) throughout the day, voiding 3 gallons (10 liters) each time they urinate.  That’s the equivalent of 5 bottles of soda each time.”

Anywhere there is a waterhole or a mud hole, there are elephants. These ones have found pitch-black mud that almost looks like crude oil.

They become so blissed out during these mud baths that they disconcertingly resemble dead bodies.

I break the rules and get out of our vehicle to help a small tortoise cross the road.

Another water hole, another mob of elephants.

It’s an important part of their socialization.

This juvenile is having a blast.

The park sometimes tops up the waterholes from a tanker truck. At first, the driver leaps out and manages to get thousands of tons of elephant flesh to back off by shouting. They gradually drift back, ignoring the truck and its driver.

Several locations have fenced-in blinds, where you can safely observe the wildlife.

Elephants come in all sizes, from super-jumbo to pocket-sized.

We notice many zebras with foals at this time of the year.

Surprisingly, the gestation period for zebras is 12 to 13 months.

Sight or Insight of the day

Maria says we should include something about load-shedding. This is an everyday occurrence in South Africa, where the power shuts down. This can range from ‘inconvenient’ to ‘highly dangerous’. You kind of get used to it, but this morning, when the power went off yet again, we agreed this was getting really old, as they say.

As usual, there’s a good article in The Economist that sheds light on the subject – pun fully intended. There’s also a report from Harvard University warning the entire economy could collapse through the incompetence, corruption, and mismanagement of the ruling ANC. Pretty strong stuff.

So the ANC, which was bequeathed essentially the only industrialized country in the continent, has got a bit of explaining to do.

In light of all this, the election coming up in May should be interesting. Registration of voters has begun. We see this sign while driving through the town of Knysna.

We head for Ballito, a ritzy community about 40 KMs east of Durban.

It’s very pleasant here. We stay for three days. Maria arranges to attend a yoga class at the exclusive Simbithi Country Club.

Then it’s back down the slab, through Durban to the Wild Coast.

This lies mainly in territory that used to be the apartheid-era homeland of Transkei.

The apartheid government probably meant to create this as a dumping ground for unwanted South Africans. But at least visually, it’s very pretty. Lots of green hills and empty spaces. Good for sheep and cattle.

Most people live in typical rural settlements. They’re picturesque, if not exactly luxurious.

The few cities in the area, such as Mththa and Dutywa, are pretty awful, like most African cities. (Dutywa, aptly enough, means “place of disorder” in the Xhosa language.)

Lots of garbage, noise, and chaos. Lots of idle, drunken guys at 10 in the morning. Lots of crumbling buildings. We don’t linger.

It’s a relief to be back in the countryside. Nelson Mandela was born around here somewhere.

Many people paint their houses in pastel colours.

One theory we have about the origins of the name “Wild Coast”: the sea is very rough in these parts. The roar of waves crashing on the rocky shore is our soundtrack for the next five days or so.

We spend three of those days at the Coffee Bay Campsite, set in lush indigenous forest, with a private beach. Sort of. Locals seem to to wander through at will and at all hours.

Our constant companion is Frisky. (Pronounced “Frrrrisky”, with a heavily-rolled Afrikaans R.)

At night, he sleeps near our tent. During the day he sleeps, well, just about anywhere. As long as he’s around us.

He’s such a well-behaved dog. If we could, we’d bring him home and adopt him.

(Sidebar story about adopting dogs: The Economist recently published a story about people in India going ga-ga over dogs as pets. We find it surprising that in an article describing how people are opting for Lhasa Apsos and other ‘pure’ breeds, there is no mention whatsoever of the estimated sixty-two million stray dogs in the country. These are the most wretched, miserable, diseased and cruelly-used creatures imaginable.

Then I realized – the author is probably an Indian national. We find that people who live in developing countries are oblivious to the everyday horrors that surround them. And it seems impolite to point them out.)

We drive to a local attraction, Hole-in-the Wall. We plan to hike there, but are surrounded by touts that just will not leave us alone. They claim we need a ”guide”.

So we go home again, with the Hole-in-the-Wall unseen. Next day, we drive into the nearest village to have one of our tires looked at.

The tire guy removes the tire, tests it for leaks, and puts it back on. The charge is 50 rand, or $3.59 CAD.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Hey, we forgot to mention something that happened in Botswana. In a previous entry, we mentioned a pair of Finnish women we met in Cape Maclear in Malawi.

While making a brief stop in a mini-mall in Kasane, Botswana, who do we see in the parking lot in their snazzy Land Rover? The Finnish pair! They had spent the intervening month or so traveling around Malawi and Zambia and were on their way to Namibia. We chat for five minutes and part ways again.

What are the odds that two parties, following completely different (and random) itineraries, encounter each other in the vastness of Africa? It was a kind of “Livingstone, I presume” moment.

After we first met them, they often came up in our conversation – their fearlessness, their completely realistic and un-romanticised approach to traveling in Africa, their tutoring us in the best way to repel monkeys. (One word: slingshots.)