First month, last night
1 May, Ian
This is our last night in Southern Africa for at
least a year. I could write about our trip around the Cape today - my highlight
was seeing a humming bird - or wait until we take our re-scheduled boat trip to
Robben island tomorrow before we make our way to the airport, return our car and
fly out. The truth is, though, that fascinating and beautiful as Cape Town is,
for us it is a coda that caps off our month nicely but has little to do with the
rest of our trip here. For most of our month we discovered an Africa that has
been different not only from this place, but also from many other potential
experiences on this vast continent. Priya, for instance, tells me that life is
very different in Lagos, where her family lives, and in Ghana, where Rob's
family comes from; one day we'll have to spend some time in West Africa. Even
in the countries we've been to, what we've seen has obviously been very
selective. For example, although poverty has been inescapable, unless I'd read
about it beforehand I wouldn't have learnt about the AIDS pandemic from our
travels. To form an overview of Africa now would be like spending a month
travelling around the coastal regions of Scandinavia and trying to extrapolate a
vision of Europe.
However, we did see what we did see. For me, the most striking characteristic of our travels has been how few people we've seen: until we reached South Africa and excluding a handful of towns, it seems that we saw more springbok or zebra than humans. This was true of the resident population, such as it is: on several occasions we travelled for hundreds of miles without seeing a dwelling of any kind. Even more surprising in some ways was how few other travellers we came across, even granted that we're out of season. To cite some examples:
1) At Victoria Falls we came across only two or three other families.
2) At the fascinating Maramba market there were no other white faces at all.
3) All of the campsites we went to were only sparsely occupied, and we often had shower blocks to ourselves. On our game drives we only saw the occasional other car. Both times that we saw a pride of lions in the morning there were only two or three other cars that joined us, and both times we returned to see the lions again in the evening and had them to ourselves.
4) At the Sossusvlei dunes in the desert, which is supposedly Namibia's top tourist attraction, when we climbed a dune at sunrise we initially saw only a party of three and another couple, and at sunset we had the famous Dune 45 to ourselves.
5) At the colony of 100,000 seals (as I've since learned) there were also only two or three other cars.
6) At fish river canyon there was only one other party of four.
This contrasts with the coach-loads of people we mingled with today milling around at the penguin colony and Cape Point.
The low human population density opens up the possibility for the big animals to have space for themselves, and we saw far more of them then I had expected. In Botswana I was also surprised by the quality of the bird life: not only were there birds everywhere with spectacular colours but it seemed that every few minutes we saw nearby a bird the size of a small dog.
And it seemed that the friendliness of people rose in correlation to their sparseness: people that we encountered everywhere stopped to wave and chat. I'm always sceptical about claims that people in one area are more or less friendly than the human average but when seeing other people is an event you can see how this can be.
We will, deo volante, return to Africa in future and I'm very keen to hear more about it from anyone who has grown up or spent a lot of time here. Today I treated myself to the book The Scramble for Africa, which is about its colonisation; the luxury is not the cost but the weight, as it's a ~700 page hardback. Please let me know if you can recommend other books that you've read, or mail me if you've any reflections based upon your own experiences here. I'm glad that our next stop is also in Africa, this time north of the Sahara.
Post Script (2 May): The Robben island trip is well worthwhile; if you come to Cape Town my recommendation would be to do this first then spend as long as you have hanging out in or near the Waterfront. The ex-prisoners who show you round the island corroborate the sense of optimism that we picked up from the other people we met here. They convey that sense of relief and goodwill that you get at the end of the thriller when the bad guys have been vanquished, the cloud lifts and everyone is happy again. It's a good scene set for the diversity of the malls and restaurants around the harbour. I'm sure that there are other perspectives on all of this and if we weren't moving on I'd be happy to kick around here for a while longer and meet and speak to more people.
However, we did see what we did see. For me, the most striking characteristic of our travels has been how few people we've seen: until we reached South Africa and excluding a handful of towns, it seems that we saw more springbok or zebra than humans. This was true of the resident population, such as it is: on several occasions we travelled for hundreds of miles without seeing a dwelling of any kind. Even more surprising in some ways was how few other travellers we came across, even granted that we're out of season. To cite some examples:
1) At Victoria Falls we came across only two or three other families.
2) At the fascinating Maramba market there were no other white faces at all.
3) All of the campsites we went to were only sparsely occupied, and we often had shower blocks to ourselves. On our game drives we only saw the occasional other car. Both times that we saw a pride of lions in the morning there were only two or three other cars that joined us, and both times we returned to see the lions again in the evening and had them to ourselves.
4) At the Sossusvlei dunes in the desert, which is supposedly Namibia's top tourist attraction, when we climbed a dune at sunrise we initially saw only a party of three and another couple, and at sunset we had the famous Dune 45 to ourselves.
5) At the colony of 100,000 seals (as I've since learned) there were also only two or three other cars.
6) At fish river canyon there was only one other party of four.
This contrasts with the coach-loads of people we mingled with today milling around at the penguin colony and Cape Point.
The low human population density opens up the possibility for the big animals to have space for themselves, and we saw far more of them then I had expected. In Botswana I was also surprised by the quality of the bird life: not only were there birds everywhere with spectacular colours but it seemed that every few minutes we saw nearby a bird the size of a small dog.
And it seemed that the friendliness of people rose in correlation to their sparseness: people that we encountered everywhere stopped to wave and chat. I'm always sceptical about claims that people in one area are more or less friendly than the human average but when seeing other people is an event you can see how this can be.
We will, deo volante, return to Africa in future and I'm very keen to hear more about it from anyone who has grown up or spent a lot of time here. Today I treated myself to the book The Scramble for Africa, which is about its colonisation; the luxury is not the cost but the weight, as it's a ~700 page hardback. Please let me know if you can recommend other books that you've read, or mail me if you've any reflections based upon your own experiences here. I'm glad that our next stop is also in Africa, this time north of the Sahara.
Post Script (2 May): The Robben island trip is well worthwhile; if you come to Cape Town my recommendation would be to do this first then spend as long as you have hanging out in or near the Waterfront. The ex-prisoners who show you round the island corroborate the sense of optimism that we picked up from the other people we met here. They convey that sense of relief and goodwill that you get at the end of the thriller when the bad guys have been vanquished, the cloud lifts and everyone is happy again. It's a good scene set for the diversity of the malls and restaurants around the harbour. I'm sure that there are other perspectives on all of this and if we weren't moving on I'd be happy to kick around here for a while longer and meet and speak to more people.
Posted: Mon - May 2, 2005 at 02:46 AM
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Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM
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Published On: Feb 08, 2006 06:20 PM