Summer Holiday Pt. 1: Climbing Kilimanjaro (17 – 24 Dec)

5 January 2014

In the three weeks around Christmas, nothing really happens in South Africa (there are multiple public holidays in that period, starting with Day of Reconciliation and ending with New Year’s Day). Particularly Johannesburg becomes a ghost town over these weeks, as everyone is heading out to the coast. Our two respective offices also remain closed over that period – so we had another reason to go on holiday, just three weeks after coming back from Mexico. We booked everything on relatively short notice, and our decision was to go to Tanzania first for a little under two weeks, and then to Cape Town for New Year’s Eve, since a bunch of friends from INSEAD were going to be there at that time.

For the first week of our stay in Tanzania, we decided to climb Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest mountain at 5895m above sea level. It is one of the highest mountains that can be climbed without technical climbing expertise. We booked a six-day trip up the Machame route, since it promised to be good for acclimatization in the altitude and a scenic route as well. Also, we hoped that living and regularly exercising at Joburg’s altitude of 1750m would help against altitude sickness. In the end, we did suffer from altitude sickness quite heavily on summit day – but we made it to the top regardless (just not in very good shape). But here is the story in more detail:

Day 0 (17 December): Arrival

We flew from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam and then onwards to Kilimanjaro International Airport. Our second flight was quite delayed, so we only got to the hotel around 11pm – to a power outage that lasted all night, so we had to be shown to our room with torches. We had decided for taking the flight and against an overland bus since we thought it would be better to not have a strenuous bus trip just before attempting to climb the mountain (which was probably a good idea).

Day 1 (18 December): Machame Gate to Machame Camp

The next morning after breakfast, we got our briefing from the two guides, and then set out to the town of Moshi to organize a few additional pieces of equipment. We had bought and brought a lot of clothes specifically for the trip, but we were both missing waterproof pants and a down jacket (both of which were definitely required). Around 10 or so, we then headed to Machame Gate which is situated at an altitude of 1800m and one of the entrances to the national park. There, we gave our luggage other than our day packs (filled with water, food and additional clothing just for the day) to the porters who would carry it up to the next camp. Then, we started hiking.

The hike of the first day was relatively short, maybe four or five hours, and led through the rainforest up to Machame Camp at 3000m. In the beginning, it was quite hot still and we were walking in shorts and sleeveless tops. However, maybe an hour into the hike, it started pouring. We immediately put on rain jackets and waterproof pants (and put rain covers on our day packs), but the rain was so strong that after a couple of hours, we were completely drenched. Even my hiking boots, which held up quite well in the beginning, got wet eventually. Our lunch break we had under two umbrellas held by our guides. Due to the rain, and the wet clothes, I also got quite cold by the time we got to camp. At least, by that time the rain had stopped and we could put our clothes to dry. The lesson learnt that day: Everything, really everything that shouldn’t get wet needs to be put in plastic bags – even in the middle of my big bag pack that had been carried by the porters, things had been getting wet.

In the evening, we also got introduced to the team that was bringing the two of us up the mountain – quite the large group just for two people: Two guides, a chef, a waiter, a camp manager, and six porters – eleven people in total! I don’t think I have ever employed the service of that many people at once over such a prolonged period of time.

Day 2 (19 December): Machame Camp to Shira Camp

On the second day, we left the rainforest and entered the heather and moorland. We started hiking earlier that day, around 8am. Whereas the trail had been a quite well-prepared path the previous day, even with wooden stairs most of the time, starting the second day it became more of a path that included lots of rocks to be climbed on or over. Especially the first part of this day’s hike went up the mountain quite steeply. Thankfully, it was not raining anymore, but it was still pretty muddy. Shira camp is located up at 3800m, and by now we could really feel that the air was getting thinner – we had to stop quite a few times just to catch our breath. This day was relatively short, so we arrived at Shira Camp already around 2pm, had a rest and then went on a short acclimatization walk up to an altitude of 3900m – the idea being to always “climb high, sleep low” to help acclimatization at the altitude. Up to this altitude, we did not feel any symptoms of altitude sickness yet other than being out of breath.

Day 3 (20 December): Shira Camp to Lava Tower to Barranco Camp

The third day, we started hiking around 7:45am. The plan for the day was to climb up to the Lava Tower at 4600m, have lunch there, and then climb down to Barranco Camp at 3900m (climb high, sleep low). On the way up to the Lava Tower, we left the heather and moorland and entered the Alpine Desert, were there are hardly any plants anymore. By the time we got to the Lava Tower, the first patches of snow were starting to appear around us. It was definitely quite a surreal experience to climb from tropical climate and rainforest to this barren and cold desert within the course of two days. The last hour or so before reaching the Lava Tower was quite tough – we had hardly any energy left, and the thin air made it really exhausting to move forward. We still weren’t feeling altitude sickness, just physical exhaustion.

Luckily, after lunch the way to the camp was basically downhill all the way – which is much less exhausting, but by the time we got to camp my legs were a bit sore from walking downhill all the time. Also, I had quite a headache due to the altitude by then – I probably hadn’t been drinking enough on the way down, since with a lot of water and tea the headache subsided quite quickly.

After we had arrived at the camp, it started raining again – but by that time we were safely in our tent, and all our stuff that had gotten wet the first day was nice and dry again now – which I was very thankful for, since I feared having to climb up to the snow-covered, windy summit with wet clothes.

Day 4 (21 December): Barranco Camp to Barafu Camp (base camp)

This was the last day before summit day, and took us up to the base camp at 4600m. We started hiking around 7am, and the first hour and a half or so was actually more scrambling up relatively steep rocks – the steepest climb of the entire trek. After that, we had to cross a valley and then continue to hike uphill for the rest of the day. In the valley, we had to cross one of the many small streams that run down Kili, and unfortunately J slipped and fell in with one leg, but thankfully nothing more serious happened.

We had lunch at Karanga hut around 4000m, in the thick clouds. From there, the path went up through the alpine desert, in a barren landscape surrounded only by rocks. Due to the altitude, we were relatively slow now and took quite some time to get up to base camp. Especially the last two hours were very exhausting, since the climb up to Barafu was relatively steep, and the camp itself was huge and it took quite some time until we had found our way to our tents. At this altitude, everything is exhausting, even tying your shoes makes you get out of breath.

In the evening, I had the first signs of real altitude sickness. Coming back into the tent from the bathroom, I suddenly felt really cold and sick and had to rest in the sleeping bag for a while until I felt better. Up here, it was already quite cold and we had to sleep with multiple layers inside the sleeping bag. We went to bed relatively early to be prepared for our early summit day.

Day 5 (22 December): Summit day. Ascent to Uhuru Peak, then down to Millennium Camp

This was the big day. We got up at midnight to start climbing at 1am, and I was feeling pretty terrible – I threw up the first time while still in the tent, and couldn’t keep any food down. While J wasn’t nauseous, she also couldn’t eat, and she had hardly slept during the short night – definitely not a good start for this tough day. We started walking around 1, with headlamps on since it was obviously pitch black. From Barafu at 4600m we had to climb up almost 1300m to reach the highest point in Africa.

On the way up, I threw up a couple of times again, and since we were both very low on energy not having eaten anything, we were very, very slow. On the way, we met a couple of people who had turned around, and also considered going back, but were encouraged by our guides to carry on, which we did. In the thin air, with almost no energy, and feeling nauseous, we really dragged ourselves forward, having to stop to take a breath every couple of meters. Most people see the sunrise from the top – we were still quite far from it on the steep slopes when the sun rose. But we carried on.

The way up was also really, really cold – especially since the cold winds were sweeping over the rocks. My clothes were holding up pretty well (I was wearing six layers on top), but J was cold before she started wearing my hard shell in addition to the ski jacket she had rented. Also, her gloves weren’t warm enough unfortunately – mine were okay with the added glove liners that I had bought (a very good idea). For me, the coldest body part were the feet – despite hiking boots, ski socks and sock liners, they went numb after a while due to walking on the icy rock for so long.

We reached Stella Point (5700m) around 7:30am, and had some sugary tea – finally, something energy-providing that would stay down! From Stella Point, it takes around 45 minutes to Uhuru Peak, and the path is not very steep anymore. However, due to the thin air, we still stopped every twenty meters or so. At 8:40am (according to our official certificates we got after the climb), we finally reached Uhuru – more than seven and a half hours after we had left Barafu. While we were somewhat proud to have made it, we were way too exhausted to celebrate – we just took a couple of pictures and then started to go back down. We had definitely been the last of the bigger morning crowd up on the summit, but on our way back towards Stella Point we still met a couple of other climbers on the way up – so at least we were not the last ones to have made it that day.

The way down was much quicker than the way up – we took a different path down, which was very gravel-ly so that we basically kept sliding down all the time. It still took us about four hours to climb down to Barafu, and about half way down J started getting very dizzy. We had to take frequent breaks, and for the final hour or so, J was supported on both sides first by the guides and later by two porters.

When we arrived at Barafu Camp, we finally had the chance to get some rest and sleep for a little while. However, J was still feeling sick, and when we woke up again and had some lunch, J couldn’t eat much before she had to throw up. However, we had to continue further down – which was going to be painful that day, but promised alleviating the altitude sickness. So on we went, down to Millennium Camp at 3700m. We still had to walk very, very slowly and take frequent breaks, but we could feel the air getting denser and at least breathing wasn’t as hard anymore.

Arriving at the camp, J was feeling a little better, but still extremely exhausted and sick, so she went to bed immediately after we had had some tea and snacks. I stayed up for dinner, and had quite the hard time convincing the waiter and the guides that they didn’t have to wake up J to feed her: “She wants to sleep, and she will be better tomorrow” – “But how can she feel better if she doesn’t eat?” – “She is just tired and exhausted, and needs the sleep more than the food.” – “But what if it’s something severe?” – “Then eating now wouldn’t help her either.” – “But she won’t have any energy to walk tomorrow!” – “She’ll eat more at breakfast when she is feeling better.” and so on. Eventually, I convinced them by promising to bring some fruits and tea to the tent for her to eat.

Day 6 (23 December): Millennium Camp to Mweka Gate

This was the last day of the hike. J was feeling well again in the morning (despite not having eaten any of the things I brought to the tent, since she was just sleeping through the night), and we had our last mountain breakfast. We also had a little bit of a discussion with our guides around the tips for the crew – it is customary to tip, and with our big crew it was quite hard to tip everyone adequately without going far above the 10-15% of the tour price that is recommended – and in addition we had had quite some challenges getting US Dollars in South Africa, so we simply didn’t have enough cash to go far beyond that. However, in the end we managed somehow.

The way down to Mweka Gate led us through the heather and moorland and then into the rainforest, and on this last day we were quite fast again, having shaken off all signs of altitude sickness. We only had a quick lunch on the way, and arrived down at the gate around noon. After all the formalities had been completed, and we had returned the rented gear to the tour office, we were dropped off at the hotel and could finally after six days have a shower again… Such a good feeling, being out of the dirty and smelly mountain clothes, and back at a reasonable altitude!

We spent one more night in the hotel in Moshi before flying to Zanzibar on Christmas Eve.

In summary, we both concluded that while this was definitely an experience, and we can proudly say that we made it to the roof of Africa, we will not do something like this again – we will stay below 3000 meters or so, where you can still actually breathe, and normal tasks don’t become an exercise.

Some pictures follow.

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November Holiday Pt. 3: Mexico (14 – 23 November)

9 December 2013

Since our rate of visiting new countries had significantly dropped since we started working again, we concluded that on our November trip we needed to visit a country that neither of us had been to before. Also, since it was going to be my birthday on the last day of our trip, I requested something warm with a beach for that – so we ended up going to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

We flew in to Cancun, but fearing hordes of drunk American teenagers, we didn’t spend any time there other than one night in downtown Cancun close to the bus station. That area is completely untouristy, so that when we wanted to get some tacos for breakfast, our non-existing Spanish was already quite extensively tested… but with pointing and analogies from other Latin languages, we did end up getting some nice and really cheap food.

Our first “real” stop then was Chichén Itza, the Mayan ruins of which have been named one of the “new seven wonders of the world”. We arrived there in the afternoon, and hadn’t planned to go into the archeological zone that day yet, so instead we hunted down something to eat. Most of the places in Piste, which is the small town closest to the ruins, are really touristy and mostly cater for big tour groups. We were still very early and thus got some food alone in a pretty big restaurant. When we were about to leave, it started pouring, so we had to stay somewhat longer, and witnessed the big tour groups arriving (and a dance performance for them by the restaurant staff). Thankfully, the rain didn’t last very long and we were able to take a taxi to our hotel. The hotel was located at the back entrance of the ruins, and was a really nice place – and also very convenient to be the first one at the ruins in the morning (at 8am). Getting up relatively early then clearly showed the difference between Mexico and the places we’ve traveled to in Asia with similar tropical climate: Whereas in Asia everyone is up early to avoid the heat, in Mexico there was hardly anyone out on the streets even at 8am. For us, that was a good thing: Not only were there only very few other tourists with us in the ruins, but also hardly any vendors, and those that were there, were still busy setting up their stalls. So less harassment for us.

The ruins were quite impressive. The first eye catcher was of course the big pyramid in the center, but other sites that I found very memorable were the big ball court, with rings that players were meant to somehow put the ball through probably four meters above ground, and the platform of skulls which was decorated on all sides with hundreds of skulls carved out of the stones.

We spent a couple of hours at the ruins, and left just before the first tour groups arrived. We had some time to freshen up and pack our stuff, before we left in the afternoon for Tulum.

We spent the night in Tulum and got up relatively early again the next day to be at the Tulum ruins when they opened. The ruins here were Mayan too, but quite different – whereas the ones in Chichén Itza are basically enclosed by thick jungle, the ones in Tulum are located on a cliff over the ocean and surrounded by city walls on three sides. The individual buildings in Tulum are not as impressive as in Chichén Itza, but the location even more so – palm trees, cliffs, small beaches, and turquoise Caribbean water. It must have been good to live here as a Mayan (except for the ever-present risk of being sacrificed, which seems to have been quite the hobby of the Mayans).

Since it was still early when we got back from the ruins, and we weren’t planning to leave Tulum until the afternoon, we decided to go swim in a cenote. These cenotes are round holes in the limestone ground which are partly filled with water and often connect to systems of caves. We went to the Grand Cenote close to Tulum for a swim – you can also dive down the caves if you want to. The water was quite cold, but you got used to it after a while, and there were fishes and turtles swimming alongside the bathers and divers.

Later that day, we left for the island of Cozumel. We had to get off the bus and board a ferry in Playa del Carmen for that purpose, and were glad that Playa was one of the places that we hadn’t put on our itinerary — this town again seemed to be more of a place to be drunk on the beach than anything else. Cozumel itself has a little bit of a schizophrenic character: Since on any given day, 3 or 4 cruise ships dock here, it becomes quite busy during the day with lots of tourist traps (one jewellery store next to the other on the water front). Overnight, when the ships are gone, it is much more quiet. However, our main plan on Cozumel was not checking out the island itself, but rather to go diving – J did her Open Water Diver certificate, and I just went diving for three days (the last day we could go together). The coral reef around Cozumel is actually the second biggest after the Great Barrier Reef, and the diving was really amazing. The corals were extremely pretty and had very interesting shapes, and we got to do a lot of swim-throughs, were you dive through arches or tunnels in the coral. Also, I went much deeper than I had before, up to 30m. There was lots of marine life to see as well, including as the highlight a nurse shark that was sleeping on the ocean floor.

After three days on Cozumel, we left for our last stop – Isla Mujeres. To get there, we had to take the ferry back to Playa, a bus to Cancun, and then another ferry. In contrast to Cozumel, our only plan for Mujeres was to relax. The main town of Mujeres is located on the northern tip of the island, which also has the most beautiful beach – an absolutely stunning tropical paradise with white sand, turquoise-blue water and palm trees. One day, we rented a scooter to go down to the south point of the island and visit a turtle farm which is about half way – but all of that could be easily done in half a day since the island is so small. And while it was certainly a touristy place, it felt much more relaxed and less stressful than Cozumel. Our hotel was also pretty amazing, with a balcony that had a hammock and overlooked the ocean. In addition, the food was amazing on Mujeres – our favorite place was a tiny little hole in the wall three minutes walk from our hotel, which made the most amazing Tacos and other Mexican delicacies (and had J’s favorite ‘salsa muy picante’).

The last day of our stay in Mujeres was also my thirtieth birthday – which we spent swimming, eating, and idling. The perfect birthday 🙂 The next day, we unfortunately had to leave again – with another long flight from Cancun via Atlanta back to Johannesburg. Since we only arrived on Sunday afternoon, I was super jetlagged my first few days back at work – but it had been so worth it.

Some pictures follow.

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November Holiday Pt. 2: USA (7 – 14 November)

After coming back from Kruger Park, we said goodbye to my brother who was traveling onward in South Africa, and then had about a day to prepare for the rest of the trip. On Thursday 7 November, we flew out to Austin via Atlanta, to attend a wedding of two INSEAD classmates. Especially the first leg of this flight was extremely long with more than 16 hours on the plane – but everything worked out like a charm.

The wedding was beautiful, and we were so happy to be part of this and also get to see a couple of INSEADers from Europe and the Americas (and even though we had the longest journey there, some others flew in from Europe just for the weekend, which is pretty insane). Austin itself was nice, even though J was disappointed that it wasn’t Texan enough… Maybe next time we should go to Dallas 🙂

The next stop on our trip was San Francisco. I had never been there before, and was quite amazed by the city. Not only can you tell that this is the technology capital of the world (paradise for a geek like me :)), but also the amount of city life that is going on, with shops and bars and culture just at every corner felt very refreshing in comparison to Johannesburg – which is very nice to live in, but for the most part at least in those areas that we spend most of our time in is just very suburban.

In SF, we met up with a bunch of INSEAD classmates (for a board game night at Yammer, which was a lot of fun) and some other friends. Also, in addition to just walking through different neighborhoods and taking in the vibe of the city, we rented bicycles one day and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then took the ferry back, passing Alcatraz on the way. Despite being very touristy, this day trip was very nice, and the bridge is indeed quite an impressive sight.

Some pictures follow.

 

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November Holiday Pt. 1: Kruger Park (2 – 6 November)

23 November 2013

In November, we had three weeks of holiday and quite an extensive itinerary – Kruger Park with my brother, wedding of some INSEAD classmates in Austin, some days in San Francisco, and then a week on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

Our first part of the vacation took us to Kruger Park – since we hadn’t been and my brother was visiting, it was the perfect opportunity. We rented a Land Rover a Defender with a tent on its roof – finally, I had been waiting to drive one of these ever since we got to South Africa, there is just nothing that embodies the Safari spirit like this sturdy vehicle (even though it gave us quite a bit of trouble on the way – a broken windshield wiper, an erratically working A/C, and once it wouldn’t start but instead gave out a loud alarm for five minutes every time we tried to turn the key – after we had finally managed to call the rental agency from the only hill in the camp where there was phone reception, we managed to fix the problem by tightening one of the power connections on the battery).

On the way to the park, we stopped for one night at the Blyde River Canyon, which is a very scenic stretch of land where the highveld gives way to the lowveld – dramatic gorges, steep slopes, and lots of waterfalls. Especially given the long drive from Johannesburg, this stop on the way was quite worth it.

The next day, we made our way into the park. The three days and nights we spent there consisted mainly of driving around during the day on the lookout for animals, and staying in a different camp (Satara, Balule, and Skukuza) each night. One morning we also did a guided sunrise game drive, for which we got up at 3:30 to leave at 4:00 before the first light – quite the experience!

On the animal side of things, we saw lots – unfortunately didn’t manage to complete the big five though as the leopards remained elusive. We saw plenty of all the others though – so many elephants that in the end we didn’t even stop anymore for them, lots of lions, including one that was eating a fresh zebra (the lion unfortunately was quite hidden behind a bush so we didn’t manage to take a good picture), both black and white rhinos, lots of buffaloes, including two that were taking a mud bath right next to the road, and then of course giraffes, kudu, lots and lots of impala, hyenas, yawning hippos, …

All in all, a wonderful trip – some pictures below.

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Safari in Limpopo (4 – 6 October)

In the beginning of October, I was invited to join J in her office’s retreat – which took place at a Safari Resort in South Africa’s Limpopo province. The venue and event were pretty great, but most memorable were the two safaris that we attended – on Saturday morning we joined a bush walk, and on Sunday morning we did a guided car safari.

For the bush walk, we were taken by a ranger with a car out into the wildlife reserve and then started walking. Especially in comparison to our self-drive safari in Namibia, it was great to have the guide’s explanation of all the animal tracks as well as all the smaller animals and plants. We also got to see our first Rhinos on this walk – a mother and a baby who were eating in some bushes. We got pretty close – as close as you would dare on foot – but they were still quite hidden in the bushes.

The game drive on Sunday was even better. It started out relatively uneventful since we were driving around for a long time without seeing any big game. After a while, however, we came across a big group of around six Rhinos that were grazing on an open field somewhere. Here we had a very good view of Rhinos for the first time – they are really incredible and fascinating animals. It is a shame that they are under such danger through poaching. After a while we moved on and managed to track down three lionesses that were hanging out in a foresty patch. The ranger explained that they had only recently been introduced to the park and still hadn’t seen very much of it or of the other animals. We watched them for a while until they started to get moving. The ranger tried to follow them, as good as the roads and tracks allowed – obviously the lions weren’t exactly following them. Over time, we realized that the lionesses were moving closer and closer to where we had earlier seen the Rhinos, and sure enough, eventually the lions got to where the rhinos were grazing and decided to check them out (they are just big cats after all and just as curious). Now the lions probably can’t do much harm to the thick-skinned, heavy rhinos, but the rhinos must have gotten a little confused by those lions circling around them – especially after one of the lions decided to charge a herd of warthogs that were sitting on the other side of the rhinos (the warthogs escaped unharmed, seems the lioness wasn’t hungry and was just playing). Anyway, the rhinos got pretty agitated through all this, and one of the biggest rhinos started attacking another one – first it lifted the other one half up in the air with its horn, then it started chasing the other one around – you wouldn’t think that those massive animals can run so fast! Even our ranger thought that this was a most unusual sight! We continued watching this for some more time until the lions finally had enough and moved on, but we had definitely captured some exciting photos.

I will post the pictures later – they are definitely worth looking at!

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Cape Winelands (August)

It’s been a while since I last posted! That’s mainly because I’ve been busy, but also due to the fact that we haven’t done a lot of traveling since June until now. However, there were some small things before our current bigger trip so I’ll just try to catch up.

During the winter, J was working in Cape Town for a while and I used the opportunity to fly down twice to explore the Winelands around Cape Town somewhat. Both times we were lucky with the weather – the Cape winter rains stopped for the weekend so we were able to enjoy the outdoors. The region is very Afrikaner-dominated and with its vineyards and little towns really feels more like Europe than like Africa. Obviously, most of South Africa isn’t “real” Africa, but the Cape even less so than for example Joburg.

Given that we were mostly driving around by car, we didn’t do that much wine tasting. Instead, we tried to find as many good cheese as we could, which was also great and right down our alley. South Africa actually has a lot of very good artisanal or semi-artisanal cheeses, you just have to know where to look. A lot of the cheeses come from the Cape so we were right at the source.

In addition, we drove down the whale coast to Hermanus, which is a very pretty scenic drive along the ocean in any case, but made even better by the fact that you can see Southern Right Whales splashing around in the water there in the winter months – the whales come there to have their babies in the protected coastal waters, and swim out to the open waters in summer to feed.

On one of the weekends, we also had a small INSEAD meetup in Cape Town since a classmate normally based in the Middle East was stopping by – which was a very fun (and late) night out 🙂

Other than that, we didn’t do much – enjoyed the amazing scenery and the fantastic and still very affordable food 🙂 All in all, those two weekends were definitely worth it!

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Namibia (15 to 22 June)

27 June 2013

An amazing trip to a desert country

From 15 to 22 June, we managed to get a week of leave at the same time and decided to go to Namibia. The trip was booked rather spontaneously, and Namibia seemed to be a good choice since flights were cheap and it was the ideal time to go there – it is dry season, so the animals are out at the waterholes, it is not too hot in the daytime, and it is not high season either.

We flew to Windhoek and rented a fully camping equipped 4×4 (a Nissan Single Cab). Camping equipped meant in that case that it came with a collapsible tent on the roof of the car, plus everything that you need, including a gas cooker, a fridge, dishes and cutlery, bedding, and even two camping chairs. We used the car quite extensively, driving more than 2,300km in the seven days we were in the country – mostly on unsurfaced roads, since only the main axes in Namibia are surfaced. However, in a such sparsely populated land of only two million inhabitants, even the unsurfaced roads were mostly in good condition and you could still go 80 or 100 km/h (with a few exceptions where the road was really terrible for dozens of kilometers).

It is really an interesting thing to drive through this country, since it is mostly desert, with the road often going straight without a curve as far as you can see. And desert is not equal to desert – there was sandy desert, rocky desert, moon landscapes, red mountains, …

From Windhoek, we drove up to Etosha National Park (with a stop in Otjiwarongo for the night). The National Park is centered around the Etosha Pan, which is a huge salt lake that is dry for almost the complete year. Due to the salty ground, nothing grows in the pan. We stayed at Okaukuejo Camp, which is one of several camp sites/lodges that have been built next to one of the waterholes, so that you can watch animals even after dark, when you are no longer allowed to drive around the park (generally driving after dark is not recommendable in Namibia due to the amount of wildlife that is around). The National Park was amazing. We spent a day and a half just driving around the park, and stopping at waterholes or wherever we saw animals – and we saw a lot of them: elephants, zebras, giraffes, ostriches, springboks, oryxes/gemsboks, kudus, and even in the very end a lion (we didn’t see it at first, and were wondering why so many cars were stopped, when we saw it taking a nap under a tree!).

In Etosha, we also had our first flat tire – we must have punctured it when we were driving through the park, as it was flat when we woke up. However, with all the necessary tools, and one of the two spare tires easily accessible at the back door of the car, it took no more than 15 minutes to change it.

After Etosha, we went back south and stopped for a night at the Spitzkoppe – one of the many names from which you can still see the history of having been a German colony for about 30 years until 1915. The Spitzkoppe is a stunning group of red granite peaks sticking out from the surrounding plains, and the campsite was quite amazing too – the individual sites are scattered around the base of the mountain, with just a long drop toilet at each site, so we had a place just for us with the next campers multiple hundred meters away, just between the rocks. The scenery was absolutely amazing, especially at sunset. At night, however, we witnessed the drawback of that spot: It was quite windy, which being somewhat elevated from the plain around didn’t make any better, and the rocks created some kind of wind tunnel, so the tent was violently flapping in the wind all night, and neither of us slept very well.

Thankfully, we didn’t have a very long way to go the next morning. We were only making our way down to Swakopmund on the coast, but on the way, we stopped on the Welwitschia Plains. Welwitschia (named after the Austrian botanist who first accounted for them) are strange plants that only grow on the elevated gravel fields in Namibia and Angola. They look a bit like huge, dried-out cabbages, and have only two long leaves that spiral around the center. However, due to the harsh climate, parts of these leaves usually dry out and break, so that it looks as if they have more than two leaves. The biggest of these plants can be more than 2m in diameter, and up to 2000 years old.

From the Welwitschia Plains, we then made our way down to Swakopmund. Swakopmund really still feels like a German outpost, and could at first sight be mistaken for a town at the North or Baltic Seas. Lots of shops have German names, and even some of the old street signs are still visible (e.g., Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße). The town itself was very sleepy and relaxed, which is at least partly due to the fact that it is not the high season – I have read that 40% of tourists to Namibia are German speaking, and it is quite telling that the only flight connection to Windhoek’s small airport outside of Southern Africa seemed to be Frankfurt.

After Swakopmund, our next destination was the Namib-Naukluft National Park, more specifically the Sossusvlei. The way there was quite long, and had the worst stretch of road of our trip which was extremely bumpy for probably around 100km. Also, we had our second flat on that stretch of road – thankfully we had bought a new tire in Swakopmund to replace the flat one, so we didn’t have to worry about having to drive around without a spare tire.

At Sossusvlei, we stayed at Sesriem Camp, which is the only camp site behind the gates to the Park, which means that you can leave about 45 minutes earlier then everyone else to be the actual Sossusvlei for sunrise. However, since our car got stuck in the deep sand on the last few kilometers, we had to turn around and take one of the 4×4 shuttles that the National Park operates (with better tires, less weight through all the camping equipment, and an experienced driver). The Vlei itself was amazing – lots of big red sand dunes surrounding the dried out clay and salt pans, in which there is no life, just a few dead and weirdly eroded trees. We climbed some of the dunes and walked around in the morning light – it was just stunning.

After the Sossusvlei, we made our way back to Windhoek, stopping close to Solitaire for a night. The last night we spent in Windhoek: after having returned our car, we had the first night back inside, in an apartment and not our tent. Although the tent was very comfortable, and not too cold either, what got to us a bit was the dust. The drivers cab was clean, and so was the tent, but everything else, including the inside of the back of the car where our luggage and all the camping equipment was, got completely dusty from driving on all those unpaved roads. So whenever you would unpack something from the car, or open or close the tent, or anything, you would get dusty.

Windhoek itself wasn’t super exciting – it is just a small town, with no real attractions. We had some nice food there, but other than that, Windhoek is definitely not the major draw to come to Namibia. We flew back to Joburg on Saturday afternoon, so that we could still have a relaxing Sunday before going back to work.

All in all, the trip was amazing. We definitely want to go back, since we couldn’t do all of the country this time around – especially the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld in the North West of the country sound amazing too.

Some pictures follow.

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Swaziland (1-2 June)

23 June 2013

On the first weekend of June, we went to Swaziland, which is about four hours from Joburg by car. Our first trip outside of South Africa since we got here! We made use of the fact that our friend Marco from INSEAD was still staying in Mbabane, where he had been volunteering for a few months since the end of the MBA. In addition, there was the Bushfire festival going on that weekend, which made for another good reason to go check it out.

We left Joburg very early on Saturday morning and drove all the way to the border, where we thankfully didn’t have to wait to get in. Marco picked us up shortly behind the border and took us to his apartment where we were going to stay. After some resting, we then went to the Bushfire festival grounds, where we stayed for the rest of the afternoon, chatting and meeting some of Marco’s friends, watching the acts on the main stage, enjoying the food and the rest of the activities at the festival. The probably most impressive thing we saw was a traditional Swazi dance performance. It consisted basically of ongoing rhythmic drumming and sometimes also singing/chanting and then different groups of dancers doing their individual dances (old mamas, kids, women, and men). All of the dances looked different, but most had a common element: A high kick in which the leg went up to the forehead or even beyond (on the side of the head)! Very impressive.

On Sunday, we wanted to leave in the early afternoon so that we wouldn’t catch the rush hour of all the leaving festival visitors at the border, so we didn’t have too much time for other activities – but we did manage to go to Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary and have an hour-long horseback safari, which was awesome – our first “real” African wildlife other than the Wildebeest we had seen from afar in Golden Gate park: Zebras (the Zebras native to Swaziland are shorter than other Zebras), Kudus, Bonteboks, more Wildebeests, and even some Hippos from afar (that we wouldn’t have been able to distinguish from rocks if the ranger hadn’t pointed them out to us).

After the park, we went to Swazi Candles, a shop that Marco recommended where you can watch them make candles in animal shapes, and then we took off back to Joburg.

Some pictures follow.

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Durban (16-20 May)

21 May 2013

Last weekend, we went to Durban – we both took Monday off and already flew down on Thursday evening, so we had plenty of time.

Friday, we still both had to work, but we found a very nice Café (Freedom Café) where we could plug in our laptops, have some nice juice and lunch and work – definitely beats sitting in the office! The weather on Friday was not very nice (it even rained a bit), but we didn’t mind since we had to work anyway. In the evening, we went to a Japanese restaurant called Daruma and had some delicious, freshly grilled seafood.

On Saturday, the weather was great – just in time! With the sun out, it was really warm and did not at all feel like winter is coming (which I think never really happens in Durban). After we had checked out the beach just in front of our hotel, we took our rental car north to see some of the other beaches. It is really a very nice area, and in the summer is surely packed with people. There are lots and lots of huge hotels, but thankfully on a random weekend outside high season like this one, there are not too many people. From the coast we then went inland a bit to visit kwaDukuma (Stanger), which is were Zulu king Shaka is buried. There is also a small visitor’s center that shows an informative movie about his life and achievements – he was quite the warrior, unifying quite a big territory under his power. However, he did not realize what threat the European colonization forces meant. Back in Durban in the evening, we went to a nice Indian restaurant called Vintage India. Durban has supposedly the largest accumulation of Indian people outside India due to the masses of indentured labor that the British brought over. The food was very delicious (and one of the things I miss about INSEAD in Singapore is the Indian food in the cafeteria or the food court next door, which was always good!)

On Sunday, we then went to look at Durban itself a bit. We strolled through the quite big Botanic Gardens, and then went to Wilson’s Wharf to have a drink and look across the bay towards the port, which is South Africa’s major container port (and also the port where our own container arrived a couple of weeks back). From the waterfront, we went into the city center to look at some of the colonial buildings (even though there are only very few, the center of Durban is definitely less pretty than that of Cape Town). The City Hall is quite impressive, and houses a small museum of Natural History (including T-Rex model) and an Art Gallery, both of which are free, and were nice and quick visits. After the town, we went to get Bunny Chow. Bunny Chow has nothing to do with bunnies and is a local fast food specialty – basically hollowed-out bread, filled with curry. Quite an interesting concept, but a bit hard to eat without spilling curry everywhere. In the evening, we went to get some more seafood, Thai/Japanese style at The Green Mango.

On Monday, we had to leave already in the afternoon, but we still had time for a long stroll along the beach, including watching a number of surfers enjoying the waves of the Indian Ocean, and also an extended visit to another nice restaurant called Market, which is very beautifully set in a courtyard, with tables and trees surrounding a fountain.

All in all, it was a very nice, relaxing weekend that really felt like a summer holiday.

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Cradle of Humankind

On Sunday 28 April, we went out to the Cradle of Humankind – a UNESCO World Heritage site that is called like that because of the abundance of Australopeticus africanus skeletons that were found there, including 2.3mn year old “Mrs. Ples” who was discovered in 1947. It is quite close to Joburg so we could easily take one of our cars out there. The Cradle has two major sights: The caves of Sterkfontein and the visitor’s center at Maropeng. We decided to only do the cave since there is also a small museum attached to it. The caves are not only deep and widespread, but they are also the major reason for the prevalence of fossils and skeletons: Early humans and other animals would fall into the cave and not be able to get out, and then be preserved by the limestone. They are still – very slowly and thoroughly – excavating some fossils in the cave, a process that can take decades for a single skeleton. That would not be my kind of job!

The caves themselves are very interesting as well, going up to 60 meters below ground with passageways that are sometimes so narrow that you have to crouch. There is also an underground lake in the caves, the bottom of which has not yet been found – one diver trying to find it got as deep as 70 meters, but then died on the way back when his headlamp battery went out of juice. Apparently they are planning to bring dive robots in soon to finally get to the bottom of the lake.

Some pictures follow – but they are very dark, given that they were taken in a cave…

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