South Africa and Europe 2012: October 2012

The Cross Egypt Challenge was great, but the time flew by. More scooter time in the desert would have been great, but Vicki had been sitting in Luxor for a total of 4 days and her time there did not fly by so she was ready to go... so off we flew.

Luxor to Cairo to Rome. I think I have mentioned that the Rome airport is the worst I have ever been in for signage, service and people. I could do five pages on just the rental car event, but I will cut it short. "Your car is on level 5 and there will be someone there". Yea right. Level five was the roof, 200 cars, and the only people there were other renters wandering around trying to find a car they had never seen before. No space numbers, no nothing. I know what you're thinking, just push the remote button. Didn't work.

We eventually found the car and roared off to Villa Ceppeto (http://www.bestoftuscany.com/) with no further problems. It is nice to see green again. Vicki dropped her bags in the apartment and said "it is nice to be home" and that is the way we have come to feel about this place. I headed off to the olive orchard were I found Manuela up the ladder and she came climbing down yelling "zio Ken, zio Ken" with a tear in her eye......honest. Big hugs all around and Daniel came driving up on the tractor and more hugs. Manuela gave me the afternoon off, but told me to be at work tomorrow.

our view for the next 2 weeks

my buddy spotty came running out to greet us

Manuela in the olives

Wednesday market

spotty pretty much moves in with us when we come

smiling for the fire

a little foggy today

After a few days of olive picking we went on an adventure. First stop was a little winery that we found a few years ago (the second home run) to get some Grappa. They have some of the best we have ever tasted. Then we were off to find lunch in Chianti.

As we were driving on a very windy road, I hit a hole, ran off the road, hit a chianti bottle or something. Anyway, the end result was a blown tire. A really big hole on the sidewall. No problem. Find a safe place to pull off and change it. Luckily there was a place just around the bend to get off the road. I pull out the tools and start to change the deflated tire. The problem is the lug wrench will not fit the lug. I look to see if there is a hub cap covering them but there is not. Ok, just pay the big bucks, turn on the Verizon phone and call for service. Nope, no service. OK now what? Hitchhike to Gaiole in Chianti and get help. The first car, and there are not many on this road, picked us up. Nice guy and he drops us in town. The lady in the Tabac shop give us hand signals to where the mechanic is but he will not be back until after lunch. We share a nice pizza for lunch and walk down to the shop. He already knows we are coming as the Chianti telegraph in a small town has already put out the word. He does not speak English but with hand signals and smiles we work it out. He gathers some tools and we jump in his car and off we go.

When we arrive at the car he looks at the lug nut, goes back to his car and comes back with some angle needle nose pliers, reaches in and pulls off a plastic cover for the lug nut. Boy do I feel dumb. Everything works now.

no #4 in our kit. there are other pictures that led me to believe it was an adapter.

so easy....if you know

louie puts on the new $135 tire

It was all part of the adventure of life. We met nice people in Gaiole and more when I bought a new tire, and I have a story to tell you.

"So what do you do all day?" people ask. Most of our travels to places we have been before are much like when you travel to your second home. Some days we do nothing, some days we pick olives, some days we walk and some days we just go for rides/walks. We eat most meals in and really just enjoy being.

One day we went to Monte San Savino, the town you see out our window, to buy a few things and just walk around.

Walking down a back alley I looked in the window and saw this......

I asked through the window if I could come in and take pictures. The mechanic quickly opened the door and I found his name was Tiezzi Andrea and his passion was restoring scooters and motorcycles and turning them into high performance machines.
He explained what he had done to the 50cc Vespa engine, but to be honest I did not understand a word of the technical stuff.

Daniel had to go to Switzerland for a few days and Manuela invited us to go to Arezzo for happy hour. We had never heard of such a thing in Italy so off we went. The walking streets were packed with people when we got there at 7:30 and by the time we left at 10:00 it was all young people. Are these children old enough to be out this late? I guess I am getting old.

The happy hour bar was a very upscale place and you buy a drink and get free tapas. There was a long line of these tapas and all very, very good and they seemed to stay out all night. I was pretty much left out of the conversation as the women talked about men and pretty much had the same party line.

Since Daniel was out of town we could not borrow the truck to carry the olives to the press. So, we loaded up my rental car and Manuela's station wagon and made a few trips. We carried 600kg or 1322 lbs of olives. Several things determine the quality of the harvest. Taste of course, but also the percentage of oil by weight that you extract. We got 14% which is a good number. The press in front of us from someone else only got 11% and that is bad.

to celebrate the first harvest you have bruschetta with oil from the pressing and a good wine. Manuela added anchovies to the mix as tuscan bread is unsalted.

snow has come to the hills of tuscany. hope that election finishes soon so we can go to florida

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Namibia (the "m" is pronounced like a "n" ) used to be part of South Africa and my theory is that when the world put the pressure on South Africa to end apartheid they said "lets give that big desert that is worth nothing independence and maybe that will appease them". "Oh, yea, there is a sea port Walvis Bay, right in the middle of the country on the coast and we will keep that".

It may not be worth much but just flying into Namibia you could see that it was beautiful in the desert way.

Everyone who told us "you have to go to Namibia" also said, "not only is it beautiful, but it is clean and since it has German history it very efficient". Well....I will go for the clean. The new international airport, that some foreign project money built, is out in the middle of nowhere. It may be new but the rickety old air stairs they pulled up to the plane were not. The quarter of a mile walk in the heat I guess was part of the tourist orientation program. The line out the new door of immigration into the heat was a indication that the German efficiency may be missing.

the second tail sticking up was our plane

Once some one rearranged the people inside, which was a while, we all moved out of the heat. I counted the people in line and there were only about 70 people in line and 6 immigration officials. Over an hour later we got to the front of the line. Unlike most countries, families cannot approach together. One at a time only. Vicki's immigration witch would not let her in the country because she did not have the exact address of the hotel in town, like that really mattered. This would be the only German tendency, that all paperwork must be done exactly as it says, would I see in the whole country. Vicki, who always worries about me stirring up trouble, comes storming down to where I am to inform me the immigration witch won't let her in the country. My immigration officer kindly takes her passport and stamps it and away we go. One hour and twenty minutes for that stop.

Next, the rental car. Well, seems the computers are down and probably have been for a long time, so we wait for the one customer in front of me to complete the process. To entertain myself I ask if he is from Washington State, of Indian decent, and works for Microsoft. "How did you know that?" he asks. I apologized and told him I was just keeping my profiling skills up while waiting in lines. Fortunately, the more experienced agent took my papers after the Microsoft guy and we were done relatively quickly. One hour again.

Windhoek (the "w" is a "v") only has 250,000 to 325,000 people, the number seems to change, is the capital of the country and is clean as advertised. Sabie, the GPS, had been hexed by the immigration witch and was very confused in finding the hotel. Adding to the problem was that there were two number 10's on the map. One for the hotel and one or a crafts center. Vicki had us circle the craft center several times before we realized that, and I gave up and asked a taxi cab driver for directions. He pointed behind us across a "major highway" (more than one lane), and there sat the hotel in plain view on the hill.

Oct 2 After yet another buffet breakfast to sounds of Christmas carols (what do I know, could be Christmas here) we hit the highway. The roads between the main cities in Namibia are very good with no potholes. Not hard to do when you have less than a dozen in your whole country. And, with no economy, you have no overweight trucks tearing up the road.

Miss Daisy got behind the wheel today for the first time. Being long straight roads she was confident that it would be safe. Sure would be safer than me today. For some reason, probably a hex from the immigration witch, I tried several times to go into the wrong lanes, right instead of left. Saved at the last minute by the voice in the left seat, "stay left, stay left".

While she drove I read the local paper. Just like every broke third world country the stories were the same.

So what is the big news today in Namibia.

The national airlines Air Namibia’s airplane was “delayed” in Zambia for non-payment of landing and other fees. Of course it was “just a misunderstanding”. I doubt the plane load of tourists thought that it was just a “misunderstanding” when their trip of a lifetime to Africa was crashed by a cash poor country.

Did I mention that Namibian dollars are only good in Namibia. Nobody, reportedly even airport currency exchanges, outside the country will take them. Says a lot about the place to me.

Lets see what else. All the usual space fillers in a tiny third world country: “Minister of Industry and Commerce” is having a conference; SWAPO, a political party is debating a new leader.

Ah, here is a good one. Seems the late Mr.Danger's, a “leader in the liberation fight of our country”, family of 26 children, are squabbling over the estate. The government had secretly paid off Mr. Danger's mortgage after his death to keep his children “from being thrown in the street”. Problem is, they did not live in the house and the house was rented out but various children were “stealing” the rent. Etc., etc., etc..

The obit’s were interesting also. Tells who died and about their estate and how that estate was distributed. Nobody in the dead column had more than three children, unlike the dangerous Mr. “Danger” who had more than you can count on your hands and toes. Maybe that is where the “danger” came from. (Did I mention the president of South Africa has 6 legal wives?)

By mid afternoon we were outside the Etosha National Park at the Tashari lodge. This was supposed to be our destination for just one night, but with temperatures forecasted in the hundreds, about ten degrees higher than normal, I opted to give up the tents booked for subsequent nights and checked in for 4 nights.....with air conditioning.

the heat blurs the picture.....but it is a dry heat

Oct 3 Off we go to the Etosha National Park. We do some paperwork at the gate and head for the main office 30 Km into the park. Penelope, from Lemur Conservation, tells me I will see more animals here than anywhere in the world. Right off the bat we see some giraffes. This is a good omen. The office is efficient enough and we quickly have a two day pass, something the parks of South Africa have not figured out yet. Then the problem. "Got any maps". "Sorry we are out, check the gift shop" Long story short, there are no maps of this huge reserve, so off we go in the blind. We are seeing hundreds of boks and zebra in long lines across the grass plains, just like in the movies. Yea, more damn zebras, where's the beef? We come upon a large watering hole and this is like in the movies. A lion, elephants, zebra, boks, ostriches, and more.

this is a birds nest. hundreds of various types of birds live in the nest.

lion sauna

Every watering hole we come to is guarded by a lion. Everything else stands around at a distance waiting. The only one who can approach a waterhole is the elephant.

There is a slide show here go to http://sfe2012.blogspot.com you do not see it

Oct 4 We were awakened in the middle of the night by strong winds and thunder, but no rain. Talking to a worker at the hotel in the morning, he said they had rain last night in Outja and just drops here. Here is the official weather for Namibia:

Namibian weather is extremely easy to forecast. For 8 months of the year it will be dry - and for the remaining months there is a chance of rain!

The rain starts normally around the end of October, but Garret says it did not start until December last year. They are hoping for rain any day, but I asked for them to hold off for a few days until I leave.

another watering hole with 8 lions and hundreds of other stuff

bok looking for shade

even the birds are looking for shade

a different watering hole. different elephants stand in the water all day.

these guys are keeping the giraffes below from the water

fortunately the lion does not keep us from the watering hole

the dust makes your hair a little stiff

There is a slide show here go to http://sfe2012.blogspot.com you do not see it

Oct 5

Today we are moving on. Garret, one of the front desk mangers, came to say good by.

As we were preparing to leave, a South African we had chatted with came in to say his car would not start and asked to borrow some jumper cables from the hotel. I volunteered to use my car to jump. The two workers I had talked to in the past, Jason and Tilon, jumped in to help. After we were done the South African never acknowledge their help in anyway. Not even a thank you. That is unfortunately the behavior you see way too often between the Blacks and the Whites.

I thanked them and they helped me load our car. First in was JJ Cool Box. He has traveled everywhere with us and has become a great friend.

I thought this would be just a 4 hour drive to our overnight lodge, the Brandenberg White Lady. It would end up to be much more than that.

mile after mile of straight road

First stop was a photo of a cattle herder. I wanted a picture because of his face. He indicated that he was hungry so we gave him a apple and a bottle of water and moved on.

We drove for a hour or so on a nice paved road to Khorixas.

Then we turned left on to a dirt road. The first interesting thing was three young boys playing with wire cars. They had made these from scrap wire and they even had a steering wheel that they pushed it with and drove it with as well as suspension. I was amazed at their ingenuity.

Next we saw some road art on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We would eventually see a couple of these.

At the top of a ridge we came across a car that had it’s hood up and stopped to ask if they needed assistance. There was, I assume, a mother and father, three or four children and a elderly man. They too said they were hungry so we gave them some fruit and bread and moved on.

All the turns off the main roads had looked like this. Not good for my "any left turn" adventures.

So, when we came to B2139, Sabie and Vicki said "lets go this way" and off we went to the right off the main road. The road started nice and then deteriorated to a goat path. Mention was made by me that this probably was not a good idea but we pressed on. We had traversed worse in the past in rental cars. Adventure is about getting out of the comfort zone.

that dirt path is the road

looks nice in the picture

Things were going OK until we came to a dry sandy river bed. We made it two thirds of the way across and got stuck. So, let's analyze this. You are in the middle of nowhere Africa, you have not seen anyone for over an hour, and you are stuck up to your ass in a riverbed. Better start digging. We made attempts but were not making progress, when we looked up and walking up the river bed from about a half mile away, are two bush people. When they arrived they jumped right to work. They had dealt with adventurous tourists before. We slowly worked our way across the river bed. Moving, getting stuck, jacking up the car to put wood under the wheel, moving, repeat, until we were finally safe. We thanked our rescuers with a big bonus and water.

the knot in the blouse is her wallet

(Note to self.....dumbass!)

And we moved on. The road improved and in about 10 Km we were back on a good dirt road.

To get to our “luxury” chalet in the middle of nowhere we had to turn off the main dirt road, travel about 20 Km, turn off that road on to a lesser road and travel 10 Km to the White Lady Lodge.

not a bad place

The area is stunning. I was not expecting much of the lodge and the room. Though very bare and basic and a long way from “luxury”, it would serve our needs for one night. Sitting on our stoop, we met our neighbors, Wolfgang and his wife. They had shipped their Mercedes from Germany to Namibia and were going to travel around for 3 months. A very nice couple and even nicer when he walked out to his Mercedes and pulled 3 cold Windhoek beers out and brought them over to share. He had handed his machine company over to his son, the third generation, and gone traveling. His company makes all the crankshafts and piston pins for Sthil engines. I said “every time I start a Sthil, I will say Wolfgang!” and indicated three pulls. He said “no, no”. “If you have to pull it to start more than once it is not a Sthil”.

Oct 6
Today we moved to the coast with out any major events. Most people traveling this area have a 4x4, not a little Nissan like us.

Wolfgang's $100,000 + Mercedes that he paid $10,000 to ship to use for 90 days

or rent a 4x4 like this. this one has camping gear on top.

this behemoth at who knows how much, was shipped from holland.

The owner of the big Mann Diesel machine is a Dutchman. He sold his company and had this built and shipped to Namibia. He has traveled around for over a year in it. Now he will have it shipped to Savannah for a tour of the US, Canada and South America. He tried to convince us to follow him and not go to the coast, but we needed to see water.

big toys come with little toys

We saw Bon Jour Bleu, JJ Cool Box's French friend today.

We stopped in Uis to get petrol. The attendant was absolutely thrilled when the credit card machine worked. Must be a new installation because the rural stations have not taken cards before.

super 93 is leaded gas. africa is the only place i have seen leaded in years.

success!

We continued west with a National Geographic stop.

We rested at a lone picnic spot in the desert and continued west.

the lone picnic table

more straight roads

Then we ran into, in the middle of nowhere, the filming of Mad Max, 230th edition. No photo's allowed.

We kept heading west and finally hit the end of the road. Behind the sign is the Atlantic Ocean. It is just a little foggy. The temp's had dropped from the 100's to the 60's.

the northern part of the coast is known as the skeleton coast, but this area has it's skeleton's too.

vicki and her boys

We headed on to the overnight stop of Swakopmund, passing more Mad Max machines along the way.

Swakopmund is a very small trendy town. Downtown is about 5 square blocks of upscale, for the desert, shops and restaurants. Once again we had trouble finding a room for more than one night. We settled into the Cornerstone Guesthouse and they booked our next night across the street.
Even the restaurants required a reservation. The only place we could get one was Kucki's Pub. Great German food, but overwhelmed with people. We were glad to escape because it is a smokers paradise.

Oct 7&8
We spent two days roaming the desert and chasing Flamingos. The Flamingos are in the salt flats around Walvis Bay, the port that South Africa kept when they gave Namibia independence but later had to give it up too. It is a small port open to the ocean. For some reason there are about 20 freighters of various sizes anchored off the port. I know the freighter business was way off with the depression and they may just be sitting here waiting to go east or west for cargo.

Vicki walked over to the sand dune and then had a zen moment and just had to see what was on the other side.