This Is Africa

I arrived in Johannesburg on the 30th and promptly came down with a horrible cold that had me in bed for most of the 31st. New Years Eve 2010 was entirely uneventful, but hopefully that won't be indicative of the coming year. Considering I have yet to have an excellent New Years Eve and I've had plenty of good years, I think the odds are in my favor.

When I arrived last week, Chrystal and Fred picked me up at the airport and brought me back to their home where I met Jim, Laura, and their 20-year-old son, Rob (who Chrystal likes to call Robby). Rob, Laura, and Jim have visited South Africa several times before, so they already know the drill. They also know Fred and Chrystal much better than I do, so that helped to break the ice. Unlike some of the other people I've stayed with (ok, all), I've actually met Fred and Chrystal before I showed up at the airport in their home town asking for a place to stay. They are really excellent people. Chrystal is originally German and Fred is South African, and they live together in the larney suburbs north of Joburg.

For those who don't know, the term Larney comes from Kilarney, a posh suburb of Johannesburg. It just means posh or ritzy. As far as slang goes, I like it much more than lekker, but not as much as jol. Lekker is both a sweet like a candy and something that is good or sweet. Jol is shorthand for jolly good time, and means exactly what it sounds like, except the usage is a bit weird. Apparently, you can both go on a jol and have a jol. Jol is the greatest because it's the hardest to use and the most rewarding to recognize. Other Afrikaans I've learned is: (and I have no idea how to spell these) donkey = thanks, buy a donkey = thank you very much, and not a donkey = you're welcome. I've also learned lots of ways to describe water (droe = dry, brak = brackish, mudder = muddy, river = river) thanks to the many rivers we've driven across in the past couple of days.

This is my first time in South Africa, and it seems like everyone I talked to kept telling me how dangerous the country is. I suppose that's true in some places, like downtown Johannesburg or in other major cities, but overall the country feels fairly safe. Of course, I've been in Fred and Chrystal's protective bubble the whole time. There is a lot to love here, including the beautiful scenary and of course, Fred and Chrystal. Some of my favorite things are: the yes/no candy bars, the mystery that is the local public transportation system, and gas stations called ultra cities where people seem to congregate, even in the middle of nowhere, and the proliferation of fast food chains where they make you sit down and take your order, and serve still water in a water bottle with a wine glass. The yes/no bars are pictured here. You would have to ask a South African, but I think the yes no thing, in addition to the play on the notes kids pass each other (do you like me? circle yes or no) is extra funny here because of the way people say yes no in Afrikaans when they are agreeing with someone. In the same vein, people also say good naughty (but in Afrikaans, of course) to say that a little kid is naugthy, but still cute.

Getting back to the first road trip: After going to bed early on New Years Eve we woke up early on the 1st and the six of us set off on a road trip. Our first destination was Kimberley, where we explored the De Beers "Big Hole." I would really like to put the translation of big hole in Afrikaans up here, mostly because the double entendre is stronger in Afrikaans than it is in English, but I'm embarrassed to ask what the translation would be. All I know is Chrystal snickers every time we mention the big hole. Going to the Big Hole is quite a production. Since the hole was dug for De Beers and the diamond company still owns the hole, you have to figure the info they give you is a watered down, Disney version of the truth. But if that's the case, then the conditions must have been unimaginably awful for the original miners who hand dug the big hole, because the video they showed us revealed concentration camp-like environs for the people working for the mining companies.

After seeing the big hole and desperately trying to find tonic for our gin, we drove south to the coast to drive along the garden route. Rob bungee jumped off the highest commercial jump in the world while I struggled to even walk out on the bridge he was jumping off of. I did make it, though, and the view was terrifying. Also along the garden route, we did a zipline tour of the Tsitsicama Forest which was both extremely painful thanks to a too-tight harness, and only sort of fun. Given the option, I think I'd rather hike through the forest. I've come to a conclusion on this trip. Some people are flying people, and some people are ground people. My flying dreams are generally nightmares, and I feel much more comfortable the closer I am to the ground. On a related note, the Bushmen sleep with their heads elevated off the ground so creepy crawlies won't crawl into their ears and kill them. My version of this old busmen trick is to sleep with my ipod earbuds in my ears in case the spiders get any big ideas.

The next day we saw the beach and played on the sand dunes, where some men were fishing for tuna and catching sharks. No joke. They had caught several sharks that day already using the same kind of tiny fishing poles Ray and I would use to catch bass on Lake Texhoma. We also drove around the Addo Elephant park and saw some elephants hogging the watering holes so the zebras and wart hogs had to stand around in the heat waiting for the elephants to finish. Greedy olifants.

On the 7th we arrived back in Joburg and started taking the malaria medicine for the upcoming lekker trip to Kruger National Park, which starts tomorrow. When I get back from Kruger, Jenny will be waiting for me in Johannesburg, and I can't wait to see her!

Before I Became Deathly Ill

How to catch up on everything that’s happened? I’ll start at the beginning, I guess. The last thing I remember writing was right before Christmas. I was in sunny Perth, getting ready for Christmas. Christmas went off excellently. I even made a pumpkin pie from scratch (yes, that means no pumpkin filler, no store-bought crust). There were a few other foreigners spending Christmas dinner with us, so everyone made something from their homeland. Since Americans seems to get more excited about Thanksgiving dinner than Christmas dinner (what a bunch of heathens we are) I thought I should make a Thanksgiving treat. Apparently, Australians generally only eat pumpkin as a vegetable, not as a sweet, so they tried to serve my pie with the meats. Whatevs. Everyone loved it, of course, but I thought it was too sweet. Next time I would use ½ a can of condensed milk instead of the whole can.

I left Dunsborough very early on boxing day (we’re talking 4:45am) and drove to the Perth airport to catch a plane to Ayers Rock. I had only planned on spending 24 hours in Ayers rock, so as soon as I got off the plane and checked in to my hostel (I had to dump the bags with reception because I didn’t even have time to put them in my room) I got on the bus to go to see the Olgas and the sunset viewing of Ayers rock. Despite what the naysayers said, Ayers Rock (Uluru to the Aborigines) is NOT overrated. Granted, I kept falling asleep in the tour bus, but what I did see of the rock is so stunning it justifies the expensive flight into the middle of nowhere, braving the flies, extreme heat and the unbearable redness of the place. It’s this giant thing in the middle of flat desert, and people are inexplicably drawn to it. Ayers Rock was probably a glacier deposit from when Australia was part of Godwana or whatever the original continent was called prior to shifting tectonic plates. It's just a rock in the same way the grand canyon is just hole in the ground. And the Ayers rock resort itself is worth a visit, if only for the bizarreness of the place. After the rock tour, I spent a couple of hours at the bar with some of the young people who work there (talk about no country for old men) and apparently the resort is very wild west. Because all five of the hotels, the shopping center, and all the stores in the Ayers rock resort are owned by the same company, that company has the power to kick out employees at a moment’s notice. It’s called 48ing someone, and it means they have 48 hours to leave town and never come back.

The next day I flew to Sydney where I did all the usual tourist things: the opera house and the harbor, and this really cool neighborhood called the Rocks where I sat next to an extraordinarily friendly couple from Sydney. They were so friendly that at first I thought they must be tourists, too. The boy looked like a beautiful hobbit with a great mass of curly hair and piercing blue eyes and the girl looked like a (very short) model herself--delicate features, tan, and blond.
Since I’ve pretty much been making broad, unfounded statements about everything I’ve experienced while traveling, I might as well keep it up with my assessment of Sydney vs. Melbourne: The people are easier to approach in Sydney but Melbourne city is a bit trendier. Also, both public transport systems are excellent, but I did think Melbourne’s was slightly easier, because of all the trams. But objectively, as Anna said, both cities are wonderful. Any serious rivalry between the two is lost on me. I’ll just chalk it up to footy.

On my second full day in Sydney I went to the Blue Mountains just west of the city. The Blue Mountains are so beautiful that you know there has to be something wrong with the place. Like any second a death adder is going to jump up and bite you just to remind you that nothing this good is free. The mountain range is rain forest in the valleys and a bit drier as you get to the top. The hiking trail winds you along the mountain ridge, occasionally climbing down into a valley or up onto a cliff edge for a spectacular view. After the redness of Ayers Rock, it was a relief to see trees again. The mountains appear to be blue because the eucalyptus trees growing there excrete an oil that creates a faint blue haze when seen from a distance.

Coming back from the mountains I was absolutely exhausted and didn’t want to do anything but maybe see a movie at the theater near my hostel. Instead, when I walked back to my room, I met a Swedish girl and a German guy in my room. By the way, I’ve met so many Swedes in my travels that I wonder if there are any left in Sweden. The girl had to get up early the next day, but the guy had just gotten in to town and wanted to go out, so I said sure. In a move I hope Anna N. will approve of, we illegally drank wine on the roof of the hostel. Flo, the German, a self described “happy child” from hippie parents had just come from New Zealand where he had been studying literature, theater, and Maori culture for a semester. In that time he acquired a bizarre accent and some really adorable English slang, like “sweet ass.”

Anyway, the next day I left Australia for good and headed to South Africa, where I became deathly ill and missed my mommy terribly, though between Chrystal and Laura I was pretty well taken care of. To be continued...

Rottnest Island

When I first arrived in Perth, while I was waiting to make contact with Katy, I checked my bag at this place called the Travellers Club, and it was there that I scheduled a tour of Rottnest Island. The guy working the desk at the Travellers Club suggested that I skip the bus tour and hire a bike to take myself around the island instead. The island is 26 kilometers around, so I was little unsure of whether I would be able to make it the whole way around the island, but I decided to do it anyway. I also rented snorkel gear and planned to explore the reef.

The tour consisted of a trip by ferry from Perth Jetty (this makes me wonder what the difference between a pier and jetty is…) to Fremantle, or Fremo to the locals, then another ferry from Fremo to the island. On the first ferry a Thai woman named Natty Knight (that is her real name) who looked to be in her early thirties sat down across from me and was very friendly. Taking the tour to the island is research for her work. She is in Perth because she married an Australian, and she now has a two year old son with him. She and I bond on the trip and we talk about everything there is to cover in two hours: Vietnamese food, travel, boys, movies, the sham wow guy. On the way back she even offered to set me up on a date with an Aussie.

When I get to the island, Natty and I part ways because she is taking the eco tour and I have opted to rent a bike and snorkel gear. Riding around the island is not as difficult as I have feared, but it is hot and there are a lot of flies. Rottnest island is so called because of the quikas (I’m sure I’m misspelling the name), a rodent-like creature that lives only on that island. There are no private vehicles on the island, but there are a few buses that run around the perimeter every 10 minutes or so. A very few people live in Rottnest, but most of the people are vacationers. If you are visiting, you can camp, rent a bungalow on the beach, or there are two hotels and one backpacker’s hostel. The beaches here are absolutely pristine, with beautiful blue water and white sand beaches covered in a soft grass.

The first time I stopped to use the snorkel gear, I trekked through the scrub to get to the beach, and was pleasantly surprised to find absolutely no one in sight. The wind was so strong that from the highest point on the rocks above the beach, about 20 feet up, I could lean into the wind and it would support my full weight. When I scrambled down the rock to the beach, the area was so isolated that I didn't even bother trying to find cover before changing into my bathing suit.

I swam around a little and had a great time, then walked up and down the beach a while before deciding to head back to the rode to continue my ride around the island. It wasn't until I was walking back to my bike that I noticed the Do Not Enter sign. I had unknowingly been swimming in protected, research only waters. The beach was beautiful, though. As I found out the more I explored the island, the other beaches may not have been overcrowded, but I definitely couldn't have changed privately without finding a toilet.

The Art of Mooching

When I was busy daydreaming about this around the world trip (and not so busy actually planning for the trip), I would often imagine myself using connections to find somewhere to stay in every city. Asking strangers for a place to stay may be all good in theory, but in actual practice is very awkward. The thought of asking for a ride to the airport makes me feel obligated to offer my first born child as compensation for the inconvenience, so you can imagine how I felt about asking for a place to stay.

So when Carol told me that she had a friend in Australia and it sounded like that friend might be in Perth at the same time I was, I emailed Anna planning to keep the conversation to things to do in Western Australia. Luckily for me, however, Carol had already suggested to Anna that I might need a place to stay. Anna is a former child of the Australian bush, with a passion for fashion and dual American/Australian citizenship. She is the oldest of five kids and spent much of her childhood dodging snakes and spiders in the middle of nowhere north of Perth. She is adventurous, smokes Benson & Hedges, and is a has funny opinions about Geminis. Of course, I know none of this when I call Anna. I wasn’t even aware that Carol had paved the way by asking Anna if I could stay with her. All I know is that according to Carol, Anna is wonderful, a YA and literacy author, and that Carol thinks I will like her.

After psyching myself up to face the telephone (I hate not being able to read people's faces), I ring Anna. Anna answers, and we get to talking. Next thing I know, I'm doing something totally out of character and asking Anna if I can spend Christmas with her family. As I suspected (because, really, who can say no to a question like that) she says yes, please do, then gives me the phone numbers of two of her sisters-- Kate and Helene. More cold calls. I'm told Kate is the sister I can stay with in Perth and Helen is the sister organizing Christmas dinner in "the Margaret River area," as I was calling it at the time. (I had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that the town is called Margaret River. No "the," no "area" needed. On a side note: On this trip, I once seriously referred to Tasmania as “the Tasmanian island.” The look I got when I said that was the same look I gave one of the schoolies I met in Victoria when she told me that she was going to university next year to get, what’s it called, some kind of bachelorette degree.)

In the end I took Anna’s advice and called Kate and Helen, and they were both great. Kate immediately eased my awkwardness by straightforwardly telling me that she had no idea who I was. Helen was good to talk to as well, and even made what I am reasonably confident was a joke about how uncomfortable the family will make me feel for crashing their Christmas dinner.

When I arrived in Perth on December 15th, I had a couple of hours to waste until I met Kate. I finally caught up with her and had just started to make some encouraging noises about how great Perth is, when wham! Katy hits me with the long and complicated story of her daughter, Naomi's, love life. By the time we get back to Forrestfield, the suburb where Katy and 33 year old Naomi live, I feel like I've known her forever. Kate talks quietly like someone who is losing her hearing, but laughs loudly and often. By the end of the 20 minute car ride, I am completely enamored with her, and at the same time terrified to meet the rest of the family in case they are nothing like her. Later that night I meet Naomi, and Nay, as they call her, is indeed nothing like her mom, but not in the way I feared. Naomi is a different breed of kind and welcoming. She is upbeat and hilarious, and she gesticulates wildly when she’s telling stories, generally in some elaborate miming fashion which results in her short blonde hair in disarray.

Without even having met Anna, I know this is going to be a great Christmas.

The Great Ocean Road

For the last three days I have been out of cell phone range, without access to the internet, and basically hidden from the world at large. It was great.

The trip started out in Mooney Ponds, a neighboring suburb to the one where I'm staying, with Liam's karate test. The proud parents (and I'm including myself among them) sat along one side of a gym wall and watched their kids do some solo exercises then spar. To my great disappointment, the whole testing process was nothing like the karate kid, though one parent did say "wax on, wax off." The entertainment value came when the students were asked to do as many sit ups and push ups as they could in a minute, then had to shout out their number in front of the whole group. Colette explained to me that it's standard practice to fudge the numbers a little, but I got to see it firsthand.

Leaving the dojo, Shane drove me straight to the airport where I rented a car from the not-so-Thrifty. But no matter the price--the car in spot 015 was a cherry red, mostly automatic, brand new sedan, and I fell in love. (I say mostly automatic because even though you didn't have to shift gears with the foot pedal, you could still shift gears with the gear shifter. At least I hope I was supposed to do that... It took me about 50 miles to figure out there was a gear after 4th. My knowledge of driving manual is limited to what I learned from the song Hot Rod Lincoln and my experience biking up hills.) It was a little dicey getting out of the airport, but once I was on Western Ring Road, I had a great time just driving. Melbourne has some really terrific local radio stations, and PBS was doing a live music week. All the way to Queenscliff I blasted live music by Aussies I had never heard of and ignored the GPS telling me I was speeding.

That night I stayed in Queenscliff in a huge dorm room occupied only be me and a Sri Lankan who had just started a job in Geelong. Queenscliff is a lot like a seaside version of Sleepy Hollow. The town is isolated enough and old enough that it would be weird not to see some kind of ghost trying to cut your head off.

Barely escaping Queenscliff with my life, I drove up the Great Ocean Road to see the Twelve Apostles, and in the process came across some other pretty terrifying, but less famous, stretches of ocean:

Bells Beach is where the last scene in Point Break takes place--the one where surfer cum bank robber Patrick Swayze escapes the tyranny of this world by throwing himself into the raging sea. Somewhere along the same coast the former Prime Minister of OZ, Harold Holt, was swept out to sea never to be heard from again. At Cape Otway in the late 70s a plane pilot pulled an Amelia Earheart and just disappeared. His last radio transmission? "There's some kind of strange aircraft hovering over me."

Be it at the hand of aliens, headless horsemen, or a killer rip tide, there are a lot of ways to die on the surf coast. As it turns out, there are a lot of ways to die in inland Victoria as well. In a well intentioned but largely ineffective attempt to keep people alive, the Australian government (except the roos sign, pictured below) has decided that the best thing to do about these dangers is to post a sign. Deadly snakes in the area? Post a sign! Risk of kangaroos running your car off the road? Post a sign! Miles of the deadliest coastline in the world and only a few hundred unpaid lifeguards to keep an eye on you? Post a sign!

But if you brave the snakes and the cliffs and the rip tide and the kangaroos, and if you know (I didn't) that there are no bears in this part of the world, and if you keep on that hiking trail and don't give up until you reach the uppermost point of the cliff, or you go ahead and walk out into the water even though you're swimming alone and the signs say not to, you'll see why the surf coast is one of the greatest places on earth. The wind is freezing and just a little bit scary when it comes off the water, making the waves choppy and big. The views are amazing--a little bit like the cliffs in the fictional Maine of Dark Shadows, or maybe an unpopulated California.

I spent one more night in Queenscliff, then planning to return the car on Tuesday, made my way up to Torquay for a surf lesson before I drove back to the airport. However, when I got to Torquay two things happened: the surf shop only gave lessons in the morning, and the sun came out. Heartened by the prospect of spending another night on my vacation within a vacation, I told the car rental company that if they really wanted their car back they could come and get it, then promptly signed up for a lesson on the following day.

Wednesday came and the surf lesson was one of the more painful two hour sessions of my life. Exhausted, sore, and bruised, our group of 5 finished the lessons with every single one of us having stood up on our boards. Pretty much, we rock. My class consisted of two other couples, both from the UK. One couple in particular, Chris and Charlie (Charlie is a girl), were very nice and the three of us had lunch together after the lesson. After lunch I left Torquay to return to Melbourne. My three days on the coast were some of the best in Melbourne, and even though I'm so sore lying down hurts, I can't wait to try surfing again in Perth.

Wine Tour of the Yarra Valley

The last time I went on a wine tour, my partner in crime (ahem, Mom) and I drank so much we could barely stand up at the end of the day. So, it was with some trepidation and a newfound respect for the spittoon that I agreed to go on a wine tour of the Yarra Valley (see map) with Colette. The tour was actually the Christmas party for Colette's exercise class. There were 25 of us all together, mostly women but some men, aged 20 to 60 years old.

We met outside of the gym, Re-creation, in Essendon where there was an ancient party bus waiting to take us to four wineries in the Yarra Valley east of Melbourne. The bus was painted a solid white from roof to runner, with a list of occasions for which the bus might be useful handwritten across the top. Suggestions included nightclub tours, hens and bucks nights, bus parties, pub crawls, and wine tours. Colette, Colette's friend Amelia, and I were among the last to arrive, so when we got on board we were greeted by people staring at us from seats lining the walls of the bus (see photo of Colette, me, and Amelia from left to right). Because the bus windows had been painted over when the bus was painted white, the inside had a dark, sleazy night club feel.

Right from the beginning the atmosphere inside the bus was relaxed. No one except Matt (the trainer who had organized the outing) knew everyone, but most people knew at least a few others on the bus. This mix of familiarity encouraged good conversation and the hour or so drive out to the first winery was pleasant. At the first winery, Domaine Chandon, we had our pick of one of three sparkling wines. I chose a sparkling red, mostly for novelty's sake, and liked it. But, not having had breakfast (and having sworn to myself that this tour wouldn't be a repeat of last time) I only sampled one of the other wines at Chandon. The winery was one of those big commercial places with a beautiful view of the valley and a huge dining room designed to show off that view; however, I was left with the impression that it wasn't anything special.

The next winery, Yering Station, is vineyard, hotel, and day spa. The place is absolutely beautiful. Lord knows why, but as I travel I find myself scouting out wedding locations, and this place ranks pretty high. Especially if you could use the Yering Station facilities but serve Mandala wines. (In case anyone cares, another prime wedding spot would be the Botanical Gardens in Wellington.) The wines here were too sweet, though. The photo of me was taken at Yerring Station.

We only had lunch at the third winery, Balgownie Estate, and didn't have time to sample the wines there. Lunch was a perplexing tomato, goat cheese, melon, and liquor appetiser followed by a comparatively normal rissoto. I sat between Colette and Lou, a girl about my age who I ended up making friends with. I've been feeling too forward lately, so not wanting to scare her away, I gave her my full name and asked her to look me up on facebook. Let's see if this social networking thing is as good as everyone claims.

The final winery was by far the best. We only had about 30 minutes here, but the wines were delicious! I don't have the vocabulary to even begin to describe them, but the name of the winery is Mandala--look it up, you won't be disappointed. The 2007 Yarra Valley Chardonay and the 2009 Margaret Valley Savignon Blanc were the best.

We were finished by 4pm and piled back in the bus. I am proud to say that I managed to stay sober(ish) throughout the whole day, but I can't say the same for some of the other people on the tour. A group of blonde thirty-somethings sitting in the back of the bus were still drinking on the way home. One girl in particular, Nicki, was a riot. She discovered the karaoke machine on the bus and started us off with an ear-splitting rendition of Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun. When she couldn't remember the words she started pole dancing and at one point swung her leg up across the bus driver's shoulders. Later, when the whole bus was singing Sinatra's New York, New York, an out of control high kick sent Nicki's shoes flying clear across the bus.

Other highlights of party bus karaoke were when we discovered someone on the bus could actually sing (shocking, I know), and when everyone sang along to an Aussie song, Down Under. If you're not familiar with this song, I encourage everyone to navigate off this page for a sec to discover Men at Work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT7uZf7lew. Lyrics include such gems as: "I come from a land down under/ where beer does flow and men chunder" and "Buying bread from a man in Brussels/ He was six-foot-four and full of muscles/ I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"/ He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich."

Ahh, Australia, land of beer, vegemite, and the Hills hoist. And damn proud of it.

Graffiti

Lately I've been spending a lot of time in Federation Square. It's the outdoor plaza across from Flinder's Station and it's home to a few restaurants, a tourist office, free wifi, and a couple of museums. It may have been voted number five on the 10 ugliest structures in the world list, but it's number one in my heart. I mostly go there for the free internet. Anyway, being downtown I see a lot of graffiti, something Melbourne is known for, apparently. I've been meaning to post pictures, so here they are.