Since I was still recovering from my Indian illness, my father took it easy on me the first few days-- instead of hiking the 3000 foot rise Table Mountain in Capetown, we took the cable car, and only spent about 2 hours out in the blistering sun hiking around the top. Here's a view of the "city bowl" from there:
The next day, the itinerary called for a combination hiking/biking/adventure tour to the Cape of Good Hope, which despite extreme abdominal pain for most of the morning I managed to get through. We were with a really interesting group of people; the scenery was unbelievable, and we saw lots of wildlife: seals, penguins, baboons, ostriches, rock dassies and I even had a close encounter with a Cape cobra!
A few days of driving at a fairly relaxed pace followed that strenuous activity and allowed me some sleep/recovery time while my father did the driving. We toured the South African wine country, spent a day in Oudtshoorn (the ostrich capital of the world) where I actually RODE an ostrich, and ended up in Addo Elephant Park just outside of Port Elizabeth. I can't even list all the amazing animals we saw there, but here are a few of the best pictures:
Then we flew back to Johannesburg, had a whirlwind orientation for our placement, and met Minh, an infectious disease doctor from Chicago who's also working for ICEHA (International Committee for Equal Healthcare Access) in a hospital near us. We spent the next day driving 7 hours on highways and backroads to Thohoyandou, (home-sweet-home for 6 weeks) and Minh learned to drive stickshift, which made the drive that much more exciting. The guide book describes the city of Thohoyandou as a "pile of broken concrete," which is more or less accurate. But the surrounding area is so beautiful that it doesn't matter-- it's wonderfully green, lush, mountainous, and best of all, quiet. Everything I missed so desperately in Chennai...
We're working a Elim Hospital, which is about a 45 minute commute every morning through the rolling hills of Limpopo-- it's a lot of time in the car, but the drive is so lovely that we don't mind.
There's an enormous amount to write about the HIV clinic, the doctors and staff, and what I've been learning about HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. I'm going to save that for another entry, though, just to keep you all anticipating the exciting things to come.
To close this entry, I wanted to write about today. We had a long weekend for Easter, so we've been in Kruger National Park for the past three days, and today had a road trip back from Phalaborwa. Road trips are usually pretty strange experiences, but road trips in South Africa are particularly strange:
We left the bed and breakfast at 8 a.m. in search of breakfast, ironically, because we hadn't requested breakfast the night before. The owner suggested two places: Steer's and Wimpy's... Wimpy's we're pretty familiar with-- a more run down, South African version of Friendly's, I guess. So we opted for Steer's, thinking it sounded like some kind of local little breakfast joint. It turned out to be a fast food place in a gas station. We had eggs and toast and grilled tomatoes while watching attendants pump gas... weird experience number one. The day was off to a good start.
After breakfast, we drove through Gravelotte (which prompted my father to begin singing "In short there's simply not/ A more congenial spot/ For happily-ever-aftering than here/ In Gravelotte!") and were intrigued by signs for a GIANT BAOBOB TREE! Remembering a family vacation in Ireland where a detour to the world's largest dolmen had turned out to be the experience of a lifetime (or something) we decided we'd better not miss this opportunity. Minh good-naturedly didn't try too hard to dissuade us.
The second sign for the Baobob tree pointed left down a dirt road and read "GIANT BAOBOB TREE 3-5 km." Three to five km? Really? I suggested that perhaps the tree was 2 km across, but we decided that probably wasn't very likely.
So we turned down the dirt road, and immediately noticed that the speed limit was 100 km/hr. Really?? Who's going to drive 100 km/hr on a bumpy, potholed, rocky dirt road? So we're creeping along at a good clip of 35 km/hr for 3 to 5 km when we're passed by a speeding bus and two very fast taxis. We had our answer.
We found the tree, miraculously, and it was indeed very giant. And also quite old: 2007 years old, to be exact. We climbed inside it, climbed up it, and generally enjoyed the weirdness that had led us there.
Back on the road, and we drove happily along for a while before Minh piped up from the back seat, "What is THAT beast?"
Turned out to be a sable antelope-- a large black and white animal with elegant 3-foot-long horns that curve gracefully back towards its spine-- grazing by the roadside like it was no big deal at all. So we backed up a bit (on the highway... driving with Dad is always exciting) and got out to take pictures of it.
The driving resumed, and we passed through dozens of orange orchards, which made us all a bit hungry for citrus fruit. So we stopped at a roadside fruit stand to buy some, and we're immediately assaulted through the open window by 4 or 5 fruit sellers dumping oranges, papaya, avocados, and bananas into my lap and demanding to be payed. It took some tough negotiating, but we finally got a reasonable number of oranges for a reasonable price, and a fresh papaya and an avocado. But not every fruit seller was satisfied with our purchases, and stayed in the window for another 2 minutes, pushing bananas at me, asking for a few extra Rands above the agreed upon price, and begging me for the bag of peanuts at my feet to feed the children.
We finally managed to close the window and escape the market, and headed to Giyani, which we'd read was a cultural center with beautiful crafts, woodcarvings, and beadwork. Maybe we're not very cultured, but Giyani looked to us like a series of malls with chain fast food restaurants. Nevertheless, we persevered in our search for culture, and asked a total of 8 people directions to one crafts place on our list. After driving in circles, ending up at several dead ends, and being laughed at by far too many children, I suggested we try calling the number listed in the guidebook. The conversation Minh had with the woman went something like this:
Minh: Hello, is this Mashoka?
Woman: Yes.
Minh: Textiles and beadwork?
Woman: Yes.
Minh: You make cushions and jewelry?
Woman: Yes.
Minh: Are you open today?
Woman: No. (click).
Well, three out of four isn't so bad, right?
We gave up, and continued on our way, thinking that this would be the last of our road trip adventures and misadventures, since we getting pretty close to Thohoyandou. But no...
As we approached home, we saw a crowd of about 600 people gathered maybe 100 m from our front door, with music blasting, chickens roasting, and who knows what else. Huge party.
Turned out to be for the opening of a new funeral home.
Morbid?
South Africa is a strange place. I'm enjoying it quite a lot here.
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