Maputo

Thomas and I took the overnight bus to Maputo last weekend for some good espresso and a brief immersion into the warmth and bustle of Mozambique's capital city. Getting there was a highlight: we left Pretoria in the evening and arrived at the border about 4am with urgent instructions from our driver to get in and out of the South Africa departure building as quickly as possible, don't wait for the bus (which was stuck in gridlock with the other pre-dawn border crossers), walk the 500m to the Mozambican side and find someone to give us a visa (we were the only ones on the bus that needed one, hence the special attention lest we keep everyone else waiting). “Don't wait in any lines!”

All South African departure offices I have been to are cunningly designed to create the greatest amount of conjestion with the minimum number of people. The layout is simple: a long narrow hallway with kiosks down one side; if you line more than two people up in front of any given window you will hit the opposite wall, after which it's a free for all. Thomas and I were soon to learn, however, that in comparison to the Mozambican system, South African immigration was the height of rationality and civility.

As per our instructions, Thomas and I hastily got our stamp on the South Africa side and proceeded to Mozambique where, ignoring the huge line up outside, we headed straight into the first building we came to, elbows first. Inside: chaos! Identify the most promising looking counter, push to the front, grab a slip of paper, find someone with a pen, beg them for it. Fill out the form whilst, with feet placed firmly on the ground, you try not to get pushed too far back from the counter, take a handful of cash, hand it back with your passport. Wait 10 minutes while someone looks it over in a back room. Make vaguely insulting comments at some guy who manages to get instant service by calling the lady behind the counter “mama” and handing her 4 or 5 passports. Maintain a brave face when he tells you he works for the government and I shouldn't “be stupid.” Retrieve passports and run, trimphantly, back to the bus which has also, in the meantime, managed to cross the border. What a rush!

Maputo itself was great. I'm not going to give you a history lesson because I didn't have a chance to learn anything before going, unfortunately. Mozambique is a former Portuguese colony, this is still the only official language, and it makes for a very different cultural experience to that in SA. Like I said, we drank lots of delicious espresso (and plenty of pastries too). Saw much of the city on foot, which was quite exhausting from the combination of heat, humidity and sleep deprivation. Got a little overwhelmed by the zealous sellers at the market, but loved chattering back at them in Portuguese. Listened to some really nice jazz on a platform of the old train station. Had my first combi ride (combis are the once informal, now formal “black” taxis that substitute for a proper public transit system in these parts - ubiquitous in Pretoria, but I never use them here) - seat 11, fit 25. Bought calamari and prawns at the fish market and had them cooked up for us at one of the neighbouring restaurants. Got back on the bus Sunday evening and headed home. Arrived back around 5:30 - time for an hour in my bed before going to work.

Maputo is bursting with character. The streets are full of people selling things, friends hanging out, the richer folk sipping espresso and eating pastries in good European fashion. Red “flame” trees - similar to the purple jacaranda in Pretoria - add colour and shade. The streets are potholed and litter-strewn. The shopping is hectic (the decibles really go up when it becomes known you can understand a little Portuguese). The sun is hot.

I almost forgot - the street names! It's despicable, but little wonder the Apartheid regime in South Africa was tolerated for so long by the communist-fearing West: Ho Chi Minh Ave. and Friedrich Engels Street; Lenin Ave was one of the main roads. There is a Robert Mugabe square (actually he was a big fan of the West, wasn’t he?). And the two backpackers in town are on Mao Tse Tung and Patrice Lumuba Streets. Truly, I didn't see a street that didn't commemorate one socialist brother or another.

A word about the photos: many of them were shot “from the hip,” which is a little trick Lisa taught me. In other words I wasn't looking through the lens when I took the shots (I took the pictures sideways as I was walking down the street). I'm not sure yet about this approach - aside from the fact that most of the shots are pretty lousy, I'm photographing people without them knowing it, and I'm not sure how cool this is. The great thing about it, of course, is that you get photos of people who don't know they're having their photo taken, and the few that did turn out ok capture “the street” much better than I could otherwise have hoped. In any case, I hope you like them. This was my last adventure before coming home, sadly, and I really tried to soak up as much as I could. I'm homeward bound in less than two weeks!

Photos are here.

Christmas on the coast

Separated from our loving families at Christmas time, Lisa and I determined to take our minds off our misfortune with a road trip along the coast from Cintsa (north of East London, on the Indian Ocean side) down to Cape Town. Missing parents, siblings and friends most grievously, we nevertheless found some moments of peace, and dare I say happiness, among the empty stretches of white sandy beaches, turquoise surf, and cedar forests. And in our darkest moments we found cheap solace (as well as the most delicious goat’s cheese) at a handful of the 300-odd wineries within driving distance of Cape Town.

We spent our first three nights in Cintsa, about 10 hours south and east from Pretoria via the Orange Free State. In Cintsa I learned the true meaning of a “vacation.” It is this: get out of bed whenever you damn well please, make crepes, brew coffee (which, on a true vacation, you will find in your Christmas stocking), eat yourself just shy of sick, rest, make your way down to the beach, remove shoes, walk in the surf for an hour or two until you’ve had enough sun, retire back to your shady abode, read until you succumb to your pillow, after napping put your feet up and read for a bit more, perhaps with a slice of Christmas cake and a cup of tea, make your way down to the beach, remove shoes, walk in the surf as the sun sets, retire to your cozy abode, if energy allows cook some dinner, otherwise head straight to bed. Repeat the next day. And the day after that.

On Christmas Eve we joined a big group at a nearby backpacker's for a really wonderful, traditional dinner, which was especially appreciated because it was the first and only time we truly felt that it was Christmas time. There were even crackers and paper hats! We sat at a table with a crew of Swedes, who regaled us with drinking songs (you're excommunicated in Sweden if you drink snaaps without singing) and tried to spill wine on me, twice.

From Cintsa we spent the next five days or so making our way down to Cape Town; driving a bit every day, but finding plenty of time to explore some Nature Reserves and National Parks, as well as a few nice coffee shops along the way. Highlights included Tsitsikamma National Park, which had some of the most stunning coastline I've ever seen (see title photo). Probably the most popular trail in South Africa, the Otter Trail, starts here and continues for five days of walking between huts. Without permits (which you have to book years in advance to get) we were able to do the first three kilometres of the trail, hopping across rocks and through forest to a waterfall and fresh water swimming hole directly above the ocean.

Further on towards Knysna we visited the Robberg Peninsula Nature Reserve, which sticks out two or three kilometres into the sea, home to a huge colony of seals and one of the few areas of protection for the Cape's treasured fynbos, an incredible diversity of plants with a very small range - the Cape Floral Kingdom is both the smallest and most diverse of the world's 6 such kingdoms. There are 1,300 species of plants per 10,000km2 in the region - predominantly fynbos - 900 more than in the South American rainforest.

North of George we drove the famous Swartberg pass, a short stretch of steep, sinuous gravel through a canyon of buckled rock to lovely Prince Albert, where we had our best cup of coffee on the trip - though I admit my judgment may have become clouded by the mouth-watering scone and carrot “muffin” (read: cake).

Finally, more gravel to De Hoop Nature Reserve, a great place to see the whales when they’re passing through (which they weren't), as well as zebra, blesbok and a few other omnivores, especially birds. I don’t think we saw de Hoop at its best, but we had a very nice evening walking among the tidal pools and along the dunes; a short stop before the last leg of the journey into Cape Town, which we did via Cape Agulhas (the southern-most point in Africa) and the Betty's Bay penguin colony.

We had six packed but pleasant days in CT, where we stayed with an old (as in long-time!) Akins family friend, Louky Worrel. By packed I mean busy, but also “experienced together with several million other holiday-makers.” Cape Town was busy, busy, BUSY. Nevertheless, with the exception of the odd times when we got it into our heads to actually try entering core areas, we had plenty of space to soak up this gorgeous city. Like Vancouver, Cape Town sits beneath mountains running straight into the sea, but here the landscape is even more dramatic. Favorite days were spent hiking up Table Mountain, visiting the city's wonderful botanical gardens, walking in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, and doing a few “tastings” at wineries around Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek.

To conclude I will allow myself the final paragraph to ruminate: a major “theme” for us on this trip was the strong sense that we had left Africa behind, insofar as I was in Africa to begin with, living in Pretoria. It was the most amazing trip, and aside from simply spoiling ourselves we also saw and did a great deal. But what we saw reminded me far more of home than the September issue of National Geographic, which was a special on Africa. There I read about pygmies, deserts, great apes, genocide, diamonds, oil, dictatorship, the cradle of humankind. My trip with Lisa through one small corner of this same continent featured americanos, air conditioning, wine tasting and beach combing. It was home redecorated, and warmed up a bit.

[ok, two paragraphs] As Louky correctly reminded me, however, if by “Africa” I mean abject poverty, HIV/AIDS, history, music, culture and countless other conditions that amount to a world utterly different from my own (which I do), I could have found it in the massive township (1.5 million people) five minutes from her house. This is South Africa, located most definitely, and despite my perceptions, in “Africa,” and five months after arriving here I know and understand fractionally more than nothing about it.

Trip photos here, as well as fynbos and other plants indigenous to the Cape region here (my apologies - I hope to have names for all of these one day!).

Kruger, again

I gave Lisa less than a day to recover from her 30-plus hour milkrun around the world (Kelown-Vancouver-San Franciso-Washington-Accra-Johannesburg) before whisking her off for a short trip to Kruger. It was less than two months ago that I was there last, but it’s a different place now that we’re into the rainy season. In my earlier blog post I mentioned how astonished I was that such a dry, barren-looking environment could support the quantity and diversity of incredible wildlife I saw. On this second trip, in contrast, we saw a landscape exploding in greenery. It is said that this is a less good time to visit the park (unless you’re especially into birds), because all the vegetation makes animals tougher to spot. The really big upside to this, however, is that when you’re not seeing animals there is so much more to capture your attention: the birds, for one, as well as heaps of beautiful flowers, vast plains, quiet meadows, and deep blue skies which are, in my opinion, a great improvement over the haziness of the dry season. So whereas I was totally focused on the big mammals on my first trip - because there wasn’t really anything else to focus on - I felt I gained a much fuller appreciation of the park this time.

Rather than moving through the length of the park, North to South, as I had done with Laurel, Lisa and I stayed in the South, where the greatest number of animals are found. In addition to spotting 4 of the Big 5 (no leopards), we saw all sorts of amazing creatures, including some new ones for me. Of special note: a couple little cats - a Spotted Genet, and an African Wildcat - both about the size of a house cat, 1 of only 23 pairs of Saddle-billed storks, a side-striped Jakal, a Spotted Hyena (beneath the balcony at the camp), an albino baby impala, and some Bloody Big Rhinos. Many of the animals we saw seemed much more active than they had been in October. The hippos were out and about on land (previously I’d rarely even seen them move, let alone get up out of the water!), as well as leaping about (“breaching” might be a better word here) and wrestling in the water. The male impala were knocking horns whle the females fed their babies.

The only real negative to visiting Kruger in mid-summer is that if you wish to go on a guided morning drive (we went on two), you have to get up at 3:30 in the morning. One can convince themselves that this makes for a fun adventure the first time, but come the second morning wildlife watching takes on a much paler hue. Nevertheless, I am now a certifiable Kruger fan. For a city boy from Canada it is a place of incomparable wonder, and despite the roads and people and souvenir shops, I would happily go back again and again.

Photos are here.

The Amphitheatre

This past weekend I made another trip with friends to the Drakensberg - that glorious stretch of table-top peaks and dramatic ridges along the northern Lesotho [le-soo-too] border.

Not much to say other than this has been my favorite way to spend a weekend in South Africa. Working 9-5 in a city (and a pretty dull one at that) makes the mountains even more spirit-rejuvinating than I normally find them!

Sentinel Peak and the Amphitheatre are within site of Cathedral Peak, which I visited on my first trip, and are equally scenic. An old oceanic reef (this tidbit from my dad), the Amphitheatre is a great curving cliff, now at 3,000m above sea level, and perhaps 500 feet high, with a small waterfall that pours from a quiet stream running leisurly along the escarpment above. The hike was short (about 3hrs), which left lots of time in the afternoon for a nap and evening stroll. Saturday was windy and cold (so of course I didn't put sunscreen on, and got fried), but Sunday was beautiful, allowing us to scramble up Sentinel (a short ropped section at the bottom, and a nice exposed bit at the top) on our way back down. Accomodation was a nice big cave, which provided comfortable shelter from the afternoon storm, and a perfect vantage point for gawking at the rainbow that followed (the brightest I've ever seen I think).

I'm going to leave it at that. Check out the photos if you get a chance (here). Sorry I have been neglecting the blog of late. Things are going well here. I've become the Web Guy at work, which is not what I have signed up for but has nevertheless been quite fun and a good learning opporunity. The weather is, as usual, perfect - i.e. very un-Christmas-like. A short week next, and then three weeks off for the holdiay. So another drought coming up, but I should have more stories to share in the new year :)

"My Traitor's Heart"

The family Malan has held a place of prominence in Afrikaner history since the very beginning. Dawid Malan was one of the first Europeans to set foot outside “white” Africa (north of the Great Fish river), as he fled persecution with his black mistress. (Later, oddly, he resurfaced as a vocal proponent of Afrikaner supremacy over the blacks). D.F. Malan, as leader of the National Party when it came to power in 1948, was the first president of apartheid South Africa. General Magnus Malan was Head of the Defense Force, and later Minister of defense in the 1970s.

For a liberal, anti-apartheid journalist named Rian Malan, therefore, reconciling family history with a proud personal ideology was bound to cause some anguish and confusion. He wrestled with the contradiction for three decades before “running away” to the United States. Malan's book, “My Traitor's Heart," which he wrote on his return eight years later, is a more vivid journey into the depths of a conflicted soul and a tormented country than I could have thought possible of any such attempt to understand...well I'm not sure what he sought to understand. Apartheid, perhaps, or maybe just himself.

Malan “loved” blacks, having grown up with them all his life, but he was reduced to paranoia every time he stepped into a township. He introduces friends more radically liberal than he, who were desperate to be black, to escape their whiteness, but unwilling to pick up a black hitchhiker with no legs, or stand on the black side of the divide during confrontations with the police. Most poignantly, though, he describes fear. Fear of the blacks he loves.

“My Traitor's Heart” left two impressions on me. The first is that Apartheid can in fact be understood. Which is a slightly uncomfortable realization, actually. It's easy enough to skim the surface of the issue by simply imagining a racist Afrikaner society that justified its ruthless suppression by means of some hopelessly blinkered and backward worldview. It's more difficult to question who I would have been, how I would have acted, and how I would have truly felt (empathetic to the core? I seriously doubt it) in such a place at such a time.

The second impression was that, whereas in its essence, every day impacts and political implications Apartheid may have been merely depraved, at the margins (and who knows how thick these were?) it was severely, nauseously fucked up. It was murder, torture, hatred and fear. Blacks victimized by whites (government as well as by truly racist individuals); whites victimized by blacks (much of Malan's fear came from the fact that, when you were on the black turf of the townships, or asleep in your bed, it made no difference if you had fought apartheid all your life, you were marked by your whiteness); whites by whites (estrangement, imprisonment and in some cases death greeted the regime's most committed white opponents); and, resulting in the greatest death toll of all, blacks by blacks in never ending warfare between ethnic tribes and political groups. The stories that Malan tells, dug up through years of journalistic investigation, are appalling.

For the vast majority of South Africans, then, to live during apartheid was to live with your head buried very, very deeply in the sand. As Germans must have done during the Nazi regime. As the UN Security Council did during the Rwanda genocide in 1994. As it does today during another genocide in Sudan. As I have always done with regard to the treatment of First Nations people in Canada. To live in our world is to live shuttered and isolated (or, for a lucky few, insulated) lives - we are neither omnipresent, nor omnipotent, after all - and it seems to me that it is fortune alone that dictates the consequences of our ignorance and inaction. As a Canadian I ignore poverty, abuse and discrimination everyday. If I was living in Germany in the 1930's and 40's (blond and blue-eyed) I probably would have ignored the Holocaust.

I have no idea what it means to be an Afrikaner in South Africa today (or elsewhere for that matter), but Malan brought me a little closer to understanding their past as well as their present I think. And despite the rather somber topic it's a beautiful book that I highly recommend. If anyone is looking for a good read these days :)

Floral Adaptation

I've seen a lot of plants, like this one (in Malalotja Nature Reserve, Swaziland), that flower after a burn. It is the same with the grasses that grazing animals feed on, which is why there are ALWAYS fields burning (set alight by farmers) wherever you drive outside the city. What was once an adaptive development that helped the species survive fires (by coating its seeds it thick wax or something - maybe somebody more informed can help me here) has become a necessary reproductive process. Without fire I don't think these plants can flower at all.

Conservation in South Africa

I was asked to write something on my experience as an intern at IUCN for last month's newsletter. This is what I came up with:

"Conservation in South Africa through the eyes of a Canadian intern"

In early August of this year I arrived in Pretoria as one of fifteen “Young Canadian Leaders for a Sustainable Future,” sent overseas each year by Canada's International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Having only recently retired from the comfortable life of academia, this has been my first chance to apply years of study in environmental geography and international affairs to some real world issues.

At the mid-point in my six-month internship it is possible for me now to identify a few themes that have run through my thoughts and experiences at IUCN-SA so far. Two, in particular, set the South African context far apart from the Canadian one I have come from. An awareness of each has greatly deepened my appreciation for the challenges facing conservation efforts around the world, but has equally broadened my understanding of the important role healthy environments can play in meeting pressing human needs.

The twin realities of poverty and HIV/AIDS shape the role and place demands on the World Conservation Union and others working in the region to an extent far greater than I had appreciated. Poverty reduction is surely the most important national priority in South Africa, and conservation strategies are untenable without regard to the vast need for improvements in employment, health, nutrition and other development priorities. Perhaps it goes without saying, but the past three months have driven home for me the fact that conservation and development are two sides of the same coin – they will be forged together, or not at all.

Of course, the conservation of nature cannot be pursued in isolation from development in any country, and Canada is no exception. Many Canadians, and businesses in particular, were strongly opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, for example, because of fears that it would devastate the economy. I understand, therefore, that those of us who are committed to conservation must find ways to take sustainable development beyond the realm of a behavioural paradigm, and integrate it as a mechanism for growth and a provider of services into local, national and global economies. Conservation is going to have to cover its costs because, for the foreseeable future at least, most people will not be willing to pay for it.

Whereas in Canada we can probably muddle along for some time yet without truly making this link, however, South Africa cannot. Conservation efforts that do not contribute to human need will fall flat, and development that is not environmentally sustainable will perpetuate, not alleviate, poverty. Compounding this challenge, which the World Conservation Union is confronting head-on with initiatives such as Natural Futures (this issue), the HIV/AIDS epidemic is gravely affecting the capacity of communities, conservation organizations and governments to sustain resource management strategies that depend on the health, knowledge and skills of trained and committed individuals.

Whatever new lessons I receive in the second half of my internship, the need for solutions that meet the needs of people and environment together will stay with me when I return to Canada. There I hope I will find new opportunities to contribute to this challenge, which is clearly a global one, and share the knowledge, and commitment too, that I have gained from my experiences in South Africa.

Philip Akins, Project Officer, IUCN-SA

Blyde

I just though I'd add some photos of Blyde (pronounced Blay-Duh) River Canyon, which Laurel and I passed through on our drive up to Kruger. It's a stunning place and I was sad to rush through. Of added interest, the area is the subject of a joint project - World Conservation Union and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism - to link existing protected areas along the upper catchments of the northeast Drakensberg escarpment.

"The initiative aims to link people and ecosystems in a way that maximises sustainable benefits through responsible tourism development and seeks to restore valuable ecosystem goods and services provided by the Blyde complex. The Blyde River initiative also allows a new model of parks to develop that is consistent with national development objectives while protecting the country's heritage of nature and culture. Blyde has been short-listed as a World Heritage Site because of its natural and cultural attributes."

Photos aren't exceptional, but the "potholes" are pretty cool, and check out the small but colourful lizard (here).

Jacaranda

This purple version of Victoria's cherry trees has been throwing its petals to the wind for the past month and a half or so, and I'm going to miss the Jacaranda when they're done (any time now). Often when I leave for work in the morning the sidewalk is sprinkled in purple, and the trees, which are much bigger than the cherries, spread wonderful canopies over the streets, such as this one in Melville (Johannesburg).