More driving. A lot more

The country does not have a huge number of inhabitants, just 2,5 millions over a huge territory.

Riding in the southern regions, one hardly crosses anyone. Except for some gas stations at crossroads between major gravel highways, no sign of villages around.

And, then, the interlude of the odd gravel road with gates which you need to open by yourself every 2-5 km.

One fascinating desert after the other and then a  few cities. Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and more north Tsumeb and Grootfontein: neat, green, orderly, well maintained, with the most equipped pharmacies and medical practices. Incongruous, in a way. Not the image one has of cities in Africa.

But head northwards and cross the red line of animal disease prevention and the country changes dramatically. No more dried up prehistoric waterways but real rivers, forests of trees, cattle grazing by the (tarred) highway. And villages and schools scattered around, people walking by the road and children waving at cars.

Cities in the north look different too. Take Rundu: markets, noise and music, dusty roads, and neighbourhoods of huts made of mud or zinc, alongside neighbourhoods of houses made of bricks. And in some places the sad view of plastic garbage as if growing from trees and plants.

Another country, probably poorer, more humid, where malaria has not yet been eradicated, inhabitants are mostly farmers, when they do not move south to work for the tourism industry.

Beautiful in a different way, where you can sit on the side of the river Okavango looking at Angola on the other side.

Or going further east, taking your time to spot hippos bathing on the other side or warthogs happily having breakfast, while birds of all colours fly in and out of your room

Oysters in Bavaria

The end of the desert surprises us with a series of ponds inhabited by flamingos, just next to a waste recycling facility and a shopping mall.

We are in Walvis Bay, former British and then Southafrican enclave in German colonial land and huge port to access Namibia.
Here the orange dunes slide gently into the ocean and the road in between the two sides lead to Swakopmund, a corner of Bavaria in the southern hemisphere.

Impossible to say if tomorrow is going to be chilly or hot, our hosting lady tells us with an unusual tight accent, Swakopmund has 4 seasons in a day.

Tomorrow was going to be very hot and we would be watching hundreds of thousands of black seals cramming the sandy strip leading to Pelican Cape - it looks like an Italian beach in August, some could say.

Today, however, is pretty chilly. Warm clothes and hats on, the end of the afternoon is our time to go check those out-of-context Teutonic buildings and to walk over the Jetty onto the Ocean, swept by the west wind, towards the austral sunset.

And possibly some seafood.
Oysters here are not like in a European country I would not mention - Captain Yanni would say - they do not taste like salty water, they are sweet and fleshy and if you do not believe me, here a plate of twelve for you and a glass of bubbly.

You should always believe the captain.

Deserts

Prepare to drive hundreds of km on long, straight highways made of gravel, running silently in the middle of nowhere. But be on the look out, as the next bump can hide the beginning of a new breathtaking nowhere. This, we learned, is the Namib. Not by coincidence the name is supposed to mean something along the lines of wide dry plains. And not by coincidence, this has given the name to the whole country, one of the driest in the world.

After a red, dusty start of the journey, a flat yellow land takes over, as if some kind of sand had spread itself all around. Except it is not sand: looking closer, it turns out it is a kind of short light grass, betraying the presence of some water somewhere sometime.

We cross very few cars. And a lonely cyclist, looking even lonelier against the yellow nowhere he has decided to challenge.

But the gravel highway goes on and after the next road bump, the grass disappears and a dark rocky world begins, bringing with it a hilly landscape, a sequence of unexpectedly slippery curves and lookouts over a moon-like valley.

A bus has stopped on the side of the road. People replacing a broken tyre is common sight on this road. We already crossed three of them just today. But not the case for the bus: there is a road sign indicating we are crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. Photo time. Actually, good idea.

But this is not yet the end of the journey. First we need to cross a long stoney white nowhere, with the deteriorated gravel highway turning into an endless sequence of small bumps, shaking the 4x4 and our stomachs.

But there we are, at last. Or almost: we reach Sesriem, the gate to the most scenic, best known part of the Namib. The gravel turns into smooth asphalt accompanying us for 65 km through the amazing orange dunes of the Sossusvlei.

Ever changing shape, heights of up to 350 metres, against the wind incessantly blowing off the superficial layer, we try to climb the most accessible one, Dune 45.

The end of the journey brings us to the Dead Vlei: in the zenith of the midday sun, a bunch of dead trees stand like an accusation, in a lake of white salt, against the orange of the dunes and the intense blue of the sky. The stunning reward of the long desert route.

The classic Namibian postcard photo in our pocket, exhausted by the heat, the wind and the dust, time to go back and prepare the next stop: Bavaria of Africa.

Memorabilia of Kenya

Tourist in the park: "Wow, we managed to see ALL 4 of the big 5!"
Tourist at the hotel: "I don't want a masseur, I want a masseuse. My body is reserved to women"

Dialogue at the diving centre:
"Is it really 47 his fins size???" "Yes, he's the monster"


Difficult conversation with a Maasai at the foot of Mount Kilmanjaro:
"Are you from Italy? Ooooooh... Berlusconi, bunga bunga, not good!" "..."
"So, lady, you are not here to entertain the boys" "..."


My two "knights" talk to each other, spilling the beans in the Maasai Mara:
"Can you imagine a giraffe with a sore throat?" "Or a hippo with ear infection..."
"I go to work every day but I also cook, clean, iron, do the household and cut the trees" "Wow, you are a perfect Maasai woman"
"This is my T-shirt" "Yes! Men recognise their T-shirts from the sweat stains"

Local lady on the beach: "Come on, you got two man and I got none. Give me one!"

People from Kenya

Colourful pictures of Kenya also come from its people. Not just the Maasai guys performing the traditional jumps to deserve the highest number of women, but also the other people who contributed to make this trip unique.

John, the driver-guide from Lake Victoria, drove incessantly on dirt roads and slippery mud, through the parks and across the whole country, from the Maasai Mara to Watamu. He showed the Kenya/Tanzania border, went off-roads when no rangers were in sight, chased a cheetah, yet failed to see a leopard hanging over the head of the happily unaware tourist.

Justin from Malindi, could have been from Milan: born in the country of "pole pole", he got no time to lose. If you don't serve him within 2 minutes, he is gone.

Luigi, italian expat who abandoned his previous life for some undisclosed reason and now lives on the Kenyan coast with his (new?) wife and 6 or 7 servants. He started his own business, built his own villa with a huge veranda and a pool, hired a cook preparing pasta with lobster for dinner, and all is patrolled by a guard armed with a bow.

Aissam, cute and smart kid who gets hypnotised at the view of a kite, plays with a tire through the narrow streets of Watamu. He knows well how to lead lost tourists along the New Bla Bla Bla Road and how to gratify them into to buy him icecreams at the local Italian Gelateria.

Jay, captain of a boat, who took me by hand to discover the beauties of the Indian Ocean's clear waters - and who would not have minded a European wife. As the unnamed seller of CDs in Narok: "If this guy mistreats you, come back and I'll take care of you". But not as explicit as Lydia: "I like white meat" (but after all she was targeting a man: no romance needed, she must have thought).

Surely, three European tourists, simple walk-ons in the big show, did not leave the same mark in all these people's lives.

Sunday in the bush

In the bush everybody wakes early. We are no exception and we are rewarded by the beauty of Africa and its shining sun, blue sky, red soil and the endless plains of the Masai land.

It has been raining and our Land Rover skates in the mud, crosses creeks, climbs up and down the Mara trails. Great driver, John.

Lions and hyenas are not difficult to spot today, but the highlights are the very close encounters with a leopard hanging down a tree just above our heads and with a sleepy hippo during the walk along the Mara river. Following a cheetah during hunting was not bad either. As were the endless herds of placid gnus, tail-shaking Thomson gazelles and hi-definition zebras (their stripes, at least).

And stunning landscapes and excellent food. What else can we ask for?

As the red sun sets on the Mara and, totally exhausted, we go to sleep accompanied by the sounds of wildlife around the tent, we still feel in our mouth the taste of this perfect day, maybe one of the most beautiful in our lives.

This time a bit less rough

Compared to Tanzania, luxury stay.
I could do also without the pool in the bush.

Let the trip begin again

On the go again. Time to expand the sky above and the horizon ahead. Time to disconnect from many things - especially the Internet. Time to go mobile blogging.

One full day travelling to get to Nairobi and be escorted to a hotel guarded by armed men at all corners. A new type of holiday feeling.

Friendly Joyce welcomes us and takes care of us until we confess that we would really get some sleep.
So, here I am again at the edge of the cradle of human kind, the edge of the Rift Valley and the edge of the territory of Somali unrest.

And, coincidentally, Edge is the only mobile broadband technology available - with a bit of luck - in the Maasai Mara. Which also means no photos for now.

Broadband in Africa

Before resuming the Tanzanian stories - or changing subject even - a digression.

Broadband connection in Tanzania wasn't great, no surprises there. A (rather slow) Internet access was available at the hotel in Arusha, some sort of Internet café (without coffee) with 90s style computers in Nungwi (Zanzibar) and a slightly better business point in the hotel in Dar Es Salaam.

But locals (source: Isack the driver-guide) had hopes: some optical fibre cable had reached East Africa (Mombasa) and soon would Internet traffic be routed faster.

Come back to Europe and suddenly broadband in Africa is a debated topic.

For example, courtesy of a colleague, I learnt that in Africa, instead of broadband, one can use a pigeon carrying a USB to transfer data:

Broadband promised to unite the world with super-fast data delivery - but in South Africa it seems the web is still no faster than a humble pigeon. BBC News

Few days later, the web is full of reports on fibre optic in East Africa (Isack's info was correct).

BBC here, talking about the economics of Broadband take up. Prof. Juma talking about it at the Berkman Center in Harvard.

Pondering: maybe my next broadband project could be for Africa.