Heritage Day

September 24 is Heritage Day in South Africa and South Africans have an annual opportunity to think about diverse cultures and their heritage. My clever cousin chose a special way to celebrate. 

We drove to a new museum, named Cradle of Humankind, where the story of human evolution is retold in an impressive collection of exhibits which benefits from modern technology and innovation in a way that old museums cannot. The context is perfect. Close by, the Rising Star Cave was the location of exciting and rich fossil discoveries in 2013 which led to the detailed description of 'homo naledi', a branch of the family that evolved in the area millions of years ago.

The most amazing discovery in this cave is that 15 different individuals ended up in the same cave and it is surmised that it is a burial chamber. Long before 'homo sapiens' appeared, this branch of the family seems to have had rituals surrounding death. It is likely that these remote indirect ancestors, while still good tree climbers, had a consciousness about life and death that resembles our own.

The limestone caves all over Southern Africa have revealed many long hidden treasures and have been a main player in leading paleontology to the current robust theory that 'homo sapiens', our direct ancestor, first stood and walked in this part of the globe and gave rise to all modern peoples. There were many other branches of the family that were born but died out. 'Homo erectus' for example, developed outside of Africa and spread far and wide, including back to Africa. However, 'homo sapiens' won the war of survival and came to dominate the planet, for better and worse. So, we are truly all African and it always feels like home to me. 

We also descended deep into the Sterkfontein Cave close by, where Dr. Broom, in 1948, discovered the remains of 'Mrs. Ples', first thought to be the skull of a woman. Advances since then in science and knowledge have led to the likelihood that it is the skull of a 14 year old boy! The humanlike remains in this cave all ended up there by misfortune, either falling in or being dragged in by predators that had killed them. It was not an ancient dwelling place.

The new museum has one exhibit where the visitor walks the timeline from the present day back to the beginning of the earth and marks the five mass extinctions that we now know about. The most cataclysmic mass extinction, a mere 251 million years ago, destroyed over 90% of all life on the planet. Will the sixth mass extinction, currently underway,  created by climate change and our profligate abuse of the earth's resources, be of that dimension? 

Victoria Falls

In the last leg of the trip I crossed the border into Zimbabwe, my home from 1984 to 1987 and I spent two days at Victoria Falls. While the economy is still in disarray, destroyed by the avarice and cunning of the now deposed Robert Gabriel Mugabe, tourism prospers. A currency crisis continues and the country has no currency of its own. Most trade is done in American dollars but often there is no change and credit cards often don't work because of the patchy infrastructure. 

Despite these considerable obstacles, the majestic splendour of the Victoria Falls draws visitors from all over the world. On the Zimbabwe side one can walk all along the edge of the gorge facing the Falls. Where the water is most plentiful, the long drop, over 100 metres in places, creates an ever present mist which falls immediately again as tropical rain, creating a lush rainforest in the immediate area. The noise really does sound like thunder, giving the name Musi-Oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders. It is a beautiful experience to walk through this mist and watch the spectacular view disappear and reappear. There are many viewing points along the way where  you stand right on the edge of the gorge and watch the water tumble over the cliff. In September, viewing is at its best as the water in the mighty Zambezi is at its lowest. Early in the year, when the river is filled with rains, one sees much less but the spectacle is even more unlikely. I have seen it in many moods and it is always spectacular.

Livingstone wrote in his diary, " No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."  The scene seems so unlikely, almost impossible. Why does this mighty river, carrying water from all over the centre of Africa to the Indian Ocean, along a 2 kilometre almost straight line cliff, suddenly drop 100 metres straight down? No similar drop is visible in the surrounding landscape. It seems as if the river should flow almost flat along the ground. Instead, it engages in this miraculous athletic feat, creating rainbows everywhere, giving rise to a rainforest in the midst of endless dry savannah, filling the air with a mighty roar and blowing mist high into the bone dry surrounding air. It is a magical place indeed - a wonder of the world.

Chobe National Park

Along the northern border between the Caprivi Strip (Namibia) and Botswana, lies Chobe National Park which boasts the largest elephant population in the world. In September the rains are still a month or more away so the game concentrates along the river to have access to water. If there are antelope and other smaller animals, there will be lions and leopards to feast on them. 

At this stage of the trip, day temperatures were moving close to 40 degrees and the nights were a very welcome relief. I had an early morning and a late evening game drive in addition to a sunset cruise on the river. Botswana requires that their parks use Botswana guides so our excellent guides had to stay at camp. The level of guiding was very amateurish by comparison and there was a wild drive along very sandy roads basically in search of large cats! I did have the thrill of seeing a leopard coming down out of a tree having stored his food up high. I also saw two prides of lions. Besides the cats, there was an amazing concentration of game along the river and also an impressive number of birds. The challenge was getting the guide to stop the jeep, even briefly!

Elephants were everywhere. It was thrilling to see such large herds with many very small babies. When the day gets hot, the herds move towards the river and spend a long time there

drinking, bathing and cooling themselves. They also spray mud all over themselves and then add a coat of dust for good measure. For the first time I was able to watch elephants swim through the deep river to an island. You can't see what is happening under water but they glide along surprisingly smoothly for such large animals! Crocodiles and hippos were also everywhere. In both the Okavango Delta and Chobe, hippos are often out of the water during the day grazing on soft grasses. Hippos usually lie around in the water during the day and graze at night so this was a wonderful surprise end it made photography easy. 

Watching this drama of nature playing out in front of my eyes brings great joy and I realize there is a naturalist in full view inside me. Perhaps I have misspent my life in schools. This is the school where I have always wanted to be!

The Okavango Delta in Botswana

A vast catchment area in the south of Angola feeds the Okavango River which pours into the Okavango Delta, a vast water area completely surrounded by desert. The Delta is relatively shallow and filled with islands of grasses, interspersed with channels of faster flowing water and paths created by elephants and hippos crashing through. It is very difficult to comprehend how there can be so much water in this hot dry part of Africa. The water level peaks in June, months after the rains recede and is at its lowest point as the rains begin. Four metres of water is considered low in the Delta, and how many rivers never reach the ocean?

A four hour fast boat ride took me far into the delta through a giant outdoor aviary. Lying in the reeds on both sides were all sizes of crocodiles, some as long as 4 metres. They would stay dead still until the boat was very close and then, in an explosion of action, jump into the water. The stunning colours of the carmine bee eaters and malachite kingfishers and vast numbers of fish eagles and little egrets delight. 

My destination was Pepere Island, a small island far into the Delta where a very sparse tenting camp has been set up with no electricity and no commerce. Hippos came through the camp later in the evening. The following day I took a long mokoro (traditional dugout canoe pushed by a person with a very long pole)  ride on the channels created by large animals and admired the endless flowers and grasses, including beautiful water lilies of various colours. There were tiny frogs everywhere, on the reeds and the water lily leaves. Those frogs create a deafening chorus as the sun sets and later larger frogs with deeper voices join them. At one stage I was very close to a huge hippo who quickly took shelter underwater. 

Then I had a long walk through the bush with a very knowledgable guide who could explain the bird, animal and plant life. We were in search of elephants but sadly came across none. 

However, the following day our patient guide headed out again and we came across a breeding herd of elephants, with four babies. This makes it much harder to approach the herd as the mothers will do what it takes to guard their babies. I have always found the walks in game parks especially exciting as one puts one's life at risk to get closer to the animals without the protection of a vehicle. 

Today I have made the long return journey up along the Okavango River and then driven the length of the Caprivi Strip and am poised to enter Chobe National Park, with its 50 000 elephants tomorrow. 

Garden of Eden

The Etosha Pan in northern Namibia has long held the reputation of being rich in animal life. The past few days have been a very joyful experience filled with exciting sightings of all kinds of animals, some for the first time ever for me.

Yesterday morning I came across a pride of 10 lions, including 3 little cubs. I learned later that the cubs had been left together in the open by the waterhole as the pride went hunting, making them extremely vulnerable to predators. This is how it is in the lion world. Pregnancy is very short, just 3.5 months and the mother gets the cubs through that most vulnerable phase. Submissive males in the pride are involved in caring for the cubs later. When the power structure changes, all cubs in the pride are killed. This vicious and fragile power structure seems to be partially responsible for a shocking decline in lion numbers in the world.

Bird life in the eastern side of the park is extraordinary. It would be worth a visit here just to do birding.

Today we head north into the Caprivi Strip and tomorrow another dream comes true, a visit to the Okavango Delta and a voyage by mokoro, the traditional dugout canoe. 

End of earth

Four wonderful days in Cape Town, one of the world's most beautiful cities, at end of winter when everything is green, is balm for the soul.  Highlights were a day in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and a trip to the top of Table Mountain, wrapped in mist. The city abounds with delicious food and, of course, excellent local wines. I also had a quick tour down to Cape Point Lighthouse, back past the large penguin colony at Boulders, and over Chapman's Peak, where two short years ago I ran with my friends and son in the Two Oceans Ultramarathon. 

There may be many serious problems in South Africa but there are also many more things that work well. The infrastructure is without parallel in Africa, the rainbow of people all seem to be able to work well enough together for institutions small and large to be friendly and efficient and life is good for those who can afford to avail of all the pleasures. 

Poverty is its Achilles' heel and solutions for that will not be easy, not when the huge majority is poor.