Hedonic Adaptation

As you can tell from my Twitter Posts. There have been some big changes in my life. Sorry folks about my recent withdrawal from the blogging world. I have been traveling for most of August. (Mozambique 8 days, Swaziland 3 days, Cape Town 1 day, Buenos Aires 5 days, Guatemala who knows). I know Buenos Aires and Guatemala, right. Most of those who know me and my adventures know that this was not part of the plan. Well my plans changed along time ago. I purposefully reserved my reasons for this. In the interim I enjoyed all that cape town and the surrounding countries had to offer.
I mean’t to get this post up earlier. However the rigorous travel schedule combined with being really sick for the last week was largely the cause of my most recent absence.
Now I am studying Spanish and plan on volunteering in a medical clinic in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Not sure how long I will be here.
Over the next week. I hope to get some posts up to review my trips over the last month and fill everyone in about where I go from here.

Cheers!
Eric

Three days before the World cup final ended. I posted on couchsurfing.com, that I was looking for travel companions to Namibia and or Botswana.  I have been hooked by the couch surfing community.  If you don’t know already, it is probably the greatest thing ever.  It is a community of people who offer to share their couches (i.e. their homes) with you.   Additionally,  it provides the best resource for travelers looking to meet up with other travelers for adventures.  In other words a sort of Craig’s List that is exclusive for travelers.  In addition to this I have found the Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum as another excellent resource for travel advice and meet ups.   Long story short I met up with my new friend’s Morgan Beck and Jan Blazej.  Morgan like myself is taking time off from the rat race in the states.   She has been traveling for the better part of the last year, mostly in South America. Jan is an  itinerant wine maker headed to Australia after South Africa.   Long story short, the day after world cup final.  Hangovers and all we set off for Namibia.

Day 1 and 2: Ai-Ais Hotsprings and Fish River Canyon

Fish River Canyon is the second biggest canyon in the world (2nd to the Grand Canyon in Arizona)

Day 3, 4, 5: Luderitz, Sesriem, Sossuvlei

Sand dunes, ghost town, and deep river canyons.  Oh yeah and Jackals stealing our shoes at night.
Day 6 and 7: Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Branberg and Twyfelfonein

The white lady paintings, rock carvings, and the Branberg mountain range.
Day 8: Etosha National Game Reserve

Lions, elephants, zebras, rhinos, giraffes, jackals, hyenas, warthogs, wildebeests, and giant ostriches.

Day 9: 946 mi drive from Windhoek back to Cape Town

When it was all said and done we had traveled:
5378.7 km driven (3342 miles or the equivalent of driving from the Oregon Coast to Boston, Mass)
7.4 L/100 km (average petrol consumption)average speed
74 km/hr64:29 total hours driven
Total cost $472 USD.

Most of the time we bush camped, i.e. camped on the side of the road.  The entire country of Namibia seemed like one big national park.  Most of the roads we drove up the west coast were gravel.  The driving was the best driving I have ever done.  Imagine, the autobahn of gravel roads.  Relatively level gravel roads, windy curves and no speed limit (okay there may have been a speed limit) but we decided that there were only 20 cops in Namibia; so no chance of a speeding ticket.  In short it was like being on one big rally course.

On these roads we hardly came across anyone.  The few people we did see were fellow tourists like ourselves.   We did not see any native Namibians in a measurable amount until we got to the bigger cities.  Still by comparison to South Africa Namibia is a desolate country; 2.1 million people for approx 885 sq km.

The coastal cities seemed as if they were a bizarre combination of German architecture, desolate landscape and African people.  The radio was a mix of German, Afrikaans and English.

Etosha game reserve was my favorite part of the trip.  The game reserve, supposedly one of the premier game reserves in all of Africa was massive; approx 22,000 sq km.   It was organized with a set of gravel roads that connected various watering holes.   My favorite two favorite parts were, 1) chasing the ostrich in our car 2) watching the sequence of animals approach the watering hole.  It would often seem as if there was a preset order in which different herds of respective animals would approach.  For example, first zebras, then springbok etc.  It was really interesting to see how each group of animals would cautiously approach the watering hole.  They would circle it.  As to make sure there was no thereat, then they would slowly make their way to the water and there were always a few remaining animals standing at the edge performing a sentry duty.  The climax would come when ever a lion would approach.   Every animal would stand attention with the lion’s presence.  Facing the lion, the hairs on the back rising up, their heads and bodies moving to watch the lion’s every move.

Overall, it was an amazing experience.  What could have ended in disaster three, i.e. three strangers sharing a journey equivalent to across the U.S. turned out great.   With the exception of one shoe stolen by a jackal and a flat tire there were no other complications.

We had no itinerary, let alone even an adequate map of Namibia we set out. After it was all said an done this is the route we took:

View Larger Map

Well the sad day finally arrived when my great friend Maika left. I was so glad to book it back from Namibia to Cape Town so I could get one final day with her. We went to brunch and hiked up the third peak in Cape Town, Devils Peak. I was really sad to see her go. After all we have shared the same space for the better part of 3 mo. together. Here are some of the pics from our last hike together.

Some pics from our World Cup Final. We headed to the “Sheebeen” at the Strand Street Hotel. Our Dutch friend’s Maude and Juul have been interning their all world cup. It is a dutch was a Dutch paradise. I showed up late, with Maika’s assistance I was able to bypass the que. Everyone knows the result, here are some of the pics from my last World cup experience.

The following are some of my favorite and less than favorite idiosyncratic aspects of the local speak in South Africa

Robots = Traffic Lights (by far my favorite thing to do is to tell the taxi to let me out at the next “robot”)

Trekkes = Tennis Shoes

Bunny Chow = a South African take on an Indian fare

Bru = Bro

Braii = BBQ

Lekker = a common expression for beautful, sweet, hot.

Lekker ding = yummy thing

And here come’s the confusing part, when dealing with time.  The adverb “now” in South Africa has a completely different set of meanings than anywhere else .

Now = Soon

Now Now = right now

Just Now = Whenever I feel like it I will get around to it.

So if you are asking somebody to do something and they say just know.  Mistake  #1 is to think that they are going to do it for you soon.  Mistake #2 is to think they are going to do it for you at all.  Only took me about a month to figure this out.

One of my South African friends just forwarded me this article by Shari Cohen in the Huffington Post.  The article expresses the hospitality the host nation has displayed towards it’s guests.   I think the article does an excellent job summing up the most positive aspects of my experience here in South Africa.   I could not agree more with the author’s assessment and even his commentary on how America handles it’s major sporting events (more on this in a later post).   People in this country are truly amazing.

If I was to sum up my experience in general across all races, peoples, classes here; is that South Africans come across as genuinely curious.  Like the article said, they want to know first where you are from and second what you think of South Africa.   They are more likely to teach you something new before they are going to offer their own opinion.    For example when I was taking a taxi through the township of Gugheletu; I should point out that a taxi in a township is a guy who drives around in an unmarked Toyota weaves around picking up as many people as he can and eventually you will arrive at your destination; without my solicitation was more than eager to teach me all sorts of ways to greet people Xhosa.  Experiences like these occur with such a frequency that you begin to discount how special they are.   I have met so many people willing to discuss their country, it’s problems, virtues, what they thought of America, the World Cup and the sorry state of the English team.

I was even lent a signed copy of a David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas by an employee at the Book Lounge.  How amazing is that! I merely mentioned the author to her and that I was thinking about reading it at a soccer game and she SMS me the next day to come by and pick it up.  I am truly gratefull.

In addition to graciousness which South Africa has shared its country.  I have also noticed something peculiar about the social interactions itself in the country.  In America, especially in tech-savy Seattle (my ex-home),  lives are endlessly synced, updated and refreshed at a pace only limited by the bandwidth of your connection.  A meeting between two people does not seem to be validated if you don’t have an email thread at least 10 emails deep coordinating the rendezvous.  If you don’t have some form of electronic documentation then anything that becomes of that meeting is placed in the metaphorical “spam box” of experience.   There is something deeply refreshing about going to a place where the value of the spontaneous interaction seems to hold so much more worth.   This experience breaths life into each conversation because you do not know where it or you for that matter might be the next moment.  I have been whisked away on enough adventures and had enough things drop into my lap that this place is truly magical.

The author David Mitchell in a New York Times Article sums my feelings best in this quote:

“I was standing on a busy interjunction in New Delhi with the traffic and the din and the scooters and the bikes and the elephants and the cows, and I remember thinking: These people have got something that we’ve lost. Our traffic rules and sanitation and systems make life easier and more convenient, ensure longer lifespans and perhaps a fairer society. But these things come at a cost, and the cost is what I felt there. There’s a velocity and density of life there that you don’t get in the West, and that I found oxygenating.”

Amazing game last night. Us and about 30 other Americans took over a bar on Long St called the Waiting Room. for the game last night. The anticipation of the match was building throughout the game. The explosion of excitement after we scored just into extra time in the 2nd half was amazing. All the excitment of the previous 90 min of play just came out in 10 min of raw energy. Glass was broken, people were jumping on chairs, hugs, dancing continued for the next 10 min. One of the best games of any sport I have ever watched.

One of the things I love most about traveling is engaging new modalities of transportation. I was thinking about this during one of my last trips on a “Mini Taxi”. Prompted by this affection, I began a little compare and contrast of my two last travel destinations; Buenos Aires and Cape Town. Both experiences are so uniquely different than anything experienced in the States. I imagine that there is some measure of increased safety in the States. However, the casual roughness provides this westerner with just enough danger to make him feel like he is really “living”.

Buenos Aires it could be said is a sea of people each trying to grasp a bit more out of life, with no thought of what happens tomorrow. The BA taxi ride, for the most part is a solo endeavor in this life. As you careen across the city, the taxi ride is romantically otherworldly. As I recreate my memories of the taxi ride, I can hear dream pop like Beach House, The XX or Stars playing in the background.

Buenos Aires is designed in a style with gigantic boulevards and endless cobwebs of capillaries streaming outward in all directions. The only real way to travel between the neighborhoods at night is to jump into the cab. Once inside, you are emersed in a swarm of yellow and black (the designated color of radio cabs). Much like the grace that governs bees working in the hive, you are caught in the endless ebb and flow of humanity in transport. Each cab separately and mercifully going about it’s own labor.

Learning the rules of the road is not a behavior to be learned, but is born in every citizen of this magnificent city. Thus when approaching a 4 way “intersection” (momentum seems to be the only right of way) or in the middle of eight “lane” road the driver never needs not a second thought and every action is instinct. The outside observer can gain no more understanding than trying to understand a Slavic language.

Just as you loose all hope of understanding the cab crests hill and your human intelligence allows you to grasp the greater collectiveness and feel the pulse of this amazing city.

The otherworldly collectiveness sensed in Buenos Aires is contrasted to the in your face rawness on a mini taxi in CPT. This collectiveness is shoved in your face as you pack 15-20 individuals into a VW van. In CPT you get the feeling you are part of a Darwinian experiment in transportation.

While CPT supports many different forms of public transportation, trains, taxis, busses, an occasional biker, it is the mini taxi which I prefer. The mini taxi size pales in comparison to the actual buses in Cape Town. The actual buses look like some steroid mutant bus designed for public transportation at a monster truck rally. These monstrosities tower over the road and the other drivers.

The mini taxis dart in and out of these lumbering beasts of the road. Weaving just about everywhere on the road except on the side walk; yes, this occasionally does mean going into oncoming traffic. In the cutthroat competition with every other driver on his route, the driver often goes from 0-60 mph just as fast as his taxi can take him in order to catch the next fare.

Mini taxi culture itself contains a wide range of types and subsets. Each mini bus represents an owner’s individuality. Some are covered in decals, and fancy paint jobs with expressions like “Dream Lover” or “Dogg Pound”. Some are so nice they could easily be mistaken for being filled with Asian tourists on their way to Cape Point, others are so run down that you can easily see the ground whizzing past through cracks in the floor. You are just as likely to find a taxi with the patriarch and the matriarch of the mini taxi arguing about life’s foibles, as you are to find one with two guys barley legal to drive cat calling every woman on the sidewalk. There is no order to which one you get. It is all luck of the draw on these random rides through Cape Town.

To me riding a mini bus at its best is like a ride on the Millennium Falcon as it is escaping a Star Destroyer. Ramshackle, barley able to hold itself together, like Hans Solo you never doubt you are going to escape alive. I think if there was any job I would want to do for a day was to be a mini bus driver or at the very least be the window man. WYYYN-Berg!

Another great soccer article from the Atlantic.

Thanks Carolyn!