In which Virtue is Rewarded

My first dawn within Etosha found me sitting by the watering hole adjacent to the Halali rest camp. Four springbok were drinking and grazing, with bouts of play-fighting – they lock horns, and try to force each other back. All four were extremely wary, huge ears all a-turning and a-twitch.

Young buck drinking at dawn

We left camp after breakfast, intending to stay out in the bush all day – inside Etosha, park rules say tourists must stay in the vehicle cab when outside the rest camps, except for a handful of toilets in “safe areas”. Our morning drive was fairly uneventful- just a few wildebeest, ostrich, assorted antelope. After lunch (makeshift picnic of biltong and biscuits), the viewing got a little more interesting – some giraffe (surreal, graceful, occasionally hilarious). Exploring a very quiet track in poor condition (lots of bumps and large puddles), we found two tourists peering beneath a rather sickly looking hire car. We pulled up immediately; Mrs P swung up onto the roof of the cab to watch for lions, elephants, etc. (not so easy, in the dense scrub along that track), while I hopped down to examine the “patient”.

Quickly diagnosing the hapless machine as “too sick to tow”, we noted its latitude and longitude, and - our cab being only a two-seater - opened the tailgate and offered the Spartan comfort of our pickup’s bed to the stranded Germans (an anxious mother and her teenage son). Abandoning our game viewing, we drove them straight to the Okaukuejo rest camp, this being the closest place from which they could call for assistance, and also our destination for that evening. A little disappointed at having had to cut our drive short, we rested by the pool with cold drinks, before consulting the animal sightings book at reception (filled in by other visitors), then took the north road from the camp (a road we wouldn’t have been travelling that day, if we hadn’t been doing our Samaritan act).

Lion at sunset near Okaukejo

A few kilometres out, we were buzzed by a Cessna performing the most unorthodox pre-landing circuits I’ve seen outside an air show. Just after this, a South African in a big jeep heading south flashed us down: lions ahead! Smiles and thanks, and off we went; in fact, we had already spotted a few jeeps pulled over up ahead. The area was very open – grassland – and soon we spotted leonine heads raised above the grass blades. Three lionesses lay together on our left, while a single male was off to our right. Searching with her big lense (500mm telephoto), Mrs P soon found another male lion some way off behind the lionesses. None of the animals were particularly close – the lionesses, which were nearest, were at least 30M off – but, even at that distance, they were beautiful, menacing, fascinating animals.

Wild times in Etosha

Four days into our honeymoon, we reached the eastern extremity of Etosha National Park, in the north of Namibia. Entering the park, we found ourselves driving in an area of very thick bush; nevertheless, we began to see game almost immediately - first, a large kudu, followed by a small herd of zebra. Other creatures followed quickly - later, there were giraffes, and possibly the oddest looking (and moving) creature, the wildebeeste.

Wildebeeste on the move

Driving ourselves, game viewing was a matter of picking turns at random from a network of gravel roads (of varying quality) that snake through the varying landscapes within Etosha. While all the land is fairly flat, the amount of groundwater available varies quite a bit, and with it the types of vegetation. In drier areas, low trees and bushes give way to grasses; in even drier or saltier ground, the grass gives way to bare earth and stone. In the more open areas, it is easy to find large herds of herbivores, and we saw many birds of the raptor (eagle) family. For people who'ld like to see zebras, Etosha is a kind of paradise - we saw herds numbering in the hundreds.

Romantically-minded Zebra

Hunter's Price?

We spent just forty eight hours in Cape Town before we flew out for Windhoek, Namibia (a note to other travellers: Cape Town deserves more time that we gave it). Two hours after arriving, we were moving north from the capital under our own steam in a very new Toyota Hilux (a large 4x4 pickup of legendary toughness). Our first stop had been planned months ahead: the craft market at Okahandja.

Craft market at okahandja

By local standards, rainfall is fairly good in this area - there are a lot of big cattle farms - but we thought it was dry as almost anywhere we'ld seen. This was the first town to give us that "third world" feel - stopping at the petrol station, we immediately attracted the attention of a couple of hawkers (thin, poorly dressed). I'm afraid they didn't get much from us - we picked a scrawny young lad to be our "parking guard", and crossed the road to the stalls of the traders - this is one of the largest craft markets in the region.

After some browsing, we soon found ourselves inside the stall of Oliver Moto (in the picture, the first on the left). Oliver is a nice young man with a relatively relaxed selling style. We liked his stock - plenty of carvings, mostly in wood, with some soapstone and a few in horn, bone, or tooth. On this, our first visit, his opening price for a wooden mask sounded a bit rich, so we shook our heads sadly. He soon confessed to quoting us a "hunter's price", and dropped about 20% from his starting price. Mrs P and I exchanged significant looks: we knew how this dance went. I slipped into my old role of distinterested spectator, and my wife dusted off her old bargaining weapons; the most important of these is that she never pays more than she initially intended to, and is genuinely prepared to walk away from a deal if the price is even 1% above her limit. On this occasion, the bargaining went fairly smoothly. Oliver played well, but faced an implacable and experience opponent, who, taking her time, eventually wore him down to a price that that surprised even me.

Bargaining with Oliver

For readers who haven't shopped in this way, the game is played like this: the trader will generally open at a fixed - outrageous - multiple of their lowest acceptable price. For example, in certain markets in the Far East, we found a common multiplier of about 7; We found that a lower multiple is current in Okahandja, but I'm not going to tell you, dear reader: we like Oliver, and we hope he does well.

We returned to Okahandja for a hour or two towards the end of our trip, and dealt with Oliver again; his range is good, and having compared his prices with those of other suppliers, we're sure he gives good value (but the bargaining is up to you!). When we'ld finished with our purchases, we took his contact details (he has a mobile phone, but not an e-mail address); I think perhaps the goods he is trading could find a wider market, particularly the range of animal carvings (zoos) and drums (crusties, art students). One of the most revealing moments of our dealings in his stall came when he was writing down his postal address for us: spelling "Okahandja" - the town where he lives - required a short debate with his friends (brothers? colleagues?). The educational legacy of apartheid?

Close encounter - of the feline kind

This beautiful creature, seen walking a dry riverbed in search of a cool place to sleep and digest, is a member of a small pride which hunts a territory within the Timbavati reserve (adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger Park). Her father, who lives away from the pride, occupies the apex of the local food pyramid, being the local alpha male. We came upon him by chance one morning, in the cool light that comes just before those magical African sunrises.

He was walking the track just a few hundred metres from our tents, coming our way. Our guide pulled over to the verge to let him pass (we were riding in an open landrover; think a stretched version of a world war II jeep, right down to the folded-flat windscreen and rifle by the driver's hand). I had an excellent view as he strode past within a couple of yards, protected only by his indifference to me. Big and brutal, he had a surprisingly melancholy mein (but a nice big mane - sorry). Talking to the tracker, we found out why.

At 12 years old, it seems he is "over the hill". Our guide’s assessment of his prospects was bleak; within a year or so, other lions will come to fight him for his territory, and he will lose. If he “doesn’t make too much fuss”, then he might be allowed to live, to shamble off into exile, where he might scratch out a lonely existence for another year or too. I don’t like his odds – he is the last of four brothers, the third being killed within the last 12 months by another pride to the north of his territory. It seems that that even the lion, the “king of beasts” himself, has only a short and precarious existence. Even knowing how the old villain maintains his position, I pitied him. Strange that such brutal animals should be so attractive – but we find them endlessly fascinating, particularly the cubs.

Paradise Lost

Last Thursday afternoon, I was bobbing in the warm, warm waters of the Indian Ocean, taking this picture of the tiny (uninhabited) island of St. Pierre (you can see more or less the whole island in this picture), part of the Seychelles group. The trees are heavy with fruit (coconuts, almonds), and the leaf litter is disturbed only by the passing of the occasional skink (this is skink heaven: I've never seen them so fat, sleek and lazy). In the surrounding sea, huge schools of fish swim over white, white sand and gorgeously baroque corals; hawkbill turtles graze peacably just below the surface. There are sharks, too - whitetips (reef, not pelagic), which fled at my approach. I hired a boatman to maroon Mrs. P and myself there for a few hours. Never so happy to be stranded... unfortunately, he turned up again just before sunset, as promised.

Tavern of the Seas

On a sunny Monday afternoon, Miss C became "Mrs. Phibius". This is Friday night, and I'm posting from a little hotel between Bantry Bay and the Lion's Head - Cape Town. On the basis that we'ld like to see somewhere...

• Very different to anwhere that either of us has previously been
• Exceptionally beautiful
• Warm and sunny

...we'll be spending the next few weeks touring southern Africa, with a side trip to the Seychelles. Two days in, we'll soon be leaving Cape Town. So far: we've met a crocodile (not quite as dangerous as it sounds, because we ordered it "well done"), seen a beach full of penguins, and been surrounded by baboons (again, safer than it sounds, on account of we jumped back inside the very nice new Mercedes that Avis gave us).

Alpha male gives us a meaningful look

The scenery is, as advertised, of exceptional beauty (Camps Bay, the Cape itself - thank you, Mr. T). We haven't been swimming yet - partly because of the cold (Atlantic Ocean), and partly because of the Great White sharks (Indian Ocean).

Us, parked at the Cape

This is a beautiful country, full of possiblities. However, there runs everywhere a strong undercurrent of tragedy... I'm sitting in the airconditioned comfort of a very new Mercedes Kompressor, but outside, the shacks of the shanty towns blur past.

Obsession

It may be that I’ve been taking my work just a little too seriously – this morning, writing a note to Miss C, I found myself using scientific notation humorously.  Yes, I know…

In my defence, it has been a rather fraught week, professionally speaking: I need to solve a fairly significant accuracy “issue” which is holding up development on an interesting new Device (a secret Device, at least for now).  This is a very mathematical issue – my favourite kind – and I’ve had my teeth in it for a full week now (metaphorically speaking, but only just…).  

It has reached the point where my default mental state is to have my head full of geometric shapes and equations.  Walking, driving, eating – dreaming, now – it doesn’t stop.  I cannot put this problem down – or, possibly, vice versa.  Obsession has two faces: (temporarily) a mono-maniac, yes, but also doing my very best work.  It’s a fascinating condition to be in.    

I weighed in a kilo lighter this morning… down one trouser size over the last few weeks.   Coincidence?