Out of Africa

Africa is one of those places that conjures up many images in one’s mind, and for the average American, most of the images are probably bad ones. If we just pause for one second to think about what we ingest from the news about Africa, it entails political unrest, famine, and AIDS. And if you don’t follow any news, the only time the average American cares about Africa, is when it directly affects them. Remember about three years ago when it turned out that two or three people flew to the U.S., but were diagnosed with ebola? The mighty brave and tough United States just about descended into chaos. When Nicole and I flew to New Jersey a couple weeks later, people were flabbergasted how we could even bring ourselves to board an airplane. It was a missed opportunity to use ebola as an excuse to get out of a trip to New Jersey. Anyway, I will not for a minute attempt to argue that I’m so much more “woke” about Africa, or somehow better, just because I spent a couple weeks there, but I will try to dispel some myths and share a few  observations I made during my very brief time there.  

 First, Africa is not just one thing. It is obviously a collection of very different cultures ranging from Islamic/Middle-Eastern in the north to a shockingly European feel in the south. The Africa that Americans tend to focus on is “scary Africa” (known to Americans through the lens of Blackhawk Down, Hotel Rwanda, Gorillas in the Mist, Captain Phillips, or Invisible Children [Remember all that fuss about #Kony2012? Yeah, nothing ever happened with that]). Then there’s the white person’s romanticized and exotic version of Africa (as seen through the lens of Casablanca, Out of Africa, The English Patient, and let’s throw in Zulu just to impress my father). As a result, I tell people I’m going to Africa, and the reaction is a mix of awe and horror. Then tell them you’re renting a car in Namibia, and the response is, “WHAT?! . . . Where’s Namibia?” I’m sure our itinerary sounded much more exotic to those not actually taking part in it. As much as I’d like to see myself as a rugged Indiana Jones-type whose survival instincts in the deserts of Southern Africa could impress even Bear Gryllz, the truth is quite far from that. If we blew a tire on the many unpaved desert roads of Namibia, I most definitely would have pulled up a YouTube video to figure out how to put on the spare. Perhaps my biggest challenge in the desert was sitting by the pool with a beer trying to connect to a decent Wi-Fi signal.  There is a large chasm that exists between perception and reality when it comes to Africa.

 Let’s go to the beginning, and to Cape Town. People (including myself) perceive the cities of South Africa to be a hive of crime. This is not necessarily untrue, but it is worth noting that thanks to the GOP and political arm of the NRA, people regard Chicago as a pretty terrifying place, and we were also there for a couple days at the beginning of our trip without giving it any thought. Unlike Chicago, however, Cape Town had a very strong security presence. People hoping to visit our hotel’s rooftop bar were basically interrogated before being allowed to access the elevator. The hotel’s own guidebook basically said not to answer your own door for any reason (what about housekeeping?), and shuttles were provided to the popular V&A Waterfront so as to avoid walking on the scary streets. So, a little about all this . . . Cape Town does have issues with crime, BUT I do think everything is a bit overblown as far as the threat to the average tourist. There are certain districts that are known for crime, and certain ones that are not. Manhattan Beach on L.A.’s westside is not the same as South Central, but Cape Town seems to be approaching the issue like they are. With any city, there’s a certain element of common sense and calculated risk that goes along with traveling; but perhaps Cape Town is taking the conservative approach and assuming that everyone is either an idiot or that a 0% risk of being victim to petty crime is infinitely preferable to a 2% risk. There’s almost more a perception of crime than there is actual crime. And again, I understand Cape Town is not the safest city in the world, but neither is it as dangerous as it would lead one to believe. With all this fear mongering, it did kind of get to our heads, and we wondered if it was ok to walk around the Bo Kaap neighborhood near our hotel. We could see a fair number of other people exploring the area from our balcony, so we figured it was safe enough. And ultimately, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex making an arrival that afternoon, we figured security would at least be on hand for them. If there ever was a time to commit a crime, however, it would have been just prior to Prince Harry and Meghan’s arrival as the crowds became quite dense. Never did we feel unsafe during this time. Anyway point being, District Six or some of the unofficial settlements are associated with crime, but a place like the V&A Waterfront with its microbrew pubs and upscale seafood restaurants should really not be thrown into the same category. Apartheid has clearly had some lasting impacts on the populous, and there’s a high level of distrust between people with increased levels of poverty, crime, and AIDS occurring very clearly on racial lines. Nearly every house had a security system and often some “extras” such as electric fences or high cement walls. For one, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. House Hunters International would really struggle with that kind of style. Furthermore, the end of apartheid was not that long ago, and it will take a long time to heal those wounds. When we were out, we typically saw whites hanging out with other whites, blacks with blacks. There wasn’t a huge amount of mixing, though both groups have to interact with each other on a daily basis. I do believe that there will be a point in our lifetimes when South Africa will no longer be known as the place where one in three women has been victim to sexual assault. And to really drop a bombshell, South Africa is not the world’s capital of rape. They are number two to none other than the United States of America.

As we flew north to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, we encountered the Africa that is heavily tourist-driven. The infrastructure present in areas like Chobe National Park in Botswana or Victoria Falls is far beyond what one might expect in other so-called developing countries. Here we encountered our fellow tourist — well-to-do, white, tilly hat equipped, and an average age of 65. Nearly everyone was on some kind of tour. It became very clear to us that the vast majority of people do Africa this way, but it can get very expensive. The entire town of Victoria Falls is essentially a money pit for tourists. When you think Zimbabwe, you don’t think $25 for a tree ornament, but the town knows its audience. Entry to Victoria Falls was $30 per person. A day trip to Chobe cost us each $170. Even hawkers on the street were trying to sell me old hyperinflated Zimbabwean currency used under President Mugabe. I was admittedly interested in getting some billion dollar Zim notes, but knowing that it’s literally worth nothing made it difficult to spend $10 for a worthless piece of paper from a street vendor. But at the same time, you’ve got to hand it to them. With the hyperinflation, those billion and trillion dollar notes were probably worth pennies when they were new, so holding on to them and unloading them on tourists for $10 is quite a coup. Yet something even more bizarre occurred the day we were walking between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Various vendors had set up on the bridge knowing that people would be transiting between the two sides of Victoria Falls. Most were peddling various statuettes of hippos or elephants, and while we politely said we weren’t interested, their tactics shifted to a possible trade. Not one, but multiple vendors tried to trade me something for a pen. A PEN! While it’s perhaps good to know that a small statue of a giraffe is of equal or lesser value than a pen, I don’t think I’ve found in any of my travels that someone was willing to actually make a trade. Later on, another gentleman had his eyes on the hand sanitizer in a mesh pocket of my camera bag. When he offered to trade for it, I could sense Nicole in silent peril over the prospect of me giving up something very dear to her. With more than nine days of our trip remaining (and at least 30 hand washings), I politely declined, and we were left alone. I did feel a little bad, and later on some people just straight up said they were hungry and wanted some money for lunch. This segues nicely into my next topic: the white savior industrial complex.  

I don’t know a ton of people who have been to Africa, but compared to other regions of the world, there seems to be a higher incidence of people going there on “mission.” I recently spoke with one such individual who had gone to Kenya to . . .build wheelchairs. Now, the wheelchairs (or wheelchair parts) were not brought over from the United States, they were already in Kenya. And I feel as though building a wheelchair is not something that requires importing a grey-haired white man for its construction, but then again I’ve never “built” a wheelchair as you say. Nevertheless, I’m sure this gentleman felt quite good about himself. He claims his teenage children were very moved by the experience, and want to go back to “help” again. Sure, the sentiment is admirable. The desire to help other people who are less fortunate or less mobile is much preferred to telling them it’s their own fault that they can’t walk. BUT, this cycle is actually doing more harm than good. Corrupt governments enjoy this because it means they don’t have to actually do any sort of meaningful reforms, and can line their own pockets with (hyperinflated?) money that should be used for social and economic improvement projects. While at the tail end of our trip to Botswana, an elderly couple was talking about a village tour they did out of Victoria Falls. They were really raving about how the people did a whole dance to “welcome” them to the village. As it was explained to us, the children were very grateful for the $1 bills that the couple handed out. The couple continued to say how it was very interesting to see how people actually lived and made a living. I think Nicole and I were probably thinking the same thing — that this was a tour that people paid $70 a head to take part in. The tours go to the same village every day. I’m not saying the same woman making a clay pot in the village gets into a Landrover at the end of the day, but the whole setup seems suspicious. It reminds me of the Hutong Tour in Beijing, where I was taken to a school where children sang to me, drew me a picture, and we were then welcomed into a resident’s house, which amazingly happened to be the same house that I could see in three other friends pictures on facebook, who also visited the Hutong. Anyway, we were told by the couple that the village tour was great and it was wonderful to see how appreciative the villagers were with their arrival. Cool. As The Onion once said, “6-Day Visit to Rural African Village Completely Changes Woman’s Facebook Profile Picture.” And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.  

As we finally made our way to Namibia, we felt that we had gained a bit of independence as we now had our own transportation. We could pull over whenever we wanted. However, this was Namibia, and there was really nothing to pull over for. It is one of the least densely populated places on the planet and it was very apparent. To stop for snacks, we simply pulled over to the side of the unpaved road with nothing but desert for hundreds of miles. But the lack of people, major cities, and conveniences had its charms. When we arrived at Namib-Naukluft National Park, we could see stars in a volume we may never see again. In the past, I have found myself in places like Monument Valley or the Cook Islands where I could use my phone app and figure out where the Milky Way was supposed to be, point my camera in that direction, shoot a 30-second exposure and say, “Look, I can see the milky way in this picture!” In the Namib, all you had to do was look up — it was plainly visible to the naked eye. While our cameras did a decent job of capturing the night sky, they can’t replicate that feeling of “wow” from actually being present in such a surreal setting. Later on in Etosha, Nicole and I were in awe at the volume of animals we encountered. Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to be as impressed, since they were evidently just working on their "Big Five" checklists. Safari trucks were pulling up next to massive herds of zebras and driving off seconds later as if they were nothing. Can a safari still be a success without seeing the "Big Five?" If you're leading a tour group, apparently not. I'm glad we could set our own pace and enjoy what was right in front of us instead of chasing something that may not have even been there. 

In the past, I have talked at length about my overall disdain for social media influencers and instagram “models.” There’s just something about not looking at the camera (but also knowing that a camera is there) that ignites a fury in me. While we were in Namibia, I don’t think we saw a single influencer. Why is this? Well, Namibia probably hasn’t caught on yet as a tourist destination. Secondly, everything is hard to get to. It’s not like Bali, where Ubud is very social-media friendly, and places are tailor-made for these types of people. Just getting to the Namib took four and a half hours of driving on unpaved roads. And once there, the photographic opportunities were present, but only for those with some knowledge of actual cameras. Those star photos of Nicole and I holding each other would probably be an influencer’s dream shot, but your average insta-model is equipped with just an iPhone and a ring light which under ideal circumstances might capture the moon (faintly). We have perhaps reached a point of peak travel “influencing," when more people are traveling than ever before. Yet travel is being ruined by those who are attempting to portray, in one low resolution photo, a feeling, a lifestyle, or an ideal that simply does not exist.

When we were hiking over to Deadvlei in the Namib Desert, there wasn't a marked trail or anything resembling a path. I asked a young lady nearby if she had some knowledge of the path, as I didn't want to climb a 500 ft dune and get my shoes full of sand if I didn't have to. She was nice enough and shared what she thought the route was, but I was a bit surprised to see she was wearing fashionable sandals. It's like desert 101 that you don't wear sandals. Forget the traction and mobility issues, the sand can get really hot! Anyway, after this encounter we never saw her again. We forged on ahead, and I can only imagine that there is a bleached pile of bones and designer sandals baking in the desert sun of the Namib right now. This was a rare encounter in Namibia for many reasons. One, she was under 60. Two, she wasn't wearing the signature Columbia travel pants and adventuring hat. Where does she get off? While she was a rarer sight than a cheetah, she is like the canary in the coal mine of what could be. I don't have enough instagram followers (or influence) to matter, but someone else might. Then it's only a matter of time before a swarm of 150 influencers are all posing contemplatively, gazing away from the camera, duck lips on point, Chinese tour group cleverly cropped out of frame. Photography by nature is a bit of a deception. The photographer only shows what they would like you to see, and that's understandable. But a simple deception from an instagram account with a million followers can lead to thousands wanting to replicate the exact same shot for their own followers (even if that shot is dishonest). Because for many, it's not even about visiting a place or experiencing it, but rather about showing other people that you visited the place. This leads to a very damaging cycle of disingenuous instagram posts enticing others to get the same shot. All of a sudden, the highly sought after photo site becomes overwhelmed with people who don't care about anything but the number of likes they hope to receive. Namibia, and the places we visited in southern Africa as a whole, are still insulated from this threat, but that can quickly change.


So what’s the point of all this? Well it’s a collection of three lessons that one can use not just for travels to Africa, but really anywhere. 

1. Do your research on safety (whether that be crime, food hygiene, or road conditions), but also have the sense to make your own judgments and assessments. The best information is not always found in a statistic or data point, but from firsthand accounts.

2. It doesn’t matter where your heart is, if you act like you’re some kind of gift to the local populous, you're part of the problem.

3. Usually this is where I would encourage people to travel more, but it's quality over quantity. If the only reason you're going somewhere is to get a few likes or some new followers, just stay home. Leave these amazing sites for the people who appreciate them and actually care. Mahalo.

Penguins

We had initially planned to go to the top of Table Mountain and then see the penguins in the afternoon, but we calculated it would be about an hour drive to go to the penguin colony, and there appeared to be heavy traffic to Table Mountain as well. Given the time constraints of the day, we would have to take the cable car to the top of the mountain, which wasn’t cheap, about $25 per person. Aided with this knowledge, we elected not to go to the top, concluding that the view of Table Mountain from below is perhaps the best view of Table Mountain anyway. And for an elevated view of the city, we can just go to the top of our hotel. We summoned an Uber and enjoyed the views on the scenic drive down to Simons Town to the south of Cape Town and ultimately Boulder Beach Penguin Colony.

   I had read online that September / October are slower months for the penguins, who aren’t as active during these months because they are mostly at sea looking for food during this time. I was expecting to see maybe like five penguins wandering lazily around the beach, but I was pleasantly surprised to see them numbering in the hundreds. There is a boardwalk to separate people from the African Penguins as they are now an endangered species. While this has the advantage of keeping other tourists out of your shot, it does keep all the other tourists together which is often unpleasant for people like me. At one point I was boxed in by some Chinese tourists who would not budge, so eventually I just had to give them a bit of an aggressive shove to not be pinned in against the railing anymore. Later on, I put on my comically large long 400mm lens, just to play around a bit with an unnecessary amount of zoom. People walked by staring at me like my zipper was down, but eventually I realized it was about the lens, and decided to put it away to avoid further awkward glances.  

 I ended up taking way too many pictures of the penguins, but it was all very fascinating. Some waddled around aimlessly drunk, others hesitatingly went into the waters for a swim, while others simply found themselves belly down on the beach or a nearby rock. They are an interesting creature that are monogamous and have the same mate for life. The African penguins, unlike their Antarctic neighbors, have also adapted to the varied and warmer temperatures of South Africa. They also live at Boulders Beach year round. After thoroughly seeing the penguins from all angles, we summoned another Uber and took it back to the waterfront area in Cape Town.  

 We grabbed an early dinner and bought a few last souvenirs as we hadn’t yet acquired an ornament to add to our international christmas tree. We caught the free shuttle back to the hotel, did a load of laundry in our room, and enjoyed a couple drinks at the bar on top of the hotel before calling it a night. We would have to get up quite early tomorrow to catch our flight to Zimbabwe.

Enjoying the Cape

As it turns out, we were able to enjoy a good night’s sleep, interrupted only by a Muslim call to prayer around 5:15am. Fortunately, we were both able to fall back asleep and woke up around 9:30. We had breakfast on the top floor of out hotel, enjoying a panoramic view of the city as we had omelettes and drank rooibos tea (a South African specialty). By the time we actually left the hotel, it was after 11, but we also didn’t have major plans for the day. The wind was still blowing quite strong, so Table Mountain was actually “closed,” however that is made possible, and I suggested we go visit the penguins on a day we don’t get blown away. We elected instead to walk around our neighborhood, which unsurprisingly is historically muslim. The immediately adjacent streets are known as the neighborhood of Bo-Kaap, one of the oldest areas of Cape Town. The buildings are painted in vibrant pastel colors — the kind of thing an Instagram influencer really gets off on. Luckily, we didn’t encounter too many of this type of person.

   We did have one interesting encounter, however, with some royalty. Since Prince Harry married Meghan Markle (now the Duchess of Sussex), they seem to be on the same travel itineraries as us. When Nicole (sometimes, but not often known as the Duchess of Essex County) and I were on our honeymoon, Harry also visited Sydney followed by Fiji. And on this trip, he had aims to go to Cape Town, followed by Chobe National Park in Botswana, and initially had planned to continue on to Namibia. He must have determined that Bricole was already going to Namibia, so he didn’t want to be playing second fiddle to America’s royal couple and elected to go to Malawi and Angola instead. On this day, however, Nicole had figured out a loose itinerary for the Ginger Prince’s day out. Press began showing up in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood, and we figured out that he was planning to visit the Auwal Mosque, the oldest in Cape Town. We had a bit of a wait before he actually arrived, but the wind died down a little bit and the sun felt nice and warm on our backs, so it wasn’t too bad. A security detail had lined up barricades to keep the general public away from the royal couple. Nicole and I were the last to be kicked out since we intentionally had put our largest lenses on our cameras to look like we fit in. A Cape Town police officer asked if we were press, to which I answered, “We can be,” and Nicole said, “We’re press in the U.S.” (What is wrong with us?) Evidently we weren’t convincing and went outside the barricades. It was a bit of a crowd clamoring for space just outside the barricades, but Nicole and I elected to back away a bit and up the hill behind a parked car so nobody could stand directly in front of us, but we could also see over everyone in front of us. Our long lenses would have no difficulty out reaching everyone’s iPhone zoom in the front row. It was a brief dropoff, where Harry and Meghan got out of a LandRover, walked about 15 feet, greeted the mosque’s Imam, and entered. Nevertheless, Nicole and I were able to capture the moment like a couple of low-paid paparazzos. 

 We walked back out of Bo-Kaap to our hotel to regroup for a minute before heading out on the free hotel shuttle to the Waterfront. It seems to be the go-to area in Cape Town for all kind of shops, restaurants, and other activities. Basically, it’s the Santa Monica Pier of Cape Town — crowded, sometimes classy, sometimes tacky, and very thriving. We walked around a little bit, catching glimpses of Table Mountain before sitting down to grab a beer and a pretzel at a local brew haus. We each had a local Cape Town ale which was refreshing, but also made us a bit buzzed after about three sips since we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. After our fill up, we walked around a bit more to look for some tchotchkes such as pins, magnets, etc. What is the point of going to South Africa if you can’t get a refrigerator magnet to prove that you went? Exactly.

 After the waterfront, we went back to the hotel for dinner. Everything we read (including the hotel’s own info book) says to not walk around at night anywhere, and use extra caution during the day. It all sounded very ominous, so we did return to the hotel before sunset, but I think there might be a bit of overzealous fear mongering at play. The waterfront would have been perfectly fine at night. And while Cape Town is a dangerous city, it isn’t dangerous in every corner of the city, nor is it dangerous to every type of person. The crime record and subsequent fears of crime say more about the socio-economic disparities that exist in South Africa than anything else. If anyone wanted to pinch my camera gear today, they had a pretty good opportunity if they’d been in Bo-Kaap in a crowd jostling around. But that didn’t happen because Bo-Kaap is a tourist area, so there were cops in the area (long before the royals were expected to show). The death of a tourist (especially a white one) is far more damaging because it generates headlines. A culture of systemic rape does not. And on that depressing nugget, we’re going to see penguins tomorrow! Yay!

Adventure to a New Continent . . . Starting in Chicago

After a busy August and September where I saw myself flying 5-6 days in a row routinely, I anxiously awaited the payoff of a long stretch of vacation days beginning toward the end of the month and extending into October. Nicole had also gotten into a film festival in Chicago, so that too became part of our itinerary. Who would have guessed that going from LA to Chicago would prove to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip (at least so far). We tried American and United, which had oversold their main cabins and we finally managed to get on a Spirit flight a few hours later. We arrived in O’Hare a little after 3:00pm, took the EL downtown, and walked the rest of the way to our hotel. We didn’t really have time to do any exploring because we had a red carpet event that evening for the film festival.

   We dressed up a little bit (not too much) and found ourselves characteristically overwhelmed by our surroundings. There was a good turnout, and press was there doing interviews. Where these broadcasts actually go is kind of a mystery — it wasn’t exactly the BBC or ABC News, but press nonetheless. Nicole did a few interviews for various sources before we called it and went to get dinner. The following day, Nicole’s movie screened at the theater and seemed to be received well. She did a Q&A afterward and finally was part of a panel where she had some good (and light) one-liners amidst a rather dark discussion about pain and sacrifice. We had little time afterward to gather our bags, ship our “formal” attire back to our apartment, hop on the train to Midway (O’Hare didn’t look promising), and within about two hours from getting out of the theatre, were on a plane going to Detroit. We had enough time to eat at Potbelly’s in Detroit when I saw someone on my StaffTraveler App had responded to my request for load information on KLM from Amsterdam to Cape Town. It said oversold by 2. This wasn’t great news considering we had essentially depended on Amsterdam as our best way of getting to Cape Town. To make things worse, the Delta flight we were going to take from Detroit to Amsterdam had its own case of disappearing seats.

 We ended up getting seats on the Delta flight, but they weren’t . . .great. We were both in the back and apart from each other. While we at least weren’t middle seats, it was not the most enjoyable setup. Fortunately, starting in Detroit, the trip across the Atlantic is at least a bit shorter than having gone all the way from Los Angeles. We arrived in Amsterdam around 1030am and were at our hotel just after noon. We took a couple hour nap, slept through three alarms before Nicole woke up and realized neither of us heard the alarm. We forced ourselves up and went for a walk. Our hotel is near the Rijksmuseum, and we walked through the park that lies behind it. It was nice to get out and move the legs a little bit, even though we had to have our wits about us so we didn’t get run over by a bicycle or two or three hundred. We had dinner at a small cafe just across the street from our hotel before calling it a night. It began to rain heavily for the rest of the night.

   It was a fitful night of sleep as we suffered from jetlag and the feeling that we had to sleep because we were getting up early again. We had a 10am flight out of Schipol (if we could get seats). The KLM gate agent didn’t seem terribly optimistic about our chances, stating that there were far more standbys than there were seats. Nevertheless, against all odds, we got seats together near the front of the economy section. AND our names were called before more than half of the other standbys. This is unprecedented. We arrogantly marched to get our tickets in front of our fellow nonrev travelers. Twelve hours and a few in-flight meals later, we finally touched down in Cape Town just after 9pm in the same time zone we left from. It was relatively painless to get through customs and we took an Uber the rest of the way to our hotel, about 20 minutes away. We arrived at dark, so we couldn’t see a whole lot, but it was quite windy. We had kept nodding off on the flight, but hopefully we can get a decent night’s rest here in Cape Town.