A Morning Stroll

One piece of advice that I always give to tourists heading to Cape Town is this:

The second you have a clear, windless day, go up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. You may not get the chance again.

I hadn't taken my own advice. I'd done laundry instead of grabbing my chance on the first day, when the weather was perfect. 24 hours later, the cape was covered in fog and rain.

Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed on Saturday morning and walked over to Tourist Information. I knew I could take a minibus along Long Street as I had dozens of times before, but I couldn't remember how or where to catch it. And I hadn't yet noticed that brand-new bus lines that had come to Cape Town along with the World Cup—these wonderful things could zip me all the way from a block below Kloof Street to the V&A Waterfront and back.

"It's only you today," said the South African guide who met me to lead the walking tour of the City Bowl and Bo-Kaap. "No one else is here because of the rain!"

Sunny Day on the Cape

Dazed and delighted to be in the Cape Town bus terminal, I stumbled out of the bottom of the Intercape double-decker bus after a long night, into the sunshine of a self-aware beautiful city.

Cape Town's charm isn't lessened by its awareness of its beauty. I love Cape Town as much as anyone else who's ever visited.

I picked a friendly old guy in a hat to taxi me to Cape Town Backpackers, and a young Australian couple joined me as they were going to a hostel nearby.

Over the next few days, I realized I was done with backpackers hostels after mornings of waking up to every cup, mug, and glass in the hostel being half-full of wine and in the sink. I'd have to do the dishes before having coffee.

But it was still great to be able to prepare my own morning coffee, to open up a few envelopes of Oats-So-Easy and have instant oatmeal alongside granola & yogurt, rather than greasy eggs at a restaurant. And I met some of the backpackers. Some of them were interesting, had driven down from Europe, and had great stories to tell. Others appeared to be solely interested in assisting the South African economy through the purchase of as much of its alcohol as possible. And I was almost always the oldest one in the room.

Me Jabbering A Lot

Look what's up on my pal Cyrus' page! It's an interview with me about what I'm doing—traveling. 

Confused in Windhoek

One change in my traveling style from the first MariesWorldTour.com is this:

When faced with a choice between favoring my cheap side and favoring my lazy side, I've started to act in favor of the latter.

And that is why I took the Town Hoppers shuttle bus from Swakopmund to Windhoek instead of the Intercape bus. Which is fine, but less frequent and involved me hiking over to the bus stop, then getting a taxi once I got to Windhoek.

I had $10.38 left in my checking account until payday—I actually do get paid for all that comic book work I was doing in hotel rooms at night. But that didn't stop me from spending more for door-to-door service. But the fact that I am still working while taking this trip has made me more likely to spend a bit here and there. Of course, I am spending more than I earn. I was running at a loss before I even left the States, having rented out my apartment for less than cost since it's hard to rent a place out in February. And I'm still paying my US health insurance, car insurance, property taxes on my garage...last time I made a clean break. But what I learned from that is that re-entry is toughest when you have nothing to go home to.

Living Desert Photos

Here are some more photos of the Living Desert Tour I went on in Swakopmund.

And here's a little something extra.

Sand and Tongues in Swakop

My last day in Swakopmund.

Before I left, I had one last thing to do in town. I wanted to go on a desert tour. These are popular as people come back with tales of madmen digging for exploding chameleons. Okay, not really exploding. But sun-sensitive.

There are two outfitters in town, and using a careful scientific method, I went with the one that Tourist Information booked for me, Tommy's Living Desert Tour.

Desert tours are popular for a reason—a saucy host (a kind-of regional Crocodile Hunter) drives you around, stops when he sees the "bush newspaper" (meaning nearly invisible evidence that a lizard, snake, or spider is nearby), then he screeches to a half, finds the creature, and shows it to you, explaining all about its habits and characteristics while making off-color jokes.

You also get out into the dunes near Swakopmund with a expert, which is excellent. And I finally got my question answered about if quad-biking is bad for the environment or not. The answer is sure, it is. But the outfitters in Swakopmund are generally responsible and involved in conservation. The problem is the independent quad-bikers, the weekenders who come to town and have no awareness of the eco-system they're destroying when the run rampant off the set tracks. Nature is losing its battle even as the outfitters try to raise awareness among their sympathetic clients.

We saw snakes, chameleons, spiders...everything we'd been promised. And after the trip, I went back to the coffee shop that had once been "Out of Africa," and now...I never even looked at the sign. I read the life-affirming quotation on my sugar packet as the sun went down.

Would I ever be back to Swakopmund? I'd thought that each time I'd come here. I hope so. I love the funny combination of cultures here.

I hope the chameleons are still there when I get back.

Visiting an Old Friend

Swakopmund is familiar to me, a place that I can stop to catch my breath, and one of several places I've called home for short periods of time over the years. It's also a key place in Marie-mythology, having been the location for an early chapter of my book, Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik, and the site of a life-changing moment for me in 2005, at the beginning of my then-No Hurry In Africa blogging. Three or four of you have been along for the virtual ride since then, and I thank you for that.

I hadn't stayed at many hotels or eaten at many restaurants in Swakopmund before, because when I was here in 2005, I stayed in a rental apartment and enjoyed cooking for myself. I'd chosen Dunedin Star (named after a shipwreck) based on its price. But I was surprised when, late in the week, I learned it wasn't pronounced Dunedin like the New Zealand city.

Dunedin is pronounced "Done-eatin'." No wonder people had been looking at me funny when they asked me where I was staying.

Flying Over Sossusvlei

I was back at the Bushbird office at two, where I joined two older Australian couples in a minibus for the ride out to the edge of Swakopmund, to the tiny airport.

"Try not to get your cameras too close to the windows," the pilot pointed out. "See, they're just plexiglass and they scratch real easy."

Even with that warning, I bumped a few times.

We all put on headphones to both cancel out some of the loudness of the plane's engine and so we could hear the pilot's instructions.

"Do you think the haze will burn off?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, it's just hazy over Swakopmund." Which is frequently how it is in Swakopmund. Lots of mist and haze.

"Where are you from?" One of the Australians wanted to know who was piloting us.

"Hungary."