Into Africa

We would love to fill this post with the beautiful photographs (that Sarah took on her Nikon) of our week in South Africa. Sadly, we lost those pictures when we were robbed yesterday, our first day in Windhoek, Namibia. We had just picked up our 4x4 rental to start our three-week tour of Namibia. We got a bit lost leaving Windhoek, were stopped at an intersection and peering about when a white truck pulled up behind us, one young man jumped out and grabbed the handle of our back door behind the passenger seat. We didn't even realize we hadn't locked all the doors from the inside, so focused were we on finding our way and getting to know the unfamiliar vehicle. The man actually got in the seat and started picking at the luggage on the floor, grabbing Sarah's computer bag and then fleeing. Mark didn't even see him, only hearing the slam of the door and hearing Sarah cried out "We've been robbed!" It was terribly traumatic. The amazing thing was that a crowd of helpful people gathered around us. Two men in particular, Desmond and Justice (what a name!), consoled us and helped us to file a police report, even led us back to the highway we had missed. Desmond has gone so far as to post an ad for our lost computer and make a radio announcement, which is astonishing help for total strangers. We are grateful for meeting such kind people, and for the fact that we were unharmed. We are also glad that we backed up the laptop before leaving New Zealand and that Sarah had posted some of her baboon photos online (see "Public Gallery" link on the right).

So, no photographs with this post. Everyone will just have to take our word for it that we had an incredible week in South Africa, including several trips down the Cape Peninsula and a remarkably serendipitous two-day drive inland to the Karoo that landed us in the middle of an Afrikaans cultural festival. We ended up staying at the most beautiful lodge, a restored farm of century-old whitewashed stucco buildings overlooking the Red Mountain Nature Reserve--and we found it simply by turning off the road where the scenery was the most magnificent. We had the lodge to ourselves the first night, and the second we shared it with two wonderful Afrikaaner gentlemen, Philip and James, who steered us to a pair of art galleries up the road, where we spent a nearly perfect last day in the Cape.

Such are the highs and lows of traveling the world. As Mark likes to say, remembering Darwin's years on the Beagle: "Some days you're seasick; some days you land on the Galapogos."