People, people, people

So after months of writing posts about what we would wear, what we should see, what crisis contingencies we had in place and most importantly where we would pee I find myself back at my desk in London unable to concentrate and contemplating how on earth to consolidate 17 days into a readable piece. Yes, I know we should have been blogging on the way but we couldn't keep even one of three phones charged (which lead to parental panic on the grand scale) let alone figure out internet on it. And, to be honest, the freedom of not being connected to the world was one of the best parts of the trip. For 17 glorious days we didn't know who had killed who, divorced who or made what social faux pas, for 17 glorious days it was just Lyn, Robs and Laura on an epic adventure doing a ridiculous number of star fives.

Now I know you don't want to know verbatim what we did each day - there would be alot of  hour 4 in the car, round 1000 of questionable car game in full-swing, huge amounts of laughter - which while hugely entertaining for us wouldn't be so much fun for you. What you want to know is all about....

The awesome people we met like Ferdie who fixed our car in Livingstone when the muffler detached from the rest of the exhaust. Ferdie who not only fixes cars but has patented and makes paper maiche coffins. We got a tour of the process - literally from paper to coffins - before he fixed our car and a photo of him afterwards which he requested a copy of to "show to his ex-wife".
Then of course there were family friends like Colin and Mary who gave us amarula and a two course breakfast and Candice who saved us from the chaos that is Tete, fed us roast beef and gin and tonics and whose favourite story of ours was the underwear drying in the car two days after we'd washed it. Like a mobile underwear factory there was literally underwear on every sunny surface. Robs now swears by underwear drying across a steering wheel, although she may or may have lost some of her underwear in the process. Not every plan is perfect.
And who could forget the home made prego roll from the strange but really sweet couple in Mozambique with their badly-beahved but ridiculously amusing pet goat. And the Afrikaans family who we amused no end when we had to ask them to fix our window which wouldn't wind up or down (but was "manual") and had sunk right down into the door.
And then there were the most questionable characters we met - the army officer that made me get out the car and wanted me to stay with them because he thought I was pretty or the other army officer who wanted Lyn's camera after she'd taken a somewhat ill-advised picture in Kariba. Or perhaps the suspected witch doctor on a road we dubbed death alley one hysterical evening in Mozambique on completely the wrong road. She was neither a witch doctor nor was it a death alley but anyone we met on the road did run from us so I held the mace, just in case. 
 And then of course there were the other ralliers themselves - some of the funniest and kindest people I've met. People that would flag you down for lunch or a sippie at a picnic site, push you out the sand, let you ride on and/or in their 4X4 when all three of you couldn't travel in the car (various reasons); who'd share their dinner, sippies and nail clippers with you and tell you all the gossip you'd missed along the way. People to swing dance with, do shooters with, swim in the sea with and chill by a camp fire with - people who had tyre pumps, cable ties, sweet potatoes and a cool beer or bottled water when you needed it most.

As I write this, I realise how long it's gotten so I think I'll finish up today's post here. You were brave enough to read our preparations so I hope you'll stick with us now - we'll tell you about Constance (the 4th member of the team), the roads, the animals, the music, the countries and the books.Drip-fed tales if  you will - as they say, all good things come to those who wait!

Pictures on facebook as Lyn (the official photographer) can upload them. Again, good things and waiting!

And then there were three..

Great weekend! The Pedal Pushers were re-united, we reached our goal of raising R10 000 (thanks to all of you, generous friends!!) and Constance has been declared rally ready!

OK LET’S GO ALREADY!

Top ten road trip tunes!

There's a lot to get done in the next 5 days! Rather than deal with any of important to-do's I chose instead to make us a mix of the ultimate tunes for the road - fasten your seat belts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride :)

1. Prince - Little red corvette

2. Steel Panther - Party all day



3. AC/DC - Highway to hell

4. Dire straits - Heavy fuel



5. ZZ top - La grange(A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw. A haw, haw, haw.)

6. Fleetwood mac - Go your own way

7. Bruce (we're on a first name basis) - Born to run



8. Meatloaf - Bat out of hell

9. The Beach boys - Fun fun fun

10. War - Low rider (featuring some ridiculous dancing cars)

This time next week...

...Robs and Laura will be in Johannesburg braaing meat, drinking gin and seeing many folks they haven't seen in far far too long. They will also be T minus 2 days from RALLYING! And so, this weekend we've been SHOPPING! As you can see, the excitement has me capitalising. That's always a bad sign.

Image from a website which speaks of "sensible shopping" - lesson not learned. 

Things I have bought this weekend....include but are not limited to:
1) A Michael Crichton - MICRO - unfortunately set in Hawaai rather than Africa so I shall have to read it on the plane. Manageable. Other reading material - Dark Star Safari (Theroux's own Cape To Cairo - fodder for our next adventure perhaps...) and some sort of action novel set in the Congo - I believe the tag line is "if Bourne sold shares this is what would happen" - so ready!
2) On the reading front I also found audio books in Poundland - a total of 26 hours entertainment for 2 great british pounds! One set in Africa, the other set in turn of the century Germany - we've our entertainment fairly covered I'd say!
3) Many many little costume pieces. Space be damned!
4) Clothes - so many new lovely things that I claim I need for the Rally - moohaha - almost all of them come from Primark so I'm calling it a test of their endurance...
5) A notebook - unlikely we'll be able to blog our adventures that often so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. It's not a moleskin but you can't have everything.

EEE! I'm not sure it's healthy to be as excited as I am but c'est la vie!

<--------- And this is totally my excited face!

Friday procrastination..

Thanks GraphJam :)

You've helped us before, you can help us again!

Surprisingly enough, this post is not about money. Although if you haven't given us your money yet, you should be ashamed and the donate button is RIGHT THERE. ------->

No, what we need advice on now is much much more fun but challenging in it's own way. Whatever are we going to wear?! Obviously along the way I'm going to look the best I've ever looked in shorts, tracksuits and T-shirts of somewhat dubious cleanliness vintage...but what about the parties! As we're previously discussed Lyn, Robs and Laura like dress up so we can't be out-done. However, we're also on a pretty tight space budget so we need awesome costumes fashioned out of things that can be squashed up into tiny spaces or that we can reasonably pack into the car. Here are the themes - suggestions anyone....?

From here.

1) Crew Theme - we'll, we're Penny Pitstop and the Pedal Pushers - this seems like it should be fairly easy. Although I'm not sure pedal pushers are actually in fashion and therefore they can't be that easy to find. Perhaps I can just roll up my track suit bottoms. That's hardly inspired though....
2) Animal Kingdom - Lyn thinks zebras, Robs like lambs, I want to bring my stuffed toy giraffee on the rally and am totally going to use this party as the excuse. This is early on in the rally so we won't be able to use it as an excuse for our crazy "wind-swept" hair and general bedraggledness (watch out for the end of rally)
3) Royal Gala - Robs and Laura live in London, we watched the flotilla in the pouring rain - if anyone can do royal surely we can? Maybe I'll buy my mum that royal novelty tea towel that she wants - use it in the rally - and then hand it over at the end...?
4) Ai Kariba Kariba - Lyn has the sombreros, all we need is an excuse to fit them into Constance. Any suggestions? I don't think holding a bottle of tequilla counts as dress up, but it is mexican....
5) Almost full moon - I'm thinking there's a werewolf reference here that we could totally work to our bedraggled good. Thoughts?
6) Only being announced on the way....

I've said it before and I'll say it again - hell yeah!

Top ten Tuesday: Our Put foot bucket list

Well we feel that we’ve done quite enough stressing of late about all the things we still need and the all things we still need to get done. I'd much rather think about all the rad stuff we’re going to get to see and do. Here’s Put foot HQ’s must-do list for Southern Africa:

Our personal bucket list includes some of these classics of course - but with a few more food and drink based experiences..

1.   Jumping for joy at Etosha pan.

2.   Feasting on some Namibian Biltong.

3.   Cooling off in the Ngepi camp’s floating swimming pool (read croc-proof cage).

The famous Ngepi camp near Popa falls.

4.   Feeling the spray of the Zambezi as it tumbles over Vic falls.

5.   Taking a dip in the devils cauldron at the top of Vic falls (although this is apparently only possible in Oct - Dec. Sad face.) 

Flying tourist courtesy of Google images. From here.

6.   Taking part in the 2012 Put foot rally shoe drop at Senkobo Basic School.

7.   Staging a pirate take-over of the Kariba ferry.

8.   Tasting the fabled Malawi gin in an mgt.

Gin + sachet = genius

9.   Skinny dipping in Lake Malawi.

10. Enjoying an R&R (Raspberry and Tipo tinto rum) with some scrumptious prawns on the beach in  Moz.

Travelling hungover...

We’re going to do our best to try avoid this but one has to prepare for every eventuality. So, using this fantastic article on surviving travelling on a hangover that Lyn found on the Matador Network as a guide here's how we'll cope...

The hangover cometh.

It's not Tuesday but it's still a top ten: Medical Supplies

As we prepare for the rally in earnest I realise that Girl Guides really didn't stand me in good stead for big adventures.Or, if it did, I wasn't listening to those talks. Either way I realise that I don't know how to make a tourniquet (I had to google the spelling of that); I can only build a fire after about 4 false starts and certainly can't do it without a match or lighter; and if we get stuck in the mud we'd better hope we have a flare gun so people can find us because my grasp of the physics of mud and the force of friction is not that strong. Bearing all this in mind, and realising it's less than 3 weeks till the trip, I've decided to make a list of all the medical supplies we'll need so that when faced with a broken bone, a burn, or bruising from pushing the car, we're at least prepared for that!

1) Arnica - because I bruise like a peach
2) Dettol - this is good for disinfecting and we don't want to waste perfectly good gin if we don't have to
3) Immodium - 12 hours in a car with a dodgy stomach, thanks to some ill-advised fresh produce, is a prospect I certainly can't face
4) Malaria medication - this is fairly self-explanatory. Can one buy this over the counter in South Africa?
5) Plasters - ideally with cartoon characters but hospital beige will do and some cloth bandges too, just in case.
6) Headache tablets - definitely self-explanatory!
7) Rennies or other such stomach settling product - I don't get car sick but sometimes my stomach just doesn't agree with me. It's a curse.
8) Hay fever tablets - good for insect bites and sneezing thanks to "the nature"
9) Zambuk - "the real makoya" as it says on the tin, and good for just about everything (thanks Zed for introducing me to it!)
10) Savlon - good for the Bs - burns,bites and blisters (I think).

And then of course there's suntan lotion, after-sun, chewing gum, ear plugs and old favourite boiled sweets. This isn't quite medical, but not quite not either....except maybe for the boiled sweets. But what's a road trip without barley sugars?

The Put Foot Rally Shoe drop 2012

Well, as you've no doubt figured out by now, we're pretty damn excited about road-tripping around Southern Africa. The parties - the wildlife - the thrill of knowing that if Constance breaks down there is no possible way we can fix her... But it's not just about the thrills - the most important thing we'll be doing along the way is taking part in a shoe drop at Senkobo Basic School in Zambia.

Photo © Put Foot Foundation

Top Ten Tuesday: Camping equipment that we need

As the rally rapidly approaches and I keep waking up with night sweats realising what on the "list of things to do in preparation for the rally" has been done (not much), still has to be done (lots, and growing), may have been an impossible dream and should be taken off the list entirely - I thought it was about time we actually started making these lists visible. Perhaps if they are here for everyone to see, we'll get things done? And perhaps someone with fresh eyes can tell us if we're being a little hysterical....

Some inspiration from Penelope Pitstop

It's probably too late to get our Constance looking anything like Penelope Pitstop's Compact Pussycat (yes, that is what it's called).

The Compact Pussycat at Goodwood (from here).

But potentially not too late to source the costumes..?!

Cougar Penelope

Hmmmm..

We can change a tyre!

With less than a month to go until registration day we’ve been quite good at ticking the fun things off our Put Foot To-do list – like looking at route and ogling at pictures of Mozambican beaches – but there are still quite a lot of not-so-fun things that we have been avoiding. For me the most dreaded of these was to come to grips with changing a tyre. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered a flat on a bitterly cold Joburg morning! It wasn’t fun, and it did take me ages making me late for work, but I am proud to say that I can now change a tyre on my own and am feeling a lot more rally ready.

FML.

Jozi's turn to quiz

Jozi’s best and brightest braved the cold to gather at Pirates sports club last week Thursday for the 2^nd Team Pedal Pushers fundraiser. 

A fairly unwilling Mr Langley took on the role of quiz master and did a fantastic job of controlling the enthusiastic (read unruly) crowd – even as we were plunged into darkness by a momentary power outage. Well done to each of the eleven teams who fought to the (almost) death for eternal glory and the top spot. In total we raised R2900 for Project Rhino and the Put Foot Foundation which brings our fundraising total to R5800!!

A very big thank-you to everyone who came to support, to Pirates who hosted us free of charge and to Larry ‘The Quizwizz’  (undoubtedly the best quizmaster in Jozi) who advertised for us. 

Fun fact Friday: Checkpoint 6 - Mocambique

Sun, sea and sand - we couldn't be happier to have our final checkpoint by the seaside! Although in Mozambique with its 2470kms of coastline it's not that hard to be by the sea. That being said Mozambique is pretty sizeable being just less than twice the size of California and 45% larger than France.

Capital is Maputo, which used to be known as Lourenco Marques during Potuguese rule.
President:Armando Guebuza
Popuation: estimated 19,686,505 

 

Mozambique became independent in 1975. The country was the scene of an intense civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992. During this period up to a million Mozambicans died from fighting and famine in a war that ruined the economy and much of the countryside. The country has been left with a legacy of landmines and amputees but 20 years on, we're sticking to the main roads and have been on holiday here before so I think we're safe!

Now for fun facts!
1) There are 147 airports in Mozambique, although only 22 have tar runways.
2) Not fun but interesting: February 2007 brought the worst flooding Mozambique had seen in six years, particularly along the Zambezi River where it burst its banks. Tens of thousands of people were displaced.
3) Natural gas is Mozambique's most important resource (after hydro-electrical power)
4) Mozambique has only one official language - Portugese
5) The country was named Moçambique by the Portuguese after the Island of Mozambique, derived from Musa Al Big or Mossa Al Bique or Mussa Ben Mbiki, an Arab trader who first visited the island and later lived there.

It's arrived - Our Route

So following one rather confusing skype conversation we finally have what we hope is OUR ROUTE! We are of course trying not to be too anal about it and accept that while this is "the ideal" we may have to make it up as we go along when we realise what sort of roads we're facing, have a puncture, don't set an alarm and only arise at 10am but surely this is what adventuring is about...at least this is what I keep telling mum. And as I keep reminding myself, we're only young enough and stupid enough to do a car rally around Southern African once...probably!

We've dedicated a whole page of the blog to the route so look up and click :)

Excited, terrified in equal measure.

Seriously. We need an audio book or four. "Game of Thrones"....?

Afri-Quiz Madness

So fellow adventurers, the first fundraiser kicked off this Saturday in old London Town and I think we can safely say it was a fabulous success. Five teams of friends/friends of friends - some willing, some less so, battled it out for the once in a life time opportunity to be crowned: Afri-Quiz Kings 2012. (I'm sure the medals and champers had nothing to do with luring them in!)

Our quiz contained all the necessary elements that make up a fun night of brain-testing endurance: beer, snacks, rumours of cheating, more beer, tasty home-made biscuits, animal-shaped sweeties, a bingo round, frayed tempers, jeering at fellow quizzers, jeering at the hostess, and even more beer. We gave animal-sweeties to the bingo winners, a mini bottle of bubbly for the team that amused us the most: Team Name: Agatha Quiz-Team (Cue raucous laughter) and the sorry losers went home with a great bottle of Sainsburys Basics Wine in a handy plastic bottle. Remember readers: Basics wine is for the table, not the cellar. Unless of course you're like one of the unruly Pedal Pushers....then it's for the bed while watching reruns of The OC....


And this little recap wouldn't be complete without a shout out to the brilliant venue, The Duke of York.This is my post-work local and I have spent many a boozy lunch/Friday night knees-up/midweek will-we-even-make-it-to-Friday drink there and can't recommend it enough. They allowed us to commandeer their upstairs function room and wavered the charge as it was for charity. Laura and I even chatted to a lovely local who flirted outrageously and told us of meeting Hemingway when he was younger - not too shabby. So yes if you're ever lurking about Fitzrovia, do pop in. You may even bump into me!

So big thank you to everyone who took part and to those who didn't: I think you'll find we're no longer friends on facebook.... ;-)

Oh yes and we made a sweet £130!

Fun fact Friday: Checkpoint 5 - Malawi

Malawi will be the penultimate country that we’ll be travelling through on the Put Foot rally. No doubt there are many great (and better) reasons to visit Malawi but mostly we’re super-excited because:

1.  Who wouldn’t want to visit the place known as the ‘Warm heart of Africa’?

2.  It looks like the kind of place where one might suntan on the beach whilst being served cocktails

Not bad Malawi.

and  3. The Checkpoint party is full-moon themed and is going to be epic

Full moon and full set of toes.

The country was established in 1891 as the British protectorate of Nyasaland and in 1964 became the independent nation of Malawi. The capital is Lilongwe which has an estimated population of 821000.

Much of the country is plateau - the Great Rift Valley runs from north to south and in the mountainous sections surrounding the valley, plateaus rise from 900 to 1 300m above sea level.

Now for fun facts!

• Lake Malawi is sometimes known as the Calendar Lake as it is around 365 miles (587 km) long and 52 miles (84 km) wide. It is the third largest lake in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world.
• The only Carlsberg factory found outside Denmark is found in Blantyre, and they do free tours on a Wednesday afternoon. Alas we will miss this, but now you know - should you ever find yourself in Blantyre on a Wednesday afternoon.
• Who does the lake belong too? Tanzania claims that the border runs through the middle of the lake, based on the border set out between the German and British territories prior to 1914. Meanwhile Malawi claims the whole of the surface of the lake (excluding the Mozambican part). The dispute stems from when the British captured Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and placed all of the water under the jurisdiction of Nyasaland (now Malawi).
• The lake is of big interest to scientists as it is the site of some 'exciting' evolutionary happenings amongst some fish. These fish (Cichlids) evolved rapidly into a large number of closely related but diverse species. Lake Malawi is home to several hundred endemic species of Cichlids - and they are fairly good-looking as fish go.

Not for eating

As ever thanks to wiki and CIA factbook (here).

Papering the world with money

This rally is in large part about raising money and while I won't badger you about giving us your money in this post (subliminal messaging aside of course) I thought it might amuse you to see some awesome pictures of Zimbabwean money. Before we "dollarised" aka "admitted our money was useless and had to take on the US dollar" we went through many many iterations of the Zimbabwean dollar. Yes indeed once we had the $2 note then we had the one hunderd trillion dollar bearer cheque. How things change!

Image from here.

Sigh, that's not quite as funny. Image from here 

Image from here.

You should definitely read the whole article that goes with this.

 That's all folks, and of course, please do give us your money.

Do I make you horny baby?!

Finally a rhino story to smile about!

There are only seven (!!!) known Northern white rhinos remaining in the world, and in 2009 four of these were moved from the Czech Republic to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Their return to Africa was considered the last chance at preserving the genetic material of their sub-species - which has been poached to extinction in the wild. Experts believed that a return to their natural environment might induce hormonal changes to make the females (Najin and Fatu) receptive to breeding.

After a whole load of match-making by conservationists and a little bit of foreplay:

Fun fact friday: Check point 4 - Zimbabwe

Our fourth fantastic check point will be Kariba in Zim. Zim has had a lot of bad press in recent years but is definitely on the up and up!

• Zimbabwe became an independent state on 18 April 1980.
• Prior to independence the country was known as Rhodesia or Southern Rhodesia.
• The name Zimbabwe is derived from "Dzimba dza mabwe", which means "great houses of stone" in the Shona language. It is based on the stone structures of Great Zimbabwe or Dzimbahwe, which were included in the World Heritage List in 1986.
• The capital city of Zimbabwe is Harare.

We like Zim a lot not only because it is Laura's homeland but also because of it's rasta coloured flag. The green represents agriculture, yellow mineral wealth, red the blood that was shed in the fight for independence, and black stands for the native people. The yellow Zimbabwe bird represents the long history of the country and is superimposed on a red five-pointed star, which symbolizes peace.

And now for a fun fact about our Check point location!

• Lake Kariba was formed by the damming of the Zambezi river and is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. 
• The formation of the dam led to the flooding of the Zambezi Valley which left many animals stranded on small islands.  From 1958 to 1964 a large-scale wildlife rescue operation - Operation Noah - was led by Rupert Fothergill during which over 6000 animals (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, zebra, small birds and even snakes) were rescued and relocated to the mainland.

Again thanks CIA World factbook

Of wine ships and flame-throwers

Lyn went off to AfrikaBurns last weekend in the hope of picking up some basic survival skills to see us through the Put Foot Rally. For the uninitiated AfrikaBurn is pretty much an African version of Burning Man in the US.. A stern warning from the organisers states: “YOU VOLUNTARILY ASSUME THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH BY ATTENDING THIS EVENT ... You must bring enough food, water, shelter and first aid to survive for a week in a harsh environment.”

We’re not sure whether she learnt anything but she did come home with some pretty far-fetched stories of wine ships and fire-breathing dragons, as well as some new crazy ideas as to how we can decorate Constance our rally vehicle.

Option 1: Grass 

Option 2: Silver bug - pretty sure that's a Conquest like our Constance under there

Option 3: Wine ship - 2000 litres of wine on tap, how can you go wrong?

Option 4: Tank (flame thrower optional)

Mammal Monday: We all need one of these now & then

We won't see any bears on our trip but we'll certainly need some bear hugs along the way so I think we can probably take some lessons from these guys. My favourite has to be number 15, and the fact that I don't think all of these actually are hugging - I think some of these might be fighting. Sometime there's fear, real fear. We don't want that so we'll just keep thinking it's hugging.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/17-of-the-warmest-sweetest-bear-hugs

Thank you buzz feed.

And at least Monday's almost over!

Fun Fact Not-quite Friday: Check point 3 - Zambia

This is a little late but, as they say, better late than never. Besides I'd say we're probably going to have to get used to late arrivals having looked at the route and the number of hours we'll spend in the car...not including border crossings...

The third checkpoint is in lovely Zambia, formerly Northern Rodhesia, which has been independent since 1964. Although it was only 1991 which saw the end of one-party rule and 1996 and 2001 elections were riddled with all sorts of problems. 2006 saw Levy Mwanawasa re-elected (after challenges back in 2001) in elections that were deemed free and fair. Mwanawasa died in 2008 and was replaced by his vice-president. The current president is Michael Sata who was elected in 2011.

Big thing in Zambia is copper mining which was privatised in the 90s which saved the government from losses incurred from running the mines as well as improving their output which has meant real GDP growth in 2005-11 of more than 6% per year. Copper prices remain high keeping Zambia fairly safe but as they rely almost entirely on copper a slump in prices would be bad news. Unfortunately even with impressive GDP growth, the high birth rate, relatively high HIV/AIDS burden, and market distorting agricultural policies haven't decreased the high poverty rates.

Total Area: 752,618 sq km (that's slightly larger than Texas) - 39th in the world - made of 743,398 sq km land and water: 9,220 sq km.

Population: 14,309,466 (July 2012 est.) - 69th in the world
Birth rate: 43.51 births/1,000 population - 4th in the world 
Life expectancy at birth: 52.57 years 207th in the world

Favourite line from the CIA world factbook about Zambia - contained in transnational issues, the illicit drugs section - "major consumer of cannabis"

And now, Five Fun Facts:
1) Zambia’s name comes from the Zambezi River.  Zambezi is from a local word yambezhi “heart of all”
2) Livingstone, which is the 3rd checkpoint used to be the capital. No it's Lusaka.
3) Zambia and Zimbabwe share Victoria Falls which is one of the seven wonders of the world.
4) Not so fun - has been known to suffer from acid rain due to the extensive mining.
5) Transition to independence was peaceful - it was the 60s after all!

Top Ten Tuesday - Namibia

So this weekend we had a big planning session and there was much excitement! In preparation for this skype conversation I'd done some research on Namibia and can't deny that I got really really excited about all the epic things to see - giant sand dunes, bones of ships and whales, giant canyons, meteorites, many many animals - but unfortunately it seems we won't get to see all these things...insert sad face....indeed Namibia is a pretty big place and we don't have that many days to see it so we've had to plot a route that includes some of these things, but not them all.

That doesn't mean I don't get to highlight some of the awesome things in Nam (be we going there or not!) as a store for future adventures.

1) Etosha National Park

Ariel view from Wiki - look at that salt pan!

Totally doing this as it's one of the Checkpoints -  and we've scheduled in a day of driving through so we can see some of the awesomeness. Apparently this is one of the best places to see black rhinos and while it's not the size it was when first created (biggest game reserve in the world back in 1907 - those who've been reading the blog will already know that...) it's still pretty big with a 850 km boundary fence.  Dominated by a salt pan desert I'm really looking forward to seeing this having never seen such a thing...I think.

2) Fish River Canyon

Also from wiki.

Given that we start in Johannesburg and our car is only a 1300 power little lady without four wheel drive we want to stick to the big roads as much as possible so we've decided to cut through Botswana in an effort to get to the Namibian checkpoint rather than looping up and around to Etosha. This does mean though that we'll miss Fish River Canyon which is a shame because it is the biggest canyon in Africa and the second biggest in the world!  It's 550 metres deep in places and is 160 kms long and 27 kms wide in places. Interestingly 90kms of the canyon are privately owned so the public view points are near Hobas, camp site 70km north of Ai-Ais. I wish I owned part of the biggest canyon in Africa....

Lots more awesome pictures where this one came from.

3) Skeleton Coast
Another one we'll have to skip (boo) and perhaps my top pick for Namibia (so we'll just have to go back!) is Skeleton Coast originally know as "The Land God Made in Anger" by Bushmen of the Namibian interior and "The Gates of Hell" by Portuguese sailors. How awesome does that sound! The cold Bengula current hits the coast causing really dense fog which, back when boats were a more regular form of transport and people didn't know better about this area, lead to many shipwrecks - the skeletal remains of more than a thousand of which still litter the coast. Whale and seal skeletons from when whaling was still active also cover the beach so basically it's just all about the bones! I have a macarbe sense of what is awesome.

Wiki showing us the tourists that visit the meteorite.

4) Hoba meteorite
The way our route is currently planned we will get to see this which is going to be grand as it is FROM SPACE! It is the largest known meteorite (as a single piece) known on the earth. How cool is that?! Smart science people estimate that it fell less than 80 000 years ago and as it remains in tact it must have slowed to terminal velocity (I had to look this up but it means that the downward pull of gravity and the upward force of drag were equal leading to net force on the object as zero meaning it had an acceleration rate of zero and could therefore remain in tact...). It's flat on both major surfaces so it might have skipped along the top of the atmosphere like a skipping stone, effectively slowing down along the way. It's discovery was just by chance way back in the early 1900s when a farmer was tilling his land and hit this lump of rock and metal. Pretty cool!

Top of the plateau. Wiki once more.

5) Waterberg National Park
The Waterberg Plateau is largely inaccessbile and so in the early 1970s lots of endangered species were moved here to protect them from poachers and allow them to breed. It now supplies many other parks with these rare animals - which is pretty cool. It has over 200 different species of bird so it's a bird watchers paradise! Other than the wildlife interest geological this plateau is very interesting as the rock strata is over 850 million years old and dinosaur tracks were left there 200 million years ago!

Look at all those sand dunes!

6) Namib Desert 
The Namib Desert covers a long stretch with the Skeleton Coast along the North and the extensive Namib Sea Sand along the central coast.  The Sea Sand boasts the largest sand dunes in the world which would be really really cool to see! Due to erosion that happens in the Orange River Valley and further south lots of sand gets dumped into the Atlantic along this central coast and then is washed back up on shore thanks to the currents. The prevailing South West wind then picks this sand up into the massive dunes. Some well travelled sand basically.

This awesome image is from here.

7) Caprivi Strip
We definitely get to go through here which is cool. It's the little outcrop off the North East of Namibia named after Leo von Caprivi who succeeded Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor of Germany in March 1890. This section of Namibia is really interesting as it is wettest region of Namibia and very tropical with lots of rivers and swampy areas.  Beyond being a lovely place to see it has had a fascinating (and somewhat chequered histroy). Initially it was known as Itenge and under the rule of the Lozi kings. Then in the late 19th century the strip of land was administered as part of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (Botswana). Then in 1890 the Germans wanted British Zanzibar and the Berlin Conference settled that Zanzibar could be British and the Germans could have Caprivi - hence its name as Caprivi organised the annexing of it to Nambia (at the time German South-West Africa). During World War I, the Caprivi Strip again came under British rule and was governed as part of Bechuanaland but it received little attention and became known as a lawless frontier. It's not that anymore (thankfully) but it has a certain ring to it....

Image from here.

8) Popa Falls
We intend to stop at these. They aren't really falls, but a series of rapids in the Okavango River, caused by a rocky ledge. They are most impressive in the rainy season when they drop three metres but otherwise they are just rather pretty and apparently, the place we have in mind has a cage for river swimming. Yes indeed, river swimming in the Okavango. EPIC!

This is the part we haven't seen I'd say....

9) Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari stretches through Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. Its huge size means it has really arid parts and really rather more lush parts. The more lush parts, are the parts we've seen as they encompass the Karoo - apparently known as the Succulent Karoo which has 5,000 species of plants, nearly half of them endemic - in fact, one third of the world’s succulents are found in the Karoo.


10)  Cities
We're going to miss the big three cities - Windhoek, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund - I suppose we should try and see these sometime but on this our African adventure we probably don't need to see another city. This being said - Swakopmund has an interesting museam and Walvis Bay has all sorts of adventure activity options and Windhoek is the main city, it must be interesting right? If I'm really honest though I'd say these are number 10 for a reason, probably a should-see even though I'm not that bothered that we're missing them. Apologies to everyone that lives in these cities!

As always the great wise wiki has given me much of this information. Blame him if it's wrong.

Mammal Monday: Speed of the cheetah, cheetah, cheetah....

As Namibia has the largest population of cheetahs not contained in National Parks in Southern Africa I thought it was only right that we focus on these lovely kitties this week.

Image from here

The best thing about cheetahs is how fast they move. They can reach the fastest land speed of any living any living animal - between 112 and 120 km/h in short bursts covering distances up to 500 m. Its paws are also pretty cool, it is one of the only felids with semi-retractable claws (the other three in the cat species are: the fishing cat, the flat-headed cat and the Iriomote cat), and with pads that, by their scope, disallow gripping. Unfortunately this means they can't climb trees but when you move as fast as them, does that really matter?

Image from here. Taken from a story in the Telegraph about a cheetah escaping a Zoo in New Zealand. 

Along with the semi-retracable claws, other adaptations that allow it to reach such speeds include large nostrils that allow for increased oxygen intake, and an enlarged heart and lungs that work together to circulate oxygen efficiently. During a typical chase, its respiratory rate increases from 60 to 150 breaths per minute. Cheetahs also use their tail as a rudder-like means of steering to allow it to make sharp turns, necessary to outflank prey animals that often make such turns to escape.

All in all, cheetahs are awesome. And unlike other big cats they purr!

They've also been extinct in India since the 1940s but there are all sorts of plans afoot to export (is that the right word) African cheetahs out to India. For some reason I find this bizarre...maybe because I always thought cheetahs were only African things. You learn something new every day. Thanks wiki!

Image from wiki. No lie.