Livingstone’s Pets

I could cry – I’ve hugged an elephant. I’ve walked with a lion’s tail in hand, and swam in Devil’s Armchair nearly spilling over the edge of Vic Falls. I’m not a daredevil. In fact, I am afraid of heights (though that doesn’t stop me from climbing the highest whatever in the vicinity). But all these were calculated risks, with tamed animals and lifeguards controlling my every move even... [Read more]

The Mighty Falls in Zambia

Man triumphs over nature. Tames lions, kills mammoths, conquers raging rivers that roar and foam at the mouth with white water as if outraged that man has dared to venture in. In Zambia’s Livingstone, home to the mighty Victoria Falls, man has enslaved nature. It happens in so many places I visit; it’s strange how I’ve only realized it now.

Aside from being used as an energy source, the Falls are... [Read more]

Leaving Namibia, or How to Find a Pangolin

I hate to leave Namibia - it has been so good to me. But my last days
here weren’t without memorable adventures. I wondered if the day would
come when Columbus would drown in the thick mud it often has to go
through. And that day nearly came.

Mamili National Park was going to be the last on my list in this
country. It was almost completely flooded and looked deserted. A few
successful... [Read more]

Border-less Wildlife

On the little stretch of Caprivi, where the colonial politics of the
past have arbitrarily divided the land into Namibia, Botswana, Zambia,
and Angola, wildlife knows no borders. The river here serves as the
divide, and its name changes every hundred miles or so. Birds here are
as colorful as I’ve ever seen. Carmine bee-eaters sunbathe on low
branches, and I photograph them in all their... [Read more]

Caprivi People

Namibia differs from Botswana like day from night, except for
Namibia’s Caprivi Strip. On a map, it looks like the neck of a guitar,
and stretches for over three hundred kilometers west to east, although
it’s only thirty to seventy kilometers wide. Along its seldom used
roads are scattered tiny mud-huts and skinny livestock. Most of the
structures are round, with a frame of thick... [Read more]

Budget Botswana

Given the cost of reaching Botswana’s tourist attractions, I’ve been
watching my budget closer than usual, though I still didn’t think it
would have come to dumpster-diving. Well, I was wrong – I did end up
at the city dump. Contemplating alternative access options to the next
and last of Botswana’s overpriced national parks, I and my teammates
were driving through... [Read more]

Back to the Kalahari Desert

I’m back to the Kalahari Desert, now in Botswana, trying to remind
myself that my feelings about authoritarian governments and regimes
are not to be confused with my feelings about Africa. Travel is harder
here. The National parks are expensive to access, and bush-camping is
dangerous – too many elephants walking around. I try not to get too
annoyed with the armed men who stop the car... [Read more]

Chameleon Africa

Africa is a chameleon. I am only a day’s drive away from Etosha - my most recent never-ending fountain of wildlife, and it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet with its own magnificent and diverse population of birds and antelopes. Reminding me of my South American darling, the jabiru, saddlebill storks rummage through the reeds with their incredibly colorful bills, spread their enormous sail-like... [Read more]

Five-Hour Photo

She lay in wait and so did I. How famished she must have been, if only
watching her hunt I’ve become so hungry I’ve risked getting out of the
car, fetching my gasoline camping stove, and cooking up a hearty meal
right there in the back seat of my double-cab truck. What torture it
must have been, to see the springbok inch towards her hiding place
near a waterhole, and keep her tired... [Read more]

Click n’ Clack

I’ve been lucky recently with good guides. It is especially pleasant when you don’t want or need one, but they are being forced on you by regulations of the place you are visiting, like in Namibia’s Brandberg — home to some of the world’s most famous rock art dating as far back as two thousand years. Gwen, a local Damara girl and our assigned guide, was the only woman guide in Brandberg and,... [Read more]

Fury Families

Africa’s furry and feathered ones remind me how good (and annoying) it feels to have mom watch over your every step, ready to burst into action when needed and to wreck havoc if she suspects her baby is in any danger. When we cross the street, my mother still instinctively goes for my hand, even if I’m already holding my husband’s. Once, I made the mistake of climbing out to the fire escape of my grandma’s... [Read more]

A Desert in Bloom

“Desert in bloom” must sound perfectly surreal; well, it looks perfectly surreal as well. From afar, flat barren meadows look like someone has been painting in the mountains and spilled a whole bucket of paint onto the grass below. “Accidents” like this are seen everywhere: orange, yellow, red blotches of daisies by the pound catch the eye and make it hard to concentrate on driving. Finally I gave up and... [Read more]

The Amber-Eyed Prince

In the Kalahari our eyes met and I melted. My knees would buckle if I wasn’t already sitting. For a second there, I thought he was about to jump into the car through the open window and tear me apart, but I didn’t care - he was just that beautiful.

Young, three-four month, maybe less, but by his amber eyes you could clearly see why he is up for the throne of the king in this desert.

... [Read more]

The Great Kalahari Desert

I’d walk the Kalahari Desert if they’d let me. Herds of springbok would race by, pronking in the insane and magnificent way they do, showing me how strong and healthy they are so I wouldn’t even attempt to catch and eat them. Oryx would watch me carefully, then run off, and turn back to see what I’m up to again and again. Hartebeest and wilderbeest would lie on the blonde grass in the shade of trees,... [Read more]

Cats and Caves

I feel caged in big cities sometimes, so I was more than happy to get back to Nature, even though it meant climbing down into the musty and stinky Arnhem Caves of Namibia in search of bats. Ankle-deep in guano, we searched in the darkness for flying creatures with big teeth or funny horseshoe-shaped noses, disturbing their sleep. As long as we used red light, the bats were not bothered much. Only on dead mummified “vampires”... [Read more]

Red Sands of Sossusvlei

Sossusvlei has waited for me long enough. Seeing it in the first light of dawn made me want to run along the crest of the nearest dune and not stop until I reach the sun. However, scaling the sand dunes is hard work. Eventually, I took off my shoes and, packing more and more red grains of sand into the thick woven fabric of my hiking socks, dug my feet into the dunes, crest after crest. Breaking the facets of sand mountains,... [Read more]

Living Desert

In a seemingly dead place, barren of any signs of life, only by reading the “Bushman’s newspaper” - tracks in the sand, he found them all and then showed to us on an outstretched hand.

I’ve learned to appreciate a good guide. One who seems more like a magician when he practices his craft - conjuring unearthly views or rare animals only by asking me to close my eyes for twenty seconds, or... [Read more]

Cheetah Chaterbox

If you ever scratched behind a cat’s ear and heard it purr, you know how hypnotizing and sweet this faint tractor-like sound is. Now keeping that in mind, try to imagine what a purring cheetah sounds like.

Namibian farmers’ rights are far better protected then Namibia’s cheetahs. Many are killed when a farmer’s physical and/or financial well-being is claimed to be at stake. On the bright side,... [Read more]

Guerrillas in the Mist

I crawled like a leopard after the still clenched fist ahead of me and received the signal to rise slowly to my knees. As I began to lift myself up, a copper collared snake slithered across my splayed hands. I stifled a scream by sinking my teeth into the quilted collar of my jacket.

At the prospect of being educated by African game rangers in a tropical rain forest, with the added promise of an experience I would... [Read more]

Great White Diving

A rough boat ride from South Africa’s town of Kleinbaai brought me into stormy open sea next to a small island with a fur seal colony. Crammed into a steel cage like sardines in a can with a few other brave souls, I submerged to see great white sharks.

To my surprise, I wasn’t scared when the first shark showed up. There was no “TA-NA-NA-NA, TA-NA-NA-NA” playing in my head, nor was there... [Read more]

Go Walkabout Africa

The first one to discourage me from going to Africa was Korney Chukovsky. His quirky Soviet whimsy warned little children, by way of a nursery rhyme, about its mean sharks, gorillas, and crocs whose main objective was to beat and bite them. Only Barmaley, a fat, bloodthirsty bandit was worse, and he too was roaming the treacherous continent, ready to catch, fry, and eat any stray toddlers.

Fear is a simple and efficient... [Read more]

I’m in Africa!

Flat-top mountains, red with rocky Mohawks. Hills with boulder rims just below round bold tops that remind me of Catholic monks’ heads. Blond grass on burnt-sienna fields rich with iron. Brilliant blue skies with pinches of stark-white clouds. I am in Africa.

You’d think a twenty seven-hour flight, with a layover in Abu Dhabi, would suck me dry of excitement, but no. Falling asleep was made extremely... [Read more]

Angola, Land of Endless War

At Ondangua, northern Namibia, I met up with the convoy I was travelling with into Angola. We encountered no border controls and continued on past Ruacana Falls to Xangongo, which was once a prosperous Portuguese town, but now most buildings had no roofs and the town was quiet and overgrown. Many of the crumbling buildings’ white-washed facades were riddled with bullet holes. In some places, the road was not clear and... [Read more]

Close Encounters with Tanzanian Treasures

It’s midnight. A relatively peaceful night so far. As I turn over sleepily, absent-mindedly rolling out of my safe perimeter of flimsy mosquito net (supposedly protecting me from the dreaded tsi tsi fly), the silence is interrupted by a knock. Someone at the door? Who could possibly need me at this hour? Plus, nobody knows me here at Seronera Wildlife Lodge. I drag myself to the large window and peer out – there he... [Read more]

Top 10 Marrakech

I haven’t been to Morocco yet. I came close while in southern Spain a few years back, but there just wasn’t enough time. The two hours ferry ride each way would have left me with a brief moment in Tangiers and a race against time to get to my plane in Sevilla. I am left to wonder about sand dunes, northern African Islamic architecture and dreamily riding the Marrakesh Express with Crosby, Stills &... [Read more]

Next Page »