Farewell Africa

The time mercilessly brings on the inevitable conclusion to this grand escapade. In just a few days a cab will speed in the direction of the airport, as I look on with lament and melancholy at the city that I’ve grown fond of in the past 3 weeks. Nothing evokes a state of reflection more than a departing ride to the airport.

A good friend and a travel companion once noted that we all try to attach a special meaning to our travels. We busily scribble in the journals our enlightened thoughts and keen observations, in hopes that somehow our time on the road is a transcending, revealing experience. Some might be disappointed that their journey was not a life-changing event they hoped for, but some learn a few valuable lessons along the way.

So what have my African wonderings meant to me? A helluva adventure and a good story, if nothings else. I remember when I first landed in Cape Town -- timid, apprehensive about the world beyond the airport’s exit gate. AFRICA. In my mind, thoroughly brainwashed by our sensationalist media, it was, first and foremost, a Dark Continent. A place of extreme poverty, and brutal wars. This idea could have been reinforced if I landed in Mogadishu, but that’s not the first impression one gets upon arrival in Cape Town. And to me, that perhaps is the essence of Africa -- a place of stark contrasts and endless variety. Opulence and abject poverty. Peace and war. Desert and oceans. You can find it all here. It’s also an anthropological wonderland. The frontiers imposed on Africa by colonialism created artificial countries. The borders have less to do with people who live there, but more with convenient division of territories along geographical landmarks (and so many of this continents greatest tragedies stemmed from this simplistic exercise). So even though I drove through 14 countries, I went through hundreds of distinct cultures, with its own original system of beliefs and customs, its own language and taboos. In many countries I noticed that hotel’s registration books contained a column for “Tribe”, and in many instances this column comes before the “Nationality” column. The country of South Africa, for instance, has 11 official languages and a dozen ethnic groups. It’s all immensely complicated, intricate and mysterious.

In conversing with other travelers, everyone predictably always wants to know certain things, usually in the following order: “what’s the craziest thing that happened to you?“; “had the car ever broken down?”, “had anything bad happened to you?”, “what’s your favorite place?”. Yes, of course ‘crazy’ things happened. Choosing a shortcut in Lesotho we found ourselves off-roading in the dark, crawling over medium size boulders with precipitous cliffs on each side. In Swaziland we happened to drop in on king’s wedding to his 13th wife. While crossing into Tanzania from northern Mozambique, what was suppose to be a 2 hour drive to the border became a 2-day odyssey through the thick jungle. It was pretty crazy to meander around Ngorongoro highlands with Masai tribesmen… Wildlife was awe-inspiring and scary… Yes, of course the car broke down. We spent 8 hours in a workshop, i.e. under a big tree, in a nondescript town in Mozambique while local mechanics (migrants from Zimbabwe) changed a burnt out clutch; after hours of corrugated roads on the way to Lamu island we found our exhaust pipe dragging on the ground and a broken AC; we came to a grinding halt as enormous potholes claimed one of our CV joints (something very important in the internal structure of a wheel) in the middle of nowhere in Kenya… so we hung out with Turkana and Kikuyu tribesmen for 7 hours; CV joint went again in remote Mana Pools park in Zimbabwe; countless tire punctures… Yes, of course some bad things happened. Foot parasites in Mozambique, food poisoning in Ethiopia, mysterious flu in Namibia. A couple of things went missing. A few corrupt policemen… Favorite place? I can never answer that question.

Athough these events stand out, much of the time on the road is spent observing the daily humdrum goings of people lives. And unlike suburban US where one’s commute is an isolated experience, here you do it among people, because much of Africa still walks places, or if you lucky, bike. The evenings bring on similar scenes all over -- women and kids walking with buckets of water precariously balanced on their heads. In the mornings, enormous piles of firewood replaces the buckets… Yes, the division of labor in most of African societies falls very unequally on women’s shoulders.

Landscapes. African vistas. That was a beauty of this road trip. You stare for hours at magnificent panoramas. Mountains. Undulating plains. Magical deserts. Sure, you also stare for hours at dusty towns and monotonous, dry farmland… but, that’s how it goes. The world of Africa that I discovered was thankfully a lot more interesting than one that I learned about from popular news coverage. Yet, this continent certainly has it dark side… and it’s grimly dark. Inequality is staggering. Drive 30 minutes outside of Cape Town’s posh waterfront and you’ll find yourself in squalid shanty towns. AIDS epidemic is wiping out generations. Corrupt, self-serving politicians abound. You feel enraged, depressed and helpless at the sight of so much relentless suffering. There is so much wrong with the world where one country is suffering from obesity, yet another of starvation.

Many thanks to everyone who kept in-touch along this trip and persuaded me to keep this blog going. It’s been a pleasure to share this awesome journey. I hope that my trip persuaded some of you to pack your bags and experience this amazing part of this world. You won’t regret it.