East Coast Adventures

The past few weeks have flown by and it’s almost time to leave. We’ve had a lot of fun though. Last week we took a long weekend and flew to Durban, on the east coast, and rented a car there. We drove north into the Hluhluwi-Imfolozi national park where we saw tons of animals. It’s sort of a self-guided safari. You drive into the park and you’re not allowed to leave your car except for at a few designated areas. They don’t want you getting eaten by a rhino. Everyone here talks about the “big five”: lions, leopards, rhinos, buffalo, and elephants. We saw the last three, plus zebras, giraffes, warthogs, antelope, monkeys, and hippos. Apparently it’s pretty rare to see cats on an open safari like that. We also saw whales over lunch during my first week here. They were super close to the coast. There is no shortage of places to see wild animals in South Africa. We had originally planned on traveling to Botswana, which would have been a ton of driving. Apparently the Chobe National Park in northern Botswana is one of the best places for wildlife in all of Africa. But my advice, if you’re ever in South Africa, is to explore South Africa first, and then see if you have time left to venture further north. They say South Africa is “many countries within one country”, and I’m inclined to agree. There’s lots to see here.

After the park, we drove up to St. Lucia and spent the night there. Apparently the main road through this town used to be a hippo trail, and at night you can still occasionally find hippos wandering the streets. We didn’t see any in the streets, but we did take a little drive along the waterfront and found a few choming on the grass. Hippos, by the way, are considered very dangerous because they’re so irritable. And they’re surprisingly fast, despite their pudgy, never-got-picked-for-the-baseball-team appearance. So we didn’t get out of the car to play.

St. Lucia reminded me of Beaufort, NC. Sort of a fishing/budget vacation town I guess. Nice beaches. Bars with fish and flags and fishing nets hanging from the ceilings. We stayed at a pretty sweet hostel. The only catch was we arrived during a drought, and they had shut off the water. Not a big deal though. We were only there for one night.

We then drove up to Sodwana Bay, which is at the northern end of a big wetlands reserve along the coast. It’s beautiful there, and apparently one of the best places in the world for SCUBA diving. In fact, SCUBA is the main reason most people go there. So we went diving the next morning along one of the reefs off the coast. The surf there is crazy. There are foot straps on the boat so you don’t fall overboard while going over a wave. The reef was only about 15 meters down, and the fish down there were really amazing. The Indian Ocean is warm and so there are lots of colorful fish and beautiful fluorescent soft corals. Even at that depth, we still felt the surf tugging us around. We also saw a Mana Ray. I definitely need to dive more. Since I got certified 8 years ago, I’ve only been on maybe 6 or 7 trips.

After that, we hopped back in the car and our plan was to drive to Lesotho, which is a small, mountainous country completely surrounded by South Africa. But as we were driving we also realized that we were just a few miles away from the Swaziland border. Not ones to pass up an opportunity to earn another passport stamp, we hopped across the border. Swaziland is the most HIV-burdened country in the world, with over 50% of people in their twenties HIV-positive. The life expectancy: 32. It’s heartbreaking really. There’s certainly an awareness of safe sex, HIV testing, and abstinence, and you see the red ribbon everywhere you look. There were free condoms at the border crossing, but apparently there’s a pretty big stigma against using them. Polygamy (both in its official and unofficial forms) is apparently very common, and that has contributed to the problem. King Mswati III has 14 (official) wives currently. Apparently he invoked a ban on sex with women under 18 in an attempt to curtail the spread of HIV, only to then marry a 17-year-old the following year. With respect to HIV, I think here, as in many parts of Africa, there’s a prevailing sense of helplessness and inevitable doom. We really didn’t see much of Swaziland. We just drove through from one border crossing to the other. When we left, the border agent said “you have not even spent one night in Swaziland!” He was disappointed. Judging from the brochure we got at the border, there seems to be a lot of really cool stuff to do here. Wish we had more time.

So we drove south toward Lesotho (pronounced “lee-soo-too”). We stayed in a town about an hour north of the border called “Bethlehem”. We called ahead for hotels because we’d heard horror stories of desperate travelers sleeping in mangers here. But it turns out, nobody visits Bethlehem. We were 2 of 3 people staying at the Park Hotel that night. After being served breakfast by a lovely waitress who seemed to be starved of both customers and conversation, we said goodbye to Bethlehem and drove to Lesotho.

Now mind you, Lesotho is only about 100 miles wide. We though we’d be able to pop in one side and out the other in the matter of an afternoon. Yes, it’s all mountains, but really, how long could it take us? We had a flight out of Durban back to Cape Town in the morning, so we had to make it back there by 5am. We drove in to Fricksburg, on the northwest corner. The western side of Lesotho is deceptively flat. And since the town we drove into, although very poor, had gas stations and all that, we assumed that all the other similarly-sized dots on the map would also have gas stations. So our half tank of gas didn’t concern us. But after we crested the first mountain and watched our gas needle charge towards E, we realized we might be in trouble. We stopped off at the Mafika Lisiu pass for some photos, and nearby there was a national park with a beautiful hiking trail overlooking a gorge. It was perfectly quiet. No cars. No people. Not even any animals (not big ones, anyway). Slight breeze. They had a nice little windowed gazebo hut thing where they served tea and sandwiches. This is also where I bought tons of hats. The guy there told us we’d be able to get gas just a few miles down the mountain, so we were relieved. And it turns out he was right. We got two detergent-bottles-full (about 10L) of gas. I’m not sure if it was actually unleaded, although the woman claimed it was. Apparently, it’s hard to find unleaded gas in these parts. Oh well, it’s a rental.

So, surely we had enough gas to make it through the rest of the country. We headed for Sani Pas, on the eastern side of the country, which butts up against the Drakesburg National Park on the South African side. We’d be in Durban by late afternoon, in time to go lay out on the beach. Great.

But driving in the mountains is slow, and map distances are deceptive. And we didn’t have a topo map, so it was hard to estimate how far we had to go. We had our trusty TomTom, which I’ve got to say, is a fantastic piece of technology. Even the ruralest of rural roads in Lesotho were no stranger to TomTom (or Clare, as we called her, because we had it set on an Irish woman’s voice). But Clare told us it would take 16 hours to make it to the other side of the country. Surely she was mistaken. We were, after all, only talking about 60 miles (as the crow flies). But still, we were beginning to realize that it was taking us a while to get from town to town, so we stepped it up as much as we could. The roads, although good up to this point, were littered with fairly large rocks that had fallen from the mountains, so you had to be careful. And this car was small. I mean, I’m pretty sure Hyundai offers an optional duffel bag carrying case for this thing. I’ve seen bigger tires on lawn mowers.

Then the pavement stopped. Clare happily invited us to press on. And at this point, we were starting to understand why she told us 16 hours. The border crossing at Sani Pas was to close at 6pm, and it was around 4pm at that point. We had roughly estimated that if we continued going through the mountains as we were (averaging 60 km/h), we probably barely make it. But now, all bets were off. The road kept getting worse and worse. We drove a little and asked a man walking along the road whether it would eventually become paved again. He said it would once we reached Thaba Tseka, and it would be paved all the way to Sani Pas or Maseru (the capital), whichever way we wanted to go. “I know this country like I know my hand.” Ok. And then he asked for a ride. So we drove him down the road for a few miles to his home. His name was David. We were hoping David would stay with us all the way to Thaba Tseka, in case anything should happen with the car. But unfortunately he left us and we had another 20 km to go before reaching town. Luckily we made it there without popping a tire or ripping a hole in the oil pan. It took us like 2 hours. We averaged about 20 km/hr. Along the way we went through some very poor neighborhoods. The kids would run out to the road and hold out their hands. Some would ask for money, some for candy. The men all wore thick blankets, which is the custom in Lesotho. Many would also wear cloth masks which would cover everything but their eyes. I guess this was to protect them from the harsh wind. They looked pretty intimidating. We interrupted many a herd of sheep or goats while driving along those roads, much to the dismay of the herdsmen.

We finally made it to Thaba Tseka, and I’ve never been so happy to see asphault. We took a picture of the paved road. At that point, we decided we’d better exit the country through the capital, Maseru, because that border crossing was open 24 hours. We would be driving all night to Durban (since this meant we’d basically be driving all the way back around Lesotho once we got back onto South African roads), but at least we’d make it in time to catch our flight. And then, just as the sun was setting, the pavement stopped again. And this time it was worse. The rocks were huge. We were going so slow it wasn’t even registering on the speedometer. 5-10 km/hr, maybe. Although this road showed up as a major road on our map, it was apparently still under construction. We flagged down a truck coming the opposite way (there were only 4x4 trucks on this road) and he told us that we had about 30 km of unpaved road ahead, and then it was paved all the way to Maseru. So for the next 3 hours or so, we puttered along, with the Hyundai about to rattle apart. Our gas was also hovering around empty again, and there was no chance of finding a gas station out there—definitely not one with unleaded gas. If we ran out of gas, we’d have to flag someone down and try to siphon or something. Plus it was night by then, and we didn’t pass very many vehicles at all. So I was pretty much sure we were spending the night in the car.

We finally did get back on paved road, but with each mountain pass we could watch the needle go lower and lower. One of these passes was aptly named the “God Help Me Pass”. We stopped at a village along the way and asked about gas and a few guys started leading us down this dark, rocky decline. We were already a little wary because it seemed like the last place you would find gasoline, and the road was so rough we were bound to get the car stuck. Then one of them said “hurry, hurry”. And that struck us both as strange. Why should we be in a hurry? So we made an executive decision to get the hell out of there and drove off.

We pulled in at the next place where we saw lights (most of the villages we passed by didn’t have electricity so it was pretty difficult to see anything). As it so happens, the place we pulled into was sort of a gated community. Nice brick buildings. Security gate. Paved parking lot. And…lo and behold…two private gas pumps. It was about 7pm, but we found one building with the door open and the light on, so we went inside. There we met the guy who was apparently in charge of the place, working late. His English name was Simon. He invited us in and we sat down, and after a flurry of phone calls, he told us we would be able to purchase gas (the gas wasn’t for sale; it was only for company vehicles). He got in touch with the man who could pump it for us. Apparently he was just down the road playing squash. So we drove into the community. After some confusion at the security gate, we met our savior, Cox (English name again), who was super friendly and has apparently been to Fremont before. He filled up our tank and didn’t charge us any more than a normal gas station would, though we paid him quite a bit extra for his trouble.

At that point, it was smooth sailing through the border at Maseru and on to Durban…wide open highways and 24 hour gas stations. We drove all night, switching every couple of hours. We arrived at the airport at dawn—or so we thought. When we got to the airport, we were met with a closed gate and a security guard. Although the sign said “Durban International Airport”, apparently the real airport was 50 km north. It turns out that the Durban airport was very recently relocated a few months ago (probably in anticipation for the World Cup), and we were at the old location. Apparently Clare missed the memo. So we drove like hell and made it to the new airport (King Shaka International!) with literally about 20 minutes to spare before check-in closed for our flight. Amazing.

Now we’re back in Cape Town, trying to finish up our work here. Some things are working. Most things aren’t. But we’re learning, and I think we’ll have some nice results in the near future. Rick keeps talking about primers and amplicons and loops. I don’t really understand much of it. But I’m building a cool gadget. Quantitative nucleic acid analysis in the palm of your hand. With a touchscreen.