Tale of my Missing Suitcase...or Rather Backpack

I always go back and forth on if I believe in luck or not. Oprah says luck is "preparation meets opportunity," and then there's just plain old fashioned chance. I'm currently reading "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb so I'm going to keep an open mind for now. What I do know for sure is that my luck (or nonluck if there is no such thing) is like a yoyo. It has been my whole life. I am both the most likely person you know to win the lottery, and most likely to be eaten by a shark. It's either high or low, I don't dabble in the middle.

I hit a snag on my trip. My flight from South Africa to London was canceled because the pilots of British Airways are apparently not being paid enough, or maybe they want more gold shiny buttons on their uniforms. Because of it, I missed my connections on to Italy. I'm not a huge crier and tend to roll with the punches. But this set me off. MELTDOWN. A complete wailing idiot. It started as I dealt with the BA team's complete indifference in JoBerg, and continued the next morning as I described my rolling backpack to the "luggage inquiries" lady at Heathrow. She told me my bag was checked in Zimbabwe on the flight that was canceled (days before it turns out) and there was no record of where my bag was at the moment (they hand-write the tags in Zimbabwe so until it made it to SA it was untrackable). I finally made it through the long terminal change at Heathrow over to where the Italy flights depart. At this point I had been traveling for nearly 30 long hours, was sad to have left my friends in Africa but excited to be meeting someone in Italy, so my tears continued. Two very nice Alitalia agents tried everything in the world to get me to Sicily, but because of the strike it was going to take a couple of days. I thanked them for their hour-long effort and moped off in search of a coffee. I was now in London with no plan, no bag, wearing shorts and flipflops and it was cold and rainy outside. 

I regrouped, booked a hotel online from the BA lounge and took the tube into London. I bought a couple light sweaters on clearance at the Gap and even had dinner at Loco Mexicano right by hotel (margaritas were delicious, the fajitas need some work). I had complete faith that my bag would soon show up and I could depart London for somewhere warmer. The next day I tried to extend my hotel a second night when it was evident my bag's arrival wasn't imminent. It was full. I figured it would eventually be delivered to that hotel so needed to stay somewhere within reasonable walking distance. 

I walked to a few nearby hotels - all full. I was near Belgrave Road, a street lined with B&Bs, that I had stayed on twice during previous trips. I went door to door - occupied. No room in the inn; I have a new appreciation for what Mary and Joseph endured. I went into one and there was a nice Indian man working who told me they too were full. I must have had a defeated expression, because he then said, "well, we have one non-regular room." I'll take it. He assured me I should see it first so I followed him through the hall, down the stairs leading to the basement and into the laundry room. There was a door with nothing but an emergency exit arrow on it that he opened and sure enough, inside there was a bed. A large closet had been re-purposed and the nearest bathroom was on a whole different floor. Too tired to haggle, I paid way too much for my closet just happy to have a pillow I could rest my head on for the night.

London is a great city, so I decided take advantage of being there. The only major tourist site I hadn't yet been to in London that I could think of was the Tate Britain museum. I spent about 15 minutes wandering around it (national museums in London are free) and thought - I really don't like contemporary/modern museum art. My favorite part of the museum was the loo -  I lingered under the warm hand dryer as long as I could without appearing homeless. So I left and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly around London popping into shops and cafes. Somehow in my warped brain, walking around the cold wet streets in flip flops was a personal triumph over British Airways...I'll show you who's tougher you strikers! Why buy new airline reimbursable shoes when you can make such a strong statement to those who strike?

I finally retrieved my backpack around 10pm on the second night. Even though I had updated/confirmed/reconfirmed my new hotel info, it was of course still delivered to my previous hotel. I checked the weather for a few cities in Europe I had not yet visited; Lisbon looked to be sunny and nice so I booked a flight for the following morning. My backpack and I set out for our next adventure, reunited at last.

 I'm officially an Overlander. We bounced along 5400 kilometers through southern Africa. The beginning of the trip was like a bad boyfriend. You want to leave him, but then he goes and does something wonderful so you stick around. The first few days were so hot, long and the most exciting activity was putting up our tents, that I wanted to break up with it. Then I saw an African sunset and decided this was a three week relationship that I wanted to in...and what an incredible and fun life experience I got in return.

There is something about Africa. Photos do no justice and experiences do not translate into words. It's really more of a feeling you get. You get it when you're watching the sunrise over giant sand dunes, or while watching mommy and baby elephants frolic in a river. It hits you when you look into the night sky and the stars look so close that you can reach out and grab a handful. Or free-falling backwards in a gorge above the Zambezi river. You feel it when you're playing soccer against local village boys who are so excited to be kicking a real ball. Most of all, you get the feeling while looking into the eyes of the African people - eyes that tell a thousand stories of a life that I could never even begin to imagine. 

In an effort to keep this blog a reasonable length let me summarize: I'm sick of bugs. Flies buzzing in my ears makes me bonkers. A jackal pawing at my tent makes me scream and jump. I pretty much had "pissy ankles" for three weeks and the bottom of my feet may be permanently dirty. I can put up a tent but still prefer someone else to do the hard/dirty part like roll it up and put it in the bag (thank you tentmate Annabel). I had an absolute blast playing underwater Chinese freeze tag in a pool with my fellow Overlanders. Butternut is my new favorite vegetable. Botswana was voted "least corrupt African country" by its peers but I'm not sure I agree; the border
crossing between Botswana and Zambia ranks high in the most bizarre events I've ever experienced. Flipflops are not for rock climbing. Victoria Falls - amazing. Sleeping in an open-air treehouse along a river full of hippos is incredible. Lions are mysterious. Guinea Fowl are stupid. All the animals are fun to watch in their natural habitats. Sunsets in Africa overwhelm me with their magnificence.


One of my favorite experiences was in the largest inland delta in the world - in the Okavango river in Botswana. We went for a sunset ride in a makoro (that's me in the canoe) through the marsh - the pictures say it all. The African Painted Reed Frog we spotted was my favorite animal sighting of the trip!

Am I officially old if I talk about weather? It's just that I'd like to note that whoever says "dry heat" isn't so bad has never gone on a two hour walk through the Namib desert in 112f (45c) heat. The heat doesn't get much dryer than in the middle of sand dune, and there wasn't one piece of clothing on my body dry - I was drenched in sweat.

Vaccinations are really expensive, so I put mine to work. I ate loads of travel-expert forbidden fruits and veg; I'd even eat them unwashed from stands on the roadside. I'm a man(go)niac. Of course eating like this combined with strange meat is not without side effects. But that's okay because a trip like this brings people close together, quickly. I have never discussed "faxing" so publicly in my life. Sometimes it's an urgent fax, other times the fax machine is jammed. Perhaps it's out of paper, or worse you can only send one of three pages. These are the discussions that fused the lifelong intestinal bonds with my new Overland friends.

I was sitting on the dirty floor of the 'airport' in Zimbabwe waiting for my flight to JoBurg and this wave of sadness came over me. The same thing happened when I left Kenya nearly three years ago. Africa is like no place on earth. I want to go back before I even leave.

click here to see my overland adventure photo album

Overland Trip Report - Namibia

I survived my first week on Christie - she's our 23-year-old truck that took us through South Africa in Namibia, and then will onto Botswana and Zambia.  I'm on an overland trip, which means I'm traveling a far distance in a bumpy, luxury-free truck that can take us places a normal car or bus allow us to go. Like through the middle of a desert. I'm traveling with 13 others plus three guides. The group is heavily weighted female and I really really like some of the girls and am excited to have new friends spread around the world to visit. I'm the only American - no surprise there. (come on Americans, we've got to get traveling more!). I'm called Lone Star, and with being the only American comes the added bonus of being the butt of many jokes! Two of our guides are English and the third is Dougie, our Zimbabwean cook who whips up very delicious dinners each night. 

Trip Route:

Click here for Trip Itinerary 

It's amazing how adaptive we are as humans. The first few days were miserable: it was 113 degrees out and we were averaging about 8 hours a day in the truck. But somehow you adjust to being hot and bouncing around and between my ipod, cold water and a lot of bumpy Uno games the hours pass in good fun. I now know how to pitch a tent and am used to ridiculously large bugs. Have you ever gotten that email forward that says how people eat like 12 spiders each year? I've decided that most people don't eat any spiders in normal life, and us overlanders are bringing up the average because I can't even begin to tell you how many bugs I've fished out of my tea or off my plate. Your cleanliness standards dip quite low on a trip like this. And getting out of my tent at night and taking two steps for a wee (as most call it) actually becomes pretty darn convenient! Except on windy nights, and then you end up with what Claire calls in her Irish accent "pissy ankles." And those are no fun. 

We camped in a citrus orchard the first night and since then have mainly been in the Namib desert. We watched the sunset over the beautiful Fish River Canyon (think Grand), climbed a huge sand dune to watch the sunrise and went on a desert bush walk where we saw "the little 5." It was fascinating to see how life survives in the desert, and equally fascinating watching my own ankles swell up because unlike the dung beetle, they are not suited for desert life. 

sand dunes as far as the eye can see

A group of us spent today in the local township learning about their culture and eating a traditional meal. Which means we handled dried hyena anus used for a healing tea and were served caterpillar. The townships were set up as part of Apartheid in the 1960s when the black and coloureds (not a derogatory term in Africa and means something different from 'black') were moved out of the neighborhoods from the whites and given separate housing outside of town. My pockets were stuffed with balloons and candy and the kids just go crazy for it; watching their faces light up is one of the most fun activities of all.  

Most of the time our itinerary says the name of a place we are staying, like right now we are in Swakopmand Namibia. A couple of nights ago, however, it just said "middle of nowhere" for where we'd be camping. I thought we had been in the middle of nowhere for days already, but no, it turns out that we literally did stay in the middle of nowhere. Any time someone has to "dig the dunny" it's a bit disturbing. It ended up being one of our most fun nights as we all sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows and playing games. Humor transcends our international crowd. 

The most dangerous thing about this trip isn't the rabid wildlife or the threat of cholera. Instead, it's the ideas put in my head by listening to my fellow travelers. I now think it would be a real shame to resettle in the US without first bumming around southeast Asia on a shoestring for a couple months this fall. 

From here we do more bush camping and then two days in Etosha National Park where we'll be enjoying game drives. We have a few more adventures before ending with 3 days in Victoria Falls where I will then fly out of Zimbabwe to Italy. I started off worried that I wouldn't survive three weeks overlanding, but now can tell that these weeks will be a blast, make me a bit tougher and create memories that will last a lifetime. 

Cape Town Capers

Cape Town is a great city, although it felt more like a big European city than an African one. It's a beautiful city built in a bowl surrounded by Table Mountain. The waterfront area reminded me of being at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. There is a lot of activity in preparation for the World Cup which starts in less than 100 days. It's like in those Flip This House episodes where the open house is in 5 hours and you think there's no way the house will be ready - same for the stadium, streets, parking and transportation. I cannot see how it possible that it's all ready come June, but hopefully it will be ready.

I was very ignorant of Apartheid prior to going to CT, and what I learned was just appalling. I went to Robbin Island where Nelson Mandela was held in prison and his life there was shocking. I also went to some of the large Townships and I was very impressed with what the government is doing to move people from very sub-standard living to permanent homes. By 2014, there should be no shacks or shanties left in Cape Town. But even then, the scars from Apartheid won't be healed. 

I spent a day visiting the South African winelands which were absolutely beautiful! The wine was smooth and incredibly inexpensive. A NICE bottle of wine could easily be bought for $3. It's too bad I couldn't mail any home. 

I had some worries about my safety being in CT alone, although it turns out I was worried about the wrong kind of carjacker. I was driving down to Cape of Good Hope when the car in front of me paused to snap a pic of a baboon walking along a cliff. Seeing a good photo opp I put my foot on the brake too, only to have the baboon open my back passenger car door and let himself in. He promptly climbed into my front seat and began ransacking my backpack. I was terrified; in trying to get out of the car i forgot I still had my seatbelt on and car in drive and nearly rear-ended the SUV in front of me. There were signs everywhere indicating how dangerous the baboons are, and now here I was outside my car surrounded by baboons, and had a giant one inside my car destroying my things and eating my powerbars. I finally got him outside my car, only he took my backpack with him. It took about 20 minutes to recover my backpack and most of my things, and hours before my frayed nerves were calmed. It was a horrible experience and the signs should be changed to warn that baboons open car doors. 

Here's the baboon contemplating a joyride in my rental car!

I definitely plan to return to Cape Town on a future trip to Africa! 

Cape of Good Hope

I visited one of two natural mainland penguin colonies in the world and the penguins were so much fun to watch!