Saturday Night in Calvinia South Africa

I finished reading Julian Smith’s excellent book Crossing the Heart of Africa which attempting to fall asleep in a guesthouse near Worcester.  The book chronicles Smith’s attempt to retrace the steps of an Englishman named Grogan who during the late 1890s and early 1900s tried to be the first person to travel from Cape Town to Cairo on foot.  Grogan undertook this arduous journey to prove to the father of a woman from New Zealand that he was worthy enough to marry the man’s daughter.  Smith made his trip because of his fascination with Grogan and as a prelude to his own upcoming wedding.

Smith’s book was not as in-depth or as enlightening as any work by Paul Theroux, yet it was a valuable commentary on traveling and the hardships that go with it once you leave the Euorpean-esque security of South Africa and venture into the rest of Africa.  Smith began his journey in Cape Town and traveled north.  Theroux began the journey for his book Dark Star Safari in Cairo and traveled south to Cape Town.  I thought it was most appropriate that I had finished both of their books an hour by car from where one of them began and the other ended their journey.

The Karoo is a vast semi-desert region in the interior of southern and western South Africa.  It’s the interface between the vast Namib Desert to the north and the succulent fynbos vegetation that lines South Africa’s southern coast.  It’s an extensive area of low scrubby vegetation that will remind North Americans of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.  To the average person the Karoo is a vast wasteland with no practical value.  To a naturalist it’s a vast cornucopia of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth.  I wanted to see the Karoo through the eyes of a naturalist.

Travel into and across the Karoo is problematic during the rainy season and without sufficient water it is suicidal in the middle of summer.  My visit was during the shoulder period between those two extremes.  Locals at the edge of the Karoo told me that although the previous winter wasn’t as rainy as they had hoped I could expect a great display of wild flowers as I moved across the desert.  Anyone with an eye for nature that has been in the Mojave Desert of California or the Sonoran Desert in Arizona in spring knows what a beautiful riot of colorful flowering plants can be produced by winter rains.  There the right amount of winter rain occurs only once every ten years or so.  Conditions were similar in the Karoo and as I drove through it I regularly stopped to visually inhale the enormous beauty of a desert on fire with color.

A bird watching guide to Southern Africa recommended travel across the Karoo on a dirt and rock road signposted the R 355.  That same guide forewarns travelers about the condition of the rocky and bumpy road saying that the R 355 is renowned for puncturing tires. The guide went on to recommend that travelers carry with them at least two spare tires throughout their journey.

I intersected the R 355 somewhere northeast of Worcester.  From that point to Calvinia, the only place resembling a large town in the Karoo, was 130 miles of horrible road.  Its biggest distinction was that these 130 miles were the longest stretch of road in South Africa without a settlement or habitation along it.

Unfamiliar birds flushed from the roadside throughout my journey.  My already snail-like pace across the desert was made even slower by the frequent stops to identify birds or simply to look at the landscape.  Karoo vegetation has been evolving millions of years since the last glaciation scoured the landscape.  Evolving with the vegetation was an entire suite of bird species that had adapted to the unique vegetation.  Clearly there were forty or fifty species of birds here that could not be found elsewhere in South Africa.  It paid to travel slowly, stop often, and look at every bird I could find.

About thirty miles north on the R 355 I was passed by two 4 x 4 trucks each with a camper top covering the bed and one of them was pulling a trailer.  Had I been back in Australia they would have been called a caravan.  Both trucks had to be traveling at least sixty miles an hour down this terrible bouncy and rutted road.  I wondered what condition everyone’s kidneys would be in after a morning of jarring travel.  I was traveling less than twenty miles per hour.  Their passage produced huge billows of dust that clogged my view and that of any birds along the road’s verge.  An hour after they passed me I found this pair parked by the roadside.  I thought they had stopped for coffee.

Pale chanting goshawks, one of the prettiest hawks I have seen anywhere on earth, sat like sentinels on the electric wire poles that paralleled the road.  As predicted, the ample winter rains had produced a kaleidoscope of colorful flowering plants.  At the start of the R 355 virtually every flower was yellow.  However as I progressed north and the soils and the vegetation became sparser the color of the flowers changed from pink to lavender to red.  The R 355 began to remind me of the road to Hereford, Arizona along the Mexico border where spring flowers bloom in profusion.

 After a long, bumpy, desolate trek across the Karoo, I crested a small hill and saw Calvinia laid out before me.  It appeared as a green oasis on the floor of the desert surrounded by massive Utah-like buttes.  Two trucks had passed me as I drove north and two others passed me as they drove south during the seven hours and 130 miles that I drove on the R 355. 

I checked into the Die Blou Nartige guesthouse near the edge of town.  Herman Wick, the owner, appeared from a back room and welcomed me to “the Blue Orange” guesthouse.  Blou nartije (blue orange in Afrikaans) is an endangered desert shrub.  Herman named his guest house after the plant and did not know it was an endangered species until a Cape Town botanist stayed one night and told him about the plant and its precarious status. 

Unloading my belongings from my car I noticed that the left rear tire was quickly going flat.  The R 355 had struck again almost as if it had been selected to so in the South African birding guide.  I was lucky it was a slow leak that didn’t get worse until I was in Calvinia.

While there was still some air in the tire I drove quickly to the nearby "Supa Quick" tire repair shop.  This being a Saturday afternoon the shop was closed.  However I laughed as I drove into the parking lot because the two 4x4 trucks that had passed me going north on the R 355 were parked in the same lot waiting for repairs.  One tire, on the truck driven by Jan, was flat.  When I had seen this pair pulled to the side of the road they were not having coffee as I suspected.  Instead they were fixing a flat tire.  Once the flat was replaced the spare tire was quickly punctured and was rapidly losing air.

“We passed you on that god-awful road,” Neels began.  “And then you passed us a little later.”

Neels, his brother-in-law Jan and their wives were from Ceres, South Africa, not far from Worcester where I spent the previous night.  They were enroute to Bushmanland for a week of four-wheeling in the desert. At least that was the plan once Jan’s two tired were repaired.  Neels had called the emergency phone number for the tire shop and learned that the owner was in the middle of eighteen holes of golf at the local course.  He told Neels he would be there to help us once he finished his round of golf.  After introductions and an explanation of my trip to South Africa they told me about their regular 4-wheel drive adventures in the desert.  “Namibia.  You have to go to Namibia, Craig,” I was told by Neels.  “Namibia is where it’s still wild.”

Jan then recounted a story about a recent camping trip to Namibia.  “We parked in the middle of nowhere and put our tent on the top of the 4-wheeler.  It must have been midnight when we were jolted awake by the roar of a Namibian lion!”

“I looked out the tent flap,” Jan continued, “and there not sixty feet away was a male lion in full mane.  He had with him a female and two youngsters. They just stood there looking at our truck and the male kept roaring.”

Jan and his wife stayed awake until past two o’clock.  “We were shivering and it was 99 degrees out!  Finally the male tired of roaring and they all just walked away.”

Jan then said, “I think we just pissed them off camping in the middle of their area and that’s why they roared so much.”  Jokingly I asked if they took any pictures of the lions.  Jan’s wife smiled and said, “The camera was down below in the truck and there was no fucking way I was going to go get it.”

One desert animal that I really wanted to see in the wild was the honey badger.  It looks like a large skunk and has an attitude like ten wolverines with steroidal rage.  There are several documented records of a lone honey badger coming on to a group of lions eating an animal they had killed.  Undaunted and outnumbered the lone honey badger scared them all away and took over the kill.  Imagine an animal smaller than a Labrador retriever.  Put white stripes on it and give it the personality of a wolverine and that is a honey badger.

“Oh, you want to see a honey badger, huh,” Neels asked.  “They are scarce but they are out there in the desert. We see one or two a year.”  I asked if the stories I had heard about their ferocity were true.

“Damned right they are true,” Jan said.  “If I was a male lion and I came onto a honey badger the first thing I would do is put my paws over my nuts and run away hoping that crazy fucker wasn’t hungry.”

We talked more about Namibia and then switched to the wildness of Botswana and from there came back to South Africa.  The country was a major discussion point with about every South African I met.  I recounted some of my experiences so far in South Africa and mentioned that everywhere I went people were worried about crime.  Yet the only time I felt the least bit concerned for my safety was very briefly in Johannesburg.

“It’s all tribal,” Neels started.  “If your great grandfather hurt someone a hundred years ago, the black South African population remembers it.  That means today if you are a descendant of that person you are a target.”

What Neels described was reminiscent of the Arabs and the Jews at each other’s throats in the Middle East.  Only there the memory goes back two thousand years not merely one hundred.  It is also the same story with the ridiculousness of the North and the South standoff that continues today in the United States.  At least here only the South remains bent out of shape because they lost the “War of Northern Aggression” nearly 150 years ago.

“I think it’s in their genes to be violent,” Neels said. “Just look at what the early explorers found when they arrived in Africa.  Nobody had any interaction with the blacks before yet when the whites arrived the blacks attacked them.”  Grogan, the explorer who walked across the length of Africa from Cape Town to Cairo commented similarly more than 100 years ago.  It didn’t matter where Grogan was on the continent, the local residents robbed him blind when they saw an opportunity.  Grogan also described some brutal interactions between blacks.  It had nothing to do with honor or personal defense or anything else.  It was the nature of the locals to be violent.

 “When we were under white rule in South Africa we had crime but nothing like we have now,” Jan said.  “If you are in Johannesburg and you cross a street in a way someone doesn’t like they kill you.  Go to a crowded area and your pocket will be picked.  Leave your car window down and someone will steal whatever they can grab.” Neels continued, “It’s almost never white on white or white on black.  Its black on black or black on white.”

Jan then asked me about the United States.  “Where is the most crime in your country?”  I told him that Detroit has the highest murder rate in the nation.  “And what is the dominant ethnic group in Detroit,” he asked.

In the United States there is continual mention that seventy percent of the prison population is black.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and other black leaders claim that the prison population is dominated by blacks because of a prejudiced judicial system.  However nobody, and especially no politician, has ever come out and asked the rather obvious question – Could it be that seventy percent of the people in prison are black because seventy percent of the crime is committed by black people?’  My guess is that it is.  Unfortunately nobody will ever conduct research to confirm or disprove that point.  Until then we will continue to hide behind the curtain of white rage and not confront the obvious.  There were many more people than Jan and Neels who said essentially the same thing wherever I traveled in South Africa.

The subject changed back to travel and I mentioned a woman named Susan who was in my life then.  “So why isn’t she on the trip with you,” Neels wife Evelyn asked.

I mentioned her concerns about travel in Africa and Neels laughed.  “When you come back to South Africa you bring her along.  You will stay with Evelyn and me for a few days.  Maybe we will take a four-wheeler trip to Namibia or Botswana.  She will find out it’s as easy to be in Africa as it is to be in the United States.”  Neels was correct however a month to the day later Susan was freaking out in relatively sanguine Nicaragua.  She would never survive Africa.

Christopher, the owner of the tire shop, showed up two hours after our arrival.  Despite Neels and Jan having about 150 miles of inhospitable desert to cross, and despite the sun quickly being consumed by the western horizon, they insisted that my tire be repaired first.  “We just want to wait around to make sure you are ok,” Jan said.  Theirs was an outlook that I found commonly among black and white South Africans.

My tire had been punctured in the middle of the tread obviously by a very sharp rock somewhere along the R 355.  I was lucky that it hadn’t been more extensive or more severe and I had wound up stranded in the middle of the Karoo. Because of the Saturday afternoon call for repair service Christopher charged me the equivalent of sixty dollars US to repair the tire.  The entire operation took five minutes to complete.  That certainly beat the ninety cents I once paid to repair a flat tire in Tela, Honduras.

As I prepared to leave the tire shop to continue my exploring, Neels thanked me for two hours of conversation.  Jan then said, “You’re not at all like the other Americans I have met.” I thanked him for the compliment and then asked for clarification.  “You take Africa on its terms.  Most Americans want Africa on their terms.”  A bed and breakfast owner in Ireland once told me the same thing about accepting her country.

Akkerndam Preserve is a large nature reserve on the north side of Calvinia.  I spent the remaining sunlight hours enjoying a hike through the riotous colors of desert vegetation that seemed even more prominent here.  Just before the sun disappeared behind a giant butte, a black-headed canary sang its evening song while perched on a flowering shrub and a Karoo chat chortled out its jumbled song from a nearby patch of small trees.  I waited there for darkness to overtake me.  When it did I was overwhelmed by the deathly silence of the desert.  It was the same in the Karoo as it was in the Negev Desert of Israel and the Sahara Desert of Morocco or the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico.  Complete silence is one of the most pleasant experiences you can have in a desert.

Rolling up the sidewalks on a Saturday night in Calvinia

Dinner options were limited as I later walked around Calvinia.  Whomever I asked on the street told me that the best food in town was at the guest house where I was staying.  Calvinia after dark on a Saturday night was like most other small towns.  Several people sat at the local bar drinking Windhoek larger beer from Namibia while watching rugby on satellite television.  Teenaged boys stood on street corners making the same ridiculous comments to teenaged girls that teenaged boys make everywhere on the planet.  Mothers hurriedly left the food store carrying bags of groceries needed to prepare the night’s dinner.  Other teenagers in cars were driving up and down Main Street “bombing Main” as we did when I was that age.  Then, as has probably happened in Calvinia for ages, the streets rolled up at 7:30 and everyone went home.

Dinner was lamb pie at the guest house restaurant.  I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes after eight and was the only person present.  By 8:15 there were no empty tables.  “We’re usually busy but not usually this slow,” said Grace one of the servers.  Asking her if she didn’t mean that the other way around, Grace said “We are the only place to be in Calvinia on Saturday night.  In fact this is the only place to be on Saturday night.

As Grace asked me where I was staying she also wanted to know if I would like another glass of pinotage to wash down my lamb pie.  Telling her I was staying at the guest house she said “Since you don’t have to drive there is no excuse not to have another glass of wine. And because we rarely see Americans in Calvinia let me buy this glass for you.”

Grace returned with my glass of pinotage and then asked if I would be there for breakfast.  Answering yes she wondered if I would mind paying for dinner tomorrow morning because she was too busy with the Saturday night crowd to take care of my bill.  She then said, “It’s not to worry.  We trust everyone in this town.  It’s not like Johannesburg here.”

Calvinia really isn’t and especially on Saturday night.

A Glimpse of the Kalahari Desert

The moments before dawn surpass the sunrise as the best time to be in the desert.  Last night’s battles for survival have ended and today’s have not yet begun.  Last night’s chill hangs heavy in the air as the sun prepares to share its morning warmth.  The ethereal quiet that overwhelms desert visitors is the dominant physical force.  All of this begins to change as the sun starts its march across the horizon.  The warming rays cause birds to begin singing.  Reptiles seek out a spot in the warming sun and the other half of life in the desert springs into action. 

Early morning on the Karoo near Calvinia

A morning of deathly silence and immense beauty began to unfold in front of me as I stood in a patch of desert near Calvinia watching the day begin.  No birds new to my list passed in front of me however that did not diminish the immenseness of the desert’s attractiveness near Calvinia as it had been earlier as I traversed the R 355 road through the Karoo desert.  Untouched, untrammeled, and undisturbed African wilderness extended from one horizon to the other.  For as far as my eyes could see there was nothing except Africa as it always has been.  It was another reason that I was beginning to feel like I did not ever want to depart Africa.

Althea, the breakfast hostess at the restaurant I visited last night was working when I returned from the desert.  She mentioned a couple from San Francisco that used to travel annually to Calvinia to view the riot of flowering plants in spring.   She wondered out loud why so few Americans travel to South Africa.

“My guess is that it’s out of fear of the unknown,” I said.  “Only eleven percent of Americans have a passport and that means that only about thirty million travel internationally.  Most of them, it seems, go to Mexico, the Caribbean or Europe.  Africa has negative connotations to too many people and too few Americans want to find out if it’s true.”

Americans, for all of our wealth and presumed power, are extremely parochial and nationalistic.  Fueled in part by the hyper-partisan right wing media industry, many people believe that America is the best, greatest, and only country worth knowing and woe be to anyone who disagrees with that myopic point of view.  Consider the anti-French hysteria that gripped the nation not long after America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Vive le France!

Possessing more testosterone than intelligence, former President (and I use that word loosely) George W. Bush made the nascent political decision to attack Iraq despite any and all evidence showing that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11 attacks on the United States.  The country had been fed heaping helpings of lies and obfuscation leading up to that invasion.  Pictures were painted of mushroom clouds draped over the American landscape if Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were not eliminated.  Otherwise honest and reliable Secretary of State Colin Powell sat in front of the United Nations and said with a straight face that the United States had “irrefutable evidence” that Hussein possessed all of those weapons and probably many more.  The only solution was to remove them forcefully.  President Bush cobbled together his poorly-named “Coalition of the Willing” and began preparations to invade a nation that never once threatened the United States.

France did not see things through the same cocky set of eyes that George Bush possessed.  France told the President to take a deep breath, think about what he was going to do, review the data again and look for a diplomatic solution to the issue.  When Bush moved forward in spite of the evidence and then asked France to join his loose-knit coalition, France loudly and proudly said “no.”  In fact, France said “hell no.”  What followed was a display of child-like parochialism likely never again to be seen on the world stage.  Americans began dumping their Evian bottled water because it was produced in France.  

After the French debacle Evian is the only bottled water I drink

The facades of French restaurants in Washington, D.C., New York City and elsewhere were vandalized, defaced and in some cases fire bombed.  Making matters worse the once-respected United States Congress agreed to change the name of “French Fries” on the Capitol restaurant menu to “Freedom Fries” as a form of protest against France.  The right wing media glommed on to this nonsense and fanned the flames of French hatred.  All across America people broke out in unscripted and spontaneous chants of “USA, USA, USA” while the rest of the world clutched its collective sides and doubled over in uncontrolled laughter.

"Freedom Fries" - How incredibly embarrassing is this?

The French debacle was only one of many situations where American actions proved that the Bush Administration deserved no place on the international stage.  In the end, France had every right to thumb its nose at the United States for wanting to be a bully in Iraq.  Despite the collective right wing outrage to the contrary which country – the United States or France – was correct?  History has shown unambiguously that it was not the United States. 

“It’s a shame,” I told her, “that more Americans don’t come to Calvinia or even to South Africa.  However we have allowed ourselves to be scared into a corner and I don’t see us climbing out of that corner any time soon.”

About forty miles north of Calvinia the composition of the desert soils made a demonstrable and measurable change.  Vegetation became widely scattered and the landscape took on the appearance of a moonscape.  I diverted east at Brandlvei and searched the surrounding desert for birds.  The species composition here was markedly different than just a few miles further south near Calvinia.  The changes came about because the landscape was transitioning from the Karoo Desert to the Kalahari.

The Kalahari Desert (it means “thirsty land” in Afrikaans) is a large semi-arid savanna extending over more than 350,000 square miles covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa.   As semi-desert, with huge tracts of grazing after good rains, the Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert such as the Namib to the west.  There are small amounts of rainfall and the summer temperature is very high. It usually receives up to eight inches of rain per year.  The surrounding Kalahari Basin covers more than 970,000 square miles extending farther into Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and encroaching into parts of Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Ancient dry riverbeds traverse the central northern reaches of the Kalahari and provide standing pools of water during the rainy season.

Previously havens for wild animals from elephants to giraffes, and for predators such as lions and cheetah, the riverbeds are now mostly grazing spots, although leopards and cheetahs can still be found. Among deserts of the southern hemisphere the Kalahari most closely resembles some Australian deserts in its latitude and its mode of formation.  The Kalahari Desert was once a much wetter place. Ancient Lake Makgadikgadi covered the Makgadikgadi Pan until its final drainage some 10,000 years ago.  It may have once covered as much as 106,000 square miles.  Despite its aridity, the Kalahari supports a variety of fauna and flora. The native flora includes acacia trees and many other herbs and grasses. Some of the areas within the Kalahari are seasonal wetlands.  This area supports numerous salt-tolerant species.  In the rainy season tens of thousands of migrant birds visit the desert wetlands.

Downtown Brandlvei was a madhouse of activity when I was there

Brandlvei is a tiny village plopped down in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the Kalahari. There are several stores along the main street, one restaurant, one place that passes itself off as a hotel (of sorts) and a gasoline station.  Edward, an attorney from Cape Town, was filling his Land Rover with gasoline when I drove into the station to purchase some water.  He heard my voice when I spoke to the station attendant and asked if I was Canadian or American.  Confirming the latter he asked why I was in Brandlvei and I explained about bird watching.  His next question, by now quite predictable, was about my impressions of South Africa.  My answer was, by now, equally as predictable.  Edward told me that the “contrast between whites and blacks is just as stark out here in the desert as it is anywhere else in the country.” My response to Edward was that here it appeared that the chasm wasn’t between the haves and the have not’s” but between the haves and the never will have’s.

“The blacks wanted to rule the country and they have been for twenty years.  All they have done in that time is to make matters worse.  At its current rate of decay South Africa is going to be like all the other black-dominated countries in Africa in a few years,” Edward said.  He then added that “It’s not surprising that so much animosity exists, however nothing is holding the blacks back from improving their situation except the blacks themselves.”  As with so many similar conversations I had in South Africa, Edward’s opinions were stated openly and loudly and directly in front of a group of black people standing near him.  There was no effort to hide anything.

Miles of seemingly endless miles of desert passed by me as I traveled north.  Intermittent stops along the highway produced new birds for my list as gemsbok and springbok began to appear on the landscape.  Just before Kakamas, the road crested a small hill and then descended into the valley of the Orange River, the longest river in South Africa.   It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho and then flows westward through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. It forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Namibia and between South Africa and Lesotho, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Although the river does not pass through any major cities, it plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation.

The Orange River - Lifeline of the Kalahari

In the last 500 miles of its course, the Orange receives many intermittent streams and several large wadis lead into it.  The Orange empties into the Atlantic at Alexander Bay which is about halfway between Cape Town and Walvis Bay.  About twenty miles from its mouth the river is completely obstructed by rapids and sand bars.  The river has a total length of about 1,400 miles. 

Irrigation in the vast area downstream of the Vanderkloof Dam was made possible by the construction of two dams. Old, established irrigation schemes have also benefitted because regulation of the flow is now possible. In recent years the wine producing areas along the Orange River have also grown in importance. Irrigation in the Eastern Cape has also received a tremendous boost, not only from the additional water that is being made available but also owing to improvement in water quality. Without this improvement the citrus growers would have continued to experience productivity losses

In 1867, the first diamond discovered in South Africa, the Eureka Diamond, was found near Hopetown on the Orange River.  Two years later, a much larger diamond known as the Star of South Africa, was found in the same area causing an almost instantaneous diamond rush. This was soon eclipsed by the diamond rush to mine diamonds at Kimberley in 1871 although alluvial diamonds continued to be found in the Orange. Today, several commercial diamond mines operate on the last stretch of the river, as well as the beaches around its mouth.

Upington South Africa on the Orange River

Upington is the largest South African settlement in the Kalahari.  Nestled in the valley of the Orange River its wide quiet streets and thick riverside vegetation provide a peaceful respite from the scorching desert that surrounds the city.  Its municipal airport with a couple of flights daily to Cape Town and to Johannesburg serves as the focal point of much of what makes Upington the regional business center.

The Lonely Planet travel guide to South Africa said, without equivocation, that a guesthouse on River Street was simply the best place to stay in Upington.  Having carried Lonely Planet with me to every country I have ever spent a night in, I have yet to find a single thing wrong with their interpretations, the schedules provided or the recommendations they make.  It quickly became a no-brainer that I wanted to stay at this guesthouse. 

Upington is the jumping off point for treks north to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.  An amalgamation of the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa and the Gemsbok National Park in Botswana, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park comprises an area of nearly eight million acres is one of very few conservation areas of this magnitude left in the world.

Red sand dunes, sparse vegetation and the dry riverbeds of the Nossob and Auob show off antelope and predator species to spectacular advantage.  Kgalagadi is also a haven for birders, especially those interested in birds of prey. 

I traveled the road north toward the park for about 100 miles but turned around just short of the Transfrontier Park. Gemsbok dotted the landscape as I traveled north.  Most were in groups of two to eight and they seemed to be evenly distributed across the landscape. They are light brownish-grey to tan with lighter patches toward the bottom rear of the rump. Their tails are long and black in color. A blackish stripe extends from the chin down the lower edge of the neck, through the juncture of the shoulder and leg along the lower flank of each side to the blackish section of the rear leg. They have muscular necks and shoulders and their legs have white 'socks' with a black patch on the front of both the front legs and both genders have long, straight horns.

Gemsbok were widely hunted for their spectacular horns that average nearly three feet long.  From a distance the only outward difference between males and females is their horns, and many mistake females for males. In males, these horns are perfectly straight, extending from the base of the skull to a slight outward and rearward angle. Females have longer, thinner horns with a slight outward and rearward curve in addition to their angle.  Females use their horns to defend themselves and their offspring from predators, while males primarily use their horns to defend their territories from other males. Gemsbok are one of the few antelope species where female trophies are sometimes more desirable than male ones. Few large mammals are more emblematic of the Kalahari than is the gemsbok.

My quest along this road was pygmy falcon, a diminutive bird of prey that is slightly smaller but more agile than an American robin.  Pygmy falcon builds its nest in the dome-looking communal nest structures occupied by colonies of nesting social weavers.  This example of mutualism is difficult to grasp because the value the weavers receive from nesting near the falcons is not the least bit apparent.  Despite their being an abundance of social weaver colonial nests, sometimes attached to every wooden pole for a mile or more of power line, I had yet to see one. My patience was running low when, 100 miles north of Upington, I found a pair of falcons displaying to each other over a social weaver nest.  Satisfied with my views of the birds I turned around and began my return to Upington.  As I passed through the Kalahari Desert that I had just traveled without seeing a single pygmy falcon in 100 miles, on my return there were five pairs conspicuously flying around near several other social weaver colonial nests.  The last pair, the one nearest to Upington, was four miles north of the city.

Social weaver builds these elaborate communal nest structures on powerline poles and dead trees throughout the Kalahari

Since arriving in South Africa I had kept notes on the frequency and abundance of obese people I encountered.  I was especially interested in determining how many obese black people there were.  My interest stemmed from the plague of obesity that has overwhelmed the United States, especially among black people.  On arrival in Upington I saw my fifth obese South African and the first one that was black.  Why this population, black or white, is not overwhelmed with obesity is a mystery.  The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the highest obesity rate in the world.  Here a full 30.6 percent of the population is obese or morbidly obese. By comparison 3.3 percent of South Africans can be considered obese.

Once in France, after completing a gargantuan seven-course French meal that dripped with cholesterol I asked the waiter why I had not seen any obese French people.  Given the richness of French food and the love affair the French maintain with their food it was easy to imagine the entire country carrying as much or more extra weight than Americans.  “We walk everywhere go,” the waiter said, “and we drink plenty of red wine. I am convinced that is why we French are slender.”

The same might be true for South Africans especially those living away from cities where walking or bicycling are more frequent forms of transport.  Another thing that may contribute to the lack of obesity among South Africans is that unlike the United States, in South Africa there is not a fast food place like McDonald’s or Burger King on every other street corner.  Yes, they are there.  The golden arches have probably been erected in every country that has a pulse and, unfortunately, that includes South Africa, however they are not everywhere in South Africa.   There were more KFC stores than any other American-style fast food restaurant.  At least chicken has some potential for being a healthy food.

The N10 highway from Upington to the Namibia border traverses about seventy five miles of pure Kalahari Desert.  There is one small intersection with a dirt road about forty miles from Upington.  Otherwise it is completely wild and untamed and untrammeled desert.  Flocks of springbok bounded away from the highway as I sped west.  Herds of gemsbok showed off their terrific horns at three different places along the highway. Swallow-tailed bee-eaters hawked insects in one tree-lined valley, and Kalahari scrub-robins occupied every other reach of power line. Large predators were conspicuously absent from the conglomeration of wildlife which made me wonder what forces are in play that keep the population of ungulate grazers from overpopulating and ruining the desert vegetation.

Swallow-tailed Bee-eater was conspicuous in shrubby stream beds along the route

My trip from Upington to the Namibia border was completed slightly more than an hour.  South Africa required me to first complete a police interrogation before completing the departure information before customs did a thorough search of my car and its contents.  Immigration and the police both scanned my passport and each told me they were verifying my information with INTERPOL.  Apparently the government of Iceland never put me on their wanted list when I skipped out on a parking ticket in Reykjavik sixteen years earlier because everything was approved.  While immigration was still in the INTERPOL database I asked one of the agents to check to see if they had any information on the war crimes committed by George Bush or Dick Cheney. The immigration agent gave me a huge toothy smile and said, “I love it - another American who hates George Bush as much as I do.”  She then sent me on to Namibia.

Probably ten miles of desert separate the South African border post (actually on the border) and the Namibian post in a nearby small town.  On the Namibian side everything lacked the feeling of modernity that travelers enjoy in South Africa.  Here in Namibia I felt like I did when crossing into Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland.  Everything was older. Everything was dirtier and as my friend John Sidle would say, everything was more African.

Nobody at the Namibian border post was quite prepared for my request to stay in their country for one day.  “I’m just bird watching,” I started, “and nobody I know has ever been to Namibia.” 

Each person at each stop of the Namibian immigration process looked at me like I was crazy when I explained the purpose of my trip.  The two inspectors who examined my car were at first baffled and then intrigued that I carried nothing with me in the trunk of my car other than a spare tire. “But where is your luggage,” the customs officer asked. 

I explained that my luggage was at my guesthouse in Upington and I would be returning there in the evening.  I then opened the contents of my miniature day pack.  It included a book on the birds of Southern Africa, a bottle of water, a highway map of Namibia, a granola bar, my passport, and a small roll of toilet paper.

“But you do not have enough for a long stay in Namibia,” the second customs officer told me when he finished rifling through my day pack. Explaining once again that my purpose was to be in Namibia for only one day (as sunlight was quickly slipping away) I was told that I needed to talk with a supervisor.

Daniel, a massive powerful man maybe thirty years old was built like a left tackle.  He occupied most of the space behind his desk as I entered his cubicle that passed off as a supervisor’s office.

“My associate tells me that you want to visit Namibia but for only one day.  Is that correct,” Daniel barked.

Explaining to Daniel that he was correct he wanted to know how far I was going to travel and why did I want to go there.  Telling him I wanted to travel about 100 miles further west to Karasburg and that my purpose was to look for birds and to learn a little about Namibia he revealed the real purpose for the amount of attention I was receiving. Apparently this border crossing is used extensively and heavily by drug traffickers. Because I was traveling alone and without any luggage other than my binoculars and my day pack, I fit a profile that Namibia customs had developed.

Frustrated, I said to Daniel, “you have looked everywhere in my car and found nothing.  You have looked in my day pack and found nothing.  You have patted me down and found nothing.  (I was wearing a t shirt, running shorts and Jesus sandals so there was little to pat down).  About the only place you haven’t looked in is my asshole and I promise you there is nothing there.  So, sir, what is the hold up?  I would like to spend some time here but if this inquisition is going to continue then I’ll just return to South Africa.  They seem to like me there.”

“Alright, sir,” Daniel said while still barking at me.  “You make a good point.  Now give me your passport and I will stamp you in and you are free to go.  However you must check in with me on your return this afternoon.  I want to make sure you were actually doing what you said you were going to be doing.”

The Namibia border control post - the modernity of South Africa has disappeared

Once when crossing the United States border with Mexico, my friend Jon Andrew and I fit a similar profile and were detained and interrogated by US Customs agents. Because we had minimal luggage and had been in Mexico only a few days we fit their profile and the suspicion began.  We were finally let go when I showed my US government identification badge to a fellow Federal employee.  We were released with an apology.  That courtesy wasn’t extended in Namibia.  Before leaving the border post Daniel made sure that I paid the $220 Namibian dollar road tax so I could traverse the 100 miles of toad to Karasburg and return.

The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara, and Namaqua and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion.  It became a German protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of the First World War.  In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa, which imposed its laws and, from 1948, its apartheid policy.  Uprisings and demands by African leaders led the UN to assume direct responsibility over the territory. It recognized the South West Africa People’s Organization as the official representative of the Namibian people in 1973. Namibia, however, remained under South African administration during this time. Following internal violence, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990, with the exception of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands, which remained under South African control until 1994.

Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy.  Agriculture, cattle and sheep herding, tourism and mining for diamonds, uranium, gold, silver and other metals form the backbone of the nation’s economy.   Given the presence of the arid Namib Desert, it is one of the least densely populated countries in the world.  Almost half of the population lives below the international poverty line, and the nation has suffered heavily from the effects of HIV and AIDS.

The aptly-named Cinnamon-breasted Bunting

As I drove west through the blistering hot day I encountered several bird species I had not been able to find just a few miles away in South Africa.  Namaqua sandgrouse erupted from the road’s edge at almost predictable intervals while lark-like buntings sang abundantly from electric wires.  Cinnamon-breasted buntings and black-chested prinia competed with desert cisticola for supremacy in nearly every thorn-filled waterway that I passed. Gemsbok and springbok were everywhere and one of the species of duiker darted across the road before its identity could be unraveled.  Again there were no signs of large predators.  Something was keeping these grazer populations in check only I was unable to figure out what it was.

Rush hour in downtown Karasburg Namibia

Karasburg is a town of about 4,000 people in the middle of the Kalahari Desert.  It’s the largest town for hundreds of miles in any direction.  Local information said that sheep farming was the main regional industry however in the 100 miles that I passed through getting to Karasburg I did not see a single sheep.  Karasburg is also a major truck stop for transport vehicles passing from South Africa to Namibia.  More local information said that the town had a busy train station but when I found it the station looked dilapidated and I wondered when the last train passed through here.  More important than the train was wondering where it originated and where its final destination might be. 

A waitress named Annabelle working in the restaurant where I ate lunch told me that despite its small size and relative unimportance Karasburg had its share of political drama.  “We had an election here last year and about 700 people voted in it,” she said.  “They elected a new city council.  The Southwest African People’s Party won most of the votes and decided who it wanted for our mayor.  But another party, the Democrats, said the election was full of fraud and they got the election overturned.  It only stopped when this guy that everyone liked was named mayor.”

What actually happened was about 800 votes were cast and after allegations of fraud the person selected as mayor was recalled.  Once removed from office, Ernest Anderson was installed as mayor. Annabelle had the right idea but just had a few facts out of place.

I asked her what people did to relax in Karasburg.  “Relax,” she said, “What do you mean relax?”  Annabelle said there was not much to do in this little town almost 400 miles south of the Namibian capital of Windhoek.  Making matters worse it is nearly 550 miles and thirteen hours driving to Walvis Bay, the nearest Namibian town on the coast.

“We have a movie theater and many bars here,” she said.  “Mainly what we do for recreation is we get drunk or get stoned or maybe both and then we fuck.”

HIV/AIDS is a huge public health problem in Namibia where the average life expectancy is now forty nine years old.  The virus is spread primarily through heterosexual sex involving high rates of multiple partners, low rates of condom use and very high rates of alcohol abuse.  Nearly one out of every five children under eighteen years old has lost at last one parent and frequently both parents to AIDS.  Recent surveys by the Namibian government revealed that eighteen percent of the people between fifteen and forty nine years old carry the virus with twenty seven percent of the people between thirty and thirty four years old infected.  With those statistics I wondered what the infection rate was like in Karasburg and how much the boredom of life in the Kalahari Desert contributed to that rate.

Daniel was nowhere to be found when I returned to the Namibian border post in late afternoon.  Formalities were much simpler and faster than when entering the country and I was quickly on my way back to South Africa where an immigration officer, on seeing the origin of my passport, asked me “What’s it like in America?”

How do you answer a question like that?   It is like being asked, “What does air smell like?” or “How does your skin feel after you shave?” I told the agent about Florida’s beaches and how they resemble those near Port Elizabeth.  I mentioned that much of southern Arizona looks exactly like the desert here where he lived.  I told him the story of how cold it gets in winter in northern Wisconsin where I am from.  I laughed at his response when I converted the -62 degrees F temperature in my home town on January 1, 1974 to degrees Celsius.  I told him about the huge amounts of snow that fall in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, about the rocky coastline of Maine, about the beauty of the North Dakota prairie and about the immensity of New York City.

Tallee, the immigration officer, said “We see America on television. We watch CSI: Miami, Law and Order, the Closer, and other shows like that.  If they are all true then there must be more crime in America than in South Africa!”

Tallee then said he wanted to travel to America one day and I asked him why.  “You have everything in America. Everything.”  He then added “You don’t have the race problems in America that we have in South Africa.  Everyone seems to get along.” Tallee needs to start watching MSNBC and other news outlets. At least I’m glad someone things we all get along in America.

An extremely emaciated woman approached me at the border post and asked for a ride to Upington.  I had been warned every place I had been to never under any circumstances give “them” a ride no matter what the excuse or reason.  I told her no and then told her why.

“But I need to get to the doctor. I think I have AIDS and I need to be tested.”  Given her emaciated condition I would not be surprised if he did have the virus.  Elizabeth, the owner of my guesthouse in Upington told me later that evening that I had made the correct decision.

“She could have had a knife or a gun or maybe both.  You just never can trust them especially when you are so isolated.  I just never trust them anywhere.”

After exploring the Kalahari for another full morning I spent my final afternoon in the garden of my guesthouse drinking Windhoek beer and watching the Orange River flow by me on its way to its meeting with the Atlantic Ocean.  Across the river from where I sat there were two black South Africans fishing with just a hook and a hand-held line. As they sat in anticipation of making a catch, three white people in open-top style kayaks paddled near the blacks.  Each white person had expensive looking fishing tackle in each of their kayaks.  They each cast their lures into the river and one white person quickly caught a fish that he immediately released into the river in front of one of the blacks.  Meanwhile, “they” sat on the bank fishing with a hand held line and caught nothing.

Was Pofadder South Africa Named for a Snake?

The owner of the guesthouse where I stayed in Upington had a visceral response when I told her that I was traveling to Pofadder.  “You are staying WHERE,” she screamed.  “There are so many other really nice places to visit and to stay in South Africa.  Why on earth are you staying in that shitty little town?”

Logistically Pofadder was the best choice.  It was about midway between Upington and Springbok that sits on the N7 highway.  Staying in either Upington or Springbok were options but doing so would have sharply cut into the amount of time I could spend in the desert each day.  For me there was no other option than to stay at the Pofadder Hotel.

When I asked the guesthouse owner why she disliked Pofadder so much she said.  “I drive through there every time I have gone to or from Cape Town.  I have been doing that for more than twenty years. They have an orphanage in Pofadder and I become so depressed seeing those children and seeing the conditions they live in.”   She was upset.  “Pofadder is a dirty filthy rundown town with maybe twenty five residents.  OK, maybe there are thirty residents but not many more. There are no trees. There is nothing but dirt and desert in every direction for miles around.  It’s just the most god-awful hell hole on earth.”    

She asked where I was staying and I said the Pofadder Hotel.  “Oh my god you are NOT staying there!  That is the worst, most run down hotel – if you can call it that – in South Africa.  It might be the worst hotel in all of Africa!”  I asked if she had ever stayed there.  “No I have never stayed there and I never will.  Once on a trip back from Cape Town I was so famished by the time I arrived in Pofadder I stopped at the hotel for lunch.  Instantly I became ill.  It had to be food poisoning.  I was throwing up.  I had diarrhea.  I could barely keep my car on the road for the drive back to Upington.  And then there was the rat.  I saw a rat in the hotel restaurant.  That was the final straw.”  She could tell that I was a little nervous and then said, “I will be happy to make a reservation for you somewhere else, anywhere else, if you decide you don’t want to say at the Pofadder.”

By now I was giving it serious thought.  The town sounded it was run down and in disarray.  There were maybe thirty people living in it.  It sounded desolate and depressing plus she had become violently ill after eating there.  Perhaps the wise move would be to stay somewhere else.  However logistics was my Achilles heel.  I was intent on spending time in that part of the desert. There were numerous birds I had not yet seen that could be found fairly regularly and easily near Pofadder.  Most importantly was the issue of gasoline consumption.  I was paying the equivalent of $5.00 US for a gallon of gasoline.  Despite my rental car giving me an average of sixty miles per gallon (the car was not made in the United States so great mileage was expected) I still did not relish the idea of having to drive the 240 or so miles round trip each day to Pofadder so I could spend time in that part of the desert.  Finally I thanked her for the offer to change my reservation and made plans to leave soon for Pofadder.

“Elizabeth, I am just going to tough it out and stay in Pofadder as I had already planned.  I will only be there a few days   If staying there becomes unbearable I will leave and go to Springbok.  For now, however, I want to stay in Pofadder.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she began.  “I just hope nothing bad happens to you while you are there.  If you get in trouble or if anything bad happens you know you can call and we will come take care of you.  I will pray for you that nothing bad happens.  May god be with you.”

I was petrified and not only second guessing but third and fourth guessing my decision to stay in Pofadder.  The winter before when I began planning for this trip I was searching the Internet for information about Pofadder.  Once in a Google.com search I typed in “Pofadder Hotels” and was directed to several sites about a venomous snake with the same name.  In response I sent a message to the South African bird watchers list serve and asked if anyone had any information on places to stay in Pofadder.  The excellent Southern African bird finding guide I carried with me said that accommodation was available in Pofadder but failed to provide even a name.  A very kind person from Cape Town responded to my request and wrote back saying that there was one hotel, the “Pofadder Hotel.”  He and his wife stayed there every time there are in the area.” 

Looking back on his email I wondered if I had asked the man in Cape Town what he and his wife thought of the hotel and the town.  After all he said they stay there “every time” they are in the area. Could “every time” have only been once?

There have been only three times that I have stayed in a hotel that thoroughly disgusted me.  Once was in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic.  Chris Haney and I stayed in a supposed hotel set above a store.  There were two beds, a sheet on each, a broken toilet and a “shower” that was a spigot like in your bathroom sink and out of which came a single stream of water.  Then there was the “hotel” in Linares, Mexico, that stank of cigarette smoke.  It had a bed with one sheet that was pock-marked with semen stains, some still wet, and it had a toilet that would not flush.  I took a dump in the toilet to add to the biomass and curled up on the bed fully clothed and waited for dawn.

Probably the worst hotel, however, was the Ramada Inn at the Fort Lauderdale Florida airport.  It went downhill on arrival when it took more than an hour to check in the couple ahead of me and then me.  Then there was the dinner special that was widely advertised but consisted only of cold chicken, cold potatoes, cold corn on the cob, and warm salad dressing.  No amount of complaining could fix the dinner.  During dinner the wife of a couple seated next to me was in tears through her entire meal.  He husband kept trying to console her saying repeatedly “It’s just for one night, honey.” The tears kept flowing and nothing got better.

Then there was the room.  Although a non-smoking room it stank of cigarette smoke.  There was no toilet paper in the toilet and no shampoo or even soap on the sink counter.  Paint was peeling from the walls, several ceiling tiles were missing and several of those still in place were falling away, one of the electrical outlets was burned out and the television wouldn’t work even after giving up on the remote control and just hitting the buttons on its side.  The crowning glory, however, was the rat.  As I laid in bed reading I heard a noise and then saw a large adult Norway rat leap up on the bed and scurry across my feet before disappearing down the other side of the bed.  When I called the front desk to report the rat I was told it was impossible that a rat could be in their establishment.  I told the front desk person it was highly possible because one just ran across my feet while I was lying in a bed in their establishment. The front desk person blew me off saying that they would send someone up in the morning to check it out.

I left the Ramada Inn Fort Lauderdale Airport three hours early the next morning.  I did not take a shower before I left.  My taxi driver told me horror stories about the hotel after I said to him as we pulled away, “If you ever have a passenger who asks where to stay for the night make damned sure you do not take them to this dive.” 

The taxi driver said, “I once had a woman who almost had to be sedated after a night there.  She was so upset that her husband canceled their cruise and they flew home that morning instead.”  On my return home I wrote to Ramada Inns and told their corporate management about the rat and the condition of the rundown room. Ramada chose not to write back to me and I have chosen not to stay in a Ramada Inn ever again.  If the choice was a Ramada Inn or sleeping on a park bench in downtown Miami, I would be camped out on the park bench and never give it a second thought.  As I left Upington and drove toward Pofadder I wondered if a park bench along the Orange River might be a wiser choice.

A screaming cat fight broke out in the courtyard of my Upington guesthouse about three o’clock in the morning.  The growling and hissing and carrying on made me wonder if the fight wasn’t between two small native wild cats and not two Morris the cats.  Grabbing my flashlight I darted out the door just in time to see both cats fleeing.  All that remained was some cat blood and a large glob of cat hair.  I hoped for massive internal injuries and returned to bed.  However it was futile to attempt sleep again.  Instead I showered and left the guest house. Driving away from my lodging I found a cat lying freshly dead in the street.  Its body hair was the same color as the glob I had just found among all of the cat blood outside my door. 

 You know you are in the Kalahari when Gemsbok dot the landscape

The road toward Pofadder traverses endless mile after mile of Kalahari Desert. Gemsbok and springbok dotted the landscape reminiscent of flocks of pronghorn antelope on a Wyoming prairie.  Grazing flocks of both species moved slowly across the desert cropping one clump of grass and then moving on to another.  I wondered what predators controlled their population.  Certainly before humans tamed the desert there were lions and leopards, and maybe a cheetah or two might enter the mix.  Now, however, things and changed and those first order predators have been eliminated.  I checked my copy of the Field Guiled to Mammals of Southern Africa and confirmed that lions and leopards and cheetah are all gone.  Even spotted hyenas and wild dogs have been eliminated from the landscape in this part of Arica.  About all that remains are the Labrador retriever sized black-backed jackal and the aardwolf both of whom could be a threat to young antelope but rarely or never an adult.  The caracal, a wild cat with Dr. Spock-like ears is the only native cat remaining that was marginally big enough to take down a young antelope.  However that was the extent of the natural predators remaining on this once pristine desert that might be able to keep antelope populations in check.

Caracal - Its like a cat hybridized with a Vulcan

Aldo Leopold in his classic tale A Sand County Almanac tells a story about the day he killed a wolf.  He was in southeastern Arizona in the very early 1900s when his group encountered a female gray wolf with a litter of half-grown pups fording a stream.  Leopold and his colleagues began firing into the group of wolves killing several of them.  At the time he thought that his actions were the right thing to do because if fewer wolves meant more deer then no wolves would mean a hunter’s paradise.  Leopold presented several other similar philosophies and concluded by lamenting the fact that later in his life he witnessed large areas where predators had been eliminated and the herbivores they preyed on increased exponentially. Eventually and ultimately the herbivores overgrazed and ruined their habitat and their populations crashed.  I am not sure how the dynamics of Kalahari Desert grasslands operate but my guess is that they do so just like natural grassland habitats in North America.  If there are no predators on gemsbok or springbok or other large grazers what will these Kalahari grasslands look like in a few more years.  I won’t be alive to see what happens but someone will be. The real question becomes will the gemsbok and the springbok also be alive.

Pofadder came nearer the longer I was on the highway. Road signs every six miles each told me every six miles that Pofadder was coming closer. When I made my reservation for the Pofadder Hotel I read a description of the town where it said that Pofadder was a “typical South African one-horse town.”  At this stage in my trip I traveled through hundreds of South African towns yet I still had not seen a single horse.  That observation also held for Pofadder.

There were a few more than twenty five or thirty people living in Pofadder.  In fact the 2001 census showed 2,923 residents.  There is little industry here other than grazing cattle and goats, working in nearby mines, managing one of the two gasoline stations in town, operating one of the stores in town, or hanging out in front of the Pofadder Hotel.  My quick assessment on arrival in Pofadder was that hanging out was the principal activity and most of it was done in front of the hotel. 

One thing there is plenty of in Pofadder is conjecture about the origin of its name. There is a traditional sausage named Pofadder made from lamb’s liver and wrapped in netvet  (Afrikaans for “just fat”) but it is highly unlikely the town was named after the sausage.  There is the highly venomous and luckily very sluggish snake called puff adder that is quite common in the desert here that many claim the town is named after.  Some also claim that Pofadder is named after a man named Klaas Pofadder.  However a consensus seems to be building that saying the town is named after Mr. Pofadder is an exercise in latter-day political correctness because no documentation appears to exist anywhere proving that the town was not named after the snake.

More people in Africa die from the bite of the highly venomous Puff Adder than from any other species of venomous snake

I once stayed in a hotel that was named after a snake, the Hotel Anaconda along the Amazon River in Leticia, Colombia.  I had never before stayed in a town named after a snake.  In my view to hell with political correctness, I want to stay in a town named for a snake.  Currently the name Pofadder is used throughout South Africa to denote a place that is far away and out of the mainstream.  Just as Timbuktu (correctly spelled Tombouctou) in Mali is widely recognized as an out of the way place around the world (“he went to Timbuktu and back looking for his glasses”) and Kalamazoo is used in the United States to denote remoteness, Pofadder is South African for remote and it is.

The Pofadder Hotel 

Edward, a local whose facial expression reminded me of former Washington Nationals outfielder Nyger Morgan the day he attacked an opposing pitcher on the mound, came running at me from across the street.  “What do you want here? What do you want here?” I wanted to get out of my car and register at the hotel but Edward’s pushiness made me a little reluctant to do so.

“What do you want here,” he bellowed at me through the driver’s side car window that was now completely and safely closed and locked.  “I want to get out of my car and register at the hotel.”

“You can’t do that? What do you want here?”

Edward continued to jabber in Afrikaans.  Exiting my car with him still bellowing “What do you want here” he followed me to the hotel entrance.  He was waiting there when I returned a few minutes later to retrieve my luggage.  He continued to pester me while I took my belongings into the hotel and would not take no for an answer.

“Oh, that’s just Edward,” the woman checking me in said.  “He’s totally harmless.  I think in England they would call him the village idiot or something like that.”

I returned to my car half an hour later when Edward was across the street chilling out in the shade of one of the many giant trees that line the streets.  He saw me and instantly was on his feet crossing the street jabbering in Afrikaans.  Having reached my limit of wanting to deal with Edward I grabbed him by his collar, pulled him to me, and screamed “What is it about no that you cannot understand?” I lifted him off the ground as I had this little chat and then I let him go. When his feet were firmly back on the ground Edward got the hint and ran off.  Some people just learn more slowly than others.

Despite the earlier dire warnings about what a horrible place the Pofadder Hotel was going to be it was not.  In fact it was very nice.  My room was spacious with high ceilings, art hanging from the walls and a television that picked up maybe twelve channels from as far away as London.  The two beds were comfortable with obviously new and firm mattresses.  The floors were clean and spotless and the maid had left a wrapped chocolate on each of the pillows.  The bathroom was large and functional with all the requisite accoutrements.  Outside my large windows was a courtyard set among several gigantic trees providing shade.  It was the perfect place to sit during the heat of the day sipping on beer and writing notes and just thinking.  The only negative about the Pofadder was that crackpot Edward waiting like a lion ready to pounce outside the front door.  I paid more than $100 US per night for the guesthouse in Upington.  In Pofadder I paid $38 US for a nicer, more spacious and quieter room.

A room at the Pofadder

A dirt road stretches north from Pofadder to Onaskeep along the Orange River on the Namibia border.  I spent the remaining daylight hours traversing the road to and from Namibia seeing only one fawn-colored lark.  The South African bird finding guide painted a rosy picture of the potential for many species of birds along this road.  The authors must have been here on a much better day.

The road to Onaskeep

A British couple living in Hong Kong with their twenty-something daughter sat at the table next to mine during dinner at the Pofadder Restaurant that evening.  “We just arrived a bit ago from Kimberley,” Nigel, the father, said.  His family had binoculars around their necks having gone directly from their car to the restaurant.  I had my binoculars sitting on the table in front of me.  I asked about Kimberley and the two highly localized bird species that can only be found there.

“Those bloody pipits,” Nigel said.  “They were a bitch to find but we found them.  We hired a guide, a cheeky black fellow, who knew exactly where the pipits like to hide.  Took us only twenty minutes and cost me eight pounds sterling but we got the birds and got them fast.”

Nigel asked about my trip to South Africa and I briefly recounted my trip.  “Have you had any problems with the black people,” he asked.

“No I have not,” I said.  “In fact the only thing I’ve really had a problem with is all the racism I hear from white people.”

Nigel either did not hear me or did not take the hint said, “We used to come often to South Africa when we lived in London. Beautiful place it was but it’s a shame what the blacks have done to this country.” 

I asked what they had done to the country. “Well they have ruined it just like they have ruined every other country in Africa.  They are lazy, violent, uneducated and all they do is sit around waiting for handouts.”

Being a little tired of this entire topic I asked Nigel, “What color is the skin of the people who provide all this aid to keep the black people lazy and waiting for handouts”?  Stumped by my question, Nigel thought about my question for a minute and then abruptly returned to his meal, now cooling on its plate, without saying another word to me.

A long and torturously bumpy road leads south from Pofadder into the remote wilderness of Bushmanland.  If South Africa has an equivalent to Australia’s Outback it’s the Bushmanland area of the Kalahari Desert.  My friends Neels and Jan were headed toward this region of Bushmanland when I met them while getting my punctured tire fixed in Calvinia. Something I read suggested that the area south of Pofadder might be productive for finding a honey badger and after wishing Nigel and his family a friendly farewell I sought out this pugnacious mammal.

Susan, a forty-something resident of Pofadder was at the hotel for dinner and asked me if I was enjoying my meal.  She then asked what I was doing after dinner.  I told her about my quest for a honey badger and with no hint or inclination of a hint from me that I wanted her along Susan said, “I really want to see a honey badger!”

She seemed genuinely interested in honey badgers and we were soon bounding along on the horrific road hoping for a nocturnal interlude with this elusive animal.  I would stop intermittently and get out of the car to listen to the desert’s silence and perhaps to hear the chortle of a honey badger.  We kept hearing nothing but silence.  An hour into our jaunt and maybe twenty miles south of Pofadder I exited the car to listen and on my return found Susan in her seat, her blouse and her bra removed as her hands were busily sliding her jeans off her ass.

“What in hell are you doing,” I asked.

“I’m just so horny and I haven’t had a strange cock in weeks.  My husband is in Cape Town until next Monday and I’m so tired of fucking black men.  I need some variety.”

“Your husband?  You never mentioned anything about a husband!”   This brought back instantaneous memories of a very similar situation on Viti Levu, Fiji twenty years earlier.  “You never asked if I had a husband so I didn’t think it mattered.”

“I didn’t ask because I thought you wanted to see a honey badger.”

Reported to be the most fearless animal on earth, Susan didn't want to see one but I certainly did

“I could care less about a fucking honey badger,” she said.  “I thought since you were so far from home that you were just as horny as I am so I thought we would take care of that.  Now let me get my pants off so we can fuck.”

There had been a time not so very long ago when I would have been all over Susan like white on rice.  However those days were long past.  “Ah, Susan, sorry but I don’t have sex with married women unless I am married to her.”

“I am just absolutely crazy horny,” she said as the bottom of her jeans slid off her feet and she laid the passenger side seat back making a little bed.

I turned the car around and returned to Pofadder.  Susan masturbated as we drove down the bumpy road.  Neither of us said a single word to each other during the hour long bumpy and dusty ride back to Pofadder.  She didn’t get laid and I didn’t see a honey badger.  I guess it was a disappointing night for both of us.

Taking a break from the gonzo travel schedule I had been under I slept late the next morning and decided to see the desert for the flowers for a change.  After a late South African breakfast I drove west to Aggeney’s and then south to the Koa Dunes.  This outlier of brick red dunes reminded me of thr red clay soil of Georgia.  Red lark, a highly localized species restricted to red colored sands like those in Koa Dunes was quickly and easily found clamoring around on the desert floor.  

Koa Dunes - note the cattle pens in the background

A large group of Namaqua sandgrouse flew to a cattle watering trough where they hurriedly gulped their one drink of the day and then flew away like children with a case of attention deficit disorder. Bradfield’s swift swooped by overhead several times raising havoc with the local insect population.  As predicted by the bird finding guide a Ludwig’s bustard erupted from the desert grasses like a phoenix rising and sped away to its hidden sanctuary.

Namaqua Sandgrouse

Bradfield's Swift

On my return to Pofadder I decided that I had driven on enough kidney-jarring utterly horrible roads so far to last me a life time.  Instead of bird watching any more that day I spent the afternoon discovering Pofadder.

I met Jolene, a twenty six year old waif at the post office. She was so tiny I thought she was in her very early teens and she surprised me when she told me her real age.  It also surprised me that she was wearing a diamond ring.  When I asked how long she had been married she flashed her left hand at me and said “oh this.”  She then told me that she was engaged.  When I congratulated her and asked when she was planning on getting married she said offhandedly “sometime next year or maybe the year after, it’s no big rush.”

I asked about her fiancé and she shrugged her shoulders saying he was “just a truck driver.”  She made him sound like he was a consolation prize not the love of her life. “South Africans get divorced all the time,” she started.  “It really wouldn’t be a big thing.”  Talk about setting the bar low enough to step over it. 

She was born in a nearby mining town and moved with her family to Pofadder when she was nine years old.  She had never been to Johannesburg or Cape Town; the furthest away she had been was two hours down the road in Upington.  Her life was like so many other black South Africans I had met – insular, isolated and in-bred.  She would likely marry her fiancé because there was nothing else to do in Pofadder. A few years from now she will have a litter of children who will live like her on a subsistence foothold.  A few years after that, she will divorce her husband and the cycle of black South Africans will begin anew.

I asked Jolene if there was much crime in Pofadder.  “Here not so much but in other places its really bad.  At least that is what I have heard.”  I asked why there was so much crime in South Africa.  “We have nothing,” she started.  “They have all the money and they own everything and they get rich while we live from day to day.  Sometimes people decide they have had enough of living like they do and they rob people.  It’s just how it works.”

I walked to the Pofadder police station and went in to ask some questions.  Three thousand people of both races live in town.  There were sixteen police officers on duty in the middle of the afternoon.  I had seen only one police truck on patrol during three days in Pofadder.  Melvin, a sergeant, said there was very little crime in Pofadder.  He said it was because nobody has anything anyone else wants to steal. 

“How many murders are there each year,” I asked.

“Oh maybe one a year or so,” he guessed off handedly.

In a population of less than 3,000 people that was a substantial murder rate, one person per year is a rate of 0.3 people per thousand or thirty people per 100,000 people.  The national average for South Africa in 2011 was almost thirty two per hundred thousand! The murder rate in this sleepy little town named after a snake where it appears that the only thing for certain that happens each day is the sun rises and then sets again, had a murder rate almost exactly the same as the remainder of the country.  The BBC recently reported that about fifty people are murdered every day throughout South Africa. By contrast the murder rate in gun-happy United States in 2010 was almost five per 100,000.

“Almost all crime in Pofadder is black on black. Things just boil over and someone pulls out a gun and shoots someone else.” Melvin then added, “The truly sad thing is that almost everyone here is related to almost everyone else here so we have family on family crime.”

I asked what could be done to slow the crime rate in South Africa and his answer was simple.  “People need jobs. If they had jobs then they would feel better about themselves. They wouldn’t want to steal from others if they had enough for themselves.”  That’s a topic the United States needs to address as the gap between the haves and the have not’s continues to widen.

I didn’t ask Melvin what kind of jobs were needed and where but one I thought of immediately would be the upgrading and paving of that horrific thing called a road, the R355 north to Calvinia.  That would keep many people working for years.

Late afternoon was spent in the court yard of the hotel under blazingly clear blue skies reading Should I Stay or Should I Go?  This series of short essays was written by various South Africans who emigrated away and then returned or who emigrated and couldn’t get far enough away.  The two recurring themes among most authors who moved away and stayed away was low paying jobs and high rates of crime.  The one theme among those who returned was the feeling of having abandoned where they belong.  Most authors heaped great praise on South Africa and on South Africans comparing the country and its residents to, say, the United States or to England or Australia or even China, and almost repeating Dorothy’s famous chant from the Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”  As I finished the book I realized that South Africa had come to feel like home.  The uncertainty and fear had left me and been replaced by a feeling of familiarity.  And no place in South Africa felt more like home than Pofadder.  I began giving serious thought to the title of that book I had been reading – should I leave or should I go?

I didn't see a single horse in this "one horse" town

Despite the dire warnings of this guesthouse owner in Upington this “one-horse town” in the Kalahari that has no horses seemed like no other I had experienced.  I went to bed that night profoundly sad that I had to leave and probably would never return to Pofadder, a dusty little town named after a snake that suddenly had more appeal than any other place I had been.   I need to email that guesthouse owner in Upington and tell her she was completely wrong.