Ted’s Blog

After my earlier post on London, Brussels and Amsterdam, we finished our tour of some of the world’s most glorious cities with visits to Vienna, Austria, and Paris France.  We’ve loved each of these great cities, but I have a special fondness in my heart for one in particular.  What’s your favorite?

I’d always wanted to visit Vienna.  Few of my friends know it, but I grew up in Vienna.  Vienna, Virginia.  So I’ve had a long history of telling friends that I was going to Vienna on a trip, and having them say, “Oh, I love Vienna,” and then explaining, “Not that Vienna.”  But with a long association with Vienna, one of my life goals was to visit Vienna, Austria, and we spent an action-packed day there.

To go through Vienna is to be immersed in its long history with the arts, especially great music.  Vienna has been the home of some of the greatest composers we’ve ever been blessed with — Mozart, Beethoven, Shubert, Liszt, and many others.  You can hardly walk a block or two in Vienna without a reminder of this rich cultural legacy.

While in Vienna, we did a lot of walking, went to a few great museums, including a great Impressionist exhibit at the Albertina, and a fascinating tour through the Royal Palace, learning all about Emperor Franz Josef and his wife Elisabeth.  Vienna is a very walkable city, and we spent much of our time just strolling  through some sections with great architecture and beautiful parks.  We also took Vienna’s “…Hop on, …Hop off” bus tour of the city, which was a bit less than advertised.  We hopped on, then found ourselves waiting for fifteen minutes for one extra passenger to hop on ( ), and crept through the traffic of Vienna on this bus.  Our walking tour definitely beat out this bus tour, but we did see a few extra sites.  And on our way out of town, we drove by OPEC’s European headquarters.  When we got to the airport, we could see the influence OPEC has, since a large number of flights from Vienna were running directly to Middle Eastern cities in oil-rich nations.

We then went to Paris.  Over dinner, we had a debate (on-going for our family) about Paris, and comparisons between Paris and other cities.  My opinion is that Paris is the world’s most beautiful city, bar none.  I’ve yet to persuade other family members, though, who all really like Paris,  but have other cities that are their favorites.  But after another stay in Paris, including a glorious early-morning walk that I took before others woke up, I remain as convinced as ever.  Paris is just exceptionally gorgeous.

We took in one of our favorite museums in the world, the Musee Marmottan Monet.   The museum exhibits many works of Money, along with a few other impressionists, including some great Renoirs.  It’s in a fabulous neighborhood of Paris in a beautiful ancient home, and a great way to see some of the world’s great works of art.  And, it was great preparation for our visit the next day to Monet’s country home in Giverny, home of the lily-pad ponds and flowers that were recurring themes in Monet’s works.

Our visit to Paris was just shortly before George W. Bush’s last visit to France as President of the U.S., and we stayed at a great hotel (Hotel de Crillon) right next to the U.S. Embassy (photo on left).  Security was tight everywhere, and the morning we left we had to hike a ways to get to a street with any taxis, since the  street in front of our hotel was close.  Sadly, we have found people all over the world, but especially in Europe, who are every bit as negative about George W. as most Americans are.  He really has embarrassed and disgraced our country throughout the world, combining that deadly combination of arrogance with incompetence.  I suspect that our next visit to these great cities of Europe will be improved as the U.S. upgrades its Presidency.

On our way out of Paris (about an hour drive), we stopped at Monet’s house at Giverny, site of many of his famous paintings.  We walked through the gardens there, which were beautiful but very crowded.  And we spent a brief amount of time in the house Monet lived in there, which was non-descript.  There’s a small museum on the grounds, which had a great exhibit of called “Portrait  of a Lady,” including some great Sargent’s.  We could only imagine what this area would have been like for Monet, when he was there by himself instead of with hundreds of tourists.  But it was great to see what inspired Monet to paint so many great works.  I’m not a big botanist, but the flowers of Giverny, and the grounds, were worth taking in.

We’d love to get your comments on the world’s most beautiful cities.  You’ve heard my vote — Paris!  But I didn’t carry the day even in my own family, so I’ll welcome hearing from others!!

One week from right now, we’ll be approaching our house in Jamestown, Rhode Island.  We were last there on August 21, 2007, when we left for this family adventure.  So many thoughts run through our minds as we approach the end of this fabulous journey.  Yet we’re staying very focused on our last week, as we travel through Europe.

We are focusing our attention during our time in Europe on places related to World War II and the Greatest Generation.  We have visited Winston Churchill’s bunker in London where he directed British troops during World War II, and we visited Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, where she and her family hid from the Nazis for two years.  Tomorrow, we’ll spend the day at Auschwitz.  Then Paris and Normandy.  So it will be a very powerful last week.

Despite traveling non-stop for about ten months, none of us are tired.  We’re not tired of traveling, the frequent packing and flying have worn well, and we’re going out with a bang.  Even when we get home, rest will be short-lived, since I stay one night in Jamestown, am in Chicago for two nights for Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee, back in Jamestown for two nights, and then to Vienna, Virginia, (we’re in Vienna, Austria, as I write this) for a mini-family reunion. 

Elizabeth and I are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary tonight.  We were just talking about it, and after this year, we’ve easily had three decades of great shared experience together.  We’ve been together almost 24/7 for ten months in a row, and could easily sign up for another trip like this at some point down the road!

Anyway, back to getting ready for tomorrow’s trip.

We’re concluding our trip with a fabulous couple of weeks in Europe.  We’ve spent several days in London, an amazing city that we could go back to over and over.  From there, we spent a weekend in Brussels with close friends from Boston who now live there.  We then went to Amsterdam and are now in Vienna.

In London, we didn’t do a lot of the standard tourist activities, many of which we’ve done in the past.  But we did take in a performance of “Lion King,” which seemed quite appropriate after our time in Africa.  Having seen all of the animals many times in the wild, it was fun to see how they were presented in the musical. 

We generally just hung out in London, had some great family time, and took in a couple of things we really wanted to see.  We celebrated Sterling’s tenth birthday, and Elizabeth and I marveled that we now have no children in ’single digits.”  We spent an afternoon in Kew Gardens, lots of fun time in Hyde Park, the London Eye, and lots of walking around and just casually exploring this great city.  The kids went to Hambley’s, a great toy store, frequently, and bought some remote-control helicopters that performed better in the store than at the hotel.  As Sterling said at one point, “Daddy, my helicopter has gone completely mad!” 

We took the train from London to Brussels, which was remarkably easy to do.  The trip lasts less than two hours, and goes through the Chunnel.  At one point, Elizabeth asked one of the people who works on the train if he could tell us when we were about to go through the tunnel.  His answer was, “We just did!”  Trains in Europe put those in the U.S. to shame, and are a great form of transportation.

The highlight of our time in Brussels was our chance to get together with our very close friends from Boston, Sydney Loughran and Andreas Wolf, and their two very-cute children.  During our trip, we’ve had precious little time to spend with friends, so seeing them was like finding an oasis in a very large desert! 

They have a terrific situation in Brussels, living in a great house that abuts a club with soccer fields and tennis courts.  And their neighborhood is gorgeous, with a nearby park and a great Sunday morning market.  It was so interesting to see a broad set of vendors come to the neighborhood with their wares, and see the entire “commune” (they call ‘communities’ in Brussels ‘communes’) buy many of their week’s supplies there, and catch up with each other.  Vendors sold an impressive set of things at the market — beautiful fresh produce and fish, rotisserie chicken, clothes, toys, art work, kitchen supplies, you name it!  It was a great opportunity for us to experience life in a very cosmopolitan European city.

We did get a bit of rain in Brussels, which has been most unusual on our trip.  But it didn’t really slow us down, and saved us from having to use sun screen .  Oddly, Brussels gets almost no snow, but a fair amount of rain annually.  And it was beautiful blue sky on our last day there.  It’s a great walking city, and so interesting to see so many gorgeous older buildings.

From Brussels, we took an easy train ride to Amsterdam, and spent a couple of nights there.  Amsterdam is a city of canals, and we took a great boat ride throughout the city.  We also went to the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum.  The works at these places are terrific.  But I was in Amsterdam some twenty-five  years ago, and I remember quite clearly walking through the Van Gogh Museum (but in a different building) that was almost deserted.  Admittedly, I was in Amsterdam on a cold winter weekday, but these museums are now quite “discovered,” as the quality of their works would indicate.  Still, in one beautiful sunny day, we could take in great works of Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other great Dutch painters.

One very noteworthy observation about European cities.  There are almost no big cars here.  Maybe one in a hundred.  Maybe less.  Funny how a long-time gas tax will shift vehicle purchases away from gas-guzzling SUV’s (and worse!) to small, fuel-efficient cars.  It was so interesting to see lots of heavily-used public transportation, downtowns with relatively few cars (almost none in Amsterdam, for instance), and an automobile capital stock with almost no inefficient guzzlers.  Too bad we couldn’t have figured this out in the U.S. three decades ago!

I’ll save my reports on a couple of other things we saw in these cities (the Winston Churchill International War Museum, and the Anne Frank House) for a later post.  And I’ll continue with my “Great Cities” post when I report on Vienna and Paris in a couple of days.  But I have gotten some photos up from London, Brussels, and Amsterdam.

We didn’t visit the Sudan on this trip, nor even come across people from there.  I did however manage to read two great books about the recent history of the area, and both left a powerful impression on me.  Given that we’ll be visiting Auschwitz tomorrow, it’s an appropriate time to post about these books.

The first is a short book called The Translator, by Dauod Hari.  I would read this book every night, and summarize it each day for my family.  It’s about a young man growing up in Darfur who eventually becomes a translator for journalists from the western world covering the atrocities inflicted on the Darfur tribe by the Sudanese government.  It’s a book you can read in a short time, and it’s very, very powerful.  It makes the horrors that the people of Darfur are experiencing quite tangible. 

The second, longer book is What Is the What? by Dave Eggers, about a different young man growing up in the Sudan.  This boy has the improbable name of Dominic Valentino Achak Deng, and it will make you cry to follow his life history.  The horrible trajectory of his life includes being one of the “lost boys” who walked for months across Sudan to escape, temporarily, to an Ethiopian refugee camp.  After a few months there, the refugees are run out of Ethiopia, back to Sudan, and then walk for months to a different refugee camp in the most desolate part of Kenya.

In Kenya, Achak lives there in a shanty-town refuge camp for ten years, incredibly.  He eventually is selected for deportation to the United States, hoping for a better life.  Things in the U.S., though, don’t go all that well, and a center plot line of the story is how he’s robbed at gun point in his Atlanta apartment, bound, beaten, and abandoned, finally be found by a friend more than a day later.

Both Daoud and Achak made it out of the Sudan to the U.S.  And both have dedicated their lives to helping their fellow Sudanese.  It’s painful and quite emotional to be thrust into the middle of each boy’s horrific life.  And it’s so shocking, and horrifying, to think that a genocide of this scale (about 500,000 are estimated to have been killed and some 2,000,000 displaced) is happening during all of our lifetimes, with little done by the U.S. government to bring it to a halt.

We had a very brief lay-over in Nairobi, spending just a day there.  We were originally scheduled to spend two weeks in Kenya, but lost all confidence in the itinerary that had been planned for us.  So we turned two weeks into twenty-four hours, and will have to return to Kenya at a later date, since I’m sure it’s a fabulous country to visit.

We stayed at a great place, the Giraffe Manor House.  The grounds of this magnificent estate include a lovely country home, a wildlife educational center for the children of Nairobi, and about a bunch of giraffe and warthogs!  We got to spend lots of time with Daisy, Frank, Jock, Laura, and other beautiful giraffes, and everyone had lots of fun. 

Gibson had his first kiss, and we all admired the beauty and grace of his tall, slender girlfriend Laura.  It was a bittersweet departure from Africa, though, for Gibson, who failed to lose a tooth in this continent after running up a five continent “losing” streak!  He has one loose tooth now, and we spend two weeks in Europe, so it’s possible he can add continent #6 to his list, but Africa will have to wait for a later day!

We also visited a couple of museums in Nairobi, and re-grouped from our Tanzania debacle.  I wouldn’t characterize Nairobi as one of my all-time favorite cities, but like any large city, it has its corners of interest.  Anyway, the main thing is that we finished a great visit to Africa safe and sound, had a relaxing stop-over in Kenya, and are now off to London, which is one of my all-time favorite cities!!

We had a fabulous time in Africa, and loved much of our visit to this great continent.  I’m torn, though, about how to report on our final couple of weeks there.

Originally, we planned to spend two weeks in Tanzania, and the final two weeks of our trip in Kenya.  Yet, while we love wildlife and the African bush, we were perhaps pushing things a bit by scheduling almost three full months in safari Africa.  We were doing two, and at times, three game drives a day, and after a while, even a wildlife-loving family like ours is ready for a change.

We had a great time in Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania.  But the rest of Tanzania wasn’t all that exciting for us.  It was probably a combination of a) safari saturation, b) being in Tanzania the wrong time of year (you definitely want to play your stay here to maximize the likelihood of being here during a migration), and c) some particularly poor choices of locations.

Net, net, we cut our stay in Tanzania short by a couple of days.  Our last location was particularly disappointing (someplace called the Lukuba Lodge on Lake Victoria, which gave us all the creeps).  Our itinerary had been planned by two groups (Small World Travel in Austin, Texas, and Abercrombie and Kent), so we weren’t exactly picking locations out of a phone book.  But the difference between the way these places were described, and the reality, was vast, and we weren’t happy with our guides. 

We lost so much confidence in our itinerary that we decided to skip our Kenya trip (all pre-paid ), and get “Out of Africa.”  One thing that has always worked well for Elizabeth and me is that we have very similar perspectives on “cutting your losses.”  When we go to see a live performance, we make sure we have tickets on the aisle, and have no issue leaving after 15 minutes or so when it’s clear we don’t enjoy the production.  I did a careful  analysis of the venture industry and concluded it was in for a long period of economic challenge, and shifted gears professionally.  And we got a lot out of our time in Charleston, SC, but felt we’d been there long enough, and were off and running on this great trip!  So once we concluded we were getting bad advice about what to do in Africa, and felt we’d had a great experience here, we had no issue changing our game plan.

We had one memorable experience in Tanzania prior to departure.  In the Serengeti, we visited a local Masai trival village and their local school.  It was an eye-opener.  We met several of the people living in a small local community.  I’d say maybe 40-50 people lived in a set of huts made of branches and cow dung.  We met a family in their hut, which measured about 4 meters by 4 meters, and slept eight!  Even more challenging, there was a constant fire inside the hut, meaning a substantial amount of smoke inhalation for its residents.  Few people know that smoke inhalation is one of the largest killers of children age five or younger around the world, many of whom are raised in uninterrupted proximity to a fire.

We were amazed at how the Masai people lived.  Many of them, adults and children, were covered in flies.  And many of the kids looked to be quite ill, with open sores on their faces.  We learned that in this culture, woman face exceptionally challenging circumstances.  They do most of the daily hard labor.  One woman described her typical day as getting up before everyone else, milking the cows, fixing everyone breakfast, go out and find firewood, go to the local stream (often more than a kilometer away) and carry back water, tend to some farm areas, fix lunch, and on and on. 

The marriage ritual was also particularly punitive for the Masai women.  As long as a man or his family has the dowry (generally twenty cows), a man can marry as many women as he wants.  And the current wife/wives have to build a new home for the most recent wife.  These Masai women often seemed cheerful, but we’ve learned over the course of this trip that appearance can be deceiving, and they clearly have a very hard life.

The Masai men spend their day caring for the livestock (cows and goats, for the most part).  They go through a strange rite of passage ritual at age 16 where a Masai boy becomes a “man.”  I’ll spare you the gory details, but a boy gets circumcised by a sharp knife with no anesthesia, and is disgraced if he flinches or shows any sign of pain.  Many die from subsequent infection.  And, in their culture, it’s well known which young men have made that transition, and which “failed the test.” 

We also visited a Masai school, which was better than no school, but not by a lot.  This school has almost 800 students, and just 11 teachers.  There are 70 kids per classroom, and four children to a desk.  They have no books and few supplies.  I know that some remarkable kids make their way through these challenges, get a good education, and go on to higher grades.  But most deal with a very difficult experience, and receive little real education.  Our kids were shocked at the circumstances of this school, and we all got a better sense of the challenges remaining in Africa’s educational infrastructure.

So now we’re on to Western Europe to wrap up our trip, after a brief stop in Nairobi.  If anyone is ever considering a trip to Eastern Africa, we can tell you a lot about what not to do, and very little about what to do.  Oh, well.  We loved our first couple of months in Africa, and are on to new adventures!  And, while it wasn’t our highlight, we will soon have Tanzania photos you may want to check out.

We’ve visited so many places on our trip where things have changed, often dramatically, since our initial visit.  Tibet.  The Yangtze River and Three Gorges Dam area.  Myanmar/Burma.   And Alexandra, a suburb of Johannesburg.  In April, we visited Alexandra on a sunny day, and the community was beaming.  Less than two weeks later, it’s been the site of riots over racial tensions.  We’ve been following it from a distance, but I thought I’d include the update we received from Robin Binckes, who took us through Alexandra on our visit there.

Greetings from a place which is, I know, special in your hearts!  Thank you to all who have expressed concern for our safety and sadness at what has happened here in the last ten days.

As many of the people who have visited South Africa in the recent past have read the reports of the violence and trouble we are experiencing and have felt concerned for the safety of people that they met whilst here, I felt that it would be a good idea to send out this letter updating you on what is happening and to ask for your assistance in helping the people most vulnerable and most effected by this tragedy ? the children.

Through Friends of Alexandra we believe we can play a role in helping the +- 50 children who are being accommodated in the Police Station in Alexandra to protect them and their families from further violence.
But first let me try to update you in point form of the situation.
1. The violence started last Sunday (11th May) in Alexandra township.
2. It was reported to be violence as a result of Xenophobia & directed at immigrants who were taking the jobs of locals.
3. The violence continued in Alexandra every night last week.
4. Some South Africans in the township were also attacked.
5. Some reports indicate that criminals are now involved and that this has become an excuse for criminals to attack people and rob them.
6. The violence occurs at night. During the day, life has continued as normal.
7. My tours have continued into Alexandra after discussions with the Police Commissioner and last week I took over 60 people into Alexandra on three days and never witnessed an incident, nor felt threatened or in danger.
8. The violence has now spread to other townships and areas of extreme poverty. Once again the violence flares up at night. This weekend it spilled into the downtown area of Johannesburg, as well.
9. To date 42 people have been killed, hundreds wounded and thousands are seeking refuge and safety in Police Stations.

THE SITUATION NOW.
1. Last night was much more peaceful with the majority of townships having an uneventful night.
2. Reports on the radio this evening are that the Army is being called in by the Police to assist in controlling the violence.
3. Day times are peaceful in Alexandra- (I cannot speak of other areas, as I have not visited them)- I continue to take visitors there and Thursday & Friday I will be taking groups into Alexandra.
Today I visited the Police Station in Alexandra to see what the plight of the children was and what their short term needs are. This is what I found.
1. Men are being accommodated in tents outside the Police Station, sleeping on the pavements and tar, but under shelter. Water tankers are providing water. Toilets have been provided.
2. The men have no blankets or bedding of any sort.
3. Women and children are being accommodated in a hall upstairs in the Police Station. They have a roof over their heads and, like the men sleeping outside in marquees, are dependent upon NGO?s for everything else.
4. A total of about 800 people are being accommodated.
5. There are about 50 children ranging from babies in arms to children of about 14 years old.

HOW YOU CAN HELP ?FRIENDS OF ALEXANDRA?.
The children need blankets, sleeping- bags, foam mattresses, food, and other obvious items.
We need to purchase these items quickly, and provide them to the children.
I spent this afternoon on the telephone to some of the larger companies who I thought would donate the urgently needed items quickly ? (it is getting colder here and the weather forecast is for a drop in temperature. As you know we get down to freezing on a cold Winter?s night.)
Responses ranged from
?Sorry, do you know how many calls we have had from people like you??
?We will put your proposal before our CSI committee?
?We have already had meetings with Provincial Government officials and are sure that our contribution will reach the people you are trying to help? (Sometime?!)
?We actually don?t sell or stock lower end merchandise. All our sleeping bags are high end.?

That is why I am appealing to you!
THE EASIEST AND QUICKEST WAY TO HELP WILL BE BY DONATION (TRANSFER) INTO OUR BANK ACCOUNT. THAT WILL HELP US PURCHASE WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE CHILDREN. ANY AMOUNT WILL BE GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED.

Details are;
FRIENDS OF ALEXANDRA.
BANK ACCOUNT NO: 420951652
SWIFT CODE; SBZAZAJJ
BRANCH; SANDTON.
SOUTH AFRICA.
BRANCH CODE; 019205
PLEASE IDENTIFY THE AMOUNT BY YOUR NAME. IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED IF YOU COULD NOTIFY ME BY MAIL OF THE AMOUNT OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION THAT WE WILL BE RECEIVING.

My personal view is that the violence is a build up of frustration in the poorer communities as a result of unemployment, poverty, unfulfilled promises by Government and corruption. The immigrants are an easy scapegoat.
We will overcome this, as we have surmounted other and greater obstacles.
We are asking for your help for the children of Alexandra.
Warmest Regards.
Robin Binckes.

Our trip in Tanzania started at Lake Manyara, and proceeded to the Ngorogoro Crater.  The crater was spectacular, and I’ll start with our time there.  Ngorogoro is an amazing place, and a must for anyone traveling to Eastern Africa.  You can see all sorts of great wildlife, all in a confined space, and enjoy beautiful views of this fascinating geology.

Ngorogoro’s crater bed is about 110 sq. miles in area, and from a technical geologic perspective is a caldera, not a crater.  Geologists estimate that some 4 million years ago, the mountain here blew its top, leaving a steep approach, a crater rim, and a big, flat, open area at the bottom.  Small streams flow down the craters sides into the bed, creating accessible pools of water.  The sides of the crater have lots of shrubbery and trees, and the area is a protected national conservation area. 

What’s astounding about Ngorogoro Crater is the abundance of wildlife in a large enclosed area, offering great viewing opportunities because it’s flat and open.  We got great looks at lions, the very endangered white rhino, various types of antelopes (Eland, Thompson’s, Grant’s), Zebra, Wildebeest, Buffalo, and Warthogs.  The area is also teeming with birdlife, and is physically beautiful.

The one morning we spent at Ngorogoro started on an exciting note.  We encountered two prides of lions.  One group earlier in the morning had brought down a baby Buffalo and several of the lions were feeding on it in a shrub-covered area by the side of a stream.  Meanwhile, another pride were on the prowl, clearly wanting to keep up with the Jones!  We watched the mother  and a cub lay an ambush for an unsuspecting warthog.  As the warthog ambled into our view, the two lions took positions behind trees on opposite sides of the warthog’s path.  The mother pounced, a few seconds too soon, and a short chase ensued.  Against the odds we would have posted, the warthog escaped, and the lions returned to their napping.  But it made for a great start of the day!

We also got some great looks at the endangered Black Rhino.  The ones we saw look light in color because they had been rolling in the mud earlier that day.  Ngorogoro has a number of these rare animals, which have been hunted to the point of extinction by poachers looking to use the horn of the Rhino, either for Chinese medicinal purposes or as dagger handles (popular in the Middle East).

In all, we spent an afternoon and the following full day exploring the crater.  It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen or experienced, and we’d highly recommend it to anyone in the area.  It’s a must for a trip to Africa for anyone interested in wildlife.  Check out our Ngorogoro photo album for lots of great wildlife shots from this remarkable part of the world!

If someday you find yourself way off the beaten path, then manage to take a few wrong turns and get even more lost, you may well end up in Madagascar. The world’s fourth largest island, Madagascar lies off the east coast of Africa. It’s a country that seems at least fifty years behind the times, with an unusual blend of French and African cultures. This destination isn’t for everyone, but we had a fabulous time here, focused on finding some of the world’s most exotic wildlife, including the chameleon above photographed by Gibson.

The smartest thing we did in arranging our trip here was to coordinate our visit with Chris Raxworthy, Chris has spent over twenty years exploring Madagascar while holding down prestigious appointments elsewhere. Since the year 2000, he’s had a very senior position at the American Museum of Natural History, focusing on herpetological (reptiles and amphibians) research and education. Having the world’s foremost expert on the wildlife of Madagascar was an incredible opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in this country’s astounding fauna and flora.

We spent time in two different locations in Madagascar — the Masoala Peninsula and Nosy Mangabe in the rainforest of the northeast, and Perinet Reserve in the southeast. The first thing you have to get used to here are long names — really long names. The cities and towns have names like Manjakandriana and Antananarivo. Also, the two primary languages spoken here are French and Malagasy. The country claims to have a population of 16 million, although its capital has just a million, and almost all the regions we passed through seemed sparsely populated.

The country seems to have almost no tourism industry, and little else in the way of industry or development. The country’s President also is CEO of the country’s largest company, a company that has been expanding rapidly through a series of acquisitions. The hotels we stayed in were extremely basic. Forget about internet access — even electricity and hot water can be hard to come by. The roads here were surprisingly good, but in many ways the Madagascar infrastructure seems to be moving backward over time, as the airport for one of our destinations reflects.

Our typical day in Madagascar was a) breakfast, b) morning hike, c) painfully prolonged lunch, d) some homework, e) late afternoon hike, f) painfully prolonged dinner with even worse service than lunch, and g) a night hike (generally in the driving rain ). During our hikes, we played a collective game of “Wildlife Where’s Waldo?.” We’d scrutinize trees and thickets, looking for chameleons, snakes, geckos, frogs, birds, and lemurs. Their sizes range from small to tiny, and their camouflaging is generally excellent. Largely with the help of Chris Raxworthy, we saw over forty reptiles and amphibians during our week here, many so spectacular and bizarre that the pictures seem hard to believe.

My personal favorite from the trip were the chameleons. They ranged from good-sized to tiny. In the wild,we saw the Parson’s Chameleon, the Horned Leaf Chameleon, the Short-horned Chameleon, the Nose-horned Chameleon, and the Panther Chameleon. These lizards are very smart, extremely hard to find in the wild (at least for me!), and endlessly entertaining. They will walk all over you, jump great distances, and snap their tongues over two times the length of bodies to catch an insect.

As hard as chameleons are to find, the “Where’s Waldo?” game would escalate with the Leaf-tailed Gecko. When we saw our first one in the wild, I could easily have spent five years looking at the tree without figuring out the location of the gecko. See if you do better in the picture on the left!?!? [Hint: the gecko stretches for most of the bottom half of the light-colored tree trunk on the right. At night, in the dark, even with a flashlight, you can’t tell it’s there unless you have a sixth sense for these things!!]

We saw a bunch of different frog species here, ranging from tiny to fair-sized. Many were just so amazing in color patterns. We were fortunate to catch this Tomato Frog (see right), and its coloring left little doubt as to the origin of its name. And we saw some really astounding tiny frogs as well.

Among the herps we saw, the kids’ favorites were the snakes. We saw three different snake species in the wild, even though we were visiting Madagascar in early winter (a poor time for snake-hunting). The big favorite was the Tree Boa (left), which is even more impressive in person than in the photo. This snake is quite young and will get three times this size as it matures. I should add, though, that the snakes were not quite as big a hit with Elizabeth, who kept them at a safe distance.

Madagascar is famous for its lemurs (small primates), and we saw several species in the wild. These animals are fabulous acrobats, and often would jump distances of thirty feet or more in going from one tree to the next. They are just adorably cute, and a real highlight of our wildlife viewing here.

A wildlife surprise for us was the level of bird activity here. Birds weren’t our focus, and we weren’t really here at peak bird season. But we all expected to see a fairly broad and diverse set of species during a week in the wild here, and ended up seeing just 25 species, including the Red Fody at left. Some were spectacular, but it was a pretty slow bird spot for us.

On the morning of our last full day here, we stopped by Perinet National Park, hoping for some interesting wildlife activity. In just an hour in the park, we found (with the help of the local guides) a Tree Boa, an adult and juvenile Parson’s Chameleon. And while holding the chameleons, we were visited by an Indri Lemur! It was a fabulous conclusion to our stay in this interesting country.

Many of the places we’ve visited on our trip reminded us of somewhere else. Not Madagascar. It’s so distinctive, and so interesting. On our last day, we drove several hours across the country en route to the capital of Anantananarivo, and got a better feel for the beauty and unspoiled nature of the country. A typical scene is captured in the photo on the left, when our car on a major highway passes a man running in front of his cart, which is — believe it or not — carrying two pigs!! It’s not your everyday tourist location, but we were thrilled to have spent time here, and particularly appreciative of the insights we got from Chris Raxworthy.

Check out our Madagascar photos for some of the most amazing animals you’ll ever see!!

We settled in for almost five full days in Cape Town, and spent most of the time with our relatives Caroline Hazard (Elizabeth’s sister) and Jim Goedhart.  It was fabulous to see them and get caught up, a real highlight of our stay anywhere.  They live in Seattle, where we’ll be living in the fall, so we had even more than usual to catch up on.

On our first full day in Cape Town, we explored the coast south of the city, and made it to Cape Point.  The most striking thing about the drive was how absolutely stunning the coastline is around Cape Town.  We passed through many rustic towns and long expanses of completely undeveloped coast.  It was inspiring to see this much beauty here in South Africa.

We also got to see the African Penguin, which was a real treat. We’ve now seen penguins in four different continents (Australia, South America, Antarctica, and Africa), and it’s a real favorite of ours.  We had a great picnic lunch on the beach where the penguins hang out, and really had a great time there.

We also saw some great wildlife in this area, including some spectacular birds, like the Orange-breasted Sunbird and the Cape Sugarbird.  These birds are the closest thing to a hummingbird you can find in Africa.  Many of the animals here are endemic to the Cape and it made it fun to see wildlife we’ll never have a chance to see elsewhere. 

On our drive back, we stopped by Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, one of the world’s truly great botanical gardens.  The land was given to the community by Cecil Rhodes, and everything about the grounds is immaculate and fascinating.  We walked throughout the grounds, and learned a lot about the botany of South Africa.

We ran into our first real batch of lousy weather in Cape Town, after nine months of almost uninterrupted sunshine.  So we can’t really complain.  But our top priority was to go to the top of Table Mountain, and by our fourth day there, we were beginning to think it didn’t really exist.  We didn’t have non-stop rain, but it was pretty soggy, perhaps a good “warm-up” for Seattle.  We shifted our game plan, and focused on more indoors-oriented things, including a fairly pedestrian aquarium.

We spent one day exploring Cape Town’s District 6 Museum and some of the local townships.  District 6 was once a thriving multi-racial community where everyone seemed to co-exist peacefully.  Tragically, the South African government, during apartheid rule, razed the community, and re-located all inhabitants to “racially pure” locations.  Since the community had many mixed-race families, that meant sending the father to one location, the mother to a second, and the children to yet a third location.  There is now a museum dedicated to District 6 telling the story of this tragedy. 

We then visited a couple of Cape Town’s townships, which are the acutely poor areas of Cape Town.  We saw row after row of shacks without running water, electricity, or heat.  The juxtaposition of the charm of Cape Town, and its affluence, with these surviving townships would have been shocking to us if we hadn’t seen it before in places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Boston, Massachusetts.

We also met with some of the local entrepreneurs, including a gentleman named “Golden” who has developed a business making flowers out of discarded cans, a group of enterprising men and women who have formed a company called Street Wires, who make animals from beads and thin wire, and a group of women who take the remnants from a local tee-shirt factory and turn them into fine blankets, aprons, and table clothes.  It’s clear that such entrepreneurial businesses have the potential to transform the poorest areas of a place like Cape Town.

The sun broke through on our last full day in Cape Town.  In the morning, we took a boat to Robben Island, where there once stood one of South Africa’s most imposing jails.  The conditions there were incredibly harsh.  And prisoners, even if they could break out of their cell, faced frigid water, a long swim, and Great White Sharks if they wanted to get to the mainland.  Needless to say, no escapes were recorded in recent history.  We saw the jail cell of Nelson Mandela, who was at this prison for sixteen years (over half of the twenty-six years he spent in jail), and got a tour of the prison from a former political prisoner, who told of his experience in the prison from 1986-91. 

In the afternoon, we were able — at long last — to make our way to the top of world-famous Table Mountain.  Table Mountain can only be accessed in two ways — by foot or by cable car.  Given our schedule, walking wasn’t an option, so we bought our tickets and were waiting in line for the next cable car.  They have a fairly modern system, with circular cars holding 65 people that rotate 360 degrees on the ascent and descent.  After a twenty minute wait, our group was waiting for the next car when . . .

Much to our amazement, the cable cars froze in their tracks.  After waiting fifteen minutes, we decided this wasn’t our day and left.  The two groups suspended in place ended up being stranded in mid-air for almost an hour (!!!) before they could be moved to the termination points.  And all subsequent ascents were canceled for the day.  So we shifted gears, headed to a couple of the lower nearby vista points, and headed back to pack for the airport.  We figured that we now have a great rationale for returning to Cape Town.

We, especially our kids, had been searching for the Cape Dwarf Chameleon during our time in Cape Town, without success.  On the last morning, we got a great surprise when our fabulous guide, Craig Barrowman (highly recommended), showed up at our hotel with a Cape Dwarf he had somehow tracked down the night before (not easy at all!!).  Our kids were on cloud nine, and had a blast with this little reptile for the rest of the day.

We really loved Cape Town, despite the weather.  Our relatives Jim and Caroline spent a day exploring nearby wine country, and also loved that.  There’s a lot to do here, it’s a charming city, especially beautiful in the sunlight, and one of the world’s most beautiful cities.