Chinese Cheerleaders

Met an ex-pat here, someone that my friend Nguyen knows, who is engaged to a woman who is from Beijing. She is clearly educated to a level and a diversity of knowledge that we would admire in the west, and she studied in London for a few years.

While watching beach volleyball together, they had cheerleaders both before and between games. Young girls jumping around in skimpy bathing suits to provocative music, just like in America. We both were amazed that China would have that; She had never seen that in China before. China is changing so fast, embracing things that before were taboo. Economic liberalization, and many personal freedoms, although still with an authoritarian regime.

Her fiancée commented: Maybe the 21st century won't be the century of democracy the way we all thought it would. With the fall of the Berlin Wall we thought it would usher in an era of democracy. But if you look at China, and Russia, and many other smaller countries, they tend to have much more economic and personal freedoms, but still with authoritarian governments. Is this what we will have to get used to in the 21st century, a necessary intermediate step before development of political freedoms later?

I was surprised to be able to have this conversation with a local Chinese person. Eight years ago when I was in China no local Chinese person would have dared to discuss the subject. They would have feigned that they didn't understand, rather then even claim they didn't have any thoughts on the subject. Did she feel free to talk about such things with her other friends from China? Yes, they do discuss such things, as long as everyone understands they are discussing events, and not advocating any particular policy. Her parents do not discuss these things, though: They lived through the cultural revolution. The older generation is shocked at the pace of change, and happy that things are so much better than they were before. They still remember the times when discussing such ideas, even thinking such thoughts, could be dangerous.

The flow of information is getting harder to control. Internal media still don't report on many events, but outside media do report on things in English. Many more people are learning English, and are using the Internet, and the Chinese government are encouraging both trends.

Polar Survival Kit

While on the plane from LAX to Tokyo, while waiting for the lavatory, I noticed a placard on the ceiling that said "Polar Survival Kit". So I ask the head stewardess, "What's in a Polar Survival Kit?"

She answers: It's for when we fly to India, over the polar region, in case we need to make an emergency landing on the ice. There are only two on the plane. It's a protective suit, jacket, gloves, boots, and so on in case the pilot needs to go outside the plane.

Why would the pilot need to go outside the plane?

She answers: I'm not sure. I haven't actually seen one of the survival kits, I've only seen pictures. But don't go outside without one; You would die quickly. Of course, you'd die pretty quick in the airplane too, because it wouldn't be much warmer inside the plane.

So only the pilot gets to survive?

Answer: Well, there are two suits, so the pilot and one other person.

Monogamous Prostitution

I went down to the front desk one night to ask about clubs that would have salsa dancing, but there was someone in front of me so I had to wait. The hotel guest in front of me was talking in Spanish to the desk manager, and a woman was standing nearby looking bored. The woman was pretty and dressed provocatively. The desk manager had stopped the woman from going with the guest up to his room, because she wasn't registered as a guest. I remember that when we had checked in to the hotel, the desk clerk had made a point of telling us that any guests that went up to a room had to be registered guests, and that since Bobby and I were staying in the same room we would not be allowed to bring any other guests up with us. Here is the translation of my memory of the conversation between the Spanish-speaking guest and the hotel desk manager:

Manager: She cannot go up to the room with you because she is not registered as a guest.
Guest: OK, then I want to register her as a guest.
Manager: Yes, but you already registered a different woman as a guest last night. Hotel policy is that you can only register two people to a room for the duration of the stay. If you want to bring this woman up to your room you will need to pay for another room.
Guest: But the other woman isn't here anymore, and I want to change it to this woman.
Manager: I understand, but the hotel policy does not allow that.
Guest: But I've already paid for this room and I'm the only person staying in the room.
Manager: I understand, but hotel policy does not allow you to bring more than one guest during your stay.
Guest: How much does another room cost for the night?
Manager: Another room for tonight would be 235 Reals.
Guest: But I can get a motel for less than that.
Manager: I understand, but that is the hotel policy.

At this point the guest left with the woman to go to a motel. The woman looked bored with the conversation from the beginning, because she had probably heard the same conversation before. The hotel didn't have any policy against bringing hookers into the hotel, but they would take their cut of the money. Either you had to bring the same hooker in every night, or you had to pay for an additional room every night, or go to one of the many love motels in the area. In Rio hotels are normal hotels like you would expect, but love hotels rent for 8 or 12 hour periods.

Clubs & Cowboy

Rio has a crazy system with cards at most bars & discos. When you enter they ask for your ID, and they type in your personal information into a computer and give you a card. It looks similar to a phone calling card, and it acts as your charge card while you're inside the bar. You buy drinks with it, food, whatever else someone might need to buy (cigarrettes, gum, candy). You can't pay in cash to the bar or waiter, you have to use the card.

When you're ready to leave you can't go to the front door. That would make sense. They have several large men standing there who prevent you from leaving. Instead you have to go find the cashier (caixa), which is sometimes labeled with a sign, but sometimes not. Then you pay your tab, which often times requires the cashier to ask questions of the waiter & bartender, discussion ensuing. Wasn't everything listed on the card already? I'm not sure of the purpose of the discussions. As part of your bill you also pay the cover charge for the bar. Did you remember to ask about the cover charge when you went in? They usually remember to tell you when you enter. After you pay the cashier gives you a slip of paper, or maybe a different card, or maybe the same card marked for exit. That is your exit pass. Don't lose that piece of paper or card, nor shove it in your pocket. You'll need that to exit, and you'll have a tough time if you lose it.

Rio is a late night city. Things start at midnight or 1am and go to 4am or 5am. But why is my body still waking up at 9am?

We decide to take a slow day on Wednesday. Sleep late, a long breakfast, sitting by the pool, reading, using the sauna. We also work out in the exercise room and swim, and I do my own yoga in the sauna. I'm starting to feel healthier again for the first time since we arrived in Rio.

On wednesday evening we go back to the hostel for fun, then went to a disco with brazilians and have fun dancing and playing pool. Then Bobby and I decide to go to a brazilian strip club that a guy at the hotel told us about. It's filled with hookers and an occasional stripper, but also samba-style dance acts.

(This picture is from a different club with samba-style dance acts, one without hookers. But you get the picture.)

The hookers in the strip club start calling me "Cowboy". I've been wearing a western hat sometimes in Rio. Technically, it's not a cowboy hat; It's a western hat, made in Australia from kangaroo leather. (Explaning the origin of my hat is probably as meaningless to you as it was to the people here.) Twice earlier this week random people would start calling me Cowboy. For the hookers in this club, it is in full swing. They only know about 10 words in English, but they know how to say "Cowboy". One of the hookers motions to borrow the hat. I'm wary, but I allow it. She starts dancing with it, and then the stripper on the small stage sees her with the hat, yells over to her, and motions for her to bring it to the stage. Soon the stripper on stage is wearing my hat and incorporating it into her act, pulling imaginary six-shooter guns from near her hips.

The place is so overrun with hookers that I can't take any more after 10 minutes, so I retrieve my hat and decide to leave. That's when they say I owe them 60 Real as a cover charge. Now, I know I should have asked about this before we went in, but I'm still annoyed that they purposefully didn't tell us about it. I tell them I won't pay. The manager comes over and starts yelling at me in Portuguese. He knows I don't speak Portuguese, he's just doing it to intimidate me.

I tell the guy I'm leaving and start walking towards the door. A big guy jumps in front of me and says "Hey man, you tough guy, you superman, you're just going to walk out of here like superman?" From the way he was talking, I think that was the only english he knew. Bobby was still chatting up the hookers, and I decide to ask his advice. He says "What, are you kidding? Just pay the 60 and walk out."

Angry at the partial deception and hostage situation, after paying I decide to walk instead of getting a cab. A block away from the club, I walk past two guys sitting on the street corner who see me and start yelling "Cowboy, come here man!" They start following me and yelling "Cowboy" after me. Did the hookers radio ahead to these guys? Somehow it's far more threatening coming from two guys who have nothing better to do than sit on a street corner at 2:30 in the morning.

Bobby shows up at the hotel about 20 minutes later.

The Jedi Mind Trick

Several people have asked me "Who is that guy on the trip with you?"

I met Bobby about a year ago in Austin. Bobby is one of those people that can span the full range from debauchery to enlightened compassion, depending on the mood and needs of the situation. He has had many lifetimes of experiences in his life and has many interesting stories to tell, but those are his stories, and I won't tell them for him. This is one story that involved me.

Bobby and I went to Buzios for two days. Buzios is a beach town a few hours drive from Rio. Buzios has a nice beach, a small compact downtown, and a lot of Brazilian tourists. We spent the day enjoying the beach and the evening in the town center, then went to a popular bar that was a short walk away. Around midnight we walked over to the popular disco in the town called Priviledge. A long line snaked from the front door around the side, and Bobby and I had the same thought: It's not worthwhile to wait in line for an hour to get inside. Maybe we should just go back to the hotel and drift into sleep?

But Bobby asks: Should we try to get in without waiting in that long line? Sure, I answer, if you can.

Bobby walks up to the door man at the front of the line and says "Bobby Costello, writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. We're on the VIP guest list." I don't think the door man speaks English, but he points to a woman with a clipboard and list, and motions for her to go talk to Bobby.

Bobby waits for her to approach, flashes a big smile, and says "Hi, I'm Bobby Costello, I'm a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. We're on the guest list." He says it slowly, calmly, enunciating each word. She smiles back and starts leafing through the sheets of paper on her clipboard. Bobby continues: "I'm here to do an article for Rolling Stone. You know Rolling Stone?" She says "Costello?", slightly mispronouncing it. He answers "Caw-stell-low. It might be under Bobby." She starts leafing through the papers again, but she's mostly looking at him, not at the papers. He's still smiling at her, eyes big & wide. He says something else, mentioning Rolling Stone again, and gestures with his hands, and she follows his gestures and movements.

She looks down at the clipboard and says "Yes, OK." Then she waves to the door man at the exit to allow us through and motions for us to go in that way, to avoid the line. She hands us entry cards and VIP passes, so we can avoid the line and also don't pay the cover charge. Bobby thanks her, smile still large, as we walk in.

This is called the Jedi Mind Trick because of the Jedi's mythical ability to convince people of things that are patently false. Remember in the first Star Wars movies when Obi-wan says "These are not the droids you are looking for. We can move along." And the stormtrooper lets them move along because, well, he's Obi-wan Kenobi.

The same thing can work many times in real life, if you're confident enough about it. If you are sufficiently convincing then other people will want to believe what you believe, even if there is factual evidence to the contrary. The key to convincing others is to believe it yourself, and project that outward. Bobby's name was not on the guest list, and he doesn't work for Rolling Stone Magazine. But he believed it while it was talking to her, and he manifested that externally. Since he clearly knew he was on the guest list and he knew he wasn't lying, it must be OK to let him in.

Bobby was also using a cultural touchstone. Rolling Stone Magazine is a cross-language meme. I'm not even sure how well she spoke English, and she had probably never read Rolling Stone Magazine, but she knew the name. That name is a meme that carries a whole array of connotations and is the same in any language, and that makes it stronger than an explanation in any one language.

We stayed about 30 minutes, enjoyed ourself, then went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Rio Pollution & Beauty

Smog & pollution hangs over the city in Rio. At first I just ignore it, but after a few days that becomes harder. I start to feel it in my throat, my eyes, my nose, my body. Did I catch a cold or some infection? It's possible, but I think not. The pollution is entering my body and causing it distress. My eyes weep, my throat is sore, muscles ache, frequent sneezing. My skin is laden with pollution and contaminants.

I've been to other large pollution-ridden cities before and had only minor problems. What will I encounter in Beijing in a few weeks, with it's pollution problems? My eyes are red and aching. White pus seeps from my eyes, and dark bags hang under them. I wake one morning and my right eye is glued shut from the pus which has seeped out of it during the night, then dried and latched the top & bottom eyelashes together. I carefully rinse & pull away the crust in the morning. Lord, deliver me from this purgatory.

Rio also has some of the most lush scenery and beautiful trees that I've seen. Most streets are lined with trees that I haven't seen before, except in movies of jungles or Amazon forests. They have palm trees that grow tall and straight and strong.

Does the pollution someone help the trees grow? Plants need carbon dioxide to grow, perhaps all that pollution contains larger amounts of carbon dioxide to help the plants. It could also help that it never gets too cold in Rio, certainly never freezes. I don't think any of these trees could survive even one winter anywhere in the US, except maybe in LA or Key West.

Rio has a botanical garden that is large and wonderful. It is nicely laid out with organized columns of trees and other plant life. Take a look at the picture on the right. It looks like a fake backdrop, but it is the actual scene behind us as we sit on a bench in the botanical garden. I make you this promise: This photo is untouched, not even color corrected.

The Disney Favela Tour

Favelas are slums in Rio and other parts of Brazil. Slums in America usually started as government-sponsored low income housing, but many of the Favelas in Brazil started as squatters camps and grew organically from there. They've grown quite a bit from the origin and they now have roads and many other services.

The favalas are controlled by various drug dealers who function as an organized crime syndicate and they keep the peace in the favelas. Many tour companies in Rio offer group tours of one or more of the favelas, in which they've made some kind of agreement with the local drug militia to allow them to take the tour group through certain parts of the favela.

The favela tour that we took was no more dangerous than the Jungle Cruise ride in Disneyworld.

I have no doubt that there are dangerous parts of the favelas, and dangerous things that happen there. If you've never seen it, you should watch the movie "City of God", which is based on a true story about one boy growing up in an infamous Rio favela during turf wars between rival drug wars in the 1970's and 1980's.

But that was not what we saw on this tour. Our tour guide seemed more scared of the favelas than we were. On the ride from the hotel towards the favela he kept talking up the danger they same way the tour guide on the Jungle Cruise talks up the danger of the mechanical hippopotamuses. "Watch out! You never know when they might charge!" We drove in through a well-paved, well-maintained road to an area where they had street vendors setup to hawk tchotchkes to the tourists. You could tell that it was lower income than other parts of Rio, but most of the buildings were properly constructed, with running water, electricity, phone and cable TV. About the oddest thing we saw here was some guy drive by slowly in a car with ice chests in the rear seat with fish in them, selling fish along the road.

After wasting our time here, they drove us to a different part of the favela where there was a day school setup for children, that the tour company helped sponsor. The school had been sponsored by an family from Italy that lived next door, who worked for the Italian airline office in Rio. I have trouble believing that an Italian expat would live with his family in a dangerous area.

They also took us to an apartment building that had a rooftop with a nice view over the favela. The apartments had been built by a large extended family that worked hard together, and were an example of the rising middle class in the favelas.

I could go on with other examples that they had shown us but there isn't much point. They wanted to show us, with pride, how the favelas had become more normal, more middle class, how they were continuing to grow and develop. That's wonderful, and I'm happy for them, but that's not interesting or worthwhile for us to see on vacation.

We saw this same cycle repeated in other interactions while in Rio. Some people would claim that certain areas or activities were dangerous, and they would never themselves go there. But some other people, even middle class people, would happily go there often without a second thought. At the 4-star hotel we stayed at for part of the time in Rio I happened to ask the one desk clerk about funk dance parties in Rio, which I had heard about. She happily recommended one in a dance club and said how much she enjoys that one, and that she goes often. The other desk clerk standing next to her interrupted the conversation: That place was dangerous, and he would never go there, and he didn't think she should be recommending it to anyone. He said that place was in an old run-down building that wasn't clean. She sheepishly warned me that it wasn't a clean, modern club, but it was clear that to her that was part of the fun and the attraction.

Rio Arrival

Riding through Rio, into Ipanema, I immediately notice the large amount of greenery throughout the city. Tropical trees line the streets. This type of trees couldn't exist in Austin, and probably not in most places in the US. These tropical trees couldn't stand the cold winters. But, Oh, they look nice.

After checking in at the hotel (really, a backpacker's hostel), we walk the 1 1/2 blocks to the beach. It's still 10am. It's beautiful. I've been in big cities before, and I've been on nice beaches before, but I've never been in a downtown city that adjoins a nice beach. We strip down to swimsuits and go in the water. It isn't even cold. The large waves crash over us, playfully tossing us around.

We decide to walk down the beach towards a large rock outcropping. Is Copacabana this way? I'm not sure. People play volleyball & soccer on the beach. The sand is squeeky clean. It's not only very clean, and it actually makes a squeeking noise when you walk in it.

This is the best first morning I've ever spent travelling. I can see why people never want to leave Rio.

Walk inland a few blocks, and back in the direction of the hotel. Stop along the way for breakfast. A salmon burger and a banana & granola smoothie. We notice people eating what looks like a big bowl of poo. Now, I know it's not poo, and it doesn't look exactly like it, but I don't know how else to describe it. So Bobby asks them what it is, and they say it's Acai (pronounced assa-ee, accent on the ee). Some kind of local fruit which is frozen immediately when they pick it, to prevent spoiling, then sold in a cup or a bowl as a healthy smoothie that you eat with a spoon. I try it, and it's quite good. Acai quickly becomes a part of every street meal for me.


The next day we sleep in late, then go on a long meandering walk before choosing a place for breakfast. Bobby isn't feeling well when we return, so I go alone for a swim and a walk on the beach.

Women here are no more beautiful on average than women in the states. I make a point of saying this because everyone says how beautiful Brazilian women are. There are beautiful women here, but the range and spread seems about the same as in the US.

People here do seem to be better than Americans, on average, about their overall health. Is it because of the relative cost of junk food vs healthy food here? Or maybe because more of their bodies are exposed, becaue of lighter clothes & warmer weather? Or is it just cultural habits that tend to promote healthier living and eating? The cause is unclear, but the effect is that there are fewer obese or overweight people here than in the states.

Most people here don't smile as they're walking on the street. From what we can tell most of them have a slight frown. But it isn't all of them. The large percentage of people here are poor, by our standards. The small percentage of people we see on the streets are idle and rich, and they seem to be smiling. (They may not be rich by our standards, but they are rich enough for down here). The rich people we see & meet on the streets seem to be the semi-adult children of richer families, who like living the beach lifestyle.

Several people we meet here, in discussions with them about Rio, make a comment about how hard it is to make a living here. It's hard to find good jobs they say, and yet it's expensive. Rio is suprisingly expensive. Prices are almost the same as in the states, in most restaurants, bars & stores. For the few people who have are from rich families or have real international/professional jobs here, they can live a good life. But the majority of people probably have a hard time making a living. They seem reasonably happy & healthy, and they don't seem to work that hard.

Where has the day gone? We slept in late, took three hours to get breakfast, then I went for a swim & walk on the beach, then went to get a late lunch. It's now 5pm and I haven't done anything, but I have enjoyed every moment.

(pictures to follow)

Swaziland & Mozambique

Chris and I leave Josey (Johannesburg) to go east to Swaziland. Along the way we stop in Nelspruit. Nelspruit is a city also, much smaller than Josey, but still a real city. The feel is much better, though. It feels safer and nicer? Why? The people seem more relaxed, but how can you perceive that when you're just driving through the city, before you even stop? Then we realize: Buildings in Josey all have electric fences, gates, razor wire, guards. There is none of that here. Here in Nelspruit the businesses have advertisements on the windows to get more people to come in. In Josey they're trying to keep people out.

The King of Swaziland is "the Great Lion Mswati the 2nd", and his mother is "the Great She-Elephant". He is the king, but his mother is the head of state; She can overrule any of his decisions. (Liberal friends take note: It would require a constitutional change in the US to allow Barbara Bush to override George W Bush's decisions.)

Chris: "Places like Swaziland make me optimistic about the future of Africa. In 20 years they've pulled themselves up from grinding poverty, closer to the level of SA."
You see farming, agriculture, timber development (logging yes, but also many, many areas with tree farms that were replanted many years ago to maintain the forests).

Red ocher cliffs, with naturally red soil from iron in the soil. They grind it up and use it as a natural pigment in traditional ceremonies.

The Mountain Kingdom. Swaziland, not Switzerland. Mountain lakes, steep, lush green hills, significant forest cover interspersed with farming, communities, rocky areas, grassy areas. Swaziland, the Jamaica of southern Africa.

Chris: "Wow, this is even cooler than I remember."

Swaziland Backpackers was very hippy. Everyone there was hippy, even the people that ran it, with fire dancing, reggae music, Indian clothing, dreadlocks, and the other things that hippies do. The backpacker itself was very hippy, but you get the impression that the rest of Swaziland is hippy also. You can smell it in the air.

We go on a game drive at Hlane, the King's Royal Game Park. For lunch I have an "Hlane Burger". What's an hlane burger? It's game meat. It depends on the day, but it's usually impala. On the drive we see the usual assortment of elephants, rhinos, lions, a group of 30 impalas. One of the elephants gets angry at the truck and charges at us, forcing the driver to speed away. When he spots a few lions resting in the shade of some bushes, he pulls the truck to within 2 or 3 feet of them. A little disconcerting since this is an open air truck, with just rope netting between humans and lions. The lions look mildly annoyed that we've disturbed their nap. In the Lion Park near Josey they fed the animals with store meat. Here in Hlane, and in Chobe too, the animals hunt for their food.

Driving east from Swaziland you go into Mozambique. Why did we go to Mozambique? Because we were on a road trip and it was there. We only had enough time to get to Maputo, the capitol. The northern beach areas are supposedly much nicer, but we didn't have time to go that far. Maputo was dirty and gritty. It was ghetto. The backpackers hotel in Maputo was not worth staying in. Mozambique, or at least Maputo, is the Mexico of southern Africa.

The waterfront area is the "Beverly Hills" of Maputo. Many nice haciendas with gates and private guards 24 hours per day. Along the waterfront they had a few nice looking restaurants and bars, and then we saw the nicest looking building in Maputo: A Casino.

Why are casinos always the nicest looking buildings around? Please don't answer that, I do understand the answer. It's because they generate the the money to pay for a fancy-looking building. But it seems a sad statement that in rich and poor countries alike, people are so drawn to gambling, will spend so much money on it, that casinos have some of the nicest, most interesting architecture of any modern buildings.

We pass a minor traffic accident along the waterfront in Maputo. The police come and 4 guys get out, each carrying an automatic weapon. I hope they have their insurance card.

From what I hear Mozambique went through civil war between a western-backed side and a communist-backed side for about 20 years. It's unclear to me who won. The streets in Maputo bear odd testament to their ideological past: Mao Tse Tung Ave, Av Karl Marx, Av Vladimer Lenine, Av Guerra Populari ("the people's war"), but also Mohamed Siad Barre (I think he was the top warlord in Somalia for a while) and Av Robert Mugabe (the head guy in Zimbabwe). Ideologically, it seems an odd mixture. The only common thread I can find is that they are all leaders that caused or justified the mass killings of people.

Cape Town

Chris and I fly to Capetown for a few days. Capetown--The Jewel of Africa. In other words, it's all down hill from here.

It seems like a Caribbean town, influenced by the first world, economically attached to it, and yet not fully participating in it. You wouldn't be surprised to see pirates or ne'er-do-wells around the corner. Think Key West, Gibraltar, an updated version of Tortuga as presented in Pirates of the Caribbean. The people here can't decide if they want to get ahead, or if they just want to relax and enjoy life. To do both at the same time, they find new and innovative ways to steal from tourists.

The Strand is only a few blocks from the hotel. It's one of the main areas with restaurants and bars along the road. Even on a Monday night the bars are full around midnight until 3 in the morning.

We drive south from Capetown towards the Cape of Good Hope. Beautiful scenery, waves crashing into rocks that soon climb into mountains. Earthy Mediterranean feel. Lunch along the water, view of the rocks, old Dutch guys drinking beer.

Johannesburg feels like the New York of Africa. Capetown is the Amsterdam of Africa.

Along the drive they have a penguin sanctuary. You can see the penguins up close, and they have a beach where you can swim with the penguins. The penguins usually steer clear of where the people swim, but they sit on the rocks nearby. Occasionally you'll see a penguin swimming past people, much faster than a human could follow.

Penguin lust.

We drive down to the Cape of Good Hope, the south-westernmost tip of Africa. No, it's not the southernmost tip. That is called Cape Agulhas, about 100km away, where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans meet. Look on a map. But this cape, the Cape of Good Hope, is what the sailors of old worried about, where they began the dangerous passage across the southern tip of Africa. The wind is strong and gusty. Wild baboons and ostriches are in the preserve along the road.

Drive back along the western side of the cape peninsula. It's mountainous. Think "Lord of the Rings".

We get a late dinner and get out late. We go to one place with mostly local people, and talk to a woman with a wonderful laugh. She doesn't appear South African to me, so I ask where she is from. She finds the question funny, and says that she IS from South Africa, and she is "colored". I am a little confused by the term. South Africans still conventionally group themselves & other by the racial groups defined during the Apartheid regime: white, black, Indian, and "colored". Colored meant any mixture of any group, but was and still is looked down on by many white South Africans. She said she was actually primarily of Malay descent; Most Americans would probably call her white, although maybe guess that she was Spanish or European. The racial groupings that many people use, including the ones that we use in America, are somewhat arbitrary and confusing, but they can influence our self-identity, and how we perceive others.

Later, much too late, we meet another woman at a wonderful Irish pub who is South African, of Xhosa & Namibian descent. Wonderful to talk to, smart and well-read. Since it's so late we suggest meeting for dinner the next night.

The next day Chris and I go to "table mountain", the small mountain near Cape Town with a relatively flat top. We take the cable car to the top. It's largely shrouded by clouds today, but you can sometimes see Cape Town below you through the clouds. When we're ready to leave they say the cable car has a problem, and we'll have to wait until they fix it. About 45 minutes later it's working again and we board, then get stuck about 1/3rd of the way down. Chris notices that the "high wind danger" lights are blinking on the control panel. They take us part of the way back up, then finally fix the problem and take us all the way to the bottom.

We meet Sharon, the Xhosa/Namibian woman, out for dinner much later than we were supposed to. She is originally from Cape Town, but she's been living in Namibia for the last year. She flew back to Cape Town for a few days to visit family. Chris is tired after dinner and goes back to the hotel. Sharon and I go to a bar called "Mama Africa" with a wonderful live African drum band that everybody is dancing to. That bar closes early for Cape Town, but the group of people we're with want to go to a dance club that is open later called FTV.

FTV is the LA scene of Cape Town. All of the beautiful people are there, dressed to kill. Crowded dancing to club music, bottle service at roped off tables, several groups at the bar have bottles of champagne in coolers. We're dancing and having fun, but it's getting late. The club is hitting it's peak, but I'm tired and thinking I will leave soon. One of the girls in our group gets in some argument with some other girl there. One or two people from our group intervene to separate them, and Sharon tries to calm each of the two girls down. The two girls, and a friend of their's on each side are still being aggressive. I position myself to help separate the two groups, but Sharon grabs me and pushes me out of the way. She doesn't say anything to me, but the message is clear: You're not from here, you don't know how things work here, stay out of the way.

Sharon has largely succeeded in calming down the two groups, and we warily return to dancing. A few minutes later, the two girls start up again. Sharon is trying to calm them down again; I'm standing back and to the side; A few of the other guys are standing close in, ready to intervene if they start pushing and shoving again. A minute or two pass with some angry words on both sides. I can't hear what any of them are saying, but I assume that Sharon is being successful again in reducing the tension.

Then one of the girls leaps at the other girl, purposefully smashing her champagne flute on the other girl's head. Within a second the two girls are locked in vicious combat. I spend a quarter of a second trying to decide if I should try to stop them; I decide I should try to pull one of them away. One of the other guys is trying to grab one of them, and he falls into me, pushing me out of the way before I can act. I later realize that this is probably good for me. One huge bouncer rushes in and is trying to separate them and pushing them towards the door. One girl is holding tightly and pulling on the other girls hair, while the other girl is thrashing wildly at her with the broken champagne flute. The bouncer and another door guy carry the girls out the nearby door, trying but unable to separate them.

It's about 5 seconds since the altercation started. There is blood and broken glass on the bar and floor. The bartenders tell me and others to stand back while they wipe the blood and glass off the bar. It's so loud and dark in there that most people in the club didn't even realize anything happened. Sharon hands me her purse and jacket, and another girl's, and tells me to stay there while she and another girl and one of the guys go outside.

Ten minutes pass. I'm holding two purses and two girls jackets plus my own. A group of guys eagerly come up to talk to me. They think I am one of the star players on the South African rugby team. Apparently I look like him, or he looks like me. I try to tell them that I'm not him, but they don't believe me, or they're too drunk to understand my denial. They congratulate me and tell me how great I am for a few minutes, then leave me alone.

Sharon and the other girl finally come back in. The club manager hadn't wanted them to come back in, but Sharon bribed one of the bouncers to let her back in. Sharon is visibly shaken and upset. The girl who got attacked had lacerations on her forehead and both of her cheeks. She had reduced the bleeding with a towel, then got in her car and drove off by herself. The other girl, the one wielding the champagne flute, had left in a taxi. Didn't the club call an ambulance, and the police, and hold the girls there? No; Sharon says they would have if the girls were white, but they don't want to get involved in black-on-black violence. The club just wants the situation to go away. Neither of them will get in there again, but that's about the extent of enforcement.

Chobe National Park

We go to Chobe National Park in Botswana for a safari. It's about an hour mini-bus ride, then crossing a ferry where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia meet on the Chobe River. On the ride there we meet one group of people who are with an adventure-volunteer group. They arrange trips from 6 weeks to 6 months for people to help out at schools, orphanages and small villages. They also arrange certain outings like this safari for them. You have to pay for everything, but you get a much different experience than if you stayed in a hotel the whole time.

One of the people in the group is a woman that works customs interdiction in England. Not at the border or the airport; She works with a group that tries to stop smuggling rings. Drugs, diamonds? Drugs, Yes, and human smuggling. There isn't much diamond smuggling. Oh, and tax smuggling, people bringing in cigarettes or alcohol without paying the VAT tax, or taking cigs or alcohol for export and redirecting it back into the country.

Chris says "Welcome to the safest country in Africa: Botswana". It has high HIV, but it's also one of the wealthier countries, market oriented although largely rural, good public health services funded by a fair amount of diamond wealth. Botswana is peaceful: Peace from strife, and also peace in person, of the people we meet there.

As we go through the Botswana immigration station I overhear one person jokingly say to another "I'll kill you, man, trust me, I will". He says it in a joking way, and I'm pretty sure he is joking, but it's the type of joke that people make here in Africa.

They drive us around in a bush jeep looking for animals. We don't find that many: a few giraffes, a herd of 20 or 30 zebras, some different gazelles and kudu. Wild pigs like in "The Lion King", hyenas, eagles of different kinds. After the jeep tour, we go on a pontoon boat down the river. Hippos, several groupings of 30 each. Unlike at DisneyWorld, they don't charge the boat, although they do say they are dangerous. Crocodiles. Two elephants swimming across the river. I take a lot of pictures. Chris says I'm "shutter happy".

Going back we drive through herd of cattle crossing the road.

That final evening in Livingstone, I walk out to "Pub & Grill" twice, with two different groups, at night, in the dark. It's a bar in Livingstone that is only about two blocks away from the youth hostel, and there is some lighting along the way. A band there is doing great covers of The Rolling Stones and James Brown. Afterwards a group of us sit & talk in the pillow pit. The previous night while sitting here I had magically produced avocado that I had bought in the market earlier. Some of the Norwegians had never tasted avocado before, so it was a fun treat, and helped sooth their drunken stomachs.

Victoria Falls

In the morning we take the shuttle bus to the falls. I've been trying to upload to the blog yesterday, but the internet connection is so slow as to make it useless.

The patch: in america the patch would mean a nicotine patch. My friend Chris got some patches for us to wear in Zambia. The patches you wear here are mosquito patches. Well, I guess they are mosquito-repellent patches. They secrete some chemical into your skin which causes your body to secrete some pheremone in your sweat which is unpleasant to mosquitos, so they will bite you less.

There is a $10 entrance fee for the falls. Monkeys and baboons block many of the trails. One baboon seems to want to show us a fresh wound on his forhead. The waterfalls give off a mist that falls on us like rain and forms a vail that shrouds part of the falls from our site. Beyond walking around to see the falls and across the smaller "knife bridge", we decide to walk down to the "boiling pot" near the bottom of the falls where it forms a whirlpool. Halfway down the trail we hear gunshots, though, and decide to head back up.

There is no food that we can find there, so after playing xolyphone with a local old guy, we head back to town to get lunch. We'll go to the bridge that crosses the gorge later.

I stop on the way back at the Ocean Basket restaurant, talking to the taxi driver on the way about the economy. Zambia seems pretty nice, pretty safe compared to South Africa. People have a positive attitude here. Yes, he says, it's gotten better since the newer president was elected in 1991. He allowed in foreigners more and foreign investment. And it's also gotten better in Livingston because of the problems in Zimbabwe. The problems in Zim have caused a flight of many of the white, educated people there across the border to Livingston. Most of the houses on the main road have been bought by Zim refugees and used as houses or turned into restaurants or stores.

The Ocean Basket has surprisingly good, fresh seafood. The even have lobster, and sushi. Well, tuna, salmon & prawn nigiri and maki. This is the third place I've noticed in Zambia that has greek salad on the menu. And they had feta cheese at the grocery store. Why?

As I'm walking back to the hotel, a nicely dressed guy in a nice SUV asks me if I want to buy any "stones". Stones? Oh, diamonds. Those kind of diamonds. No, thank you, I don't have anyone special right now ;-)

Then I arrange to go on a gorge swing near the bridge. Chris and I go, although only I'm interested in "doing it." Somehow I convince myself to do all three (zip line, gorge swing and bungi jump). I don't really like the thrill of danger like I used to, but I do like pleasurable experiences, especially uncommon pleasures. I know that these things aren't really that dangerous, even if they are pretty scary.

I do the zipline first, which goes from the Zambian side of the gorge to the Zim (Zimbabwean) side, looking down from the bridge. Even though I'm going to the Zim side, I'm not really going into Zim proper. I'm staying in the "international zone" in the middle. I didn't need a Zim visa to go, just a free ticket from the Zambian side proving that I had come from Zambia and would be going back there. The zip line is fine, a little scary, but really all you do is lift your legs up while the guy is holding you, and then he lets go. You don't "jump" yourself. Since you're leaning back in the harness the whole time, though, you can't really see much, since you're always facing up towards the sky.

I walk back across the bridge half way towards the Zambian side. I had imagined the swing to be something where you start with tension on the line on one side of the gorge and swing over to the other. Oh, I was wrong: You stand on the edge of the bridge, in a safety harness, connected to a thick cable that loops way down then back up & connects about 200 feet away from you to the middle of another cable strung across the gorge. You jump from the bridge, in free fall for about 5 seconds, until the cable grabs tension and swings you out and away from the bridge. Now, I know that sounds really scary, but it was surprisingly pleasant. Stepping off the platform is, well, SCARY. But after you do it's pleasant free fall. Don't forget to breathe! When the cable grabs there is a jerking motion, but not too bad, and then you're sailing pleasantly and smoothly through the gorge, back and forth, easily able to see everything around you. The gorge is much more pleasant from this position than from the bridge or anywhere else. You're alone, it's peaceful, and it's beautiful.

Once you stop swinging they reel you towards the bridge with a pull cable attached near the top of the cable supporting you, then some guy repels down from the bridge, hooks on to you, and a winch pulls you both up.

I was not very enthused about the bungie part. I kept joking with the staff to distract my mind. "Hey man," the guy said, "you already paid for it, you have to do it!" "Hey, can I pay you $20 extra NOT to do it?" My favorite joke was "Don't worry, no body has died here this week." (They've been doing it over 10 years and no one has died.) You can just fall off if you want, but it's better to hold your arms wide, like Jesus on the cross, and jump up and out. It's surprisingly hard to command your legs to jump "up and out" like that. I jumped more out than up. The free fall was nice, a little longer than the swing. Remember to breathe! When the bungie catches, though, it jerks you and bounces you around, you're looking at everything upside down, and you're randomly spinning around. The swing was much nicer. Eventually you stop bouncing and some guy lowers down, hooks on to you, and they winch both of you up.

I have enough time when we get back to swim in the pool, shower, and send the previous blog entry & upload pictures. It takes about 30 minutes to upload a few pictures.

Dinner at a "traditional Zambian restaurant" that caters to westerners. Good, and probably the closest thing we're going to find to authentic Zambian food in this touristy town. They do a "dance show" at the end of dinner that looks surprisingly like the electric slide. Susan does it with them and says that it IS the electric slide, there is only one step different. Did they get this from America, or did America import it from here? I can't believe in the cultural convergence of line dancing.

After dinner we go to Rhapsody, a trendy bar that caters to well-off locals. We meet one guy (lighter-skinned black) who has lived his whole life in various parts of Africa (Liberia, Tanzania, Zim, Zambia). He's obviously international in education and outlook, although completely comfortable and "at home" here. Another girl is working here who is from Northern Ireland. She wants to go to the Congo to see what a real warzone is like. "I grew up in the troubles in Northern Ireland, which was a low intensity conflict. I want to go see what a real conflict is like, how it changes the people. I'd like to go to Iraq too, or better yet Afganistan. I tried getting a job in an NGO in those places, but I don't have any skills they're looking for. If I go to Congo and start writing about it, maybe I can get work as a war correspondent from conflict areas."

In the morning, while we're waiting for the day trip to Chobe, I meet a guy who leads "walking safaris." We talk while he's waiting for his daily wards. He's from UK, but he's lived in Zambia for 10 years, and in Africa for 25. He used to drive trucks down through Africa when he started. From Zambia to SA? No, all the way down from Europe. Through Morocco? Yah, through Morocco, west africa, and on. Don't they bring goods up on truck from Capetown through Africa? Yah, but they used to truck them down from Europe, when they wouldn't allow trucks from SA because of apartheid. But I didn't truck goods. We would take people. People? Yeah, we'd take about 20 people down all the way through Africa. How long did that take? About 6 to 9 months. In a bus, you mean? No, in the back of a big 4WD pickup truck. You'd stay in hotels along the way? No, we'd just camp along the way, mostly in the bush.

Zambia Arrival

We left early this morning to go to the airport to fly to Victoria Falls, on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. It was a 2 hour affair at the aiport to get our tickets and check in. While we're waiting, we read the local newspaper, "The Star". It's left leaning, but it's not considered tabloid. Headlines:
"Heist Gang Bail Shock": 5 guys with AK-47s were killed by police while attempting to rob a casino. One of them was out on bail from 5 separate charges of armed robbery.
"Zuma honours Tyson, the convicted rapist": ANC president Jacob Zuma, the almost-definite next president of SA, will honour Tyson at a charity banquet. Zuma himself was charged but acquited for rape.

The convenience store at the airport sells raw meat.

The airport in Zambia, in Livingstone, looks like those movies from the 1950's.


Taking the van in Zambia from the airport to the backpacker's hotel, named Jollyboys. We have private rooms, but most people staying there are in dorm rooms, or are camping. Several people we meet there are westerners that are living in Zambia for a few months; they are hanging out at Jollyboys because it is the place to meet other westerners during the day.

Signs on trees at the hotel:
"Beware of falling mangos"
"If Noah had been smart he would have swatted those two mosquitos"

Walking around Livingstone. It is a good replica of the animal kingdom park in disneyworld.

I'm going to a store in a different part of town to pick up a few things. Some girls from Norway are going too, so we share a cab. They are afraid of eating local food, and they are on a budget. They say they want to buy groceries and make the food themselves. They buy mostly beer and snack food.

On the way back I talk to the taxi driver about education. He says most people in Zambia go to school from age 7 to 14. Recently they've started some private schools that start at age 5, but you have to pay for them. They do also have school that goes from 14 to 18, but not for everyone; you have to do well in lower school and apply to get in.

There was a guard with an air-cooled machine gun at the grocery store.

Tomorrow we will go to the falls, the maybe on a zipline/swing over the falls, or bungee jumping over the falls. On saturday we will go to Chobe Park in Botswana. They have a place here where you can interact with lions and pet them. Adult lions, not baby ones. They say that they are safe. Should I go? Would you go?

Dinner at the hotel. Pasta with meat sauce. People hang around and drink afterwards. One of the guys who is staying there is having a birthday today, so more people gather to drink. It's safer here than SA, but it's still not advisable to go out after dark, unless you take a taxi.

I wasn't able to upload this until the next day.

South Africa-Lion Park

Chris's hot water heater hasn't been working for a few days. We're waiting for the repairman to come. They've come twice already to fix it, but each time the fix only lasted a few days. They were supposed to be here at 10:30, but it's already 11:30 and they haven't come. The power is out again (load-shedding), so even if they got here now they couldn't do anything until the power comes back on. "Africa is where you come to wait": Paul Theroux while he was in Cairo waiting for his Sudanese visa.

We're supposed to go to the Lion Park today. We may not make it because of waiting for the repairman. Chris shows me pictures from last time he was in Swaziland. He was the old man and his fiancee was the aunt. Why? Do the adults go somewhere else to work? No, it's because of HIV. They have a 40% HIV rate. The life expectancy in Swaziland right now is about 40 years old.

Chris and I got into several varied conversations while waiting for the water heater repairman, including democratic party convention superdelegates, 1970's South African-Israeli cooperation on nuclear weapons, international politics and islam, and african development. Several interesting books he had:

The Shackled Continent: Africa's Past, Present and Future by Robert Guest
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux
The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid isn't Working by Robert Calderisi
The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric Beinhocker
(the last one, I think, has nothing specifically to do with Africa)

1:45pm. We give up on the repairman and leave for the lion park.
2:20pm. We're almost to Lion Country Safari. Chris wouldn't let me have the laptop out to take notes while we were in city traffic because he didn't want some to do a "smash and grab" to get it.

In the last few minutes we've gone from city to rural, without any real suburbs in the middle.

Chris thinks his friends from here will all probably leave within 5 years, if things keep going how they are going. And the country will go down hill further. Does that mean that they shouldn't have ended apartheid like they did? No, I'm not sure of any better way they could have done it. At least it was peaceful. But it may have a lesson for Israel: They cannot end their "apartheid" without losing their own life also.

How much do white South African's make? Chris guesses about $25,000 per year on average. Cost of many things are low in SA, so you can live quite well here on that. But if you want to travel abroad beyond Africa, that can't buy much. Before Apartheid the exchange rate was different and they earned about double that in dollars. Their purchasing power of whites in SA has actually increased since apartheid stopped, but the purchasing power of blacks has gone down since apartheid. I'm not sure if I understand that.

In the Lion Park we look at the baby lions & feed the giraffes. I've fed giraffes in Florida before, so I'm not too impressed by that. Then we get to go in and pet the baby lions. They're indifferent to our presence, perhaps annoyed. But where can you do this in the states?


Jackals & hyenas. Antelope. Lioness jumping into a tree. Lazy lions. Lion just a few inches from the car window. It's great, and yet it's amazing how quickly it becomes ordinary.

We drive back and stop at the shopping mall. We both need to buy mosquito-impregnated clothes for Zambia. I am exhausted because of the time zone change.

A friend asked via email: "Have you spotted any 'flame throwers' on the local transportation? Would like to confirm that bit of information with the locals while you're there." I asked Susan, Chris's fiancee: "South African's say it's bullshit. I've never seen one. But I've also never seen a carjacking, and I know they happen."

Jeff & his father Greg and Sean showed up after dinner for some food & drinks.

What about the flamethrower in the car legend? "There was one guy who manually did that to his own car, and he was convicted of murder and is in jail now. There was another guy who electrified his car so he zapped and killed a guy who was carjacking him. He's in jail too." The power is out, so I take his word on it. Later, when the power comes back on, I check the web. A few CNN and other news articles that report on it, but don't provide any verifiable information. But wikipedia provides more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(flamethrower)

Jeff is white but not afrikanner. He's german/irish/other ethnic descent. He's into acting and wants to move to London or the US to go to school, study and try to get into acting. He was asking about schools, cities, living in the states, visas, green cards. It's amazing how much you can make up or guess about to answer someone when you don't really know what you're saying.

Jeff and Greg are leaving. Sean already left. Jeff and Greg are going to Brady's, but Chris is tired and doesn't want to go. I borrow Chris's car and his cellphone and go out with them, but Brady's is closed. The power came back on, and their computer wouldn't start properly, so they were closing. (They were while the power was out, but they close when the power turns back on?). So I drive back to Chris's.

Tomorrow we're going to Zambia near Victoria Falls. We're going to stay at a backpacker hotel named Jollyboys. Chris and Susan are looking forward to this as a luxury, because at least they should have hot water.