Check the video below for an invitation to wander with me through the African wilderness on my latest solo African safari, this time into the South-east of Angola. Enjoy!...
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The Bruegel Picture
This week’s picture is like a Bruegel painting. It carries many stories, of wandering and of bush people and of an opportunistic Chefe du Posto, and a gentlemanly old chief and a rogue hippo in a far place; much too much to try and squeeze in here. But let me start with a few remarks about the picture itself. Maybe some of the other stories will emerge, each in its own time. It is like that with stories. Each one comes when its time and its place is right. The picture is of the living area of the dwelling...
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Ironic Happiness
You can listen to the voice recodrding, or read through the text below. Enjoy! We were not surprised when we caught the faint babble of men on the breeze. We had started picking up human signs a day earlier – a few tracks, a sapling stripped of bark to tie down something, a little glass jar that once contained Vicks Vaporub… We had to be within a day or two from one of those lone villages in the bush. We followed the sound and found a group of fishers. It was an overcast morning and the breeze goose-pimpled...
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Stopping over at the Lion and Elephant
Parked in front of the Lion and Elephant Hotel, Zimbabwe It is part of bush tradition, no, it is bush religion to stop over at The Lion and Elephant on the banks of the Bubi if the route north leads through Zimbabwe. It is unassuming, inexpensive and just worn enough at the seams so that it feels comfortable, like an old shirt. It has become a sort of a tradition for me to overnight there if the route north leads through Zimbabwe. Here is an extract from my book, The Wanderers: “It was around two in the afternoon. The...
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Peculiarities along the way to the hinterlands
The happy chaos of an African “shopping mall” deep in rural Mozambique. Note the bustling atmosphere, the flimsy shop cubicles, the the wares spilling out onto the road surface in places. Expeditions into remote Africa inevitably have to traverse vast distances through various shades of civilisation (in the Western frame of reference), along roads that severely tax the vehicle, the patience and resistance to reckless abuse of alcohol. Nevertheless, it is often richly spiced with charm, surprises and, of course, challenges that combine to make for a fascinating experience in itself. To illustrate, I quote a few paragraphs...
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