The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Bats Trippin

Some Pictures from Philippines....

2008-01-30T00:12:00.000-08:00

Karma Bar -- Koh Lipe

2008-01-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

December 18, 2007

“I’ve been traveling for a long time,” he paused for emphasis.

I focused my stoned grin on the little chinless man, “Oh yeah? How long?”

“Two months” he announced importantly.

I leaned against Katia, my arm around her waist.

“Wow.” Katia responded.

“Hey, are you Russian? You sound Russian. I was married to a Russian girl.”

“Yes, I’m Russian but Lee and I live in the U.S. Where are you from?”

The little man’s lecherous eyes got wide, “I’m British of course.”

“Of course” I echoed. I watched the little man’s feet dangle inches from the floor as he rolled a microscopic joint on the seat in front of him.

“Are you a bit Asian, as well?”

“What!” Katia scowled and squinted.

No Chin was oblivious, “Well, your eyes…. they look Asian.”

“Yeh. All Russians are Asian aren’t they?” a voice boomed from above.

Big American Jeff slouched over us, “Scooch over.”

No Chin lit his joint, inhaled, and passed it to Jeff.

“Where are you from again Jeff?” I asked.

“I’m from Indiana, California and Alaska,” he spoke lethargically, “but I live in Homer Alaska now.”

The scent of free weed had wafted to the other side of the bar where Oliver was sitting. He wandered over and took the joint from between Jeff’s fingers “Jeff, he is very American,” Olly announced proudly in a thick German accent.

“Well I wouldn’t say that. Being Alaskan isn’t the same as being American.”

Olly gave Jeff a confused look, passed the joint back to No Chin and returned to his bench on the other side of the bar.

No Chin continued his monologue, “I spent a month in Bangkok with this woman,” he sighed, “but my cell phone was stolen and now I have no way to contact her.”

“That’s too bad man.” Bored with No Chin, Jeff lumbered to his feet and sat down next to Olly’s reclining legs, “scooch over.”

“Have you ever fallen in love? You know, while your traveling,” No Chin continued unperturbed.

“Only with each other,” Katia gave me a kiss on the lips.

No Chin looked stunned. “Oh….”

A few minutes later he scurried over and introduced himself to the only other two women at the bar. Katia and I sipped from our shared can of Singha beer and listened to the waves. Olly was lying down on the other side of the bar, his eyes closed, singing to himself. Greta, the Australian bartender with freckles and a huge head full of dreads was drawing on Mary, the young Scottish bartenders feet. They stopped occasionally to roll and smoke another joint.

Salva bounced up from the sand to the candle-lit wooden platform of the bar and sat down next to us.

“Where’s Ryeko?”

“She’ll be here soon. She is relaxing in the hammock,” Salvo sighed significantly, “ahhhh women.” Salvo pulled his legs up onto the bench and rested his hairy chin on his knees.

Katia and I waited. “I don’t know what to do,” he continued in his thick Sicilian accent, “Ryako, she is so beautiful. But I love my girlfriend in Germany.”

Salvo ordered himself a Beer Chang and played with his thick black curly hair. “I feel so guilty. And my girlfriend has kids. That’s a big responsibility.”

“How long have you and your girlfriend been together?” I asked.

“We have been together eight months already. But four months of traveling… it is very hard,” Salva sighed again, “ah well. I am Italian.” He shrugged in resignation.

A few minutes later Ryeko arrived and Katia emerged from her stoned haze to say hello. She settled between Katia and Salva at the bar and shined her smile on us. Katia and I agreed -- Ryeko certainly was beautiful. She was a Japanese model who lived in Paris. I looked from Ryeko to Salva and wondered how this short hairy Italian managed it.

“Hey guys!” Fiona waved and sat down next to us at the bar. Jeff smiled and stepped behind the bar to make them drinks.

“Fiona. Do you know a guy named Eric from Antwerp?” Fiona and Jeff ran Karma bar and knew everyone on the island.

“I don’t think so…. “

“He said he was just here but he’s an odd one. Funny though.”

We had already had two encounters with Eric. One of them earlier that evening when we were getting ready to walk over to the bar. I recounted the conversation between Eric and Katia.

“I just came from Karma bar now. Where is it?”

“If you just came from Karma bar now, you would know where it is.”

“I am an amnesiac, where am I going?”

“To Karma bar. Anyway, how much longer are you staying here?”

“Another couple of minutes.”

“On the island!”

“I don’t remember.”

“Are you sure you are not French?”

Eric responsed in a thick French accent “I am from Antwerpen. I know your neighbor.”

“I don’t think our neighbor likes us very much.”

“Ahh, that is because he thinks you are lesbians,” Eric whispered conspiratorially.

“That’s because we are lesbians.”

“You are lesbians?!”

“Yes.”

“That explains everything.”

“I can’t see your eyes with your sunglasses like that. I have no idea what you are thinking,”

“Thank you for your compliment,” The Antwerpen amnesiac smiled at us and wandered off.

“Was he handsome?” Fiona wanted to know.

“I guess so….”

“Nope. Didn’t meet him.”

The joints continued to circulate as Katia and I said goodnight to everyone and headed back to our bungalow.

I looked at the two books Jeff and Fiona had brought for us to borrow. “Can you believe Jeff and Fiona gave us two books -- one about autism and the other about schizophrenia? What does that say about us?”

“Maybe it says something about them – maybe they like to take care of mentally ill people?”

“Which would explain why they are running a bar on this island.”

Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas

2008-01-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

November 30, 2007

“Just remember Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas,” Adrien barked with a grin. Adrien, my diving instructor was born in Botswana and raised in South Africa. He had tan skin and somewhat Indian features with straight black shiny hair he kept pulled back in a ponytail. In the U.S. he could pass for Hispanic or Native American – in contrast to his features he had the thick unmistakable accent of a white South African. To me his accent was comforting. Every South African I had ever met was intensely competent – sleeping in the bush with lions, cooking a gourmet seafood dinner on a rusted out tin can on a roof in Kenya – South Africans were people you could trust in extreme situations. They travel in the bush with enough food and equipment to survive a nuclear holocaust and when you hobble into a campsite in the Okavango Delta with a flat tire and no jack a South African license plate on a beat up range rover is a beautiful site. I liked Adrien a lot, he had a gruff no nonsense way of teaching and I was confident that no matter what happened underwater Adrien would take care of us.

I went through each piece of equipment, BCD – the inflatable life vest thingy, Weights – the 300 pound belt I couldn’t possibly forget I was wearing, Releases – not sure what those are exactly, Air – I sprayed some air from my regulator, it smelled like old plastic tubing and Final check – I looked down at myself and shrugged, I guess I was ready.

Before I had any more time to think Adrien had us lined up at the edge of the boat and I stepped off into the water holding tightly to my regulator and facemask. I quickly popped to the surface, my eyes level with the water. I floated there for a minute still holding onto my regulator trying to remember how to get my head fully out of the water. I grabbed my snorkel – nope that wasn’t it, Adrein and the two Germans in my class had already started swimming towards the big orange buoy when I found the button on my BCD. There was a wosh of air and suddenly my entire head was out of the water. I awkwardly swam towards the buoy. The equipment made me feel like I was wearing a snowsuit. I ploughed forward and finally caught up with the others. It was our second open water dive of the four we needed to finish our PADI diving certification.

The first dive had been from a beach in fairly shallow water -- knowing the beach was there, only a few hundred meters away was extremely comforting. This time we were out in the middle of the sea and I was nervous. From what I could tell Adrien’s motto was to make sure we didn’t think too much -- before I knew what was happening everyone else had disappeared below the surface of the water. I finished rinsing my mask; grabbed hold of the rope attached to the buoy and deflated my BCD. I had hurt my ears in the first dive bouncing up and down out of control, this time I descended slowly, stopping every few feet to blow air out of my nose and stick my finger in my ears to keep them equalized. A murky green fog surrounded me on all sides. I felt like I couldn’t breathe -- the green was closing in around me. I forced myself to calm down and fixed my eyes on Adrien at the bottom of the line.

Once on the bottom we balanced ourselves awkwardly on the sand and Adrien checked in with each of us. After giving the O.K. sign we started swimming slowly behind him. Soon we were over beautiful beds of purple soft coral. It was a world of tiny delicate flowers swaying in the current. Beautiful tropical fish flew by me on all sides. Adrien pointed out a Lionfish hiding in the sand and an angry looking moray eel. I had just started to relax when I checked my air gauge. I was nearly out of air.

Adrien had us swim back to the sandy area -- it was time to perform our tricks. The first day of our course had been spent learning various skills – how to take all of our equipment on and off under water as well as on the surface, how to find our regulator in case it was knocked out of our mouths – that sort of thing. The skills had been difficult for me but I stubbornly completed each one -- not being able to lift my own weight belt after I took it off under water, I had finally layed down on the bottom and stayed there with it wrapped around my waist until I managed to hook the clasp and pull it tight.

Today’s trick was to simulate running out of air. We had to ascend slowly to the surface without using our regulator while blowing air slowly out of our mouths. We were 12 meters (36 feet) deep. I stretched my hand out in front of me and swam towards the surface – we were not supposed to go any faster than our tiny air bubbles so I swam slowly. Adrien swam directly in front of me watching intently to make sure I didn’t take a breath. Halfway to the surface I knew I wouldn’t make it. I stopped and made the thumbs down sign to Adrien. He nodded and I dropped back down and started again. This time I let my air out very slowly and made it to the top with no problem. Adrien congratulated me and I bobbed around on the waves while the two Germans had their turn. A few minutes later they had popped to the surface and we all began swimming back to the boat. Katia was watching and waiting for us -- she clapped and took lots of pictures as I peeled off my “sexy cat suit” – Katia’s name for my wet suit. I was exhausted, thrilled, and relieved that the day’s dives were over. We relaxed over cups of tea and slices of watermelon during the boat ride back to the island. I kept turning to Katia, smiling, I couldn’t believe I had done it. I had been incredibly nervous about diving -- it had taken me over a year of traveling to get up the courage to sign up for the PADI course, and I had finally done it! I was diving!

Flashback: The Girls of Mozambique

2008-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

A Mozambiquan Rasta man, wearing no shirt but with plenty of muscles rolling under his smooth skin, sauntered over to us as we heaved off our backpacks.

“You all right?” he asked with a crooked stoned grin.

I smiled back. “Yeah, we want to camp.”

Rasta-man nodded and led us around the corner of the main dorm barracks to a small dirt lot. There was a gray concrete wall blocking some – but not nearly all – of the noise and exhaust from the busy downtown Maputo street on the other side. We thanked Rasta-man, wandered around the tiny red dirt lot and picked a spot furthest from the one other lonely tent. We set up our little tent – barely big enough for two people -- and crawled in to hide. We were exhausted but too hungry to sleep. The night before had been horrible, staying at a backpackers in one of the worst parts of downtown Durban, fending off the advances of drunk creepy white South Africans. The bus ride into Mozambique was sweltering – we were in the very front of the top floor of a double decker bus. We arrived in Maputo sun cooked after 15 hours of being baked behind the large curved windshield.

It was getting dark and although we had hardly eaten in the last 24 hours, we were happy to have arrived somewhere and to have at least the illusion of privacy. Reluctantly we crawled out of the tent and into the common area of the backpackers -- a little courtyard -- where Rasta-man ran around, sucking salty butter off his fingers and giving orders to two Spanish women who giggled and flirted as they chopped and cooked. We cornered Rasta for a moment to ask him where we could find some food.

“Ahhh, I’m cooking seafood tonight.” He flipped his dreadlocks off his face. “You eat with us! Just give a little money for the food.” Clearly, he had the situation under control.

“Great. Is there anything we can do to help?” I glanced over at the chopping Spaniards. They glared back, angry to have lost Rasta’s full attention.

“Nah, just relax. Get a beer. Food will be ready soon.” He flashed his ladies-man grin at us and nodded in perfect agreement with himself. It was plain to see why the Spanish girls were fawning over him.

In the tiny courtyard, under garlands of colored light bulbs strung from palm trees, we pulled up a couple of white plastic chairs at a long make-shift table. Katia bought beers from a shy young guy behind the reception desk/bar and we watched the scene around us. There were scraggily backpackers sprawled on beat-up old sofas and chairs around the courtyard drinking beer and chain smoking. A beautiful cat with a tiny body and squashed pug like face took up residence on Katia’s lap. Soon Rasta called us over and we ate a delicious meal of Portuguese style seafood, and drank cold tangy sangria. The other backpackers were mostly Spanish and German and chatted in their own languages. That was fine with me – I was too tired for socializing.

“Do you like to smoke weed?” Rasta man was hovering, his muscled little body leaning towards us conspiratorially. He looked over his shoulder, reached into the crotch of his pants and extracted a clump of weed placing it in the palm of my hand with a meaningful look. Katia was definitely reaping the benefits of my dreadlocks. Rasta refused any money from us for the weed – it was a welcome to Mozambique gift -- and after sharing a joint with him and the scowling Spaniards it was time for bed.

The next couple of days we wandered around Maputo. The streets all named after famous communists, were once grand boulevards but now were full of giant gaping gullies, the sidewalks unpaved. What were once grand houses sat burnt and gutted – their pastel pink and green colors barely visible next to fancy new cafés frequented by NGO and embassy workers. Graffiti took ownership of decayed old verandas, and weeds claimed the rest. Garbage overflowed from huge dumpsters and rotted in the humidity and heat. After sunset the city was lit only by lights from shops and houses, we felt exposed as we hurried from one pool of light to the next, avoiding seas of garbage. Still the city had a vibrant energy. Local cafes were full of men and women drinking wine, beer and coffee at outside tables. We found one that we liked around the corner from our backpackers and went there nearly every day. The Portuguese menu was impossible to decipher so we just ordered whatever was on special and had delicious meals of meat soup and liters of cheap white wine. In the evenings, we relaxed and played with the sweet cat on the beat-up couches in the courtyard of the backpackers.

“Do you guys want to go out tonight? We rented the car for one day, and I don’t know how to drive a stick shift -- what do you think?”

The girls were Swedish or Danish, and nice, and despite our reservation about leaving the safety of the backpackers’ courtyard after dark, we were looking forward to exploring Maputo’s nightlife. We told the girls about a Jazz club we had heard about earlier that day.

The club was full of young stylish, Mozambiquans. The women wore tight skirts and ruffled shirts in bright festive colors and patterns. The men’s pants were equally as tight – polyester shimmering as they swung their hips and moved along with the music. Beautiful faces ranging in complexion from café au lait to dark chocolate, watched the man on stage intently. He was singing in a gravely voice American jazz and reggae songs, his graying dreadlocks swinging and his hands moving arthritically along to the music. He scowled out at the audience as he sang, occasionally breaking into a smile and winking at the pretty women in the front row. We spotted the man who had invited us and he waved us over. We had met him and his wife earlier at a restaurant -- they had come over to our table to welcome us to their city. He said he was a doctor and was one of the few people we had met in Maputo who spoke English. It turned out he spoke Russian as well and Katia tried to talk to him over the music. Unsurprisingly, the Doctor had shown up at the club without his wife. He pulled out a post card from his tailored jacket, and invited us both to spend the night with him at the hotel resort depicted on the postcard photo. Katia and I excused ourselves and headed for the bar.

“He kept pressing his leg up against mine and putting his arm around my waist,” I shivered.

“No! Why didn’t you tell me?” Katia’s eyes got wide.

“I kept moving away from him but he just didn’t get the hint. Didn’t you notice I was almost sitting on your lap?”

“Yuck,” Katia frowned and bought us each a beer.

We wedged ourselves into a spot against the wall. Going back to our seats with the Doctor was out of the question. Everyone was getting drunk and the dance floor in front of the old jazzman was full of women: their heads held proudly high, their hips performing African booty jerks while their feet moved to a salsa beat. The men stood watching through slitted eyes, arms crossed, their backs against the sweating wall. Two women passed in front of us heading for the bar. I elbowed Katia and nodded my head in their direction. One of the women was white and had short hair and glasses. She was wearing a man’s shirt and pants, and purposefully strutted through the crowd toward the bar. Behind her was a beautiful young woman with coffee-colored skin and a hundred long thin braids that swayed as she sashayed toward the bar in her tight mini skirt and heels.

“Bat! They are gay! You have to go talk to them,” I grabbed Katia and stared at the backs of the two women.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know but they are definitely gay.” Katia and I waited to make eye contact with the two women, who got their drinks and resolutely left the bar. As they passed us, we smiled and nodded.

The fierce femme gave us a suspicious look as they walked toward the exit.

“Damn, you didn’t talk to them.”

“I didn’t get a chance.”

Suddenly the femme stalked back into the bar and over to us. She stood in front of Katia and yelled at her in Portuguese, demonstratively waving her hand in Katia’s face to accompany what we could only assume to be curses. Katia and I hadn’t a clue what she was saying so we stood there and looked at her with huge grins on our faces trying to look friendly and non-threatening. We had obviously offended her somehow. Eventually she realized we didn’t understand what she was saying. She gave her braids a proud toss and marched back out the door, her braids swinging behind her.

“What the hell was that all about?” Katia looked at me.

“I don’t know, but I think she was mad at us. Maybe she saw us watching them.”

I glanced at the door. The white woman was there waving for us to come outside. Katia and I looked at each other.

“Do you think they want to beat us up? Should we go?”

“Of course we should go.” I grabbed Katia’s hand and we made our way through the crowd and out onto the sidewalk.

The white woman and the fierce femme were sitting at a table outside the club. With them was a heavy brown woman with a friendly face and a dark girl with cornrows -- she looked like a tiny female Snoop-Dog. We walked over and said Hi. The white woman immediately started to interrogate us in Portuguese. We didn’t respond.

“You don’t speak Portuguese?” Snoop said in thickly accented English.

Katia gave an apologetic smile and said “No.” I glanced across the table; the fierce femme was still scowling at us.

“I don’t speak English. My name is Chinoca,“ said Snoop.

“I’m Katia and this is my girlfriend Lee.”

“Are you two only friends?”

“Of course not! Lee is my girlfriend. We have been together for three years.”

Snoop translated and everyone started talking at once in Portuguese. They all stood up smiling and greeted us with handshakes and kisses. Within minutes they had rearranged themselves and we were seated on the narrow bench next to Snoop. Snoop introduced the rest of the girls.

“We are the only lesbians in Maputo!” She declared proudly. “Let’s have drinks.”

We sat with our drinks; Snoop translating questions from the other three. The heavyset woman turned out to be a French teacher. The conversation continued half in French which Katia translated and half in Portuguese which Snoop translated.

“We are going to a strip club now. You come with us!”

I gave Katia a quick look and nodded: “Of course! We’d love to come.”

A few minutes later we had all piled into the white woman’s tiny car and were driving through the dark streets of Maputo. The white woman screamed at traffic with a gravely voice as she hurtled through red lights and around corners. She parked in a dark alley and we all fell out of the car.

“This is our club” Snoop liked to make announcements.

“Is it a gay club?”

Snoop laughed, of course not. It is a strip club. But it is the only place for us.”

Soon we were all seated at a table in front of the dance floor. A white woman was slowly taking her clothes off to the music.

“She’s South African.” Reported Snoop.

“How come no one is giving her tips?”

“Why give her tips? She has a salary.”

I laughed. “Do you believe the strippers are on salary? Now that’s some kind of communism.” Katia grinned back at me. She didn’t seem to mind this kind of communism.

The girls asked us what we wanted to drink and soon the table was littered with empty rum bottles. Every time my glass was half empty someone refilled it. The girls wouldn’t let us pay for a thing. Our new, or perhaps just white, faces were drawing attention from the working girls. Gorgeous strippers kept coming over to the table and shyly introducing themselves to us. Snoop was a big hit with the girls and one or two of them settled onto her bony lap to whisper in her ear.

“I thought you were the only lesbians in Maputo?” Katia asked her.

“Yes we are. These girls all sleep with men and women. We are the only ones who do not have boyfriends.” She gave us her sly grin.

In between shouted conversations we watched the stage. Strippers performed on the dance floor for a song or two and then during next few songs the floor filled with people dancing. Most of the music was salsa or tango, some of it with a distinctly African sound. Katia and I danced salsa together to the delight of our friends and soon beautiful women were grabbing each of us and spinning us around the floor. The woman I danced with had big eyes and flirted as she danced. She had no problem leading and I could barely keep up with my flimsy salsa.

Katia was clearly enjoying dancing with a tall elegant girl who spun her around the floor and kept whispering in her ear. Our new friends didn’t enjoy us dancing with the girls, though. Maybe because they worried about our fidelity to each other, or because they didn’t want us to trust the girls we danced with, they shooed them away and wanted Katia and me to only dance with each other. Through the noise and the darkness and the lack of common language, we made out shreds of meaning in our friends conversations. Snoop was heart-broken over her break-up with her girlfriend, but that didn’t stop her from flirting with and kissing the girls in her lap. The white woman was heart-broken because her girlfriend had left her to return to her husband. The fierce femme sat in her lap and comforted her. The heavy-set French teacher didn’t seem heart-broken, and Katia asked Snoop about her.

“Is she gay?”

Snoop translated the question to the woman, and then her answer to us: “She loves her husband and her children.”

By the time we left the club we were all extremely drunk and the sun was starting to rise. We all stumbled back to the car and our Portuguese friend weaved dangerously through the deserted dark streets. She dropped the fierce femme in front of row of corrugated tin shacks. After making several phone calls she kissed our driver on the lips, got out of the car and started banging on the tin that served as a security wall. After ten minutes someone cracked a gate and let her in and we drove off.

Our driver smoked and spewed a steady stream of gruff Portuguese as she tried to find our backpackers. Snoop, whose English kept improving throughout the night, spoke soothingly and told us not to worry – she was always like this. Finally the girls found our home. Our gruff friend announced through Snoop that she would take us to dinner the next night. We kissed them goodbye and promised to call later that day to make plans. Katia and I were in a daze as we knocked on our own corrugated tin gate. The security guard had been napping in a chair on the other side and squinted at us suspiciously through the hot fog of Maputo morning. Once he realized we were white he swung open the door with a grin. We kicked off our boots, crawled into our tent and passed out. We woke up a few hours later sweating in the humid gray heat, suffocating from exhaust fumes. Katia and I climbed out of our tent and sat in the dirt lot discussing the night’s events. We both agreed – despite the horrible hangover -- we were thrilled to have met the Lesbians of Maputo.

Leaving Almaty

2007-11-28T04:45:00.001-08:00

October 14, 2007

We spent our last weeks in Kazakhstan hiding out in our apartment. It wasn’t just us, our friends were also hiding. Summer was over and the weather had turned cold. The city was sun-less, damp and gloomy during the day, and even worse in the evening --leaving the apartment seemed like an unnecessary torture. We pulled on our thick camel’s wool socks bought at lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgizstan, from knitting babushkas, and stayed in the kitchen cooking or just sitting on our couch near the stove to stay warm. We had decided to go to Thailand and then on to Malaysia, and all I could think about was the warm sun and the beach. Thinking about the inevitable loss of our kitchen and TV, I kept music videos on at all times and Lee in the kitchen cooking. She made me delicious fajitas and spaghetti bolognaise as well as anything else elaborate that I could come up with.

We ventured outside only to stock up on food and English-language movies, and then made up for it by closing all the windows and turning up the stove. After almost two years of summer, cold fall weather seemed like an injustice. Our hiding came to an end once we told our friends that we were leaving. Lee had been worrying for days about how to tell them and how they would take it. I wasn’t worried, they knew all along that we would eventually leave, they would not be shocked.

But telling the girls turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be.

“What! Why! Are you coming back?” Vika rasped at me in disappointment.

“Couldn’t you get a job here? A cheaper apartment?” Nastia chirruped.

We kept explaining that our visas were impossible to renew, that jobs for us in Almaty were ridiculously underpaid, and that apartments were impossibly expensive. And that’s besides the fact that our visas were running out. Still, I felt like I had somehow betrayed them. It was as if, without noticing it, we were accepted and absorbed, assimilated. We were just part of ‘the girls’ – a family that we found, and that found us. These were the girls who called us and announced that they would be at our apartment in fifteen minutes and showed up with cognac and stories. The girls whom I called to announce that we were on our way over when Lee was sick of sitting at home with a cold. The answer on the phone was ‘Of course, come over right now. We are waiting.’ They expected nothing from these get-togethers, ‘these shuffles’, besides the pleasure of just being together, and laughed at themselves and at jokes that weren’t even trying that hard to be funny. I felt like we were deserting these girls.

And not just the girls we were close to, or just Rimma and Vika who lived a block away and became our closest friends. We were leaving behind so much more: the area of the park that Almaty Tema claimed for themselves – the benches and the green slope where any one from Tema at any time could find old friends or meet new ones. The spontaneous parties evoked into existence with a single text message ‘come over’ and lasting for days at a time as friends came and left. The way that a girl could tell a friend that she is looking for a new job, or a new apartment, and within hours somebody from Tema was on the phone with her scheduling interviews and discussing a moving-in date. How you could be talking and laughing at your friend’s kitchen table, and if you got hungry all you needed to do was to open your friend’s fridge and cook something for everyone to share. Usually, as the partying went on, the only things left to cook were an omelet or frozen pelmeni. We were leaving all that behind, all that interconnectedness, and it was making me sad and restless.

“You guys should come and visit us in America. Come during Pride, we’ll take you to New York. Hundreds of thousands of lesbians of all kinds, and non-stop partying, you are gonna love it,” Lee and I told the girls sitting on the couch in our kitchen.

“How can we come. We would never get visas. No one gets American visas. China and India – and Russia – are about the only places we can go.” Vika was puffing on a cigarette explaining this, and Rimma was looking away. Maybe she was embarrassed to be living in a country where, despite her well-connected parents, despite her prestigious education as a psychotherapist, and despite living in her beautiful apartment that was the envy of all Tema, America still did not deem her civilized enough to be just a tourist and not someone trying to sneak in and stay illegally. America considered her sub-standard, and it hurt Rimma’s pride.

“I have a friend,” Vika was smiling as if telling a secret, “who wanted to go to America to study. She was accepted by a University and everything. And her girlfriend wanted to come with her, because they are together, they live together. So at the visa interview at the American consulate she was allowed, but her girlfriend was denied. Not just denied for that trip, but denied for life to enter America.” Vika grinned her cat grin at us.

“Did they tell the interviewer that they are a couple and want to go together?”

“Of course not.”

On the last Monday before our flight to Bangkok, we went to club ‘Real’ for the last time. We arrived in the dark, damp, smoky club with our neighbors, Vika and Rimma, but soon texts came from Nastia and Koritsa, ‘Are the Americans there? We are coming.’ Nastia and Koritsa, then Yulia and Sofa, then Rita, then others -- even girls we had only seen and never met -- they all knew we were leaving and came to kiss us, to shake our hands, to say good-bye. I was really surprised and moved, unprepared for the feelings I had: I didn’t realize that I was so embraced, so enveloped in these girls’ warmth, so used to their attention, and now Lee and I were about to sever that connection.

Lee and I danced salsa, avoiding the eyes that were watching us because they had never seen anyone dance salsa before us, and because we were now leaving. After the dance, a girl we never met came up to us and said: “I will miss the way you dance.” I almost cried. We returned to the booth where our friends waited and Vika announced:

“We came up with a way to visit you in America. We will come to the interview at the American consulate and tell them the truth: that we are going to visit friends and to go to the gay parade in America. They cannot deny us a visa then because it would be discrimination. And isn’t it illegal in America to discriminate against gays?” Vika was beaming.

Lee looked at me, then at Vika: “This is a good idea, it may even work.”

I hope that it does.

East meets West -- Over Vodka

2007-11-28T04:39:00.000-08:00

September 24, 2007

Katia and I were loitering near the “lesbian bench” in Arbat watching the beautiful Kazakh women in their skin-tight mini-skirts and heels promenading arm and arm through the square. On and around “The Bench” girls were gathering in small groups to chat, drink beer, and smoke. Every few minutes someone would come over to us, shyly say hello and kiss us on both cheeks before joining their favorite cluster of girls. Our friends Vika and Rimma were sitting on the bench whispering together and looking meaningfully into each other’s eyes. Our plastic pink phone started vibrating and Katia answered it mouthing ‘It’s Oxy.’ I frowned and tried to decipher the conversation.

Katia hung up and translated: “She wants us to meet her at the ‘Tent Café.’ She says she’s with some very interesting people and that we won’t regret it. She was all excited and mysterious – even more so than usual.”

“Who are these people?”

“ She wouldn’t tell me but she says we have to come immediately.”

I sighed. “I don’t feel much like crossing town to meet some mysterious new people. Where is this Tent Café place anyway?”

“Somewhere near our apartment I think.”

I looked around at the girls. It was a couple of beers into the evening and chatting had turned to either flirting or arguing. Rimma and Vika were still entwined on the bench and our other friend Nastia was smoking vigorously, looking beautiful and bored.

“There’s nothing going on here. I guess we might as well go.”

Katia agreed and we said goodbye to our friends and acquaintances. A few dozen kisses on the cheek later, and we were standing out on the street trying to catch a ride. Katia stood facing oncoming traffic with her arm pointing at an angle toward the ground. I stood on the sidewalk trying to look less foreign. In Almaty every car was a “taxi.” If anyone happened to be going in your direction they would drop you off for 200-300 Tenge (the equivalent of two or three dollars). The fourth car Katia stopped agreed to take us so we climbed in and settled into the back seat.

“I can’t believe she still wants to hang out with us after that conversation at Lena’s,” I said to Katia.

“Well, we are “The Americans. And besides, she doesn’t take it as a fight, everyone here speaks their mind.”

Obviously, Katia understood these girls much more than I ever would. When we were at Lena’s house Oxy had told us about a girl she was beginning to date, and was very excited about. The girl, Oxy proudly told us, was so highly positioned in her job – some kind of finance director – that her position prevented her from “shuffling” with other lesbians. She was afraid someone might recognize her and find out she is gay. Oxy explained that they only have straight friends, and never go to gay or lesbian clubs. However, for us Oxy was going to make an exception, since there was little chance of us revealing the girl’s gayness to any of her friends or clients. I wasn’t sure how I felt about such an “honor.”

“She doesn’t like gatherings of friends or going out,” explained Oxy, “someone might recognize her. But you might get to meet her,” she winked at us.

“Doesn’t it bother you that you can’t even introduce her to your friends or go out on a date with her?” Katia translated my question.

“No,” said Oxy, “you don’t understand, she has to protect her high position. Why should anyone beat themselves on the chest and announce that they are gay? I don’t want my co-workers to know about my personal life, and she doesn’t either. It’s my business who I sleep with.”

“But being gay is not just who you sleep with. It’s who you have a relationship with, who you spend your weekends with, who your friends are…”

“And it’s none of my co-workers’ business.”

“So your co-workers don’t come in on Monday and ask you what you did on the weekend, or what your plans are for the evening?”

“Of course they do. We eat lunch together at the table every day, and when I am sick my boss comes to my apartment with medicines to check that I am really sick in bed and not blowing off work.”

“Now that’s weird, but never mind. So what do you tell you co-workers when they ask you about your life?” Katia and I took turns trying to make our point.

“I tell them I went biking with friends or that I hung out with friends. Or I can say, I spent the weekend with the person I love.”

“So you say anything but the truth, and ‘the person I love’ is gender neutral, right?”

“Yes, they don’t need to know. I am a professional at work, they don’t need to think of me as human.”

“But they do anyway, don’t they! Don’t you know who is married and who’s not, and how many children they have, and all their names?”

“Yes, we discuss everything.”

“Except your life, you hide yours behind gender-neutral expressions and avoid using pronouns to refer to girls you date.”

“It’s because I am not married. Unmarried people slide below the radar. People assume that we are just playing and don’t have a serious relationship, so no one focuses attention on me.”

“So at your work straight people don’t discuss how they spent the weekend with their girlfriend or boyfriend?”

“They do all the time.”

“So their relationships are real even though they are not married.”

“Yes, but we have a conservative society, we don’t have gay marriages here.”

“So your relationships will never be real? Not even to you?”

Oxy laughed: “They are real, but no one has to know. You are always saying how in America you two go to the gay clubs, to the gay resort towns on the beach, to gay parades… everything is gay with you. I don’t like that. If you separate yourself from normal society, then I think normal society should separate itself from you. They should have places ‘no gays allowed, straight people only’.”

“I can’t believe this girl,” I whispered to Katia under my breath.

“Oxy,” I said, “They already do. Normal people, as you call them, run the world and exclude gays, that’s why you are in hiding and think you are ‘abnormal’. This gay parade you refer to, is really called ‘gay pride parade’. Pride, the word you omit in Russian, means respecting yourself for who you are. Obviously, a foreign concept here.”

“We don’t have a liberal society, we have a Muslim society here…”

“And we have a conservative Christian society. How do you think we got our rights? Do you think straight people said, you should have equal rights, here go get married? We fight for our rights. We insist on being visible and recognized, not hiding.” I was getting worked up.

“I am not hiding.”

“Really?” Does your mom know you are gay?”

“No, she doesn’t need to know. She loves me any way that I am.”

“Then why not tell her, if you already decided that she accepts you no matter what.”

“I will tell her when I find the love of my life and I will bring her to my mother and tell her: mom, this is my girlfriend and I love her.”

“What does your girlfriend have to do with you being gay? She is just a person off the street, what does your mom care for her being gay. It’s you being gay that your mom cares about. You aren’t just turning gay when you have a girlfriend. How many years have you been gay?”

“Many.”

“How many girlfriends have you had?”

“Many.”

“See?”

“I’ll do what my chosen brother did, he only introduced his mother to his ex-wife, and his wife to be. They’ll be married by New Year.”

“That boy is twenty and straight. He doesn’t have to come out to his mom.” Lee was getting mad now. “You say your mom kisses your hands and accepts you no matter what. You live with her, you are that close… How is she going take it when she finds out you’ve been lying to her all these years?”

“I am not lying.”

“Avoiding the truth then!”

That conversation had happened several days earlier, and now Katia and I were on our way to meet some “very interesting people.” The taxi dropped us off at home and we walked around the corner to the ‘Tent Café.’ The café was typical of Almaty with a few plastic tables and chairs outside a small restaurant where a disco ball cast multicolored shadows on the walls -- the soundtrack Russian pop interspersed with drunk Kazakh men belting off key to a small karaoke machine in the corner. Oxy introduced us to her friends, three Kazakh lesbians. Sabina, her girlfriend Maral, and Asel. Unlike the rest of our friends who were mixes of Russian, Georgian, and Tartar, these girls were ethnically Kazakh.

“Do you think that’s why Oxy told us this bunch doesn’t mix with the rest of the girls? “ I whispered to Katia as we sat down.

Katia shrugged, “Could be.”

Vodka and beer had been flowing freely and the girls were already feeling good.

“We have made huge progress in the last six years,” reported Sabina. “Before, we didn’t know each other, it was impossible for girls to meet each other. I was there right in the beginning of the Almaty Shuffle. I am one of its originators. Now we are free and out.” She filled our glasses with vodka.

“Really,” I said. “You guys are out? At work? To your families? In public?”

Sabina laughed as if I made a joke: “Of course not. We are free in our online forum, free to meet with each other and chat.”

“Which is what we do all day,” said Asel. “I come to work, log in and see who’s there. That one,” she pointed at Sabina, “she’s on all the time, we crack each other up all day.”

“It’s a huge step for Tema, said Sabina importantly. And I was right there in the beginning. But what you mean by being out – that’ impossible in Kazakhstan.”

“Why?”

“Because this is the East. We don’t do things directly here, we avoid confrontations and instead use covert methods.”

Oxy chimed in excitedly: “We have a saying in the East: ‘don’t offend others, but get your way.’”

“We care about our families,” explained Sabina. “And that means the most important thing is our families’ status.”

“If I told my parents I am gay, they would have a heart attack,” said Maral. “I can’t disappoint them like that. And if others find out I am gay, then everyone is going to point fingers at my family. They would lose their status, they would lose their jobs.”

“We don’t need to come out in Kazakhstan,” Sabina concluded authoritatively. “This is not America. We have a conservative society.”

“If I hear one more person tell me some bullshit about being in a conservative society or having conservative parents, I’m going to loose my mind,” I whispered to Katia, probably a little too loudly.

“Hold on, let’s hear them out,” Katia put her hand on my shoulder to calm me down.

“Don’t do that, they might freak out that you are outing them to the waitress,” I snarled into Katia’s ear.

“So how can you guys live happy, fulfilled lives when you are constantly hiding and pretending. How can you say that it’s okay and you are happy that way?” I asked Sabina.

“In the East we put our families above ourselves. Their benefit outweighs our needs.” This answer seemed to be a hit with the other girls, glasses were cheerfully refilled with more vodka. Toasts made all around.

“But if family is everything, wouldn’t your families stand up for you as you stand up for them? Couldn’t they support you in being gay and use their high status to change society’s perception of gays and lesbians?” Katia was on a roll.

“Why,” Oxy beamed at us. “Why make life so hard when you can just do what you want and please your family at the same time?”

“How can you do that?”

“Easy. Just marry a man to please your family, and do your business in your free time. Fictitious marriage.”

“What. Are these girls nuts!” I was about to loose my temper. “What about kids? Don’t you want to have kids with your girlfriend. You can’t even live together, how are you going to do that?”

“I don’t think two women should be raising a child together,” said Sabina authoritatively.

I looked around at the girls at the table smiling and nodding.

Katia said: “So these girls don’t think their relationships are real at all. Being gay to them is some dirty little secret they are ashamed of.”

“I can’t wait to go home. Take me out of here. These girls depress me,” I put my head on Katia’s shoulder.

Unfortunately, there was still another carafe of vodka to drink and as we had just learned, in The East being polite is everything.

Happy Anniversary

2007-11-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

October 4, 2007

Lee was just beginning her morning at one in the afternoon, when we got a text from Rimma.
“What does she say?” mumbled Lee, toothbrush in her mouth and tooth pasty spit running down her chin.
“Shit. She says her parents are coming to visit her today. You know what that means.”
Sure enough, an hour later we got a text from Vika: “Are you home? Rimma’s parents are coming at four, and Dolly and I need to be out of the house. It’s freezing and pouring outside.”
“What are we supposed to say?” I said to Lee. “I don’t want Dolly here, but we can’t leave Vika out in the cold. I can’t believe Rimma is kicking her out, and Vika just takes it. And her dog too? What should I say?”
“Tell her we are out.”
"I don’t want to lie.”
“I know.”
It was gloomy and gross out and Lee and I were anticipating having a cozy day of hiding in our warm kitchen, with no guests to entertain. But now Vika and her dog were hanging over us, menacing to take away our day of chilling. We decide to try to act non-committal without lying. I texted back to Vika that we were planning to head out soon, but if she needed a place to go, we would change our plans. As expected, Vika wrote back for us not to worry about her, that she would find a place to wait out Rimma’s parents’ visit. This made us feel guilty, instead of relieved. So we texted back insisting that Vika and Dolly come over immediately.
Vika showed up before four, with her dog, Dolly, in tow. With frozen cheeks and mascara, she plopped down on the kitchen couch. Dolly, round, wet and stinking, paced around the kitchen sniffing and making desperate whizzing noises. Her nails made a constant clicking noise on the linoleum floor.
“Dolly, calm down,” cooed Vika. “She is afraid that she’s been kicked out of her house and that I am going to leave her here,” Vika explained to me. “Pour her some water in a bowl to calm down.”
I poured water for Dolly, and the cognac Vika brought for us.
“Today is our anniversary. Two months Rimma and I have been together.” Vika blinked her mascara-ed eyelashes at me and grinned guiltily. Her grin looked unstable to me, as if ready to erupt into a laugh or to disintegrate into tears. Dolly kept running around the kitchen wheezing and sniffing, only pausing to lap at the water in her bowl.
“But you are celebrating alone,” I blurted. Shit. I promised myself not to say anything, and this was the first thing I said. “I mean, it’s your anniversary and you have to leave your house because Rimma’s parents are coming. It just makes me sad for you. I am sorry.”
Vika pulled in her chin like a duck and smiled at me: “This is normal. Everybody is this way here.” She flapped her eyelashes at me for emphasis.
“So it doesn’t hurt your feelings?”
“No.”
“I would feel like, is this girl not taking our relationship seriously. She wants no trace of me or my dog in the house, does this mean she doesn’t give a shit about me.” Now I joined Dolly pacing around the kitchen opening cabinets, forgetting what I was looking for. Vika followed me with her mascara-ed eyes.
“Not at all,” she said. “Rimma wants to tell her parents, but it’s hard for her. In her family, no one asks her about her personal life, so it’s hard for her to raise the issue. When she’s drunk, she says, ‘I’m gonna tell them.’ When she sobers up, ‘Oh my god, what if they find out.’
“This would be a perfect occasion to raise the issue: your anniversary, her parents coming over. What is she afraid of? What would happen?”
“Her parents will not approve. She doesn’t want to disappoint them,” shrugged Vika.
“What does it matter if they are disappointed. They will get over it. Rimma is an independent adult, she has her own apartment…”
“Ah you are wrong there,” Vika grinned and nodded as if agreeing with herself. “The apartment isn’t hers, it belongs to her father.”
How could I argue with her now. I had nothing to say. My American mentality and firm belief in entitlement to personal autonomy did not apply here. Living in Kazakhstan, you could never become an adult in the American sense. The girls didn’t feel entitled to live the lives they lived, they lived their lives secretly. If they didn’t feel the need to come out to their parents, how could their parents ever accept them being gay? If they didn’t think their relationships were legitimate, how could their parents?
“Hmmmn… Well… Happy anniversary,” I said. Vika and I toasted with cognac in our tea cups.

Are You Acteev?

2007-11-09T07:26:00.000-08:00

September 27, 2007

Lena put the plate of steaming hot horse meat in the middle of the coffee table. The smell made me hungry. But before I could stab it with my fork, Lena winked at me: “Let’s go in the kitchen to have a smoke.” Lena wanted to talk to me. I wasn’t gonna get any horse meat for a while.

In the kitchen still filled with the juicy smell of frying meat, Lena perched on the window sill, stuck a long thin lady cigarette between her lips, and lit it with a pink lighter, cupping her hand around the flame.

She sucked in the smoke and said: “When I first got in with Tema, I was shocked by the question the girls always asked me as soon as our clothes came off.” Lena made an oratorical pause for emphasis, then continued: “Are you acteev?”
“What!” That I didn’t expect.
“Yes. That’s what I said. What do they mean by that?” She sucked hard on her lady cigarette, turning her head away from me to blow out the smoke, but not breaking our eye contact.
I was sure she knew what they meant by that, but answered anyway, since she clearly wanted me to. Acteev was supposed to be the English word ‘active’, and I heard other girls use it the way Lena was talking about now.
“You know,” I said, “they mean, are you gonna just lie there or are you gonna do something.” I even met girls in Almaty who introduce themselves that way: Hi, my name is Tania, and I am acteev.
Lena laughed at my explanation: “But how would you answer this question?” she wanted to know.
“I would say, wait and see for yourself.” She seemed to like that.
“You know,” she said, “I used to try to seduce straight girls, and was proud to add each new notch to my belt…”
“But it’s a whole different thing to sleep with real lesbians, isn’t it?”
Lena lowered her eyes: “I learn all these things about myself with women – I never knew I could be this, do this, I surprise myself.”
“And you like that.”
“Yes. My husband used to not take my women seriously: if I am not with another man then I am not cheating. But he is noticing. He is beginning to ask me now, what do these women do to you that I can’t do?”
“Ooooo that just sounds painful,” I said. Lena seemed want to embark on a long heavy conversation, but I didn’t want to leave Lee and the horse meat waiting for me in the other room for too long. “Let’s go back in the living room and join the girls,” I said to Lena.

Back in the living room, the meat was delicious, and apparently so was the cognac, since the bottle was considerably emptier than when Lena took me into the kitchen. Vika was comfortable passed out on the couch, Lee was talking to Rimma in semi-Russian, and Rimma was picking at the meat, sipping cognac, and feeling nice and pensive. Her head was tilted forward, and her eyes were trying to focus somewhere to the left of me. She switched to full Russian when I was back at the table and ready to translate.

“I keep thinking and wondering,” Rimma began, “why in high school I was a mouse. And now, not a mouse. I used to have so many complexes. So many. There was all that pressure to have a boyfriend. I didn’t want a boyfriend. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t like to wear skirts and dresses, even as a child. You know, when my mom was younger, she didn’t wear skirts or dresses either, only pants; she was sporty. Maybe” – she took another sip of cognac – “in another time and place, my mom would have been gay too.”
“Maybe,” I said, “although what you wear doesn’t really have anything to do with your desire to sleep with women. I think you wear these clothes that identify you as a lesbian to other lesbians deliberately, to fit into this subculture.”
I translated what I said to Lee, and she joined the conversation: “Psychologists always argue about nature vs. nurture, ask Rimma what she thinks about it,” said Lee.
Rimma answered: “There is obviously a biological basis to being gay.”
I smiled at Rimma: “But not to your clothes or your hair style,” I said.
“Well,” said Rimma, “you must admit that among lesbians there is an extra-high number of athletes. It’s because lesbians produce too much testosterone, a hormone that’s responsible for aggressive behavior. Sports provide an outlet for this aggression. So lesbians are drawn to sports because of their high levels of testosterone.”
Lee said: “There are plenty of lesbians who are not into sports. And besides, you can like sports and not like girls.”
“Ah. But there is another caveat,” Rimma raised one finger into the air. “High testosterone levels affect the clitoris, it becomes more sensitive.”
Lee and I exchanged looks.
“Yes,” confirmed Rimma, “lesbians have extra-sensitive clits, you may have noticed.”
“That’s just crazy,” announced Lee. “And even if that was true, having an extra-sensitive clit would not make you want to sleep with women. Tell Rimma that.”
But Rimma was undeterred. Conspiratorially leaning toward us across Lena’s coffee table with horse meat, and pressing her cognac glass to her chest, Rimma continued:
“There is another thing. You probably noticed that Tema girls don’t like… you know…” She flashed her eyes and her dimple at us. “Anything inside. Penetration,” she concluded. “We have sensitive clits that compensate for that.”
This completely outraged Lee: “What! These girls don’t fuck? That’s just gross.” Lee loudly whispered her indignation to me. In English, so I edited it out and didn’t translate it to Rimma. I noticed myself doing that a lot: editing my translations for politeness.
“What. In the U.S. it’s different?” Rimma’s cheeks were glowing.
I said: “Of course. You can’t get away with not fucking a girl thoroughly. That just wouldn’t be acceptable. Lesbians are extremely into penetration.” Lee and I nodded at each other in enthusiastic agreement, and I said to Lee: “Now I understand why they all have long nails.”
Lee nodded: “That’s terrible.”
“Rimma,” I said, “haven’t you ever heard about the G-spot?”
“What!” Rimma’s eyes got wider, and somehow sideways.
I explained: “The G-spot. It’s this erogenous zone on the front wall of the vagina.” Again I was feeling like I did when Lena asked me what Acteev meant in the kitchen. Weird. As if Lee and I were supposed to represent all American lesbians and to impart their experience to Almaty Tema. I stretched my hand out to Rimma: “You can reach it like this, if the girl is facing you.”
Lena, who was listening to this conversation, was amazed by the revelation of the G-spot, her head was still shaking in disbelief. Rimma was blinking uncontrollably.
“These girls must seriously be gay,” I said to Lee, “to insist on sleeping only with women even without fucking. Craziness.”
Lee said: “If no one has ever taught them how, I guess they just don’t know about it.”
“Then I really am confused: what do they mean by ‘Acteev’?
“Who knows. It’s Kazakhstan.”
“Yeah. But they sure know about cognac here. Let’s have some more. Do you think that by telling them about all this stuff we are influencing the sexual practices of Kazakhstan’s lesbians?”
“I doubt they’ll remember anything we said tomorrow,” Lee shook her head and smiled at me.
“Good point. Let’s toast to ‘Acteev”.

Let's Shuffle

2007-11-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

October 24, 2007

Lee:

I was relaxing on the pea soup green paisley couch in our kitchen when the cell phone beeped from the other room. I jumped up, ran to the other room, hit the answer button and thrust the phone at Katia. I concentrated trying to make sense of Katia’s half of the conversation. I only caught a word here and there. Katia hung up and glared at me. “It was Rimma and she wants to “shuffle” right now!”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her to come over of course.”
I quickly ran into the other room and changed out of my pajamas and into jeans and a t-shirt.
“We don’t have anything to eat or drink!”
“I know! I’m going to the store right now.” Katia gave me a quick kiss and vaulted into the smelly elevator outside our apartment door.
I ran around dumping dirty dishes in the sink, gathering piles of underwear from the sofa and sweeping, trying to make our apartment look decent. In 10 minutes the doorbell rang and Rimma, Vika and Lena walked in. Two minutes later Katia rushed through the door with bags full of cheese, sausage and cognac.
At first these sudden interactions or “shuffles” as our friends liked to call them, felt like invasions but by now we had gotten used to the idea and even appreciated these unexpected visits. We had discovered that the girls had an amazing ability to party every day. Just because we cooked them a huge dinner and entertained them for hours in our apartment one day, did not mean that they did not want to ‘shuffle’ again the next day. Every day around three in the afternoon our cell phone started beeping and buzzing. We exchanged endless SMS messages organizing plans for the evening. Even girls who didn’t want to hang out texted with reports of their daily activities. We couldn’t believe how interconnected these Tema girls were.
That Saturday we hiked into to the Altai mountains outside of Almaty with Nastia, Koritsa, and Vika, arriving back way after dark, slightly hung over from the Sangria we had made during our picnic. The next day we drove to another spot in the mountains and cooked amazing shashlik with Yulia, Shura, Lena, Duke and his boyfriend – our contribution of course a bucket of Sangria. We continued to party at Lena’s apartment with bottle after bottle of cognac and delicious meat from an endangered species of mountain ram. We were exhausted, but the Tema weekend was still going. It was time to meet Vika, Rimma, and others at club Real for girls’ night on Monday. By Tuesday, when the phone rang and Nastia instantly asked ‘what are you doing?’ code for either: ‘great, I will join you in an hour,’ or ‘let’s hang out right now’, we were ready to unplug the phone and hide.

Katia:

“What’s going on with these girls?” I asked my mom for help. Obviously there were things about Russian culture that I didn’t remember.
“Well, you are friends, and friends like to spend time together.”
“Yeah… but this much time? I mean, we hung out with this girl yesterday, now today she wants to see us again. They all do it, they hang out together every day. What’s there to talk about if you see somebody every day?”
“Katia, you are looking at this all wrong,” diagnosed Mama. “You got used to how Americans think. Americans work very hard, are exhausted by the evenings, and the weekends are what precious little time they have to have fun. They see friends so that they can spend quality time together. Right? They plan the meetings days – weeks in advance, and when they get together they expect something out of the interaction. Russians are different. They don’t work hard, they work hardly at all, so every evening is a party. If they like somebody, then they want to spend as much time as possible with that person. And they don’t expect anything from you – no quality time bullshit. Just being together with the person they like, with their friend, is enough. They can just sit together on a bench and observe the passers-by silently. And that’s enough. That makes them happy. You don’t have to entertain them, they entertain themselves. Did you forget how when you were in school in Kiev you spent all your time together with your friends? You came from school together, you did homework together. Think about it.”
“I see what you are saying.” I was grinning into the phone. “But when do they spend time with their girlfriend? Privacy? They do everything with friends, never as couples, and Lee and I like to have time alone.”
“That’s more American bullshit,” said Mama. “Couples-shmupple. If they live together, they get plenty of time alone.” I thought about my parents and all their friends and how they always go on all the romantic vacations together as a group. “Anyway,” Mama continued, “you don’t have to hang out every night if you don’t want to.”
“Yes I do!” I protested. “They call and right away ask what we are doing. Then they join us or come over. Just invite themselves. What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t pick up the phone if you want a quiet evening at home. Or make up plans.”
“Lie to them?”
“Yes,” Mama did not even hesitate.
“O.K. Well, here is an example.” This was the reason for asking Mama in the first place. I felt like I was committing a huge Russian social faux pas, yet I lined up justifications for myself that sounded American even to me. “This girl,” I told Mama, “Yulia, she called us up yesterday and asked what we were doing. I told her that Lee and I were cooking dinner, and after dinner we were planning to go for a walk. I thought that would convey to Yulia that we had plans – private plans. But no, she just said, great, Sofa will drop me off at your house in twenty minutes and we’ll go together. Are you listening?”
“Yes. And?”
“And I said to Yulia that instead, let’s meet up at Arbat (the area in the park where the lesbians congregate) later, after we finish dinner. So she waited for us there while we leisurely ate and promenaded. Then Yulia called us two hours later all upset that she had been waiting for us all alone. Alone! As if she can’t stand to sit alone on a bench, tons of people around, what’s her problem.”
“Katia. Don’t’ you understand. Of course she’s upset. You stood her up.”
“But she imposed herself. And we were getting there, slowly.”
“You did to her the worst possible thing. You made her feel alone and un-needed. Like nobody cares about her.”
“What. Seriously. Couldn’t she just read a book or something while waiting.”
“Read a book!” Mama exclaimed like I proposed an activity so preposterous, no self-respecting person would do it in public. “Reading a book is something they can do in bed before falling asleep. To sit alone in a public place, where everyone sees you alone, that’s terrible.”
I mulled it over: “Do you think she would forgive me if I apologize?”
“Yes. She might.”
“Phew!”
“Be simple. Forget the American bullshit: quality time, privacy, planning ahead, and you’ll be fine.”
I told Lee Mama’s advice, and Lee understood and took it seriously. Things changed after that. We stopped cooking elaborate meals every time the girls came over. Instead, if they were coming over, we pulled out whatever we found in our fridge, and the girls were happy. Any time the mood decided to strike, or when nothing good was found on the two English-language channels, we picked up the phone and a bottle or two of cognac, and walked across the street to our favorite girls’ apartment, Rimma’s and Vika’s. They were always happy to see us, and needed no notice. Rimma fired up the sheesha, Vika cooked some frozen pelmeni that we all ate from a common bowl, and drank, laughed about silly things, as Zimfira, the queen of Russian lesbian music, screamed heart-wrenching screams in the background. And when the phone rang, and a Tema girl on the other end immediately asked us what we were doing, we knew what to answer: “Let’s shuffle.”

The "Theme" of Almaty

2007-11-03T08:43:00.003-07:00

Katia and I stepped into the sunlight dazed and squinting. We had been in the gray concrete maze of OVIR for hours. All foreigners were required to register themselves within five days of arriving in Kazakhstan and OVIR was the place to do it. It was a deeply soviet process involving an excruciatingly specific choreographed circuit of photocopies and multiple ‘kassas.’ My job was to hold our place in various lines while Katia ran around photocopying every piece of paper they could conceivably request. We elbowed our way through the crowd of Russians, Chinese and Turks all shouting and pushing their money through the slot where the surely woman required two photocopies of our passports, two of the visas, two of the applications for registration, two of the immigration cards, and all the originals before she would accept payment. Anyone without exact change was immediately sent to the back of the line. She pushed our receipt through the little slot and slammed it shut, demonstratively ignoring the pleas of the frustrated line of people behind us. We raced to the second window and Katia shoved all our documents through the window slot just as the woman had begun to close it. She glanced at our American passports, sighed and agreed to take the documents, obviously angry at the one and a half minute delay in her lunch break.

We were thrilled to be out of there and wandered aimlessly through the crowds of promenading people. Suddenly I noticed two girls walking towards us.
“Bat, look! Lesbians.”
“Is that a guy?"
“No, they are girls. Should we talk to them?"
By the time we had determined that they were indeed lesbians it was too late. The couple, a scraggly tomboy and a stylish femme, had walked past us, deeply involved in an argument.
The scraggly lesbian was flexing her hand bouncing an imaginary ball as she rasped: “It’s my job, don’t tell me how to handle it. It’s my business,”
“Well, I guess, we are not gonna talk to them.”
The lesbians reached the intersection, turned around, and walked back toward us, continuing their argument. We stopped where we were in the middle of the sidewalk and watched as they passed. Katia smiled and nodded at them. Ignoring us, they kept walking. Suddenly, they stopped, turned around and stared. We had finally registered in the lesbian-identifying centers of their brains. Katia waved to them, the scraggly one waved back. Katia motioned for them to come toward us. The scraggly one repeated her gesture.
“Should we go meet them?” said Katia. By now we were only a few steps away from the girls.
“Of course.”
“Hi, I am Sofa,” said the scraggly one.
“And I am Yulia.”
Katia introduced us in Russian and I said my “Hello” in English.
“Where are you guys going?” asked Sofa, her eyes peeking out between the extra-cool aviator sunglasses hiding one half of her face and the shaggy hair hiding the rest.
“To the Green Bazaar.”
“Then get in, we’ll give you a ride.”
Sofa was a taxi driver, somewhat off-duty. Sitting in the heat and haze of Almaty’s traffic jams we had time to talk. Sofa turned to us sweating in the back seat and rasped: “Do you smoke weed?”
“Come to Real tonight,” chirruped Yulia. Mondays girls get in free, so all the lesbians come on Mondays, it’s the girls’ night.” She batted her mascara-ed eyelashes at us in the back seat. “We’ll wait for you outside at eleven, ‘cuz the club is unmarked. It’s so nice to meet grown-up, cultured lesbians,” she added with a smile.
As we climbed out of the car, Sofa and Yulia were well into a new argument: Yulia demanded that Sofa take her home to change before the club, and Sofa barked back: “Are you crazy, drive across the whole city for that!”
Yulia didn’t need to worry about us finding Club Real. Emanating from the doorway of the club were dozens of lesbians. They fidgeted in clusters, hunching to look tougher. They smoked purposefully, pinching the cigarettes with the thumb and forefinger over the top. Girls in jeans and wife beaters, hair spiked and mulleted, forcefully shook hands with each other and kissed the cheeks of the girls in tight mini skirts. We felt right at home.
Sofa and Yulia led us into the club and proudly introduced us as “The Americans” to their friends. We met Nastia, Sofa’s ex-girlfriend who was currently dating Yulia’s ex-girlfriend, ‘Koritsa’ -- Russian for Cinnamon. Nastia, a blond blue-eyed chain-smoking beauty, adopted us and later introduced us to much of the also chain-smoking Almaty lesbian community. We learned that in Almaty gay men and lesbians referred to themselves with the secret code word, ‘Tema’ – or ‘The Theme’. A thematic club is a gay/lesbian club. A thematic girl is a lesbian. A thematic bookstore is a gay/lesbian bookstore. The girls wanted to know all about lesbians in the U.S.
“How do you say ‘The Theme’ in the U.S.?”
“We don’t have a secret code word like that for ourselves. We just say ‘gays and lesbians’.
The Almaty Tema were shocked.
After the club Sofa and Yulia dropped us off at our hotel. We said goodbye and made them promise to hang out with us again soon. Little did we know that by the next Monday every Tema girl in Almaty would know about ‘The Americans.’

Check out our website!

2007-10-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hey, our website is now fast and furious. Check it out for all the photos that are not on our blog. Here is the link: http://www.grrrilla.com/trip-2006-index.htm

The Uighur bus: Yinning to Almaty

2007-10-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

July 25, 2007

The thick stench of garlic, onions and lamb, mixed with sweat and un-brushed teeth accosted us as we clawed our way over boxes of pots and pans, bales of cheap Chinese underwear and clusters of Uighur women. It was 35 degrees Celsius. As usual the air conditioning was broken and none of the windows opened. Every time the shriveled old woman in the seat behind us spoke the smell of decaying teeth wafted between the seats. When she wasn’t talking she was banging on the back of my seat with her fists, upset that I dared recline into her space. The bus was extra long, 48 people could be seated. Instead, the last 15 rows, the aisles, and the storage compartments underneath were bursting with boxes and bags – all bought in China on their way to be resold in Kazakhstan. We had found our way onto a bus full of Uighur traders.

We stopped for a breakfast of plov (rice with vegetables and chunks of meat) and goat’s head soup in the last town before the border with Kazakhstan. The passengers were predominately women and nearly all of them spoke perfect Russian. It was a huge relief to be able to communicate with people after two months on busses in China, never knowing what was going on. A few of the women called us over to their table and began interrogating me about Lee’s hair. After a thorough investigation they were satisfied that Lee was really American and immediately started posing for pictures. They put Lee in the middle and wrapped their arms around her like she was an old friend. The women took responsibility for us for the rest of the trip. They helped us with the border crossing and made sure no one stole from us when we were changing money. By the time we reached Almaty we had invitations to stay with all of them in their villages.

We crossed the border without incident. The bus rolled across the baking plains. Kazakhstan was even hotter and more desolate than China. Slender poplar trees looked startled and huddled close together among the shrubs. The horizon hinted at blue mountains. We burst out of the bus at the first stop in Kazakhstan. I was gulping air when a heavy set but well contained woman with hennaed hair and thick black eye liner charged over and introduced herself as Sonya.

“How long did you stay in _____?” She asked.

“Where?”

“_______.” She repeated the incomprehensible word.

“Do you mean Yinning?”

“Yinning is the name the Chinese gave our city. It’s an Uighur city named after the ancient river that flows through it. We still use it’s real name. All the land between Urumqi and Almaty is Uighur land -- Yinning, Turpan, Urumqi, those are all Uighur cities. Back in the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th centuries Uighur people ruled there. Now our people are divided between two countries. We are persecuted both in Kazakhstan and in China. Did you stay in ______ at the same hotel with all of us?”

“No we couldn’t find a hotel that would except foreigners. No one at the bus station, when we arrived last night from Urumqi, could tell us anything about how to get to Almaty. Luckily we met an Uighur woman who spoke English and she told us about this bus and let us stay at her house for the night. She even took us to an Uighur wedding.”

Sonya listened to my story with appreciation: “Yes, we Uighurs are friendly people. When we get to Almaty I’ll move you into a nice hotel. Don’t worry.”

“Are you going all the way to Almaty?”

“Yes yes, I’m overseeing this bus. At the border they were surprised to meet a Uighur woman bus company owner. I collected 1000 Tenge (about 10 dollars) from each passenger to bribe the customs officials. Otherwise they would have taken every bag and box off of the bus and opened it. They took the money and let us go without searching anything. The other trader busses will be here for five or six hours before they are allowed to cross the border.

“All they care about is your money.”

“They are Kazakhs. They’re not like us. We like hard work. We tend our land, we grow things on it, we keep clean. Kazakhs are different. They’re closer to Chinese people. They like to skim off the top while we do all their work. The same with Uighurs in China. The Chinese came in and took our land, now they keep bringing in more Han Chinese – they put them into power, and our people do all the hard work. If we could take our land back from them and from the Kazakhs we could reunite and have our own country again -- Uighurstan.”

“China doesn’t want to give up your land. It has 30 percent of all the oil deposits in the entire country.”

“No one knows how badly the Chinese treat the Uighurs who live in China. They take away their passports so they can’t go to Kazakhstan and visit relatives. They can’t get jobs.”

The woman was getting very worked up. She blotted the sweat off her face and took a break while I translated for Lee.

“No wonder China is afraid of the separatists: they’re on fire.”

I smiled at Lee: “I think this woman could not only direct her bus company – she could direct a revolution.”

Sonya got her second wind: “You know the nation of Uzbeks.”

“Yes – Uzbekistan.”

“Ai! That’s made up. Uzbeks are the same as Uighurs. We all came from the same people. When China conquered our land, Uzbeks said ‘We’re different.’ But wait until we get our own country. They’ll come right back and say they were Uighurs all along. Think of us as two brothers.” The woman shifted to another foot and adjusted her glasses. “One brother is learned, cultured. The other is a trader. We are the studious brother, the Uzbeks are the traders.”

I looked over at the bus full of Uighur traders and then back at the woman.

Undeterred she continued: “The Uzbeks led caravans, they were nomads, not even Muslims until 100-200 years ago. We Uighurs have been Muslims for many centuries. Before that we were Buddhists. We have a very old culture. And when the Chinese come to live among us, we affect them. They see us sitting in cafes and restaurants like civilized people and they stop spitting and blowing their noses on the floor.”

Sonya, her speech finished, filled a bottle of water from the tap on the side of the road and signaled it was time to get back on the bus. Once back on, fired up by her own speech, she was ready to party. “Put on the music, girls!” she commanded to no one in particular. The little man driving the bus complied and Middle Eastern music boomed from the speakers. The passengers, sharing the fruit and bread they bought at the last stop, chewed and nodded to the rhythm. Tossing her chin into the air, and casting fiery looks at the passengers, she stepped into the isle. Arms above her head, wrists elegantly twirling and head switching side-to-side Shahirizade style, Sonya flowed along the isle like a giant hennaed swan.

The next time the bus stopped, I popped out to use the roadside toilet. I waited my turn trying to ignore the stench. Inside the dark wooden room were two holes in the ground with just enough space between them for two people to squat. As I stepped inside I heard a booming voice. Too late to retreat, I tried to smile as Sonya squatted in front of me directing a powerful stream of urine into the hole.

“Here! Take my business card,” She stretched her arm towards me teetering precariously over the hole.

I took the card trying to avoid the urine stream: “Nice to meet you.”

The thick stench of garlic, onions and lamb, mixed with sweat and un-brushed teeth accosted us as we clawed our way over boxes of pots and pans, bales of cheap Chinese underwear and clusters of Uighur women. It was 35 degrees Celsius. As usual the air conditioning was broken and none of the windows opened. Every time the shriveled old woman in the seat behind us spoke the smell of decaying teeth wafted between the seats. When she wasn’t talking she was banging on the back of my seat with her fists, upset that I dared recline into her space. The bus was extra long, 48 people could be seated. Instead, the last 15 rows, the aisles, and the storage compartments underneath were bursting with boxes and bags – all bought in China on their way to be resold in Kazakhstan. We had found our way onto a bus full of Uighur traders.

“How long did you stay in _____?” She asked.

“Where?”

“_______.” She repeated the incomprehensible word.

“Do you mean Yinning?”

Sonya listened to my story with appreciation: “Yes, we Uighurs are friendly people. When we get to Almaty I’ll move you into a nice hotel. Don’t worry.”

“Are you going all the way to Almaty?”

“All they care about is your money.”

“China doesn’t want to give up your land. It has 30 percent of all the oil deposits in the entire country.”

“No one knows how badly the Chinese treat the Uighurs who live in China. They take away their passports so they can’t go to Kazakhstan and visit relatives. They can’t get jobs.”

The woman was getting very worked up. She blotted the sweat off her face and took a break while I translated for Lee.

“No wonder China is afraid of the separatists: they’re on fire.”

I smiled at Lee: “I think this woman could not only direct her bus company – she could direct a revolution.”

Sonya got her second wind: “You know the nation of Uzbeks.”

“Yes – Uzbekistan.”

I looked over at the bus full of Uighur traders and then back at the woman.

“Here! Take my business card,” She stretched her arm towards me teetering precariously over the hole.

I took the card trying to avoid the urine stream: “Nice to meet you.”

The Eternal Bus Ride – Lee’s Version

2007-10-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

Jackpot! The bus only had two operable windows and I was next to one of them. Katia had the middle bunk and next to us were the only other foreigners on the bus, a tall broad British guy and his girlfriend. I watched as he attempted to fold himself into his bunk. I could feel his feet under my pillow as he twisted around. It was impossible for me to sit upright or to stretch my legs out. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to sleep.

I eyed the big British guy: “Comfy?”

He laughed: “This is our first sleeper bus. We usually take the train.”

“Every time we get on a bus I think the seats can’t get any smaller, and every time they do.”

The landscape was flat and brown – a high dessert with mountains wavering in the distance. It was monotonous and soon the bus driver started the in-flight entertainment. The usual, American or European movies dubbed into Chinese with Chinese subtitles. We had become masters at following the plot without having any idea of the dialogue. This one was easy since I’d seen it before, The Italian Job. Next up was a post-apocalyptic German movie where drug dealers jumped from rooftop to rooftop shooting at each other with AK- 47s. This one was much more difficult to follow and somewhere in the middle I fell asleep.

I woke up disoriented. It was dark. I sat up and bumped my head on the bunk above me. I was still on the bus and it had stopped on the side of the road. Not wanting to miss one of the sporadic pee stops I stumbled out of the bus and to the side of the road away from the row of men lined up pissing. I stepped off asphalt and immediately sunk to my ankle in mud. I hopped on one foot trying to fish my flip-flop out of the mire. Flip flop safely rescued, I looked around for a less perilous place to pee. There was a row of trucks and busses lined up in front of and behind our bus. The men were still busy with their own pissing contest so I decided to squat on the road. Modesty was one of the casualties of traveling for two months on busses in China. The bus could be driving through miles of mountains and it will stop in the only flat area the driver can find. All the women wear skirts so they have no problem squatting anywhere to do their business. At first we used to try to find some privacy but eventually we just joined the women a few feet away from the men. Of course we didn’t generally travel in skirts. I figured if someone is burning with desire to see my ass while I’m peeing then let him look.

I walked back across the road trying to clean the mud off my foot. My bed was dirty enough; the greasy sheets had not been changed in … well maybe they had never been changed. The big English guy was standing next to the bus smoking. We introduced ourselves and went through the traveler ritual of exchanging itineraries. His name was Ali and he and his girlfriend had been teaching English in Shanghai for a year and were spending their summer break traveling around trying to see “the real China.”

We stood chatting for a while. It didn’t seem like the bus was preparing to go anywhere any time soon. I pointed at some shacks set back from the road: “Do you think the driver knows of a good brothel in there somewhere and we are waiting for him to finish?”

Ali laughed. “Probably. I speak a little bit of Chinese. I’m going to go and see if I can find out what we are waiting for.”

I listened as he attempted to communicate with one of the men in broken Chinese. Most of these men were Uighur and didn’t speak Mandarin.

Ali walked back over: “Well, I understood ‘road’, ‘water’ and ‘broken’. It looks like the road has been washed out and we have to wait here until they fix it.”

We continued talking for another couple of hours until I was finally tired enough to climb back onto the bus. It was hot. Men sat and smoked in the front while the rest of the bus snored and farted. I opened my window and tried to breathe the unpolluted air from outside. When I awoke at dawn the bus hadn’t moved. People slowly awoke and climbed out of their bunks. The men gathered in clusters outside shaking their heads and pointing at the road ahead. The driver in the truck behind us sipped from a bottle of vodka and gnawed on a pale pink sausage.

Around 8:00 a.m. Katia woke up and immediately began to worry that we would starve to death on the side of the road. We usually stocked up on food when taking the bus but this was a short ride, only 12 hours, so we hadn’t bothered. She went to look around and came back with three bottles of water and two bottles of pineapple flavored beer.

“I found a gas station up the road. They didn’t have any food. Just a cooler.”

I dug around in the bottom of our bag and came up with two of our own pale pink sausages. We ate our sausages and sipped the beer. I couldn’t detect any flavor of pineapple or beer but didn’t think we would starve any time soon.

The men gathered at the front of the bus and started playing cards. They slapped their cards down on the table furiously all the while pulling more money out of their pockets. I wondered if they would all be broke by the time the bus started moving again. Other games of cards started up around us. We had just pulled our cards out and started playing when everyone started shouting. The women who had wondered off to use the bushes came running back and there was a flurry of activity as everyone pushed and shoved each other up the bus stairs.

The trucks and busses revved their engines trying to cut each other off as they simultaneously pulled onto the road. Everyone cheered! We were finally moving after 17 hours of sitting on the bus. One of the drivers miraculously appeared with a dozen large round onion-flavored flat breads and handed them out to everyone. We ate the bread as the bus sped up and braked trying to cut off as many trucks as possible. I had just settled back onto my bed to stare at the drab brown scenery when we stopped again. The trucks we had been racing pulled over in front and behind us. The news spread -- the bridge ahead had been washed out. We had to wait for it to be fixed.

Katia went back to worrying about food and I reminded her that we still had two chocolate bars and one nasty pineapple beer. We could live on that for at least another day. We climbed off the smoke-filled bus and found a spot to sit on the side of the road. The English couple played games with the kids throwing rocks into a cesspit. Eventually it began to rain and we were forced back onto the reeking bus. The men, tired of gambling, turned to their next favorite activity – Karaoke T.V. The screens on the bus filled with blonde white women dancing erotically while surrounded by young Chinese girls who clapped and moved their feet from side to side. I sat staring blankly at the screen in front of Katia’s bunk. After four hours the bus jerked into motion and we were back on the road.

This time we kept moving for most of an hour before pulling into a roadside restaurant. We devoured a plate of thick white noodles with spicy meat and downed two real beers. The friendly people who ran the restaurant fed us their famous Hamin melons while we sat grinning at them. They shoved another one into our hands as we headed back onto the bus. Our stomachs were full and everyone was in much better spirits. The women in the bunks above us laughed and shared the fruit they had bought. They all enjoyed feeding the foreigners and smiled shyly when we thanked them with one of our only Chinese words. It was getting dark and we only had ten more hours before we would arrive in Urumqi. I guess that was reason enough to party.

The Eternal Bus Ride – Katia’s Version

2007-10-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

July 17, 2007

Lee let a handful of pistachio shells fly out the window. I watched as they sailed over the dessert lining the highway -- pink sand, faded yellow clumps of grass, occasional camels, and a surreal gray glowing sky. It was almost 8:00 p.m. and still the sky glowed, undecided what to make of the remaining day light.

“These pistachios would be even better with parmesan cheese and red wine.”

“Or white wine. Do you think a pistachio tree would grow from these shells?” Lee tossed more shells into the wind: “Maybe a pistachio shell tree.”

We passed more camels.

“Can you believe how lucky you are to have the seat with the only operable window on the bus.”

“And they are smoking back there. Can you even imagine sitting back there?”

“I think this is supposed to be a very fancy bus. The windows don’t open, implying that it once had air conditioning, and it doesn’t have one of those communal beds in the back. ”

The air from Lee’s operable window kept getting colder, and the dessert began to turn a deeper pink, with patches of purple.

“Dunhuang was a nice town. I hated to leave that hotel. What did you think of the caves?”

I reached over and grabbed another handful of pistachios: “They were amazing. The one with the 35-meter tall Buddha was impressive if only because of its sheer size. I loved the wall paintings, but the sculptures looked like dolls to me. Still, they cast cool shadows, as if they were real. But I tell you, remember early Christian caves in Cappadocia? The cave cities in Tunisia? All that art carved out of rock, surrounded by rock and dessert – it felt organic, like it belonged there, it was part of nature and derived it’s magic from it. But here, they built all these walls and doors and stairs around the caves, it’s like they put all of this beautiful art in a closet.”

“I know what you mean. It felt like an amusement park. Still, it’s nice to do something cultural.”

“Let’s have some chocolate.”

The bus carried us across pale-brown flatness fringed by distant blue mountains; so far away they could have been a mirage. The sky still glowed.

I woke up at one in the morning. The buzz and movement that kept me sleeping had stopped. It seemed like we hadn’t been moving for a long time. I heard Lee’s laughter from outside.

I stumbled out of the bus: “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Someone says there is a flood up ahead and the road is washed out.”

“What. In a dessert?”

“Yeah, there are flash floods in desserts all the time.”

A convoy of trucks stretched as far ahead and behind us into the darkness, as I could see. Most had cut their engines. People milled around on the side of the road. Rain was dripping with no conviction.

“So in South and Central America, where are your favorite places?” Lee was talking to the tall British guy on our bus.

“Oh by far, Mexico. It’s just so laid back.”

I climbed back onto the bus, lied down on my bunk and pulled my eye patch over my eyes.

At nine in the morning our bus was still in the same place, wedged between two of the endless line of trucks. No engine was running except a long white freight truck with two polar bears stenciled on its back. The truck’s driver sat with his forehead on the steering wheel, his arms crossed over his head. I went out to pee and saw a sign in the distance. I quickly walked the kilometer to the gas station and returned with three waters and a “fruit” beer drink.

At 11:00 a.m. the bus moved two kilometers before it stopped again.

At 12:40 Lee and I and the rest of our bus were sitting on the side of the road. The British couple initiated a game of throwing rocks at a water bottle floating in a giant mud puddle. Most of the passengers joined them.

“If Martha Stuart was on our bus,” I said to Lee, “we would be somewhere by now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe team crocheting -- we would crochet an escape rope.”

“How about we would knit an escape car.”

The dessert around us was an endless sea of mud. The sky still glowed noncommittally.

“Maybe this is what it’s like to sit in jail.” Lee and I were playing cards in the aisle of the bus on our bag. We were 20 hours into this bus ride, and the bus still wasn’t moving.

Lee frowned: “They feed you in jail, and give you entertainment.”

At 4:00 p.m. after 22 hours, the driver tooted the horn. Everyone scrambled back onto the bus. Cut throat bus drivers competed with cutthroat truck drivers. The race was fierce. We finally stopped for food after an hour of driving. It was the most beautiful plate of thick greasy noodles I had ever seen.

At 1:30 in the morning, two days after we set out, our bus rolled into an Urumqi parking lot behind a huge hotel, every inch of it glowing and blinking in neon. Stunned, we stumbled out of the bus in a cloud of funk. After 33 hours on the bus we felt like we deserved an award. Instead we got a taxi.

Borat Moments in Bishkek

2007-09-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

September 6, 2007

Last week we made a visa run to Bishkek Kyrgyzstan. Almaty is a very nice modern city with cafes and malls and beautiful parks. Bishkek is a shit hole. The streets used to be paved but haven't been maintained since the USSR broke up and are now mostly dirt. There are no street lights and every few feet threatening open man holes. We stayed in an apartment that was pretty nice but seemed to be set up for businessmen and their whores. It had a kitchen with dishes and a fridge but no stove. No place to cook anything. The guy that worked reception provided us with no end of entertainment. He couldn't understand that Katia speaks Russian even though she spoke to him fluently every day. I guess because she has an American "friend" she couldn't possibly speak properly, even though she speaks it better than he does. He came to our room one afternoon with three other employees when the power was out and commanded that we give him our electric teapot. He says to the guys behind him "It's OK, she speaks a little bit of Russian" and continues to explain that if we plug in our teapot when the power is off it will break everything. He couldn't just tell us not to use it... instead he confiscated it for the next 24 hours. We never managed to figure out the logic of how a teapot could break something that was already broken. Especially since the TV, the cell phone, and all the lamps were still plugged in but did not bother him. The next day we went to the office to retrieve the pot and after 10 minutes he comes to the door half dressed. "You can't come in. I'm not alone. I have a girl here. It's the first time in three months. I hope you aren't mad." Katia was amazed that he managed to mate as often as four times a year.

We had to spend a week in the city trying to get new Kazak visas. The girls here in Almaty told us about this one gay club called Lighthouse. Katia called them on the phone to find out their address. A woman answered the phone. "Where did you find out about this club?" Katia told her our friends in Almaty sent us. "They told you the name and the phone number but not the address? Well I can't give out that kind of information." And she slammed the phone down. We eventually found the club by asking this dykey looking girl who worked at one of the expat cafes. She told us that she thought she might have seen it once while she was hanging out and then proceed to draw us a detailed diagram of how to get there which involved walking back behind some old sewing factory -- not a place one would probably be hanging out accidentally. We got to the club and rang the buzzer and an old woman in a house dress and slippers cracked the door and looked us up and down. They call it "Face Control" in Bishkek. Finally deciding we were gay enough she let us in. The clientele consisted of what appeared to be mostly straight people plus one boy who looked about 9 who kept smoking and drinking continually while he jumped all over the men.

To get our visas we had to wait in line for four hours for an application. Of course by the time we filled it out and crossed town to the official bank to pay the official fees they were closed for the weekend. We came back on Monday and waited another 2 hours to give them our application, 7 photocopies, photos, receipts from the bank and letter of invitation. They told us to come back the next day at 6 pm. When we arrived we again waited in line for an hour to pick up our visas. Just when we thought the ordeal was over Katia looked at the dates on hers. They gave here a one month instead of two month visa. We found the consul. He was completely smashed and drunkenly berated us, telling us it was our fault and we had to call some ministry or other and get it fixed (he could not remember the name of the ministry in his drunken haze) - and off course they were closed for the rest of the week for a holiday. We took a trip to lake Issyk-Kul to try to relax (another story entirely) and came back on Monday. At which time they told us they would fix the visa for us but we would have to start the entire process again including paying another fee of 100 dollars, submitting all the new paperwork, and waiting another three days. They admitted it was their mistake but refused to put a new sticker into our passport unless we paid the fee a second time. I think the movie Borat should have been based on Bishkek instead of Kazakhstan. We certainly had plenty of Borat moments while we were there.

Tibetan Sky Burial

2007-08-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

June 26, 2007

I clutched my plastic mug of tea tightly in both hands. It was dawn and it was cold. Getting dressed I dug to the bottom of my backpack pulling out every layer of clothing I could find – tank top, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweater, polar tech and rain jacket -- I was still cold. Tibetans were emerging in clusters, all of them clutching the same plastic tea mugs. They sauntered down the empty streets emitting plumes of white fog as they chatted. I wished for one of their warm, thick animal skin and fur tunics as we hurried towards the edge of town. We followed the dirt road beyond town and climbed the hill covered in tall white prayer flags. The sun was golden but icy as we reached the small white building. Katia climbed further and walked around the building. She hurried back to me.

“There is an alter up there with bones laying around but no people. It’s creepy.”

It was the second day we had walked through these hills on the edge of town looking for the Tibetan Sky Burial. Other travelers had told us to look for a small white building but perhaps today no one was being “buried.” Katia and I discussed it and decided to go for a walk towards the plateau and visit some of the nomads living there. The yaks eyed us surreptitiously as we passed them on the road. We nervously hurried past and headed up the hill towards the black tents of the nomads in the distance, giving up on finding the sky burial. As we walked down the road I noticed some large birds circling in the sky in front of us. I looked at Katia.

“Do you think those birds are vultures?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they are eagles or something.”
“I don’t think those are eagles….”

We rounded the hill. At the bottom of the valley in front of us was the white house we were looking for. Tibetan men in their wide brimmed hats sipped tea in front of a wood fire. The men gazed up the hill where vultures gathered around a man in white. We didn’t want to intrude so we stayed where we were on the hill and watched through our binoculars. The priest was wearing a white shirt with long sleeves, white gloves, a puffy white skirt, and a brown cowboy hat. His face was dark skinned, with sharp cheekbones, and sat in an expression between a frown and a smile. In his hand gleamed a long knife. He was old and hunched over. In front of him was the corpse of a man. The priest leaned over the body as the vultures clustered around impatiently. We watched as he squatted next to the body, and with his knife and his free hand began to pull away lengths of skin, slicing and pulling in places where vultures had earlier broken the skin. The vultures fought over the pieces of flesh he threw to them. Finished for the moment, he slowly stood and lumbered away from the corpse. The vultures fought each other and a dozen of them began ripping and tearing the now loose flesh from the bones.

We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t believe that the body being ripped apart and devoured was a real person. I kept expecting to have some kind of feeling - repulsion, disgust – I wanted to feel something. Instead, I felt completely detached – like we were watching the Sky Burial on television instead of from a sun-drenched hill in Tibet. Occasionally the men watching from the valley glanced at us and smiled. We didn’t seem to be intruding so we made our way closer to get a better view.

The priest slowly walked toward another hill where a group of men in wide brimmed hats was waiting. The men bent over and began to unwrap a long white sheet. When they finished, the emaciated body of a man lay face down on the grass in front of them. The priest squatted next to the corpse and with his long blade began to make cuts across the corpse’s back, thighs, legs and arms. He knelt beside the head and with a few quick cuts scalped the corpse and threw the hair aside. He then retreated toward the corpse’s feet, and bending its left leg, he cut away the skin from its left foot, pulled it away and threw it towards the waiting vultures. The skin looked like gray flaps of cloth. The remaining toes, now not bound by skin bounced lazily, like rubber, as the priest placed the foot back on the grass. All the while the priest seemed to be chanting. It looked to us like he was talking to the vultures. And the vultures seemed to know him. They kept their distance and only approached when he allowed. This man was small, one vulture was over half of his size and the pack of them could easily overwhelm him but instead, they stood back from him and waited for his sign before they approached the body. The priest and the vultures worked together to reduce the body to nothing.

The men continued to glance at us and eventually two of them got up the courage to approach. One of them had leathery skin, gold teeth and a wide brimmed hat. The other wore the crimson robes of a monk. The man with the gold teeth gestured that he wanted our binoculars. We handed them over and he and the monk took turns watching the burial next to us. Eventually they tired of the binoculars and turned to our bag. Katia was carrying a plaid plastic shoulder bag locals used to transport goods too and from the market. The man in the hat removed each item from our bag -- cell phone, sun screen, beer opener – he investigated each item before carefully returning it to it’s original location. The monk stood by smiling politely. Katia grabbed my arm and pointed.

"What the fuck is that?”

Something was rolling down the hill towards us. It was pale and heavy – rolling like an irregular bowling ball. I looked through the binoculars. It was the head of the first corpse, scalped with gray shreds of skin hanging from the neck. A few of the vultures hopped after it down the hill. The priest followed them. He picked it up by the loose flaps of skin, and carried it back up the hill, switching hands to relieve its weight. The men kept trying to grab our binoculars from us so we said goodbye and walked towards another hill so we could watch in peace. By now the second corpse was bloody and dismembered. The vultures had left a big hole in its stomach, where the spine was now exposed and most of its pelvis was gone. The priest cut more flesh from its thighs. He then twisted each arm and hacked it off with an axe. Each piece of flesh he freed from the body he threw to the waiting vultures. The vultures could smell the scent of fresh blood and fought each other to get to the flesh first.

Then the priest squatted next to the corpse, and with the blunt end of his axe began to smash its bones and skull. A dull rhythmic thud echoed down the slope and into the valley where we stood. The priest stopped from time to time to mix barley flower from a sack with the ground bones. On a rock at his feet, he kneaded the barley flower, yak butter and the bone fragments together into gray dough. He was making sure that every part of the body was consumed by the vultures – bones as well as flesh. The vultures obliged and gobbled up the dough as he threw it to them.

We watched for two hours as the two corpses were slowly dismembered and consumed. As we walked back towards town I felt numb. I couldn’t believe what we had just seen. For us it was a privilege to see such a ritual yet for the local Tibetans it was just an everyday part of life. They didn’t treat the ritual as anything else. As they watched they squatted drinking pot after pot of tea occasionally wandering up the hill to gather more water. They were smiling and joking with each other. Occasionally a taxi full of people showed up to watch for ten minutes or so. They walked up to where the priest was working, stood for a few minutes and then drove away. We both wondered if we would eventually feel the impact of what we had seen. As we were walking away we took one last look through the binoculars. We watched as the priest tied a red rope around the corpse’s neck, and dragged it, bloody and missing most of its skin, up the green slope of the hill. I wasn’t sure how I felt about watching the ritual but I knew it was something I certainly wouldn’t forget.

The Tibetan Cowboy

2007-08-10T04:07:00.000-07:00

July 8, 2007

He swaggers, he chain-smokes, he spits through the gap in his teeth. He blows his nostrils on the ground, pinching them with his thumb and forefinger one at a time. He is always in the presence of his cowboy hat; his yak fir-lined caftan is slung over one shoulder. He is usually on his horse, or at least on his motorcycle. He likes his jewelry – huge silver rings and red yarn braided into his long hair. The hair trails behind him when he rides his motorcycle. His grin is full of gold teeth and rice whiskey breath. He hangs out in flocks. We stay as far away as we can from these flocks, especially after dark. All summer flocks of nomadic Tibetan Cowboys set up tents near towns, drink late into the night, and compete on horseback. Galloping at full speed, they lean far back in the saddle and let their long sleeves trail the grass.

Kazzzziakistan

2007-08-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

Kazakhstan is amazing. Lee and I are still at large, but this hardly feels like travelling. We finally have a couch, a kitchen, a TV, a balcony... only missing a cat. We are renting an apartment in Almaty, and are very pleased. After crossing the border from China, this country could not please us more. First, everything is in Russian, which makes it easier for me to torture Lee into learning Russian, and she likes it. The city is filled with sidewalks cafes and beautifull Russian, Kazakh, and everything in between girls in tight clothes and high heels. Trees are so thick along the streets, that even in Almaty heat you can walk everwhere under a continuous shady canopy. And on top of all this, the locals are really friendly, polite, and open. A couple of times we had friends over for dinner, and by now we know enough people in this city, that walking along to see some friends in the park, we run into others, who call us over to join them in a cafe. Almaty has a great gay/lesbian scene, and and we are really enjoying hanging out with lesbians again and going dancing in girls clubs. Almaty feels like home and like a party at once, so we are trying to extend our visa to stay here longer.

Trash Talkin in Africa

2007-05-27T04:20:00.001-07:00

An old fat white guy approached his car in the Malindi parking lot. He clicked a button and the alarm went off. He kept clicking and the alarm kept going off.

"That guy can't control his car," I said to Lee.

"His car is too fancy."

"Why is it that fancy cars are always owned by Old Fat White Guys?"

"Maybe," said Lee, "God is an Old Fat White Guy."

"Maybe that's just what Old Fat White Guys want you to think."

We sipped white wine from beer mugs periodically refilling the glasses from the box we bought at the minimart across the street. The car alarm kept going off. I reached under the table and with a red Swiss Army knife began to saw off a slice of bread hidden inside the plastic bag between my feet. A waiter hovered: "Are you doing okay?"

"We are doing great," I grinned up at him and caught a crumbly slice before it hit the bottom of the plastic bag. Lee hid behind her hair and took a sip from her beer mug.

"Do you think we are trashy?" I was always stating the obvious and acting like it was a question.

"What do you think," said Lee. "You are Russian and therefore trashy."

"I've always been enamored by Trash. Being Trash is being free. At any time you can decide to pick up and move. You can quit your job and find something else to do -- it doesn't matter what."

"Yeah, except to move you need money."

We took sips from our mugs. A barricade of plastic bags surrounded the romantic candle on our table. It protected the sliced salami and the piece of cheese we pretended were invisible to the waiters.

"Have you noticed that there is not much difference between white and black Trash? Both place this huge importance on family -- both are poor and crazy and riddled with children and religion."

"I certainly have noticed," I smiled at Lee. "I love Trash of both colors."

We toasted and ate another piece of our illegal salami and cheese...

Laos is Veerrry Reeelllaaxxxiiinnngggg....

2007-05-23T04:17:00.001-07:00

Fuelled By Xeo

2007-05-23T01:39:00.000-07:00

Pictures of hill tribes:

http://www.grrrilla.com/trip-2006-vietnam-north-hmong.htm
http://www.grrrilla.com/trip-2006-vietnam-north.htm

From Halong City we were determined to make our way North without returning to Hanoi. It took us two days to reach Cau Bang (pronounced “Cow Bang”) in North Eastern Vietnam. The minibus screamed through the mountains crammed to capacity with vomiting Vietnamese. After nine hours we were ejected into the dusty bus station in the center of Cau Bang. I briefed Katia on the Vietnamese words “Kach San” and “Nha Nghi” for hotel and guesthouse and took up my post watching the bags. There was a string of dirty food stalls opposite the bus station and I settled myself onto a bench. I pointed to the “Bia Hoi” sign. A fat man with a mouth full of rotten teeth responded with a stream of Vietnamese accompanied by pulling up is shirt and rubbing his oversized belly. I shrugged and waited. The shop began to fill with spectators. They stood in a semi circle around my table, pointed and discussed me. Two of the women approached from behind. I knew what was coming next. The women grabbed one dreadlock each and yanked. They giggled and jabbered before turning to the crowd of onlookers with their report. I gritted my teeth, turned around and smiled at them. I held up one of my dreads and pointed it at them: “Do you like?” They jumped back and giggled some more, surprised that I responded to their poking and prodding. The belly rubber eventually brought me a bottle of beer and after 20 minutes or so the crowd lost interest and dissipated.

Cau Bang’s dusty streets spread over two sides of a river. It had a large market frequented by people from the surrounding hills as well as many cafes where young men came to sing karaoke and drink bottles of Xeo out of teacups. We found a restaurant that had plates and bowls of food lined up on a buffet under searing heat lamps. We used the point and eat method and tried chicken wings, tofu, and lots of unidentifiable fried things. Our favorite meal was a bowl of ground meat and vegetables accompanied by steamed rice, sautéed greens and soup. The ground meat sat next to a bowl overflowing with deep fried maggot-like insects on the buffet table. We made a conscious effort to think of our meat as beef but so close to the Chinese border it could have just as easily been dog or even rat. No matter. It tasted good and it was the only restaurant we could identify that served something other than Pho (noodle soup) and animal entrails.

We knew that there were indigenous markets in the area. We had the names of towns and lunar calendar dates but no information on how to find the markets. It was the 26^th day of the Lunar month according to the calendar on the wall of our guesthouse, so we headed for the bus station to see if we could get any information. Using hand motions and the language section of our Lonely Planet guide we determined there were minibuses to the town at 6am the next day. We got up early and caught a bus. We were dropped off 35 Km from Cau Bang in a village surrounded by beautiful limestone mountains. It was an overcast rainy day and the mountains were shrouded in clouds and fog. Amazingly, it was indeed market day! The vendors spread their wares on large woven mats on the muddy ground. Everywhere we looked were groups of indigenous people dressed in their amazingly colorful finery. There were women dressed in black tunics and loose long shorts with brilliant red and black headdresses. Others wore green embroidered clothes with elaborate belts and aprons and attachments at their shoulders that looked like wings. As we walked through the market everyone we passed froze and stared. We were as interesting to them as they were to us. We smiled and waved. Some women waved and smiled back shyly while others hid their faces and pretended not to see us. We found a woman selling warm sweet soft tofu in bowls and sat down at her bench to watch the action. Immediately the woman’s business picked up as the tribal women came to eat tofu and stare at us from the corners of their eyes. A group of young women in beautiful indigo clothing got up the courage to wave to us. They were pointing and giggling at my hair. I picked up one of my dreadlocks and waved it at them smiling. They accepted my invitation and surrounded me, smiling shyly and touching my hair. The vendor who had fed us our tofu beamed proudly as the women wandered back to their shopping.

We finished at the market and decided to walk back towards Cau Bang. We walked through little villages of wooden houses with tiled roofs and past brilliantly green rice fields. It started to rain and we hailed an overcrowded minibus. The locals rearranged themselves in the seats so that we would fit, six of them taking up the tiny seat in the back of the bus. They grinned and pointed at my head as I bent over. I was too tall to sit upright in the van. The rest of the passengers sat up easily with at least 2 inches of clearance between their heads and the ceiling. We arrived at our guesthouse wet and cold but very pleased.

The next morning we packed our bags and checked out of our hotel. The sweet young boy at the desk had drawn us a picture as a goodbye gift. It said: “Don’t Forget Me” in Vietnamese, Korean and English and had a crayon drawing of an Asian looking gold fish. We said our goodbyes and walked to the bus station. It was 7am and we had just missed the bus to Ha Giang. Our plan was to travel across the top of Vietnam and then continue north to the frontier land near the Chinese border. When we told people of our plan they laughed and shook their heads. The next bus didn’t leave until 2:00pm which seemed pretty late to be traveling over 300 Km through the mountains but we figured if we got stuck somewhere we always had our tent. The young woman in charge of our bus indicated with hand gestures that we should leave our bags on the bus and come back when it was time to leave. We were hesitant but she seemed trustworthy so we loaded or backpacks onto the bus and spent the afternoon wandering around town and drinking delicious Vietnamese coffee and sweet cherry wine.

The bus flew through the mountains throwing us from right to left as it swung around the hairpin turns. The woman who had watched our bags offered us sour berries that looked like tiny watermelons and we conversed via hand gestures and our phrase book. We eventually determined that we would have to stay the night in a village and take an early bus the next morning to get to our destination. At sunset the bus pulled into a tiny village. Our friend beckoned that we should follow her toward a restaurant. Everything was dark and we could see a display case with piles of entrails and unpleasant smoked chicken. There was no menu so we used our phrase book to try to order some food. Our friend motioned that we should come and sit with her so we sat down with her and the bus driver at a table in the dim dirt floored room. Plates of rice, beef, greens, entrails and soup appeared on the table. Our hosts invited us to eat and with smiles and nods we enjoyed a delicious meal with them. At the end of the meal we indicated that we wanted to pay. She took us to the proprietor and he took 50,000 Vietnamese Dong from our money (approximately 4 dollars). I glanced at our friend as we paid and noticed that she was scowling at the man who was taking our money. Katia and I were so pleased to have been invited to join them that we didn’t mind being over charged. Once back on the bus, our friend sat down next to us and resolutely shoved 30,000 Dong (2 dollars) into my bag. I tried to give it back to her but she demonstratively showed us a 50,000 Dong note and scowled shaking her head to show us that the man at the restaurant had tried to overcharge us. We couldn’t believe it. Almost everyone in Vietnam went out of their way to rip us off and this woman was giving us money.

Sometime after dark the bus pulled into an even smaller village and the driver waved that we should get out. They had dropped us at the only place to stay, a dingy government rest house. The three young women who ran the place were lounging in their pajamas when we arrived in the office that doubled as a bedroom. Against one wall was a giant bed draped in mosquito netting and large enough for all of them. They led us to a room with three beds -- every surface covered in a thick layer of grime. An open sewer ran outside the door of our room and in the dark I immediately tripped and fell in. They cheerfully over charged us 5.00 dollars for the room. It was too late and we were too tired to argue. Besides, it was obvious they had a monopoly on accommodations so we brushed our teeth and set up our tent on one of the beds. At four the next morning we crawled out of the tent and sat down on the side of the road hoping a bus might come through. It was still dark but people were already butchering cows and pigs on wooden tables along the side of the road. Hill tribe people emerged from the mountains with woven baskets tied to their backs. We watched as the butchers cut chunks of meat from the animals and bundled them into plastic bags. The locals placed their purchases in their woven baskets and walked back towards the hills. We sat on our bags and waited. Groups of young girls walked back and forth in front of us giggling and pretending not to stare. Older women in their tribal outfits walked up to us and poked at our bags, smiling. We were definitely the town’s entertainment for the day. Finally, after three hours an ancient bus pulled into town and we got on. It drove for about two minutes and then pulled over in front of a Pho (noodle soup) shop. The bus’s staff of three made hand motions that they were going to eat breakfast so we piled back off the bus to wait for another 45 minutes while they ate.

For the next six hours the bus rattled over dirt roads through the mountains. The driver and his two assistants were young boys, they looked like teenagers, and they entertained themselves by smoking, spitting and staring at us. A couple of hours into the trip the boys had finally decided how much to try to charge us for the ride and one of them sauntered over to our seat and started waving money around. We had a basic idea of how much a bus ride of that length should cost so we rounded the figure up by a dollar and casually handed over our money. The boy stood in front of us shaking his head and waving around double the amount to make us pay more. I shrugged at him and turned around to look out the window. He stood there for a while longer looking perplexed and finally gave up. He flashed a big smile at us as and went back to his post sitting in front of the door smoking. We had noticed in the past that even if we had to argue with the driver about the cost, even if we had to grab our change out of their hands or refuse to pay them at all until they gave us our change first, there never seemed to be any hard feelings. They all just kept smiling and trying to interact with us as if nothing had happened. So we just did the same.

The mountain scenery was beautiful with tall limestone rock faces and valleys of bright green rice terraces. Beside the road were houses made with slats of wood, some of them raised up above the ground on stilts. In front of all of the houses women and men in bright colored clothing lounged while little naked kiddies ran around playing. The bus kept filling up and filling up until there were three or four people in each seat. As lovely as the scenery was, by the time we arrived in Ha Gaing we were ready to be off the bus and away from all of the dust and smoke.

We came to Ha Gaing to get a permit so we could travel further north to a town called Meo Vac on the border with China. The trip was supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Vietnam. We spent the next three days trying to get information on this elusive permit that no on in the town seemed to have heard of. Not an easy task when no one speaks English. Eventually we found the police station and managed to convey that we wanted a permit to the bored officials sitting behind the desk. After an hour of repeating our request they laboriously got out their official communist permit book. We paid them 10 dollars and they stamped the permit with their 15 official stamps and we were finally on our way.

The scenery on the eight-hour bus ride to Meo Vac was amazing despite the storm clouds and hail in the higher altitudes. We arrived in town at dusk just as the storm picked up and the power went out. The town had rows of empty grand communist style buildings that seemed to serve no other purpose but to intimidate. So close to the border they had to keep up appearances. Otherwise there was a market and a few shops and guesthouses, but the scenery was beautiful. The town was surrounded on all sides by mountains. We found a decent hotel room and the next morning got up early to go explore. We picked a direction and started walking up into the mountains. We took short cuts through the fields where surprised hill tribe people were working. They pretended not to see us, sneaking peaks once our backs were turned until we started waving and smiling at them. They all stopped work and waved and smiled back watching us until we were out of site.

We walked through the different minority villages all set in valleys beside the road. The people were beautiful, friendly and shy. A toothless grandmother in bright indigo pulled her small grandson towards us. We waved to him and he burst into tears, terrified. She cackled happily. He had never seen a foreigner before. A beautiful young woman walked along honking a horn with a cooler on her back. We walked with her for a bit smiling and making hand motions. She stopped in front of the village, honked her horn and all of the children came running towards her. She was selling ice pops. We walked up and asked for two. She burst into a huge grin and proudly handed each of us a brown colored icicle on a stick. We pulled out money to pay her but she demonstratively refused. The ice pops were refreshingly cold and flavored with molasses.

The mountains surrounding us seemed to go on forever. We wondered if we had accidentally crossed into China. As we walked back towards Meo Vac a dozen little boys began to follow along behind us daring each other go get close. I felt like the Pied Piper. We walked through one village that had a shop so we stopped hoping they might have something to drink. A group of men sat around in what looked like a living room drinking tea and chatting. As soon as they saw us they invited us to join them on their wooden sofa for tea. We sat down a little apprehensive that there were no other women around. One of the men knew a few words of English and we found out that they were border officials. As we sat there news spread and more men arrived and soon one of the hill tribe men who appeared to be some sort of chief went over to a giant bucket in the corner and with a red plastic scoop filled another teapot. He poured himself and each of us a teacup of Xeo. We toasted and drank. It tasted more like gasoline than whiskey. As soon as our glasses were empty he hurriedly refilled it. We made it through another few rounds of drinks before we were able to politely get up and go. As we walked towards the door to the shop saying our goodbyes the hordes of children that had been peeking in at us scattered. The Xeo made for a very pleasant relaxed end to our hike. Fortunately the rest of the way was downhill.

Bat Soup

2007-04-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

A nimble smiling woman in a straw hat sat down on a pile of burlap sacks next to me in the isle of the bus. She looked me over and I smiled at her. She took this as an invitation, and patted my arm. “Check this out,” I turned to Lee. The moment I turned away, the woman pinched and pulled the hair on my arm. “Ay, tiying tiang tiang,” she sang approvingly about my arm hair. Then she demonstrated to me her hairless arm.

“I am so glad you are sitting in the isle, and not I,” said Lee encouragingly.

The woman was wasting no time. She was saying something in Vietnamese to the two women to her right, and pointing at my face. Suddenly, with her thumb and forefinger she pinched the bridge of my nose, and slid her fingers down to my nostrils on the slippery layer of my bus sweat. She made very excited noises to her two friends.

“Very OK!” one of the friends beamed at me. She traced an outline of an unbelievable beak in front of her face, and pointed to mine. The other, younger woman, leaned her face toward me: “Arab? Arab?” I looked at Lee and we laughed. But turning away while wedged between Lee and my neighbor caused my shirt to slide down from one shoulder. Taking advantage of this momentary opportunity, my neighbor reached over and squeezed my right breast, the one closest to her. Animated report to her friends followed.

“I am trying to be friendly, but this is too much,” I said to Lee.

“Are you feeling violated?” she mocked.

“I am feeling like they are about to put me in soup.”

The Voice of Vietnam

2007-04-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

When we last left off we were heading into the Mekong Delta. I am happy to report that we found the Bat Pagoda in a small town where few western tourists had gone before. The trees around the pagoda were full of giant bats squawking as they hung from their feet. At dusk the bats woke up and swooped through the sky from tree to tree. Their wings were huge and looked as if they were moving in slow motion more like large birds than bats. In another town in the Mekong we hired a small two-person boat and spent a day traveling along the Mekong River visiting floating markets. We met our guide at the riverbank before sunrise. He fed us stale bread and bananas as he propelled the boat first along the wide Mekong and then through the maze of narrow canals connecting local villages. There were clusters of locals in unsteady boats piled high with fruit and vegetables. The buyers docked their small canoe-like wooden boats with the sellers’ larger boats and hopped from one to the next picking their produce. They paddled from vendor to vendor while standing with a graceful crossover motion -- one paddle in each hand. (http://grrrilla.com/trip-2006-vietnam-markets.htm)

We explored the Mekong Delta for a week and then continued north along the coast. We stopped in the beach town of Nha Trang and the World Heritage town of Hoi Ann before arriving in Hanoi. Both were beautiful and relaxing but completely over run with tourists and we were beginning to get annoyed with the aggressive salespeople and touts following the tourist hordes. We took a torturous overnight bus to Hanoi and found ourselves an overpriced hotel room in the old quarter. ”The Voice of Vietnam” was broadcast through loud speakers outside our window every morning at 6:30, delivering the required daily dose of communist propaganda to the city’s inhabitants. We spent a week wandering the streets and enjoying copious amounts of Bia Hoi, fresh draft beer available on every street corner for twenty cents a glass. The old quarter was a maze of dilapidated French colonial buildings and winding streets of vendors and artisans. Outside of the old quarter were wide East Berlin style boulevards and large empty paved squares where groups of Vietnamese walked laps in the evenings. It wasn’t difficult to imagine tanks rolling across the open spaces.

While eating at our favorite restaurant in the old quarter we discovered Xeo. It’s a homemade drink distilled from rice and optimistically labeled Rice Wine. It tastes like cheap wheat-flavored vodka and goes down amazingly well with Vietnamese food. In between bottles of Xeo and giant piles of pork, beef, rice and greens, we found the Hanoi circus where Russian trained acrobats and clowns performed tricks in a dingy circle under harsh florescent lights. Fortunately the animal acts were limited to bicycle riding monkeys and three sad looking Asian elephants. Katia and I were in the front row and after our previous experience with African elephants were not very pleased to be up close and personal with more.

We also went to a traditional water puppet performance where the puppeteers stand up to their waste in a tub of water and brightly painted wooden puppets act out stories and myths accompanied by live music. There were puppets of people and fish swimming, men fishing, women dancing and even a dragon dance enacted on top of the water.

The discovery of Xeo kept us in the city another few days and by the time we were ready to leave Hanoi we only had a week left on our Vietnamese visas. We weren’t quite ready to give up on Vietnam yet and decided to get a one month extension. We wanted to explore the mountains in the north of Vietnam and we were sick of all of the tourists so we picked a route not mentioned anywhere in the Lonely Planet guidebook. In fact, we weren’t sure if the route we picked was even possible as there didn’t appear to be roads between all of the towns. There was only one way to find out so we packed our bags and headed for the bus station.

Mary Mother of Vietnam

2007-03-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

After a couple of false starts we managed to stop eating long enough to catch a bus for Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had heard that the Cambodian border guards enjoy extracting bribes from tourists, so we sent Katia in to deal with them. Having had experience since birth with the Russian system of “favors”, Katia is a professional. I sat down with our bags and watched as Katia continued to smile at the men in uniforms, occasionally shaking her head no and pointing at the sign on the wall that listed the visa fees. After ten minutes of insisting she finally managed to bargain the guards down from 30 dollars to the official visa fee of 20. As punishment they made us wait longer for our visas than all of the other tourists who had paid bribes, but within the hour we had been stamped, photographed and set free.

Siem Reap was a pleasant city. There were plenty of guesthouses and decent restaurants. We enjoyed more continuous eating – this time Cambodian food -- accompanied by two-dollar pitchers of beer. We rented beat up one-speed bikes for 1.50 a day and spent three days exploring the temples at Angkor Wat. The roads were a hot dusty obstacle course of cars, motorbikes and tour buses. Fortunately, most of the Cambodians we encountered were much more courteous than the average Boston driver and we managed to bike around without a problem. The temples were amazing: huge stone structures with almost every inch covered in carvings. We particularly enjoyed Bayon Temple where enormous stone faces look at you from every direction.

After a few more days (and pitchers of beer) relaxing in Siem Reap we booked a boat trip down the Tonle Sap River to Battenbang. Since the trip could be long and dangerous and there was a bus that took half the time, only crazy tourists like us took the boat. The trip could take anywhere from three to eight hours and the wooden long boats were notoriously overloaded; but the scenery was supposed to be amazing. We wedged ourselves in between the German tourists lined up on the wooden benches. Once no one else could fit they started loading people onto the roof of the boat. The boat pitched from side to side as the engine spit black smoke and propelled us slowly down the river. Soon we were passing brightly painted houses, schools and barbershops all floating on top of the water. Many of the floating houses even had dogs that ran out and barked at us as we passed. We watched and snapped photos of the villagers fishing and cooking. Little four and five year old kids paddled dugout canoes from place to place.

We were still enjoying the scenery (though my ass was no longer enjoying the hard wooden bench) six hours later when the boat finally stopped at a floating shop for lunch. The shop owners sold us beer and water and cheerfully informed us that it was only four more hours to Battenbang. We all took turns visiting the floating outhouse – a wooden shack with a hole in the floor directly over the river – and climbed back onto the boat. We had barely been moving for 30 minutes when the captain suddenly pulled over next to the riverbank. Four men emerged from the bushes and told us in broken English that there was no more water and we had to go the rest of the way by pickup truck. They loaded all 40 of us, plus our backpacks and two bicycles, into the back of two pickup trucks. Katia and I were sitting on the side of the truck holding onto a rope to keep from bouncing out while the rest of the Germans were jammed together upright in the center. The “road” to Battenbang was a dirt path of ruts left over from the rainy season. For the next two hours we piled in and out of the pickup while the driver navigated the steep hills and valleys of hardened mud. Fortunately everyone was in good spirits and the ride was full of laughing and joking. We arrived in Battenbang dirty and sore but still pleased we had decided to take the trip. All of the tourists who arrived in the next couple of days had also been loaded into pickup trucks. We had all been scammed into buying tickets for a boat trip when the guesthouses knew very well there wasn’t enough water. We didn’t really care – it had been a great adventure.

There wasn’t much to see in Battenbang. We had planned on staying for one or two nights before heading on to Phnom Penh, but I came down with a stomach bug and it was a week before I could go anywhere that wasn’t within three feet of a toilet. Fortunately, we had a nice hotel room with cable so we caught up on some T.V. until I felt well enough to get back on the road. We saw the sights in Phnom Penh as quickly as possible. The city was full of rude touts and extremely pushy beggar children and had a generally unpleasant vibe. The one memorable site was the Genocide Museum. It was a high school the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison. The rooms were lined with mug shots of prisoners who had been kept there before being tortured and executed. We read stories about the lives of many of the prisoners. The photos of the prison guards showed 12-year-old boys with machine guns, shyly smiling at the camera. We watched a documentary about an artist imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge, who survived the prison and painted the scenes of torture he witnessed. In the film, the now aging artist walked through the prison complex together with a guard, recounting the tortures and asking the guard to confirm his memories. The artist kept repeating that he doesn’t blame anyone for what happened there.

From Phnom Penh we took a bus to Saigon, and are really enjoying Vietnam. We have been wandering around the city, visiting markets and seeing the sights. After the heat subsides, the city erupts in all kinds of nighttime food stalls and entire streets of temporary outside restaurants with plastic tables and chairs. The food is really good and the city has a very pleasant vibe. We even met a Vietnamese girl who speaks Russian and Katia chatted with her for a while. She wants to go and live in Russia. Vietnam has a capitalist economy now but the city still has a very communist feel to it. All of the buildings are adorned with communist flags – red with the gold star – and there are hammers and sickles everywhere. Portraits of Ho Chi Minh bearing strong resemblance to Confucius, grace every governmental wall. Most stores double as living rooms/bedrooms, with entire families on display in the evenings after the official business day is over. People sit around in pajamas under florescent lights, eating soup, watching TV, and talking with neighbors. Young couples find privacy in parks. Rows of motorbikes park in the shadows, a romantic couple cuddling on each one. Tomorrow we will be heading for the Mekong Delta. We are taking a one-day tour and then striking out on our own to explore, amongst other things, a bat pagoda! We couldn’t possibly pass that one up….

Escape from the Dark Continent

2007-02-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

We finally made it out of Africa -- mostly in one piece. We flew into Bangkok on Friday night and have been sleeping and eating ever since. Everything here is so incredibly cheap and the people are nice to us! No one is staring at us and harassing us at every step. The change is quite a shock to our systems. I think it will be awhile before we recover from Africa. We've had a week to rest and are getting ready to start exploring again. We'll be heading for either Cambodia or Laos in the next few days (haven't decided which direction yet -- anyone out there have suggestions?) In the meantime here are a few more African pictures to keep you entertained....

Miss you all!

Beer and Prostitutes in Malindi

2007-02-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2007

Lee and I landed in Malindi on the day before New Years Eve. It wasn’t a place we had intended to visit, but our plans for New Years had fallen through and we needed some place nearby to spend the holiday. We found a campground 5 kilometers outside of the town center at a marine park run by KWS (Kenyan Wildlife Services). It was relatively expensive, 10 dollars a day, but had very good facilities including a kitchen where we could cook our own food. We were excited at the prospect of making our own meals on a stove rather than an open fire. Separating the campsite from the beach was a microscopic strip of jungle, 15 feet deep, and we chose a spot there under the canopy of thick vines and leaves to set up our tent. The area was inhabited by a colony of beautiful brown bats that would swoop down out of the vegetation at night and feast on the swarms of mosquitoes around our tent -- we listened to their squeaks as we fell asleep.

The Marine Park staff lived in a housing complex on the other side of the campground. Considering we had been the only visitors in the last two weeks, we thought it was strange that the park would require the hundreds of staff members housed there. No doubt both their immediate and distant family members were also necessary to keep us safe and happy. Attempting legitimacy, many of the staff members wore pseudo-military uniforms, complete with boots and AK-47s. We saw them lounging on the beach sipping on coke bottles from straws – their machine guns swung casually to the side. In addition to lounging, the staff was charged with patrolling the 200-meter beach and surrounding waters of the Marine Park. How they managed this we’ll never know as their one decrepit boat remained anchored near shore suspiciously engineless.

Malindi is a magical town of terraced restaurants and cafes. Swarms of Italian tourists mistake it for their own – coming here to stay at the expensive all-inclusive resorts lining the beach. Rather than English, the official language elsewhere in Kenya, local Africans automatically speak to tourists in Italian. Italian clothing and movies are on sale in the shops. All signs and menus are written only in Italian. And for the first time in the six months we’ve been in Africa, there is salami and real cheese -- mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta – it’s heaven. We bought 150 grams of Salami at an exorbitant price. The paper-thin slices melted in my mouth like gold leaf, and I knew I would pay double the price for it if I had to.

Most Italians aren’t coming to Kenya on holiday for the best pizza in Africa, however -- they are here for Malindi’s other main attraction -- sex tourism. It’s everywhere. Unbelievable couples cuddle in the candle light of beautiful Italian Restaurants. Washed up Italian accountants in their 60’s and 70’s sit in bars with names like ‘Stars and Garters’ pawing at gorgeous black 18 year old girls. The majority of Malindi’s residents are Swahili and the women walk around Old Town clad head to toe in Muslim Burkas -- black cloth that covers everything except their hands and feet, a thick veil covers their faces with only a slit for the eyes. Along the tourist strip, Swahili girls trade in their Burkas for high heels, mini skirts and skin-tight dresses. Clusters of working girls wait outside the nightclubs and bars, their sequined purses glittering. Malindi’s beaches are full of old, paunchy, bald Italian men, their speedos advertising their virility, each attached to a slim dark girl – some in tiny elegant sun dresses, polyester extensions glistening in the sun; others prefer their girls in g-string bikinis and lots of lip gloss. The girls speak fluent Italian to the men. The men speak no English – there is no need to in Malindi.

Lee and I spent our days swimming and lounging on the beach and our evenings reading or watching movies on our laptop. Every few days we would catch a tuk tuk into town to get supplies. One Sunday evening as the sun was beginning to set, we stopped in for a drink at one of the local bars near Old Town. We found an outside table and ordered cheap beers.

“Hello there!” boomed a throaty female voice. It was one of the prostitutes we had met on the beach a few days earlier. She walked up to our table and introduced her two friends. We invited them to join us and they sat down. They were beautiful – off duty but still in uniform. One of the girls was a tender teenager from the Swahili island of Lamu. She smiled at us and shyly explained that she only speaks Italian, not English. Her friend was wearing oversized Italian sunglasses and threw her rhinestone-studded purse onto the table as she sat down. She removed her sunglasses, leaned back in her chair and sipped her beer. Without her sunglasses she looked wary -- a street dog, searching for a sign of kindness or impending danger. The girl next to her was busty and wore a baby doll dress. She had a tobacco-sized ball of Mira in her cheek. As she chewed, her eyes darted from one thing to the next. I asked her about the Mira and she offered us a few sticks. Mira is the drug of choice in Kenya – it looks like a blade of grass and tastes incredibly bitter. If you can manage to chew enough of it – at least a quarter of a kilo – it produces a mild narcotic effect similar to cocaine. Lee stuck one in her mouth and promptly spit it out. She offered Lee a stick of gum to alleviate the horrible taste. Lee refused and ordered another beer instead.

The girls talked and looked around distractedly between sentences. “I came here from Nairobi to have a new life,” Dog Eyes was saying. “I have a house and if I go out with Italian men I have money,” she laughed and slapped her hand on the table.
“Do you like Italian men better than African men?” I asked her.
“No,” she shrugged. “They’re all the same.”
I looked up and nudged Lee with my elbow, “Look!” A girl was crossing the road and walking towards us. Her walk was casual and indifferent. A red top clung to her small breasts and tight jeans, frayed in all the right places, accentuated her confident hips. Her casual appearance was all the more provoking in contrast with her sexy attitude. Her head was regal and I wondered if I was imagining her smirk and squinted eyes. The girl’s movements were lazy and deliberate, and I tried to stop staring. She came up to our table and shook hands with us. Said her name. Smiled. Sat down. I noticed her looking over at a skinny mean boy watching the scene from his perch on the restaurant’s low wall. The girl got up, bought a beer and brought it over to the mean boy. She stood in front of him, her back was to me, but I could tell she was smiling and flirting with him. Then she came back to the table. Still perched on the wall, the mean boy looked around with hungry eyes, hoping for trouble.

“Is he your boyfriend?” I asked the girl.
“No,” she smiled at me, “he is one of the coastal boys.” She was talking softly so I had to lean in. I was right, she was squinting at me. “When you come here from somewhere else – I’m from Nairobi – you have to be nice to the Coastal Boys. Sometimes he asks me to sell something for him, so I ask around if anyone wants the thing he wants to sell. It is a nice thing to do for him.” She was quiet but kept looking at me and smiling.
“Do you get tired of putting up with them?”
“No,” she smiled, “you see all these boys by the Baobab tree? They don’t bother me because they know that the Coastal Boys protect me. You have to be nice to people when you come to a new place. Never be rude. If a man comes up to you: ‘You’re new here, this is how we do things around here,’ and he acts like that, don’t say much. Just listen. Don’t be rude. But next time you see him, he will see what happens.”

The cluster of men around the Baobab tree restlessly shifted from one foot to the other and passed around beer cans and cigarette butts. On the bar wall, the Coastal Protector and his entourage watched them and pretended not to look. The girl sauntered over to him again and flirted. The other girls at our table chattered continuously with each other in Swahili.
“Can you believe all of this?” I said to Lee. “All these tourists sitting around sipping beer in this bar have no idea they are in the middle of a battle field.”
“I know, and all these men just sitting on their asses while the women do all the work. Typical.”

The Dog Eyes’ purse glittered, reflecting the setting sun. I looked over her shoulder at the road in front of the bar. Five women and one little girl walked in single file with huge bundles of firewood balanced on their heads -- the little girls’ bundle twice the size of her scrawny body. They held their backs perfectly straight as their bare feet measured careful steps through the high grass next to the road. The mismatched fabrics they wore were tattered and faded against the backdrop of bright blue sea. I went inside the bar to pay for our beers.
“Can I talk to you privately?” the girl caught my arm. She smiled and squinted at me as if telling a secret. We went outside. “My friend wants to ask you for your phone number,” she looked at the Coastal Protector on the wall. “Feel free to say no if you’re not interested.”
“I don’t like men,” I told her. “I like women.”
“What!”
“I’m gay.”
“No.” She clasped her hand over her mouth and gasped and laughed at the same time. “Are you serious!?” She took away her hand and stepped close to me. She was not laughing anymore.

At that moment an old Italian guy approached. He was hairy, smelly and hunched over. He grabbed the girl’s arm and muttered something in Italian – it was supposed to be witty and they both giggled. As he pulled her away she looked back at me. “I’m sorry,” she said as she followed the man into the alley behind the bar.
“I’m sorry too."

Mr. Ostrich.... The Epic

2007-02-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

It was 1:00am when Katia and I unzipped our mosquito net and started packing. Neither of us had slept much. Our alarm clock had been stolen the week before along with our cell phone and everything else in our daypacks. I woke up to check the time every hour, afraid that we would miss the taxi to the bus station outside of town to catch our 3:00am bus, and spent the rest of the night sweating in our sweltering, claustrophobic room. Not that sleeping was much of an option between the heat and the periodic coughing fits – my cold had been getting worse everyday.

For the last five nights we had been in Vic Falls, Zimbabwe, filling out police reports (we were robbed at the train station on the way from Bulowayo), white water rafting, and fighting off the stampede of touts that followed us everywhere we went. Vic Falls is a small, dirty, overpriced, and because of the exodus of tourists from Zimbabwe, empty town on the border with Zambia. Most tourists now preferred to stay in Livingstone on the other side of the border, only crossing over into Zim to see the spectacular view of the falls. A wise decision in our opinion – Vic Falls was a miserable place and we were glad to be leaving.

Once Katia finished strapping the rest of our stuff to the outside of our backpack, we had just enough time to stand under a lukewarm shower. It did little to cool us off -- even at 2:00am the night was hot and we were sweating by the time we threw our bags into the trunk of the taxi. The bus station was next to a Salvation Army church, which to our amazement was vibrating with singing African voices. Zimbabweans love church, especially any church that involves wearing uniforms, so The Salvation Army was particularly popular. Still, we were surprised to find a church packed to the brim at three in the morning. Unfortunately, it wasn’t only the church that was packed to the brim: the bus heading in our direction was also full. We sighed and climbed on. Fortunately, there was a little space reserved for luggage behind the driver and we managed to wedge ourselves into it. We were used to standing in the aisle on African busses for hours; this was relative comfort. Katia leaned her head against my shoulder and fell asleep.

The plan was to have the bus drop us at the turn off to Hwange National Park. From there to the park’s main gate was another 25 Kilometers. We stumbled off the bus and out onto the empty road. Our backpack had been shoved into the compartment under the bus – apparently next to the leaking gas tank as it was saturated with gasoline. We sighed again, I pulled on the stinking bag and we headed down the road towards the park. We were tempted to start walking but had been warned against it by the locals. They said that leopards and grumpy buffalo had attacked people along the road, so we prepared ourselves to wait for a ride. Since there was a serious shortage of gasoline in Zimbabwe, hardly any cars passed on the main road and none turned towards the park. We expected to spend the better part of the day waiting, but to our surprise within an hour a small pickup truck turned down the road towards the park. We flagged it down and negotiated the price of a ride into the park – hitchhiking in Africa is never free – and climbed into the back of the truck. We leaned against the stacks of three-day-old newspapers they were delivering to the main camp. As we continued down the road the driver stopped every few kilometers to shove another passenger into the back with us. By the time we reached main camp, we had to climb over fifteen people to get out of the truck. We paid the driver, subsidizing everyone’s ride, since I saw no other money exchange hands.

By 7:00am we had navigated the bureaucracy required to set up our tent. We handed over photocopied bank receipts and negotiated with the bored ranger until she agreed to charge us the local Zimbabwean rate of 10 dollars a night to camp. We set up our tent under a tree in the vast empty dirt lot that passed for a campground, and looked around. There were no other tourists, and by the looks of things there hadn’t been any for some time. Scattered cinder block buildings proclaimed ‘Gents’ and ‘Ladies.’ I wandered from one to the next before finding a shower that worked. Most likely due to some colonial throw back, the ‘Ladies’ contained only large claw-footed bathtubs and no showers. Since there were no ‘Gents’ as far as the eye could see, I claimed one of them, stripped and once again stood under a lukewarm stream of water. By the time I walked back to where Katia was napping on the tent’s rain fly, I was completely dry. I fell asleep to crazy African dreams.

I awoke to the buzzing of insects, electrons in orbit around my head, and the burning afternoon sun overcoming the little bit of shade we had fallen asleep under. We had a picnic of soggy Gouda cheese and stale bread before heading for our afternoon game drive. We found our guide and climbed onto the safari truck, impatient to get going and see the animals. We were surprised that a man was sitting in the back. He was pale and had a cigarette sticking out of his mouth as he fiddled with the lenses on his camera. A bright yellow ostrich feather was sticking out of his white leather hat – ostrich leather, as we were soon to find out. With the exception of his shoes, dyed bright yellow to match the exact shade of the feather, the rest of his outfit was white: white polo shirt with an ostrich.com logo, white shorts, and white socks. “Hi, my name is Steve and I’m in the feather business.” Katia leaned over and whispered: “Who the hell is in the feather business?”

The three of us set out on the game drive. The landscape was dry and brown. With the exception of a few guinea fowl, three crocodiles, one zebra and one giraffe, there were no animals anywhere. With no game to keep us occupied, I spent a good portion of the drive chatting with Steve. Steve wasn’t only in the feather business; he owned an entire ostrich empire. From his website, ostrich.com, he sold all things ostrich. In addition to ostrich feathers in a variety of hues, he sold carved ostrich eggshells and ostrich leather clothes, he even sold ostrich meat. If it could be made from an ostrich, Steve knew about it and sold it. He told us about the strength of ostrich shells and how difficult it was to raise ostriches. How long it took for an egg to hatch and how in the hatcheries they used a light to check how the eggs were developing. Steve explained: “The farmers shine a light on the eggs to make sure they are developing properly. If something is wrong they have to remove the egg immediately. If the egg is left in the hatchery it will eventually explode contaminating all of the other eggs.” In our conversations with each other Lee and I affectionately christened Steve “Mr. Ostrich.”

We went on two other game drives with Mr. Ostrich, and still there were no animals. The night drive was so dull that both Katia and I fell asleep for most of it. The one highlight during our dawn game drive was spotting a leopard loping through a clearing beside the road. By the time we managed to get the driver to stop, it had already slunk back into the underbrush. The rangers at Hwange were utterly uninterested in finding animals and often sped up to scare the antelopes and birds off the road in front of us. They acted put out by the occasional tourist that managed to find their way into the park.

The rangers, the park’s staff, and judging from the size of the compound, all of their immediate and distant family members, lived in a settlement near main camp. Apparently, it takes a staff of hundreds to manage a park without any animals or tourists. The compound had a small store with empty shelves, a school and a well stocked bar tucked back into the forest. Considering the current situation in Zimbabwe, we were convinced that a good portion of the animals we had failed to see probably had found their way into the rangers’ soup pots. We fantasized that the armed rangers would close the park’s borders and declare its secession from Zimbabwe creating the United Republic of Hwange.

After our dawn game drive, Mr. Ostrich invited us to look at and copy some of the pictures he had taken in the park, since our camera had been one of the casualties in the robbery. He ordered a big English breakfast: eggs, bacon, beans, toast and tea. Katia and I had little Zimbabwean cash with us, so we cobbled together a breakfast from the food we had brought. Mr. Ostrich watched as we ate peanut butter from the jar with a spoon, and munched on stale rolls and muesli with no milk. Steve ate his breakfast quietly. Katia and I decided he had lost interest in our company, when he suddenly blurted out: “I have an offer for you. Please know there is no obligation and you are free to say no.” Steve took a deep breath. “I want to take you with me to the Ocavango Delta, all expenses paid. I’ll take you to Vic Falls and put you up in a nice hotel. You can have your laundry done” -- he glanced at Katia’s stained pants – “and take a hot shower. From Vic Falls we’ll drive to Botswana and see the Delta, no strings attached. I’ll go back to my room and let you think about it. No obligation.”

Steve left us alone. Katia and I stared at each other for a moment. “Holy Shit! The Ocavango Delta??!!” It was the one place I really wanted to go but couldn’t because it was out of our budget. We spent a good five minutes discussing “the offer” before deciding to take Mr. Ostrich up on it. Steve walked back over looking a little shy. Katia said: “We thought about it and we would very much like to take you up on the offer. We just want to let you know that we really don’t have the money to pay for anything.” Steve smiled at us. “Great. How long will it take you to pack?”

Forty minutes later, Mr. Ostrich pulled up next to our tent in his shiny blue Volkswagen. We jumped in and pulled out onto the road heading back towards Vic Falls. I was in the front seat and Katia was in the back. We made polite conversation asking Steve where he was from: he lived in Chicago but was originally from England. I asked him if he often picked up hitchhikers. He explained: “I always pick up hitch hikers and take them for a nice meal and put them up in a room. All I want in return is that you do the same for someone else one day. I’ve been in your place. I backpacked around Europe for years. One day I just picked up and left. Sometimes I couldn’t get any work and had to sleep in the park. When I couldn’t find a job I had to eat from the garbage.” It sounded like gaaabage in his accent. I didn’t think we looked that bad, but then I imagined how we looked to him: our dirty clothes, pathetically small tent and peanut butter breakfast, and saw what Mr. Ostrich meant.

As Steve pulled up in front of the Victoria Falls Hotel we felt nervous, neither of us had ever stayed in a hotel this nice. We followed him into the lobby and were immediately surrounded by tuxedoed employees offering us champagne glasses of juice and hot towels to wash our hands and face. We stood aside as Steve arranged the rooms. He grinned at us and asked if we were hungry. Our peanut butter breakfast a thing of the past, we settled on the outside veranda overlooking Victoria Falls gorge. Katia ordered white wine and quiche, I had a cheeseburger and beer. The lunch was all white tablecloths and shiny silver wear. The three of us were quite a sight – Katia’s ripped wife beater, my dread locks and Mr. Ostrich’s feather stood out amongst the country club pastels of the other diners.

After lunch we had some time to relax in our room before the sunset cruise that Steve had organized. We took turns standing under the hot shower. Freshly steamed, I wrapped in a soft white robe and luxuriated on the bed, alternating between the remote control and calling reception to have them deliver ice, pick up our laundry, and give us a wake up call the next day. I wanted to make sure Steve got his money’s worth.

We were scooped by the hotel shuttle and delivered onto a boat where we drank gin and tonics and watched the brilliantly green banks of the river float by. Two elephants played in the water next to the boat as the haze of the day was transformed into a creamy sunset. A crocodile followed behind the engine, begging the passengers to throw snacks into the water. After a few drinks we were feeling less awkward and we chatted about our lives on the way back to the hotel. “So shall we meet for dinner in an hour then?” I smiled and told Mr. Ostrich that sounded great.

Katia and I met Steve in the lobby and walked over to what reception termed “the casual restaurant.” An entire room of food surrounded candlelit tables. Local performers entertained us with traditional African dances. We tasted everything from ostrich meat (of course) to crocodile. There was a meat buffet, a cheese buffet, and a table where a chef flambéed crepes with fancy liquors: more food than we had seen in a month in Zimbabwe. We were stuffed by the time we said goodnight to Steve.

We crawled between the pristine white sheets, too excited to sleep. Katia looked around the room: “Can you believe we woke up this morning in our tent and now we are here?”
I grinned: “Nope. It’s completely unbelievable.”

The next morning, we were finishing our second pot of coffee when Mr. Ostrich’s feather bobbed over to our table and sat down. Today’s feather and sneakers were scarlet. Steve apologized for the delay: we would have to spend the day driving to Francistown, Botswana, to pick up a bigger rental car. I assured him it wasn’t a problem, after all it wasn’t like we would be riding in a smelly African bus. We had a quick swim in the Olympic-sized pool and a couple of fancy cocktails complete with little paper umbrellas, before getting back on the road.

The road through Botswana was flat and flanked by bush. We drove by grazing herds of zebras and to Steve’s delight, giant ostriches. He coached us as we got out of the car to get a closer look – apparently ostriches can be pretty dangerous. Every time I saw an animal I would shout and Steve would screech into reverse. Like his namesake, Mr. Ostrich liked to move pretty fast. We hopped out of the car next to an elephant and Steve photographed us as I nervously glanced over my shoulder.

Two animals walked across the road directly in front of us. “Goats!” I shouted. “Oh, shit…. They’re leopards!” Steve’s tires screeched and he was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop, camera in hand. Katia and I watched as the two big cats paused, and turned their heads to look back at us. They stared with bright squinting eyes. Their faces were the color of dry grass with a black stripe on each cheek. I got ready to jump back into the car, afraid they were considering us for lunch, but they casually turned and trotted into the high grass. As they picked up speed and sprinted further into the bush, their curved ears and strong back legs emerged rhythmically above the grass. I was jumping up and down on my leather seat. These were the first big cats I’d seen up close. After much discussion we decided that they were in fact cheetahs and not leopards. That was even better! I never imagined I’d have a cheetah staring me down from the side of a highway.

We spent that night at the Nata Lodge – the only place to stay in miles of bush. Usually we set up our tent next to the cute wooden chalets at places like these, but this time we were actually staying inside one. The chalet had a steeply pitched roof and an outside patio overlooking the bush. Inside was a huge bed with a romantic mosquito net suspended from the unfinished wooden beams of the ceiling. A claw foot bathtub with brass legs sat on one side of the room, and a door on the other side led to a semi external shower that simulated a waterfall. Its walls were made of rocks and bucketfuls of water shot out of different openings in irregular bursts. It was more like drowning than showering, but the water was hot and we were happy.

Mr. Ostrich had us on the move from 5:00am until 11:00pm daily. He seemed to have an unending supply of energy. By 7:00 the next morning we were fed, packed and back on the road heading for Maun, “The gateway to the Ocavango Delta.” Steve’s brilliant blue feather led the way. “Have you been in a small plane before?” Steve asked. “How small?” Katia asked. “A four-seater.” By that afternoon we were crammed into the two back seats of a miniscule airplane. Steve sat in the front with the pilot. The engine revved and the plane shook, rattled and took off. I closed my eyes and wished I had thought to take motion sickness pills. We were soon flying over the Ocavango Delta.

Below us everything was scorched pale clay, broken only by the stubble of dry black tree trunks. Suddenly, a long thin purple snake of water appeared with banks of iridescent green. The tall grasses looked like soft thick fur hugging the earth. Mud puddle sized lakes reflected the enormous sky, its clouds rushing along with our movement. Everything was saturated with water and the grasses between the lakes and rivers glowed a rich intense green, like moss, soft and thick. Tiny elephants clustered around miniature palm trees on the islands below. Herds of antelope crossed the grasslands -- small ovals with long elegant shadows. A flock of gleaming white birds formed a dancing vertical tunnel rotating in the air next to the plane. Sweat poured from my face as I tried to ignore the nausea and enjoy the view. The Ocavango Delta was beautiful, but I was extremely happy when the plane bumped to a stop on the runway. Katia was absolutely thrilled with the ride and we both thanked Steve again and again. He smiled at us, happy that we had enjoyed ourselves. I hoped he hadn’t noticed my green hue.

The next day we were in Steve’s rented S.U.V. by 5:00am heading into Ocavango Delta National Park. There were no paved roads in the park, only dirt and sand paths, most of which were very rough going. The path in front of us would disappear every few meters and we’d have to backtrack or off road directly through the marshes to get to another track. We saw a baby zebra sleeping in the grass near its mother. Ignoring the rule to stay in the vehicle at all times, we popped out and walked over to it. The mother zebra ignored us and we walked right up to the baby. The animals in this park had no fear of humans. We drove around the marshes that we had seen from above the day before. The colors on the ground were even more vivid: blue water sparkled in the sunlight, grasses of every color -- purple, green yellow -- undulated in the breeze. “Did you bring the binoculars?” I asked Katia. “No. Did you?” I couldn’t believe we had forgotten the binoculars. I had been hoping to see a lion and I knew without binoculars the chances of spotting one would be slim.

I put aside my disappointment and concentrated on spotting a lion anyway. Whenever the path wasn’t too bumpy, I stood up on the seat and stuck my head up through the sunroof for a better view. We drove into the part of the park called Dead Tree Island for its surreal landscape. It was completely flat with the exception of scattered blackened dead tree trunks and fallen trees. There were herds of antelope and zebra everywhere. After the third time around the same distinctly phallic termite mound we realized we were lost. Luckily, we came across a group of people eating lunch. The uniformed guide approached us and gave us directions: “Turn right at the tree that looks like Elvis and then left at the phallic termite mound. Oh, and did you see the lions?” I tried to control my excitement: “No, where?” We had driven right past them on our way into Dead Tree Island. I didn’t see how we would find them in the tall marsh grass but we turned around and headed in that direction anyway.

One of the reasons I had come to Africa was to see a lion, and seeing one of the Ocavango Delta lions would be incredible. I balanced on the seat and squinted into the sun. We followed the ranger’s directions and Katia’s intuition to decide which path to take. I was starting to loose hope, then we turned the corner. I screamed and ducked out of the sunroof and back into the car: “Shit! Stop! Stop!” Directly in front of us, sprawled under a tree, was a pride of nine napping lions. Steve hit the breaks and the car stopped barely two meters from the cats – their soft golden brown coats camouflaged perfectly in the dry grass. We had almost run them over. In a panic I quickly rolled up all of the windows and gingerly stuck my head up through the roof. The male lion lifted his head and glanced at us before determining we weren’t a threat and returning to his nap. The rest of the lionesses barely raised an eyelid. One adolescent male in the back watched us and nonchalantly yawned, showing his teeth. He was making sure we knew who was boss. We watched and took pictures as they licked their paws and yawned, ears and tails twitching flies away. The lions looked like giant kittens sprawling over one another with their big soft cat bodies. It was an amazing sight. They were so calm it felt like you could walk right up to one and pet it. It was thrilling to be so close – they were strong and regal and I felt like I was going to cry. I couldn’t believe we were this close to lions with no one around for miles. No other safari trucks or tourists shouting and pushing each other out of the way to get the right shot, just the sounds of the bush and the lions breathing. It was better than anything I could have hoped for.

We slowly backed away and let the lions continue napping undisturbed. I settled back into my seat, excited and overwhelmed. “Well, now we can leave Africa,” I joked. We continued to drive around the park, enjoying the scenery and discussing our amazing experience. One of the bridges was out and we had to drive directly through a deep stream to get to the other side. We heard a loud crunch, and when we pulled out of the mud our left back tire was completely flat. Mr. Ostrich stopped and we all searched the car for the tool kit. We found a bag with a few tools but no jack. We searched the rest of the car to see if the jack was hidden elsewhere. Not finding it, we did the only sensible thing when stuck in a game park: we kept driving. We were far from any of the main paths and other than the ranger, hadn’t seen more than two cars all day. It was hot, at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had long since run out of water. After three hours of driving in circles, lost yet again, we accidentally found a campsite. We all hooted with joy when we saw the tent and the accompanying truck with South African plates! We were sure they would be able to help us. The man had at least three different kinds of jacks and was happy to help us change the tire. Within 20 minutes we were back on the “road.” It took us the rest of the day to get out of the park and we arrived back at our hotel exhausted

That night we ate our last dinner together -- it was time to say goodbye to Mr. Ostrich. Katia toasted Steve and we thanked him again for the amazing experience he had given us. We relived all of the exciting adventures we had had in the last week, laughing about the flat tire. Steve even thanked us for our company and made us promise to keep him informed of our adventures so he could backpack vicariously through us. The next morning he dropped us off at the bus stop. We had forgotten how heavy our backpacks were. We climbed onto the bus and settled into our seats, ready to begin our next African adventure.

Chistmas in Lamu, Kenya

2007-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

The manager of the aptly named Dodo Village Cottages had been shouting in Swahili all morning. I could hear everything he was saying through my earplugs – not that I could understand the words. There appeared to be some kind of ongoing dispute between him and the guy staying next door with the fountain of dyed blonde dreads leaping off his head. I could picture the manager pacing back and forth, his sallow olive skin, shoulders bent forward both eyes bursting. The one dead eye attempting to escape east, the good eye threatening to launch into the air and hit whomever he was gesticulating at. The man doesn’t sleep. His room is in the building next to our roof. At night we can hear him up there sitting on the balcony talking. Maybe he is praying – he told us that during this Muslim holiday (the one that falls on Christmas day) everyone has to get up and wash themselves at midnight and pray. At the slightest sound – the unzipping of our tent at three in the morning, he is out on the roof with his searchlight sweeping it over our rooftop. We waited for the noise to fade before coming down from our roof.

Dodo Village looks and smells like an abandoned Indian palace. It’s old and unfinished with lots of Muslim arches and molding plaster. We set our tent up on the “roof” which was actually the unfinished second floor above the “restaurant” – the only thing they served for breakfast was toast. The floor was covered in bat shit -- the moldy, acrid smell wasn’t nearly as nauseating as the odor of urine that usually accompanied our campsites. It was only 3.50 a night – a small price to pay for our 365-degree view of the stars. There was a half-finished thatch roof for shade and the mosquitoes didn’t seem able to fly that high so we were happy. Besides, it was the only place to camp on Lamu Island. Lamu is incredibly romantic – a perfect place to spend Christmas. Its people are predominately Muslim and there are no cars, only donkeys. The villages are medinas with winding narrow streets. Wandering inevitably lost, we bumped into men on donkeys carrying loads in straw saddle bags, women peaking out through the slits in their burkas, and young boys playing football in the narrow streets.

On the day before Christmas it rained. We used the weather as an excuse to stay “home” – “home” being the porch on the level below our tent where the restaurant is. It’s an open-air porch with mismatched thick wooden tables and chairs that have been restrung with twine. We spent the morning drinking cheap red wine from a box and playing music on our laptop. Katia rushed to finish sewing my new pink beach pants – my Christmas gift. Once the rain stopped we ventured out into the cool evening air towards Lamu. The path runs next to the beach and the water was full of dhows – big wooden sailboats the locals use to travel between the villages and islands. The streets were full of people hurrying to Mosque or Church depending on their inclination. In addition to the many “Jambo’s” and “Rasta- Laaady’s” we were also regaled with a surprising number of Merry Christmas’s. We wandered into a restaurant and sat down among antique Asian furniture and Buddha adorned fountains. We ordered wine, a dozen oysters, steaks and grilled fish. It was a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. We spent the rest of the evening drinking cappuccinos and chatting before the long romantic walk back to our tent on the roof.

On the Beach in Zanzibar

2007-01-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

December 12, 2006

Sitting on the beach in Nungwi, Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania. The sand is cream color and soft -- pummeled coral and clay. Sea urchins with black porcupine spikes ride in on the low tide. They attach themselves to the rocks and roll toward your feet. The locals put papaya juice and kerosene on the wounds of tourists who weren't paying attention to their feet. In a few days the spikes come out of the skin on their own. During the mornings and evenings the swimming is beautiful -- water high, shining Caribbean postcard blue. On the beach is a bar with hammocks and hanging benches weaved of rough rope. The local men walk bye "mambo-ing" and "jambo-ing" -- staring at the florescent white Scandinavian breasts lounging on the beach. In the evenings the breast owners dance and flop around on the sand attempting to break dance. Scandinavians can’t dance. Tall, blonde inbred -- wide set eyes and upturned noses. Jerking around, clapping their hands -- reminiscent of Midwesterners at a barn dance. The local men lounge around -- stoned watching. We sit by the camp fire smoking a joint and laughing.

Stone Town Zanzibar: The Night Market

2007-01-15T06:18:00.000-08:00

December 8, 2006

Chee Chee was short and stout and wore an oversized fez on his close-cropped head. He worked in some unknown capacity at the Mancha Lodge, the cheapest hotel we could find in Stone Town, Zanzibar. Not sure if it was the best decision, the seven of us followed him through the narrow alleys of the medina. He had agreed to take us to the night market. The streets were dark, lit only by gas lamps and candlelight, and the occasional light bulb blaring from an open shop door. I strained to memorize landmarks that I might find my way back later that night.

After 15 minutes of twists and turns we emerged from the medina near the waterfront. In front of us were rows of wooden tables with kerosene lanterns burning. Different kinds of fish, shrimp, octopus, squid, liver, and snails lay side-by-side, all impaled and grilled. Vendors called from the tables offering their plastic tables and chairs: “Here you sit. Eat. We get anything you want. Beer? Tea? Come sit!” On the dubious advice of Chee Chee we picked an appealing stall. After confirming the price of each skewer, we picked a few – barracuda, squid, shrimp and a sweet banana with chocolate sauce for dessert. Our choices were whisked back to the grill and promptly served on paper plates with toothpicks for forks.

As we settled on a wooden bench and sampled our food the scrawny man who had filled our plates – his few patches of rebelling dread locks protruding in opposing directions -- approached us for payment. We listed the foods on Katia’s plate and added their prices: 5,000 shillings (around 4dollars).

The man looked surprised: “Ok, You give me 12,000 (the equivalent of 10 dollars).”
I looked up at the guy preparing for the confrontation I knew was coming and calmly repeated the price of each item. “No, it should be 5,000. Two for the squid, one for the barracuda, that’s three thousand, one each for the shrimp and sweet banana, that’s five thousand.”
The guy stared down at us as we continued to eat. He was getting agitated:
“No, not the price – who told you that? He Lie!”
We pointed towards the stall owner behind his cart. He shrugged at the three of us, uninterested in the conflict.
The scrawny man turned back to us: “You pay me 12,000!”
Katia said: “You can not change the price after we already agreed on it.”
“You agreed on it!” he was screaming now and threatening to call the police. An audience of curious locals circled us.
“Either take the 5,000 or I will happily return the (now half eaten) food.”
He shouted that he didn’t want the food, he wanted the money.
I pulled exactly 5,000 shillings out of our bag and handed it to the owner who was still observing the scene. He took the money without comment. Katia and I took our paper plates and walked quickly into the market away from the offending stall but the scrawny man hadn’t given up. He followed us.
“You robbed me!” he shouted. Katia cringed and wiped spittle from the back of her neck.

I turned around and saw him in the light – his clothes were ripped and dirty, his eyes angry and dilated. He looked homeless and high. Up ahead we saw two Mzungu heads towering above the crowd. We recognized one as the hairy lollypop of our friend Korsh and pushed through the crowds towards it.

“My Friend,” I said with more than a tad of irony. Lately everyone I disliked was ‘my friend.’ ”I have paid you for the food we bought at the price we agreed on. Please leave us alone. You have no right to bother us, you don’t even work there.”
“I think you should leave the food, “ he blurted. Our suspicions were correct – he was a crook. He wanted to get something from us, if not our money then our food.
“I think you should shut up!” Katia spat back. The scrawny guy’s eyes shot fire. Angry at being caught, he lunged towards Katia’s plate, trying to knock it out of her hands.
Korsh grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and pushed him away from us. “Don’t you dare!”
Our scrawny adversary babbled at Korsh: “You are their leader! You are their leader! Make them pay!”

When no money was forthcoming, the man gave Katia and I the evil eye and shouted more insults in Swahili, then stalked into the crowd. Katia and I were shaken and no longer felt hungry. Not wanting the hustlers to get our food we fed our plate to the cats begging in the darkness.

The Little South African Man

2007-01-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

Note: these photos are not of the Little South African Man. This man is the crazy Danish guy with whom we caught a ride out of Zambia and camped in the bush. More about him later...

November 29, 2006

The little South African man took a long drag on his cigarette, put it out, and lit another one with a pink lighter. “Shit, man. I’m so fucking tired. It’s the end of the season and I’m ready to head home. Yeah, I make shit loads of money – did you think I was doing it for free in this mother fucking country? If the client is paying one and a half grand a day for the license, and then three grand for a lion and five grand for an elephant, you can bet they don’t want to be fucking camping in the bush. They want a hot shower and a bed, and a cook too. I get a lot of Germans and Americans, but the Spanish are the worst: the mother fuckers want to shoot everything. Rodents, squirrels for fuck’s sake. My friend,” he turned to the waiter, “get us four – no eight – beers. It’s fucking dark and raining and I don’t want to go out there.

“So last week I had this family from Texas, husband, wife and the daughter. All they fucking wanted to do was shoot the big five.” He put his palm in front of his lips and made a loud smacking, kissing each animal goodbye. “Lion (smack), leopard (smack), elephant (smack), buffalo (smack), rhino (smack).”

“But you see the quota is so high. They had a second week, and they wanted to shoot more. But when we are in the bush, I’m the boss. I said, that’s enough. Damn, these people are rich. And I gotta take them shooting all day. There, shoot this lion. Over there, that buffalo. And then I gotta entertain them at night.

“But the worst is when they wound the animal. You wound a buffalo and it gets dangerous. It comes after you. And these fucks can’t shoot. You know it as soon as you see them get off the plain in their fucking safari suits head to toe. Oh, shit! (Long drag). So guess who has to track the animal into the bush and kill it. It’s my fucking job.”

Mzungu Magic

2007-01-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

November 2, 2006

You can see Zambezi Heat. The golden sand on the riverbank radiates waves of haze into the air. The water is transformed into steam and rises. Everything around us shimmers in the haze and humidity. Furnace blasts of wind parch the skin on our lips and faces. We are in a canoe heading down the Zambezi River in Zambia during November, the hottest month of the year in a country where “hot” takes on a whole new meaning. When the sun is shining the temperature wavers between 110 and120 degrees Fahrenheit. At dusk it drops a refreshing 20 degrees and remains constant throughout the still nights.

This will be the last night of our 5-night canoe safari and we are sad that the adventure is coming to an end. We are now old pros at following Victor and Sailor’s canoe, navigating around large pods of hippos, sometimes more than 200 of them clumped together one on top of the next. It’s curious, the entire river is theirs, they have no natural enemies and yet they prefer to sleep practically on top of each other. Victor, the lead guide, bangs the head of his paddle against his fiberglass canoe at regular intervals sending vibrations through the water. As he explained to us on the first day of our trip “It’s so we can see the hippos. When they hear the noise they pop their heads out of the water to see what’s coming.”

We were extremely nervous about the hippos. We had heard stories of boats being propelled out of the water when they unknowingly passed over a grumpy hippo. Hippos are some of the most dangerous and aggressive animals in Africa and they attack without any provocation. They will come surging out of the water and bite a fiberglass motorboat in half for no apparent reason. Their jaws contain enormous power and though they don’t attack humans (they are strict vegetarians) many people have been injured or killed during boat attacks. At the beginning we weren’t sure whether to be comforted or terrified by Victor’s banging but we had learned to trust our guide. He seemed to know every current and marsh. He was very familiar with the different pods of hippos and knew the favorite hangouts of the single bull hippos. As Victor explained, “they have lost all of their females in a fight to another hippo and now they are lonely angry bachelors looking for trouble.”

Now we confidently skirt the edge of the hippo pods, their pig-like ears flicking as they follow us with their eyes. The ears and eyes are often the only part of their mammoth body visible above the water. The secret is to remain in a shallow area of the river. According to Victor, hippos are comfortable only in deep water and won’t attack on land or in a shallow channel. As we pass them they start “clucking” at us. To be fair the sound isn’t really a cluck. We call it clucking because they remind us of a bunch of angry hens, pissed that we would dare canoe down their river. The sound of an angry hippo clucking is difficult to describe. It’s like a very loud two syllable grunt, first low pitched and then higher pitched. If you can imagine a cross between a horse neighing and a pig grunting you’ll get the idea. When they are all clucking together you can hear them for miles around. I am trying to memorize the sound of the hippos along with everything else around us before the trip comes to an end.

Victor shouts over to us his constant refrain, “Are you still drinking?” We drink liter after liter of warm bottled water adding a bit of Mazoe to make the taste less horrible. Mazoe is Southern Africa’s miracle drink. It’s concentrated, orange flavored and sugary and passes as “juice.” Africans that can afford it drink it by the liter. Up until the canoe trip I had shunned the magic of Mazoe but now I finally understand its appeal. It can make the most disgusting water, even boiled Zambezi water, palatable.

Victor led us to an inlet where we would be stopping to wait out the hottest part of the day and eat the lunch we had procured from two fishermen. We had approached the fishermen earlier that day as they were paddling their Mokorro. Mokorros are thin long canoes the local tribes make by hollowing out a tree trunk. One man stood and beat the water with his rough paddle making a horrendous racket. The other man leaned over and held onto the fishing net. Victor explained that they were scaring the fish into the net. Luckily for us they had two good-sized breams that they had already scared earlier, and Victor bought them. Victor and sailor popped out of their canoe and scouted the area for lions, crocodiles and elephants before giving us the go ahead to hop onto shore.

Once on shore, we found a spot under some trees, spread out our foam mattresses next to an inlet of a river, and I immediately fell asleep. On the other side of the inlet was a small clearing. We were hoping some animals might come out of the bush for a drink since the water was too shallow for crocodiles. Like the hippos, crocodiles also only attack in deep water. They kill their prey by dragging it into the deep and drowning it. Because of their shape, crocodiles have to roll their victims underwater generating the force to rip edible chunks of meat from their victim. They cannot use their jaws to rip flesh from their prey like lions or other large predators. All of the antelope that live along the shores of the Zambezi know this and only approach the water in areas similar to where we were napping.

I awake to Katia shaking my shoulder and pointing across the inlet. I see a herd of impala drinking nervously at the bank. At the smallest noise they jump sideways or freeze, staring at us with big scared eyes. I was annoyed to be woken from my nap for a bunch of antelope. We had seen hundreds of them in the last few days. But then I see what Katia is pointing at. Slowly ambling out of the bush were two elephants. They munched away on the leaves of the trees, using their trunks to reach up and rip down entire branches for easier access to their lunch. If that didn’t yield enough they would then press their enormous foreheads against the tree trunk and lazily push the tree over. By the looks of the banks of the Zambezi this may have been the elephants’ favorite pass time as the majority of the vegetation was listing to one side with its roots protruding into the air.

Though we had seen dozens of elephants since coming to Africa, I never get tired of watching them. I could sit and watch them ambling around for hours. As it turned out, this is what we spent the rest of the afternoon doing. While we were relaxing, Victor and Sailor were busy preparing our lunch. Sailor spent an entire hour removing every bone from the bream. Our guides insisted that Mzungus (a somewhat derogatory term Africans use for white people) couldn’t eat whole fish with bones without choking. We assured them that we often fried whole fish and were quite capable of picking out the bones ourselves. Victor was unconvinced and rather than risk it, decided to make us fish cakes. We were not at all disappointed with the outcome. The fresh fish combined with salt and breadcrumbs and then fried on the open fire was delicious. They served lunch on two folding tables: toasted bread, mayo, tomato slices, shredded cabbage, and cheese combined with the fish cakes to make tasty sandwiches. It made us feel uncomfortable the way our guides slaved away in the heat to cook us three meals a day. They refused any help we offered and waited to eat until we had finished. We had to remind ourselves that this service was part of the extraordinarily high price we had paid for the safari. Even so, being waited on hand and foot by Africans still made us cringe.

As we munched away, our first two elephants meandered back into the bush a group of another four, probably from the same herd, wandered out for an afternoon mud bath. There were two full-grown elephants each accompanied by an adolescent. The young elephants mimicked everything the older elephants did. They waddled up to the river, slurped a trunk full of water and sprayed it onto their backs. Then they scooped up dry dirt from the rivers edge with their trunks and launched it over their heads and onto their wet bodies. According to Victor, this mud coating helped to keep the elephants cool. Every so often the older elephant tenderly caressed the younger one with her trunk or the younger one leaned up against the larger matriarch. I enjoyed observing this intelligent kind side of the elephants’ behavior, especially after the many experiences we have had with angry aggressive elephants.

After we finished our lunch we climbed back into the canoes. The sun was much lower in the sky but the heat did not abate. We paddled along first the Zimbabwean and then the Zambian riverbanks, crossing the wide expanse of the Zambezi several times in search of animals on shore. We hadn’t yet seen a lion on this trip (though we had heard them at night) and Victor was trying to find one for us. This stretch of the river was our best chance as it resided within the Lower Zambezi National Park. Unfortunately we had to be on guard when we approached the Zim side of the river. According to Victor, there were many corrupt rangers who would try to extract a bribe from us if we landed on or came too close to their shores. He said that this never used to be the case, that before all of the trouble in Zimbabwe both the Zim and Zam guides traveled freely on both sides of the river.

There was also danger from Zimbabwean poachers. We heard the gunshots of the poachers echoing from the Zimbabwean banks and were very happy we would be camping in Zambian territory. Victor explained that many of the animals that used to live in Zimbabwe had now migrated across the river to Zambia to escape the many poachers. Victor was very proud of this reversal. All of the game that had fled Zambia during its period of unrest was now returning. Victor explained: “When Zimbabwe was a rich country the Zim people looked down on Zambians. When we crossed into Zim to sell things, they would shout insults at us. They called us Zam-Boons as if we were no better than Baboons.”

As the sun was setting, Victor led us into the marshes. We paddled down channels surrounded by tall grasses and purple water hyacinth. Everything was silent except the singing of the many birds and the paddles sliding into the water. We watched elephants feeding on the marshy islands next to buffalo and impala. One big bull elephant decided we were approaching a bit too close as we perched in the tall grass watching and charged us. Its ears flattened, head down and tusks pointed forward. Adrenaline surged through our bodies and we poised ourselves to begin back paddling into the river. As had happened many times before, the big angry male stopped at the very edge of the marsh, only feet between him and our canoe. He stood there glaring at us, flapping his ears angrily. Victor reminded us yet again: “Don’t worry. Elephants don’t attack in the water. Only on dry land.” He paused: “At least none have ever done it before and I hope none ever figure out that they can.” As usual with Victor’s comments we are not sure whether to be comforted or terrified.

We paddled out of the marshes and around another bend in the river before reaching the island where we would camp that night. Every evening we camped on a different island in the river. The islands were deserted except of course for the hippos and elephants that lived there, and a few fishermen cooking their dinners before heading back onto the river. One of the best times to fish the Zambezi is at night, and we saw the lights of many fishermen passing our campsite as we relaxed. Victor sent us off to explore the island while he and Sailor set up camp. There were no lions, leopards or hyenas on the islands so we were allowed to wander freely as long as we stayed away from the crocodile-infested banks. I wasn’t so sure this was the best idea as there were often buffalo and elephants grazing on the islands. As far as I could tell, both buffalo and elephants delighted in scaring unsuspecting Mzungus by charging at them. We trusted Victor however, and would cautiously investigate the periphery of each night’s campsite.

On the very first night of our safari during our evening promenade, we heard strange noises coming from the tall marsh grass on the edge the island. We heard crunching and ripping noises that reminded us of elephants but we couldn’t see what was there. We edged closer to the marsh. We could see gray mounds peeking out from between the grasses, yet we couldn’t tell whether it was a hippo or an elephant. After about 15 minutes of peering into the grass we saw what were unmistakably a trunk and a flapping ear. We hurried back to camp to report that our island was inhabited. Victor grinned at us and said “Good, we are sure to have some visitors tonight then.”

As usual, Victor was right. He had just poured us glasses of the evening bottle of sweet South African white wine when we heard a crashing behind us. Behind our tents were the silhouettes of six elephants, all munching happily, ignorant of our presence on their island. Victor continued to serve us dinner as he explained: “We don’t want to surprise the elephants. If they know we are here they will leave us alone. The problem comes if they walk towards us without seeing us - elephants have horrible eyesight - and suddenly realize there are people in front of them. Then they might charge. Right now we will just continue having dinner and if they get too close we will get into the canoes.”

It was already dark when the elephants started approaching our camp. They walked towards us slowly, stopping every few feet to sniff the air. When they were within 20 feet of us Victor told us to walk down towards the canoes. We left our dinner plates scattered around, though I managed to keep hold of my wine glass, and stood next to the canoes. One of the elephants began flapping its ears at us, a sure sign of aggression. Victor told us to get into the canoes. We obeyed and sat there, me still sipping my wine, as Victor and Sailor stared down the elephants. They banged some pots and pans so the elephants would know where we were.

Sailor had pushed our canoes most of the way into the water and we watched the elephants out of one eye and the Zambezi flowing by out of the other. After determining that eating was more interesting then bothering with us, the elephants headed back to their marsh grasses. Something in the river caught my eye. As I looked down into the dark water, a huge crocodile, perhaps nine feet long, swam next to our canoe, its tail swishing in the water. I could see its eyes looking up at us, considering whether we would be its next meal. I shouted to Victor. This was one of the only times during the trip that he actually looked alarmed as he carefully helped us out of the canoe and back onto dry land. I was more shaken by the crocodile than by the elephants. Victor explained: “It’s rare, but occasionally crocs do attack people by snatching them out of boats”.

We were a little disappointed that on the last night of our safari there was no such excitement. As usual we took big basin of Zambezi water behind the nearest tree and washed ourselves. Clean and refreshed we sat with the tea Victor had made us and listened to the sounds of the Zambezi night. We talked with our guides about what it was like to live in Zambia as an African and they told us about their lives and beliefs.

According to Victor, Africans firmly believe in magic. There is magic for everything. Women brew potions from the nests of water eagles, famous for their monogamy and loyalty to their mate, in hopes of causing their husbands not to cheat. “Most of our men are bad husbands,” Victor said, “and the women are forced to use magic.” Men also use magic. They cut off a piece of the aptly-named young sausage tree fruit and eat it in the hope of making their penises grow. As long as the rest of that fruit continues to grow on the tree so will their penis. Once the man’s penis reaches the preferred size, the rest of the fruit must be cut from the tree and destroyed. Victor told us about an unfortunate man who could not find the remainder of the fruit on the tree in order to destroy it. His penis continued to grow “until the man appeared to have three legs”. Victor lamented the man’s fate: “his wife left him and even well-practiced prostitutes refused him”.

We ate our last dinner together and finally persuaded Victor and Sailor to join us in a farewell glass of wine. The wine loosened their tongues and they told us more stories.

“There was a chief who was a magic man. He once gave an interview in Germany and Japan at the same time. The newspapers had photos of him in both places and you could see that he was the same man. He died some years ago. Every year in May, one hundred men take out a big boat. Fifty row on one side, fifty on the other. When they row past the chief’s house the boat doesn’t go anymore. They row hard but the boat just stops. They have to ask permission from his spirit to let them pass. Every year they have to ask permission”.

“Do many people believe in magic and ancestral spirits?” we asked.

“Yes, most of us believe. Businessmen use magic for their businesses. The doctors at the hospital will tell you, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, you have to go see… I don’t know in English…. A person who makes magic.’ Sometimes you see a person who has some string tied around his wrist. That means the spirit of someone lives inside him. Maybe this person is my nephew, younger than me but he says the spirit of his grandfather lives inside him and he demands that I treat him with respect as if he were an old man”. Victor laughed. “Sometimes you see he has many strings up to here”, he pointed at the inside of his elbow, “he thinks he is very important.”

That night the moon was full and in the middle of the night the rainy season started. Big urgent raindrops splashed onto our faces and woke us up. Katia crawled out into the darkness and put the rain fly over our tent. The darkness was bursting with the sounds of the Zambezi, hippos and elephants surrounding our island, hyenas and lions calling from the mainland. The night was cool and refreshing.

By dawn the searing heat had returned, the rains of the night before completely forgotten. We had a leisurely breakfast before climbing into the canoes. We only had a short distance to go before reaching the end of our journey. We paddled slowly to prolong the inevitable, taking in all of the sights and sounds around us. I tried to memorize each pod of hippos we passed, their grunts causing me to laugh rather than cringe in fear. We scared crocodiles from their banks and into the water. Flocks of cranes watched us as we floated past. A herd of elephants ignored us as we paddled up to them. It was early and the water of the Zambezi was still. Victor led us into a marsh and told us to jump out for a swim. The first time he told us we could swim in the crocodile infested water we looked at him skeptically. I told him to jump in first and if nothing ate him we would follow. Of course Victor knew what he was doing and had taken us to a shallow channel in the river, safe from crocodiles and hippos.

This time we jumped in, unafraid and thrilled to feel the cool water. We splashed around together and mocked the pod of hippos clucking at us from the deep water nearby. It was thrilling to be swimming so close -- we could see their enormous teeth when they yawned, trying to intimidate us with the size of their jaws. I relaxed into the water and let the Zambezi carry me along.
Victor looked over at me alarmed: “You can lie on water?”
“You mean float? Sure, it’s easy. Anyone can float.”
Victor grinned at us: “I once saw a Mzungu on top of the water in the lake. We thought she had devices… you know to make her float.”
“You mean like a life jacket?”
“Yes, yes. Something inflated. We all watched and tried to find where she kept the inflated devices.”
I lay back in the water again and floated further this time. Sailor decided to try it. I explained that he needed to lie back in the water and relax all of his muscles. Every time he tried, he sank and came up laughing. Katia and I took turns floating down the river to demonstrate. Victor insisted that Africans cannot float. Only Mzungus can float.
He laughed: “How is this possible?”
I once again relaxed and floated by him on the water. He looked all around me. Once he was sure I wasn’t tricking him he proclaimed. “This is Mzungu magic.”

We paddled our canoes into shore and Victor and Sailor prepared us our last delicious lunch. We walked off by ourselves along the riverbank. We listened to the hippos clucking, the birds singing. We imagined the sounds of elephants splashing in the water, the fishermen pounding the river with their paddles. We said goodbye to the pod of hippos in the distance and the crocodiles sunning on the banks. As we piled into the safari truck for the hot, dusty, ride back to town I still felt as if I was on the river. My arms ached. My face and back were sunburned. I closed my eyes and felt the currents of the river carry my along. This is Zambezi Magic.

Almost... Out of Africa

2007-01-15T04:53:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone! Yes, we are still in Africa. Since the last post in Lusaka, Zambia, we went on an amazing canoe safari on the Zambezi river. We wrote a story about it and will post it in a minute. We caught a ride from Lusaka with a crazy Danish guy, and in his truck traveled in Malawi and Tanzania, before splitting off in Kenya. We have stories to prove all this, and will post them soon - promise. For the last two weeks Lee and I have been lounging in Malindi, where we camp at the official Marine Park campground. Malindi is a small beach town on Kenya's coast, completely overrun by Italian tourists. In between sipping cappucinos, indulging in mozzarella and basil and olive oil, generally enjoying having a kitchen, and swimming, we are doing tons of writing. These are our last few weeks in Africa, and we decided to get our asses in gear and to finish all the stories about our adventures here.

So here comes the first one....

Photos from Botswana

2006-11-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

We are still in Lusaka but are finally getting ready to leave in the next couple of days. We finally have a camera thanks to Katia's parents and the magic of FedEx! We can't wait to start documenting our trip again and this time intend to actually back things up:)

In the meantime Steve was kind enough to give us copies of the photos he took. All of the photos above are compliments of (and copywrighted by) Steve Warrington of www.ostrich.com --- Thanks Steve!!!

Don't the lions look cute and cudely? It felt like you could get out of the car and pat them. (We didn't try it).

If we look nervous next to the elephant that's because we were! It was coming out of the bush and heading right for us. This photo was taken on the side of the highway in Botswana.

The hippo was obviously shy of having it's photo taken -- as soon as Steve came near the water he charged. We jumped back in the car double fast.

The picture of the cheetah was also taken on the side of the road. Two of them crossed the highway in front of us. At first I thought they were goats.

Enjoy the pictures. Hopefully we'll have even more soon.

Lions and Ostriches and Robbers, Oh My!

2006-10-30T04:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a month since we last posted. Since Mutare Zimbabwe we have travelled across all of Zimbabwe, taken a detour into Botswana and now we are in Lusaka the capital of Zambia. We've had so many adventures we can hardly remember them all but we are trying to write some stories and post them soon. In the meantime here's a brief synopsis:

In Zim we climbed mountains in Chimanimani and took 2 horse back riding lessons. It turns out Lee has a real knack for it and can't wait to do it again. Of course she took off galloping on the second day and nearly gave the teacher a heart attack. Katia rode a pony and I don't think her ass has recovered yet.

We then headed to Great Zimbabwe. Not much to say about that place -- it's ruins of an ancient african city. The ruins prove that there was a civilization in sub-saharan Africa before the colonists arrived. Otherwise it was just really hot and dusty.

Next we stopped in Bulawayo where we spent entire days wandering around trying to exchange money on the black market. The city itself is pleasant with lots of cafe's but we don't recommend spending much time at the train station.

On our way out of Bulawayo (at the before mentioned train station) we were finally ROBBED!! We figured it was about time -- unfortunately they got both of our small day packs including our cell phone, laptop, camera and most importantly EAR PLUGS!! Did you know you can't buy ear plugs in africa? This is the excuse we are using for not posting to the blog sooner -- we've been traumatized ever since. Not really -- the robbery was fairly painless considering we missed the whole thing. One minute the bags were there the next we were sitting in a dark train compartment consoling each other (the lights were broken and our flash lights were stolen). Sorry -- there won't be any picutres for a while. They were all lost:(

Since being robbed wasn't tramatizing enough we decided to go white water rafting on the Zambezi river at Vic Falls. It was GREAT -- when we weren't drowning. There were 23 rapids -- a good number of them class 5. Lee wasn't satisified with experiencing the rapids inside the raft but insisted on bouncing out and riding through them on her own. Considering the rocks, crocs (yes there are crocodiles) not to mention the waves she highly recommends staying IN THE BOAT. On one spectacular rapid the entire raft flipped over and we were both trapped underneath through the rest of the rapid. Katia commenced hyperventilating and nearly drowned our guide trying to get back onto the raft (even though the raft was still up side down). After that she stopped laughing at Lee for holding on to the raft for dear life instead of paddling.

Craving more excitement we hitchhiked into Hwange National Park. We would have walked the 23 KM from the bus stop but there were too many wild animals -- unfortunately there weren't any wild animals INSIDE the park. It was a giant fly infested dirt patch. There hadn't been any tourists there in years from the looks of it and we determined that the locals must have gotten hungry. While in the park we met the only other tourist there whom we affectionately called Mr. Ostrich because he always wore an ostrich feather in his ostrich leather hat. It turns out that Mr. Ostrich was actually Steve Warrington the owner of ostrich.com. (Please visit his website for all of your ostrich related needs!!) We got to know him a little bit on the game drives -- since there weren't any animals to watch. One morning as he watched us eat peanut butter out of a jar for breakfast he made us an offer. He wanted to take us on an all expenses paid trip to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Delta was one of the places we really wanted to go but it was completely out of our price range. We looked at each other and within 40 minutes our stuff was packed and we were in his VW driving out of the park.

Steve turned out to be a really great guy and the 3 of us got along very well. He used to be a backpacker himself and only asked that we do something nice for other backpackers in return. We returned to Victoria Falls as Queens (ha ha) and spent the night at the luxurious Victoria Falls hotel eating amazing food (including ostrich of course) taking continuous showers (the water was hot!) -- we even had our laundry done. Steve took us on an amazing sunset cruise on the river where we watched elephants play in the water while drinking bottomless glasses of wine. In a couple of days we made it to Botswana where he took us for an airplane ride over the Delta. The next day he rented a 4x4 and we headed into the Delta. It was amazingly beautiful and we saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos and....... LIONS!! We turned the corner on this dirt path and nearly ran over an entire pride of napping lions. We both stuck our heads up through the sun roof and watched them cleaning themselves and yawning. They were only 6 feet away from us and completely undisturbed by our presence. Lee had wanted to see lions more than anything and she was thrilled -- her hands were even shaking. After a harrowing time leaving the park, the 4x4 got a flat tire and there was no jack -- we had to drive on the rim for 3 hours before finding help, Steve dropped us off at the bus station and we went our separate ways.

Now we are relaxing in Lusaka. Hot isn't really the way to describe what it is here... it's more of an inferno. Every morning we wake up at exactly 715 which is when the sun starts beating down on our tent and turns it into an oven. Of course there is rarely any running water at the backpackers so most of us have started showering in the pool. We have been spending the days at the mall sneaking into movies and hiding out in the freezer section at the supermarket.

Tomorrow we are heading back to the Zambezi river for a 4 night canoe safari for some up close and personal time with some Hippos and Crocs.

Hope everyone is doing well! We miss you all.

Bribe the Bakery!

2006-10-01T04:04:00.000-07:00

Last night was our friend Mario's birthday. We went with him to buy a birthday cake but the super market told him that they were "fully booked." We sent Mario home and went back by ourselves about an hour later. Yup they were fully booked -- until I handed her an extra $2000ZIM (about 2.50USD). We picked up our cake an hour later....

We bribed a super market to make a birthday cake !! Africa Rocks!!

The party was a lot of fun. It was all Angolans and Mozambicans from the University. We made them Sangria and danced Salsa and Passada all evening long. Those sexy Mozambican woman sure can dance!

Survivor Vilanculos

2006-09-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Vilanculos was an entire town of sand and garbage. The streets were made of ankle-deep soft sand and doubled as the town dump. Driving around town required a four-wheel drive though there were plenty of smaller cars swerving their way through. We got in the habit of hiding behind a tree when a car approached - they were always out of control -- trying to get some traction and spraying sand everywhere.

The town itself was spread out along the edge of the beach. Everywhere you looked were mountains of oyster shells. Whenever the fishing boats returned a spontaneous noisy (and smelly) fish market sprang to life. We even saw two men fighting each other over a string of large fish. We would go down to the beach around lunchtime and haggle for the days catch. Of course we were always over charged but we still managed to make a delicious lunch of fried fish for under a dollar.

We stayed at a place called Baobab Beach. True to its name, it was right on the beach and we pitched our tent under an enormous baobab tree. Baobab was less like a resort than where we stayed in Tofu but it had a lot more charm. The (cold water) showers were outside and open to the sky and to the coconuts that threatened to fall at any moment. Privacy was provided by walls made of loosely connected branches and thatch. We spent most of our time lazing in the hammocks, reading at the restaurant/bar or just gazing out at the beautiful Indian Ocean.
There was always a continuous stream of friendly travelers and friendlier locals to chat with. There was Laura the medical student from Scotland - she liked to regale us with stories about worms and parasites. John, the charismatic Mozambican who brought us nightly bottles of Tipo Tinto (the local rum) and liked to drink and tell us about the years he lived in Russia. He even spoke a little Russian. And when all else failed there was the omni-present Tonda - the bar man from Malawi. He was what people here call Coloured - half black and half white. (We are starting to get used to hearing the term - it doesn't appear to be an insult here though people don't seem to trust folks of mixed race. There is the common perception that they are all gangsters or Tsotsis).

Inspired by snorkeling with Whale Sharks in Tofo, we found a cheap local tour operator, Rodriguez, and went with four other people by dhow to one of the closer islands in the Basaruto Archipelago. We spent a wonderful day carried by the current along the coast, ogling tropical fish and eating calamari prepared by the skipper and his helper right on the island beach. The only glitch in the otherwise perfect day was when I carelessly sliced my foot open on the coral. I didn't let that stop me though - after yelling a little bit I went back to watching the fish. We were assured that there were no sharks here and didn't need to worry about attracting them with blood from the wound.

Over the next couple of days the weather became windy, so exploration of the other reefs had to be postponed. Or so we thought. On the third day of waiting for the weather to improve, we, along with two Dutch and four British travelers, met on the beach to evaluate the chances of the weather improving enough for another snorkeling expedition -- this time to two mile reef, 38km from mainland. To our surprise, Rodriguez met us on the beach and assured us that the forecast predicted great improvement, and that we were good to go. We noticed that the sky looked stormy but Rodriguez assured us the storm was on it's way out to sea and that it was perfectly safe. We were unaware that the rest of Vilinculos had docked their dhows for the day fearing bad weather. We were a bit suspicious when instead of the usual two young skippers, there was a third man - an old weathered fisherman joining them. But the eight of us were in high spirits, looking forward to snorkeling and seeing the deserted island of sand dunes and we all piled into the dhow. The dhow itself had one small motor (15 horse power) in addition to a sail made from sacks of grain and sugar.

After about an hour of sailing, the wind suddenly picked up, dark clouds covered the sky, and the ocean turned a menacing dark-green. The waves rocked our dhow, the sail flapped violently, and the skipper and his two helpers ordered us to crouch in the back of the dhow while they ran back and forth trying to stabilize the boat. The wind picked up further and we nearly capsized as one of the men quickly scaled the mast and took down the sail. We were all beginning to get nervous. It was another hour before the boat reached the shore of the island. The waves were over a meter high as the men struggled to bring the boat into shore without crashing into the rocks. We were all very happy to get off the boat, unfortunately the island was all crashing waves and blowing sand. Snorkeling was out of the question - we all huddled together behind the rocks trying to stay warm. Getting back to Vilinculos on our dhow was also out of the question. It looked like we would be spending the night on the island. The Dutch woman went for a walk and found a man in a uniform - he seemed to be some kind of park ranger. In broken English he confirmed that we could not get back on our dhow and went to confer with our skippers. They climbed up a sand dune to use the park ranger's cell phone. When they came back they told us Rodriguez had sent a speedboat to rescue us. Within half an hour the speedboat arrived. The boat must have been on its way, even before the phone call. At the helm was a tall thin man with wrap-around black sunglasses. Katia had seen him the night before at the Baobab bar and nick named him "The Ant Man" - the sunglasses looked just like two concave ant eyes.

We waded out into the surf and piled into the speedboat. The Ant Man ordered us to sit in the middle on the raised seats - there wasn't a life jacket in sight. We snapped a photo of our rescue and without warning The Ant Man hit the accelerator. There was nothing to hold onto and we all flew backwards off of our seats and onto the floor. I was on the seat closest to the engines. I flew up into the air and my head and neck slammed hard against the floor. The boat was nearly vertical and I slid further back towards the two spinning engines. I grabbed the metal bars in front of the motors trying to keep from falling into the churning water. At the same moment Dahmar (the Dutch woman) sprang forward and grabbed my leg and pulled me back into the boat. It all happened so fast all I could think was "I'm about to fly into the water. Oh FUCK! The motors are on." The next moment all eight of us were huddled on the floor in the front of the boat. The Ant Man hadn't even seen what happened. We were all very shaken. We begged him to slow down but he refused. He drove the boat as fast as he could through the two-meter (six foot) waves. As we hit each wave we would all slam into the bottom of the boat. He hit one wave so hard the front windshield cracked. After 1.5 hours we finally got back to Villinculos. We were bruised. We were cold. And we were seriously pissed off.

The Dutch couple and Katia and I stumbled toward Rodriguez's office on the beach. The calm discussion soon escalated:

"Give us back our money, you bastard," yelled the Dutchwoman. Rodrigues was unimpressed: "What. Why I give you money. You went to the island, you saw the island, and you are back here alive."

According to Rodriguez we got what we paid for and since we survived there was no problem."This is not what we paid for, we paid to snorkel, and you sent us out in bad weather. You put our life in danger. Give us our money back."

Rodriguez waved his arms in front of him, as if parting the sea: "If you pay me for to take the boat, the petrol, the lunch you ate - don't tell me you didn't eat - and the ten million Meticash for rescue boat, then I pay you your money. Give you money - I will not do! I will not do!" Rodriguez's finger emphatically waved in front of the Dutchman's face.

The Dutchman took this as his cue: "My friend I will throw you into the fucking sea if you don't stop shouting. And I am not only speaking like in the movies."

"Aaaaaaiiiiiii", squealed Rodriguez, "Why you talk to me like this. Like I am animal." He flinched and pinched his arm to prove the point. "Because I am black, you think I am animal". We all took turns arguing with Rodriguez until he agreed to return half of our money to us the next day, and we marched off (I limped) to Baobab's cold shower and hot tea.

The next day, we were quietly fuming at the bar when Rodriquez, slick in a neon green blazer of indeterminate fabric and accompanied by two ragged men, walked in grinning. He gangster-sauntered to the bar, and after a couple of minutes, headed out.

"Excuse me", called out Lee, "do you have our money?"

"What money." Rodriguez flinched in contempt. He made it clear that no money would be forthcoming and that we the tourists will come and go, but "Vilanculos is mine!" The more we pressed him, the more his finger shook in front of our faces, until he screamed "I know where you sleep!" This threat was too much and I lost my temper. The next thing I knew my beer was flying across the room and splashing onto Rodriguez's jacket. The glass slipped out of my hand and shattered on the floor. Unfortunately, Tonda the bartender had just called one of his friends at the police station so that we could file a report on Rodriguez.

Two police officers arrived, one woman and one man. The little round policewoman didn't speak English, but stared us up and down while fingering her belt. The policeman cast longing glances at the bar while Katia told him our version of the story. When she finished, he told us in Portuguese, while Tonda the bartender translated, that throwing beer at Rodriguez was a criminal offence, and that he was going to take us to the police station. When we asked if it was a criminal offence for Rodriguez to threaten us by telling us he knows where we sleep, the policeman leaned back, laughed, and told us that he's known "this man" all his life, that he would never do such a thing, and that Rodriguez's wife works at the police station.

Hearing this, we changed our strategy. They were all on the same team and it certainly wasn't ours. We took turns on the policeman "Sir, we are very sorry for the trouble. We do not want to go to the police station. Let's just forget about the whole thing." I whispered to Katia "No matter what happens we can't go to the police station."

Rodriguez was on a roll: "I Rodriguez. I treat you like my mother, I treat you like my sister. I not violent man. I never say I know where you sleep." He pointed to his blazer pocket where he had stuffed the broken glass: "I want to go to police station. I scare my life."

I headed for the bathroom - just the mention of the police station and I almost crapped my pants - everyone knows about Mozambican police. They are all corrupt and if you end up at the police station who knows what might happen. While I was gone Katia turned her charming smile on the policeman: "Lee didn't try to kill him. She is just a woman, just got a little passionate, you understand." The policeman shook his head in agreement - he obviously knew how woman could be -- and began to relax. "You must have good conversation with Rodriguez."
In the mean time, Tonda had grabbed Rodriguez by the elbow and guided him into the bushes for a chat. Tonda explained to Rodriguez that it wouldn't be in his best interest or that of his business to go around putting tourists in jail. Tonda was very convincing and Rodriguez agreed to sit down and talk with us. I bit my lip, painted a smile my face and apologized. We all shook hands. The police chatted with Tonda at the bar and left with a bag full of beer. On his way out the policeman introduced himself to me with a big smile on his face and welcomed us to Mozambique.

That was enough Mozambique for us. The next day, we teamed up with Patrick, one of the Zimbabweans selling tourist souvenirs at the Baobab, and hitched a ride with a cargo truck to Mutare, Zimbabwe.

Tofu - Not The Kind You Eat

2006-09-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

Flashback to Mozambique:

We were tempted to stay in Maputo another day to party with our new friends but Mozambique's white sand beaches were calling. We awoke at 3:30 to pouring rain. The small patch of red earth where we were camping was now a muddy swamp. On two hours of sleep -- still slightly drunk -- we packed our bags and dismantled our tent.

By 5 a.m. we were in a taxi on the way to the bus station. The cab dropped us off in front of what appeared to be a random building. On further investigation we found a ticket "office." It was located inside a huge, dark, derelict garage - the place looked like a bus cemetery - it was packed with old bus parts and a couple of complete bus carcasses. This must be where African buses came to die. The "ticket window" was a slit in a corrugated metal patch along one wall. Behind the metal grate a man sat idly turning the pages of a newspaper occasionally glancing up at the people queued up in front of him. At 6 a.m. sharp he set aside his paper and started selling us our tickets to Tofu.

The bus filled up instantly with local people along with their giant sacks of coconuts, canisters of petrol and more than a few surprised chickens. Throughout the eight-hour ride people got on and off along stretches of road that looked completely uninhabited - they would unload their bags, pile them onto their heads and disappear into the bush. On the bus, the people laughed, yelled in Portuguese, shared food, and vigorously bought fruit and drinks through the bus windows whenever the bus paused for a moment. Near the end of the journey the conductor had finally had enough to drink to come up and talk to us - the only two white people on the bus. He bought us cashews and oranges all the while telling us how he wants to move to Europe. "You will buy me a plane ticket to Europe" was his refrain. The interaction culminated with him buying and opening two coconuts for us. He found a hammer in the bus tool kit and pummeled the coconuts. Fruit and juice flew everywhere - the other passengers looked on unconcerned by the coconut pieces flying by their heads. Once we finished our snack the conductor grabbed our trash and threw it out the window. Although we'd been watching people do the same all day, we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it ourselves. The streets in Moz were already garbage dumps - I guess a few more orange peels wouldn't make much of a difference.

Tofu was a tiny village with what Lee named a "beer and biscuit market". All they had for sale was alcohol and packages of cookies and of course lots of shell necklaces and woodcarvings to sell to us tourists. A few Backpacker inns and restaurants huddled along the long wide white sand beach. The water was warm, the sand soft, and there was nothing to do but be decadent - eat, drink, swim and then eat, drink and swim some more. Bamboozi, the Backpackers where we camped, had hot showers, laundry service, and a tiny seductive cat to keep us company. We met some cool Dutchmen, including Jerouen and Kamil, and a group of affectionate Moz gay men from Maputo. Two of them were hanging all over each other at the bar. We kept glancing up at them and wondering if we were hallucinating. Moz doesn't exactly have liberal ideas regarding homosexuality. We ran into them on their way out of the bar and asked them "is that your boyfriend". "Of course", said the pretty young boy. They were surprised to find out we were also together.

In between all of the eating and drinking we managed to fit in some snorkeling. Tofu is located near a place called "Whale Shark Alley." Whale Sharks are some of the biggest sharks there are and they are very gentle - they only eat small fish. There were 15 of us in the boat - and it took every last one of us to get the boat out past the breakers --imagine white water rafting through one-meter high breaking waves. Once we were out in the boat we looked for a dark mass near the surface of the water. Once we spotted one we were commanded to jump in. Even knowing the sharks were not dangerous it was damn intimidating jumping into the water with them. Lee hyperventilated the first couple of times and missed the whole thing. And the sharks moved fast. In a slick continuous movement, giant spotted fish bodies and tails passed underneath and around us. It was awesome to be so close to such an amazing creature. As Lee so eloquently put it when one swam under us "Holy Shit!" Getting back into the boat was an adventure in itself -- thank God for the Dutchwomen who pulled us in from the water. Those women are strong - they would grab us by the back of our swimming shorts and heave us into the boat. Snorkeling with Whale Sharks was definitely the highlight of our time in Tofu.

It's not New England, it's Zimbabwe!

2006-09-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Trying to upload photos for the last 20 minutes - it's not gonna happen, sorry.

Right now we are in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Mutare is a very colonial town. It has wide tree lined streets and churches on every corner with high triangular steeples. The town is surrounded by mountains and the evenings are still cool. The mosquitos of Mozambique have been replaced by house flies - a surprisingly welcome change. The buildings are white and pink plaster - most cracked. This town has seen better days. The only tourists we've met are just crossing through on their way into or out of Mozambique (it's only 10 km from the border).

Needless to say, Mutare is not a tourist destination but it is a real working African town. There isn't a lot to do here -- there are a few shops and restaurants. A cinema that plays one movie a week - tickets cost 25 cents. We tried shopping: the stores are mostly empty, but a few clothes racks harbor some things we don't want to buy. At one store's entrance, a mannequin, originally made of brown plastic but painted over with partly pealed off white paint, flaunted its lacy panties. Mutare has the feel of a New England college town. Africa University is just outside of town and the students commute in to party on the weekends.

We are staying at this little bed and breakfast run by an older white woman named Anne. Anne is a Zimbabwean. She has always lived here. Anne likes to sit in her little parlor watching satellite T.V. and talk to anyone that walks by. She's a crotchety old woman and slightly senile but she's kind and adopts everyone who comes through. Not that many people come through. When we arrived we had no Zimbabwean money so she promptly loaned us 10,000 dollars (about 15 dollars USD) and sent us off to this lovely colonial style café for breakfast. We've been here for three or four days (I loose track) recovering from a snorkeling injury. I cut the bottom of my foot on the coral in Vilanculos and it refuses to heal. We popped over to the white doctor in town (of course a friend of Anne's) and for 10 dollars left with a prescription for antibiotics. Another quick stop at the pharmacy and 4 dollars later I started on antibiotics. We'll be here until it finally heals.

Mutare is not a bad town to be stuck in. It's very pleasant. Everyone here is very poor but they are all clean and starched and very friendly. There are fully stocked grocery stores though everyone who is shopping is purchasing only one or two items - a container of jello, a box of spice, one box of semolina. I got the feeling the shelves were stocked because no one could afford to buy anything. The one very noticeable exception is bread. There is no bread anywhere and outside of the bakery people queue for hours in front of the empty metal baskets. We are trying not to let the guilt of being able to afford whatever we want get to us. I keep rationalizing - at least we are bringing some money into the economy. It doesn't help much when you see the maid at Anne's feeding her son our left over breakfast toast. Despite the poverty very few people ask us for money. It's refreshing to be in a place that isn't full of tourists.

We have made a couple of new friends here as well. Mario the Angolan is living at Anne's for the year and in theory going to Africa University (though we haven't seen him actually do anything except listen to music and party). He is always clad in designer jeans and shoes from Italy - he's quite the Casanova. Mario is a very nice guy and he likes to hang out with us and regale us with stories of how amazing his country is. He wants us to go there and stay with his family - his patriotism has yet to convince me that it's safe for us there. He and his other friends from Angola appear to be quite rich. The first night we were here he was having a little party with his girlfriend Cynthia (from Mutare) and another Angolan named Dimitri. (Yes, these are their real names). Cynthia is very pretty and very smart. She's also extremely bitchy - particularly to Mario. (He seems to enjoy the attitude - or at least expect it). We didn't let her bitchiness bother us though and we got along quite nicely. She told us she is bisexual and goes to Johannesburg to hook up with girls. She really wants a white girlfriend but she also has "no choice" but to marry a man. We are still trying to determine if the story is true or not - she seems to like men well enough. But you never know. For such a homophobic continent we sure do meet a lot of women that sleep with women.

Dimitri drives a souped up sports car with a nice stereo and tinted windows. He drove us from club to club - which didn't actually take very long considering there are only two of them. The first was called Motor GM and it was full of old white people. Our friends seemed to think it was a status symbol to be there and that we would like it. We found it exceptionally creepy - our friends were the only black people there. Imagine the worst small town bar you've ever been in full of backwards red necks. And the music - all 80's "big hair band" rock and roll. I think the white people go there to forget that they live in Africa. We mentioned to Cynthia that we weren't thrilled with the music - she pouted at Mario and soon we were off to the second club - Gulliver's. We were told Gulliver's was full of gangsters - Mario was all nervous --but it was mostly just empty. We had a great time dancing and watching Mario and Cynthia argue. They have to be one of the most entertaining couples I've ever met. Mario tells Cynthia what to do - "Stop dancing like that." -- "You've had too much to drink - I bought you a coke." And Cynthia pouts and drapes herself on him until she gets what she wants. Afterwards the four of us came back to Mario's room and drank tea and looked at pictures of all of his "cousins." I mentioned that he seemed to be pretty friendly with his "cousins." He laughed and after confirming that Cynthia had passed out admitted they were girlfriends.

Hello from Mutare ZImbabwe!!

2006-09-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

We just arrived in Zimbabwe two days ago. For the last 3 weeks we have been in Mozambique! We tried to learn some Portugese -- at least we know how to order a beer:) Muputo was an interesting city full of cafes and bakeries and we found some beautiful lesbians (according to them the only one's in Mozambique) -- they took us out to strip clubs and restaurants. We were also in Tofu and Vilinculus -- both have beautiful white sand beaches and warm water. Unfortantely neither place was very safe for tourists so we are happy to be someplace where we can relax.

So far Zim is wonderful. We are in a small city called Mutare right on the border and the people here are soooo friendly and they all speak english. There are even grocery stores here. We are staying in a backpackers run by an old white Zim woman and there are some Angolan students living there. They took us out last night dancing and we had a great time.

We are hoping to write some more and upload some pics while we are here. The internet access in Moz was so slow it was unusable. Here they have satellite internet and it's amazingly cheap --- actually everything here is cheap. The only problem we have is exchanging money -- you have to do it on the black market to get the good rate. The current unoffical exchange rate is one bottle of white wine to the dollar:):)

More soon!

"Shloo-Shloo-ee"

2006-08-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

On the day we left St. Lucia, we set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. and somehow managed to drag ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags. It was still dark and we packed up our tent and gear as quietly as possible so as not to wake the other campers. By 5:30 we pulled out onto the highway and began navigating all of the usual road hazards, only this time without the benefit of light. There were even more people on the road at this time of morning than we had seen during the day. Many of them were kids in school uniforms, some looking as young as seven or eight. I wondered how far they walk every day just to get to and from school? We were heading inland to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Park. Hluhluwe is a Zulu word and is actually pronounced “shloo-shloo-ee” with this hard to reproduce slurring sound on the “shloos.” (It’s much easier to pronounce after a few beers).

Just as we passed through the gate into the park I saw this big grey mass on the side of the road. I pulled the car over and after waiting for a good 10 minutes for it to raise its head we realized it was a rhino. It didn’t raise its head again, but we did manage to take some amazing pictures of rhino ass. Within a mile we encountered a herd of giraffe munching on the trees beside the road. All of them turned their heads to watch us they chewed though they didn’t seem disturbed in the least by our presence. (Giraffes have the oddest-looking face – strangely reminiscent of an old woman with lots of wrinkles and jowls). I was bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement! I just loved watching the animals. As we continued to drive, various kinds of antelope crossed the road in front of us. There were Kudus, Impalas, Inhales, Dukers – the colors were amazing – some were red and others had bright yellow “socks” near their hoofs. Some even had beautiful long curved horns. It wasn’t even 9:00 in the morning and we had already seen so many animals – we couldn’t believe it.

Eventually we made our way to Hill Top camp where we were staying. Unfortunately camping is not allowed in the park so we would be staying in a rondaval (much more expensive than our budget allowed). A rondaval is a round hut with a thatched roof. The locals live in compounds with two or three rondavals. Each rondaval serves a different purpose – one is for sleeping (the entire family usually in one room sleeping on straw mats rolled out on the floor) and another is used for cooking. The cooking rondaval stays the warmest and is where the old or sick live and sleep. Our rondaval was a tourist’s version of the local huts. It had a tile floor instead of the traditional mud and cow dung and walls made of plaster. When we saw it, we quickly forgot about the extra expense. It was far nicer than any place we’d stayed thus far – with a bed (well two single beds but you can’t have everything) – the bed even had beautiful white clean sheets that you could actually sleep on! There was a cupboard with silverware, plates and an entire tea set – it even had a mini refrigerator.

After we finished admiring our accommodations, we had a quick lunch and headed out to find more animals. We hadn’t seen any elephants yet and I really wanted to find some. (Little did I know, soon I would be praying not to see another elephant). It was the dry season and the rivers and water holes in the park had all dried up. There was one small water hole left, more of a puddle than a water hole, and we decided to wait there and see what wandered past. Within minutes of our arrival the elephants started marching through. There were 50 or 60 of them in all shapes and sizes. They rolled around in the mud and used their trunks to spray themselves with water and then dirt (to stay cool?). Some of them were digging away at the wall of the ravine with their tusks. And there were lots and lots of baby elephants!! The babies were just plain adorable and followed the adults around mimicking them. We sat and watched until all of the elephants passed. Next a troop of baboons meandered through. They sat around scratching themselves and smelling really really bad. Finding baboons is easy – all you have to do is follow the stench.

We spent the rest of the day driving around. We spotted lots of zebras and giraffes and of course the never-ending supply of antelope. As it started to get dark we headed back towards our rondaval. Everyone was supposed to be back at camp before sun down. We figured we had enough time to check out the water hole one more time and made our way towards it. The water hole was situated at the end of a very narrow dirt path, barely wide enough for one car, and surrounded by dense forest. As we turned the corner, there directly in front of us was an enormous bull elephant. This elephant was five times bigger than our little car. We decided to see if we could get a little closer to take some pictures and I inched the car forward. The elephant was watching us intently as I stopped the car. He stopped eating and started shaking his head at us and waving his ears back and forth. I learned later that this is an elephant’s way of saying he’s not happy to see you. We soon figured this out for ourselves as he started walking towards our car. He was enormous and could easily crush our hood with his foot or push the car over with his tusks. I ground the car into reverse (still not 100 percent comfortable with left hand shifting) and started backing up. Unfortunately for us, I’ve never been all that good at driving backwards and with an elephant heading straight for us what skills I had deserted me and I managed to back us directly into the thick bush surrounding the road. Meanwhile the elephant was picking up speed. As Katia yelled for me to get us the hell out of there the elephant began to charge us in earnest. By some miracle I managed to get the car out of the trees and all the way down the road (still in reverse). Luckily the big bull decided we weren’t worth his effort and stopped chasing us. I pulled over to the side of the road and tried to calm down. We were terrified. I’ve watched enough Animal Planet to know that elephants can be dangerous, but I had no idea what that meant in reality. I think up until that moment driving around looking at the animals still felt surreal – like they couldn’t really be wild and dangerous.

After a few deep breathes we got back on the main road towards camp. There was just about enough time to get back before sunset. We hadn’t even made it half a mile when another elephant appeared on the road in front of us. It was another bull in must (you can tell they are in must by the liquid coming out of their eyes and on their legs – and by their horrible temperament). This bull was ambling down the middle of the road like it owned it. In fact as far as I was concerned it DID own the road and I quickly turned the car around and headed the other way. We pulled back onto the side road and tried to wait the elephant out. Every time we got up the courage to peak out of our hiding space the elephant was still marching along taking it’s sweet time. We were starting to panic – it was getting dark and this was the only road back to camp. We spotted a safari truck out for a night drive and flagged it down. The guide was kind enough to escort us down the road (his truck was much bigger than our little car) and we were able to continue on our way.

The road to Hill Top wound up and down steep hills and around sharp corners. We were terrified that we would run into yet another elephant and never make it back. Needless to say we weren’t expecting to round the corner and come face to face with a rhino. (We should have been ready for anything but what can I say – I’ve never driven around in a game park in Africa after dark before). The rhino charged at us and I swiftly reversed the car (not into the trees this time) and pulled over to the side. (White rhinos aren’t very aggressive, they just have extremely bad eyesight and it probably didn’t see us coming). The rhino turned around and headed towards camp waddling directly down the middle of the road. We followed it as it meandered along. By then it was completely dark. Our rhino friend eventually headed off into the bush and we were finally able to make it the rest of the way back to camp. We crawled into bed exhausted– it had been a thrilling, amazing, terrifying day.

The next day we went on morning and evening guided game drives. Our morning guide was Steven -- a.k.a “The Zulu Man.” He took us and six other tourists in the safari truck. We didn’t see much, but I enjoyed being driven around and not having to worry about escaping from attack elephants. (Later that afternoon we had another angry elephant encounter where we were trapped with three other cars between two pissed off bulls. After an hour or so we escaped). That evening our guide was “Mr P.” He was a much better guide and we saw wild dogs and hyenas, as well as a mother rhino and it’s baby. The baby rhino would lose its mother and run around in a panic. We also ended up completely surrounded by the herd of elephants we had seen the day before. It was after dark and they were on all sides of us. It was amazing to be in the center of all of their activity! I was again incredibly glad I wasn’t driving. I asked Mr. P about the elephants and he explained that these elephants had been transplanted from Kruger Park because they had been killing the rhinos. (A very strange thing for elephants to do). I guess they had gotten bored of rhinos and decided it was time to go after cars. Unfortunately, Mr P couldn’t find us any lions or leopards. We weren’t too disappointed though – we had a phenomenal time watching all of the other animals and we still had plenty of time left in Africa to see lions.

The next morning as we were eating breakfast and preparing to leave the park, Steven “The Zulu Man” pulled up in front of our rondaval in his safari truck. He had stopped by the afternoon before to give us pointers on where we should look for lions. During his morning visit he was very excited -- he had just found some lions and he wanted to tell us where they were. Strangely, instead of letting us head out to find them, he decided to sit down and join us for a glass of wine. Steven finally got up the nerve and asked us if he could take us out himself to find the lions. After a brief discussion, we decided to give it a go and met up with him an hour later with our car. As he drove us towards where he saw the lions that morning, the reason for his interest in showing us wild life became clear. “How would I go about marrying a white woman?” quickly progressed to “How would I go about marrying you?” The wedding ring on his finger wasn’t going to hold him back from his desire for inter racial harmony (the reason he gave for wanting to marry a white woman instead of a Zulu woman). By the time we got to where the lions had been earlier that day they were gone. Steven pulled into one of the rest areas and we sat around chatting and drinking beers. We discussed what it was like for him under apartheid and his views on Christianity. We asked him about Zulu culture and how he would go about marrying a Zulu woman but he kept steering the conversation back to his favorite topic. I decided to perform a social experiment and told him that we are gay. This prompted a whole new discussion: “How would I go about marrying a gay white woman?” We spent some time explaining that no, neither of us had “man parts” and that yes, he should continue to refer to both of us as “she.” Finally he drove us back and we said our good byes. We hadn’t seen the lions we were looking for but we did get up close and personal with a Zulu man in the wild.

The Shloo-Shoo-ee gallery is available at: http://www.grrrilla.com/trip-2006-hluhluwe

Beware of Hippos at Night!

2006-08-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

Katia has updated our website with a gallery of the pictures we've taken thus far! She's also redesigned the pages --- check it out and be sure to tell her how great it looks!

http://grrrilla.com/

(We are going to try to keep both the blog and the website up to date but I expect we'll do a better job on the blog so keep checking back).

After our brief rest in La Lucia (the suburb of Durban where we stayed with friends) we headed north to St. Lucia (an altogether different place than La Lucia). St Lucia is a little town on an estuary in the province of KwaZulu Natal. The town itself is very pleasant if a little touristy. It has one street with a string of shops selling surfboards and tacky souvenirs as well as restaurants and a string of rondavals where locals sell their hand made wooden crafts and the vegetables that they grow. We arrived in St. Lucia after a terrifying drive. First off, it was my first drive of significance on the left hand side of the street. I still hadn't mastered the fine art of shifting gears with my left hand, and being on the "wrong" side of the car where everyone is flying directly at you takes some getting used to. The highway itself had two lanes (one in each direction) but this fact didn't bother the locals a bit. There were often five cars driving side by side – one in each breakdown lane, one in each of the regular lanes plus one in the middle overtaking the others. In the break down lanes themselves (where we spent most of our time) were lots of people. And animals. There people walking home from work with packages on their heads, people trying to sell vegetables – there were woman just sitting there I assume resting (seems like a pretty dangerous place to rest to me but what do I know?) Then there were the cows, goats, chickens and various other herds of animals that would just walk out in front all the cars. Needless to say by the time we arrived in St. Lucia just before dark I was extremely tense. We found the Backpackers Lonely Planet suggested (BIB – I forget what it stand for), I parked the car in the dirt parking lot and promptly refused to drive again for the next few days. Fortunately everything we could want was right there. The backpackers itself was a conglomeration of picnic tables surrounded by palm trees -- these were always full of reading, drinking and chain smoking europeans, there was a kitchen with three or four stoves for self catering, a bar and a field for camping. There were also a bunch of rondavals and dorms but who needs a dirty old room when you have a tent? So we headed out back and pitched our tent directly under the “Beware of Hippos at Night” warning sign.

BIBs was great! It was run by a couple of guys called "Clinton" and "Sardines" – those were the names we gave the guys anyway. I never quite figured out what their real names were, and Sardines kept his African name to himself anyway. Sardines had this great little dog that was always trying to sit on our laps. He would walk us home at night from bars and bark his little heart out at anyone on the street (hippos included) trying to protect us. We christened him “The Ladies Man." Sardines loved the name (not a surpise as he fancied himself a bit of a ladies man) and the name stuck. Clinton would talk to anyone who would listen about his "bad ticker". At the age of 27 he had already survived several heart surgeries. This didn't stop him from chain-smoking and drinking copious amounts of beer. He was fond of reminding all of us again and again that he could drop dead at any moment. His dream was to open a reptile shop and sell snakes. I'm not sure how many tourists are interested in buying pythons while on Holiday but Clinton refused to be daunted by such narrow minded nonsense. He already had one illegal python in his room so I guess he was on his way.

Every evening after our adventures we headed back to BIB for sundowners and a Brai. South Africans are obsessed with “The Brai” – or in English BBQ. Brai-ing is a national past time here. Even in the city the butcheries have public Brais where people can buy their own meat and Brai it themselves. At BIB they started the Brai up at 6pm, after dark – they always used real wood – none of this pansy charcoal stuff, and we would bring our own meat and cook our dinner. Then we chilled with Clinton and Sardines and their entourage.

We didn't spend all of our time in St. Lucia at the back packers. During the day we wandered around near the mouth of the estuary. There were beautiful beaches right next to where the estuary emptied into the sea and there were always lots of hippos and crocodiles. Sardines took us on a nature walk where we managed to come within a few feet of a beautiful croc. It was a bit unnerving to be so close but we kept a couple of the other slow looking tourists between us and it's mouth – we figured we could definitely outrun them if the croc made a move. I loved how in St. Lucia we could wander down nature trails and watch the animals ourselves without a guide. I found out later that this was pretty unusual in South Africa, esp. where there are dangerous animals like hippos and crocs. In fact in St Lucia you couldn’t get away from the hippos – they walked down the main street at night. Sardines would take us out to watch them ambling along past all the bars and stores. He would put his bottle of Savannah Dry (South Africa’s favorite alcoholic cider) on the dashboard we would all load into the safari truck. The two 18-year-old English girls – Sardine’s “girlfriends” piled into the front. The rest of BIB’s residents piled into the back, among them were a Dutch couple – the man covered in tattoos and his exceptionally blonde girlfriend as well as a beautiful dark French boy we met again later. Sardines then drove us all around town, shining a giant flashlight out of his window, looking for the hippos. Once we found them, he started chasing them with the safari truck. Not exactly the best way to preserve the animals natural habits but a lot of fun none-the-less. It turns out that hippos kill more people then crocs. The way Sardines chased them around I’m not surprised!

On another evening Sardines took us to the beach. He parked the truck and we all stumbled out in the darkness. The sky was lit up by the milky way. It was beautiful to sit in the darkness and watch the waves – even without the moon they were visible. Sardines and Clinton started a fire and we all settled in a circle around. They passed the omni-present joint (compliments of BIB) and a Swedish guy got out his cell phone and played some music – some tinny sounding French club music or German drinking song.

We were having so much fun that we ended up staying in St. Lucia for almost a week. It was hard to drag ourselves away -- we could have chilled out there for a month -- but we wanted to see some more animals!

Pictures from our adventures

2006-08-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hello! We are back in civilization again. We have been driving around rural South Africa and camping for the last month. We've had lot's of exciting adventures but unfortunately limited internet access to report on them. Now we are back in La Lucia (outside Durban) house/dog sitting for our friends with the beautiful house on the beach. We are going to try to remember all of the exciting things that have happened to us and report on them while we are here. For now here are a couple of picutures of the animals we've seen.

More to come soon!!

Katia and Lee

Shared minivan taxis are goood...Katia

2006-07-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

This is Lee working, and me chilling. The usual.

Today we took a shared minivan taxi into Durban to pick up the rental car. Shared taxis are packed full of black locals having a bonding moment in Zulu. These minivan taxis are labeled: "Only God Knows" and "Inferno Orgasm" in screaming fiery letters across the side. Some buses have stuff like "G-Unit" written next to the Hindu god symbol right on the windshield... Lee is a great left-side driver! Don't let her tell you anything, those buddhist clockwise round-abouts are no joke.
Mmmm... tripping to the wetlands tomorrow.

prawns are goooood!

2006-07-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

We had dinner tonight with our hosts and two americans who work at the embassy. the prawns were delicious. there was lots of conversation about race. we are ready to get on the road tomorrow and start exploring more of south africa.... i'll have a full report on learning to drive on the left hand side of the road!!

More from Katia

2006-07-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

Katia: Dessert, I want something sweet. I'll cut this fruit: what's it called?
Lee: Guava. Don't cut any for me. I already have diarrhea.

Lee is tackling a giant been bag in front of a fire she built in the fireplance. "Why don't I get any animals, I want animals", she says as aims the remote. I am picking sand out of my hair by the grain.

The really nice south african white man we met at the backpackers in Durban started many sentences with "I am not a racist, but..." He says it's really hard for him to find jobs, so many of them are assigned to affirmative action categories. He thinks it's unfair that black people get advantages. Appartheid ended 15 years ago, black people are now on equal footing.

Standing in line for street food, we are asked if we have been served by a concerned cook behind the counter. She yells to someone to hurry up and serve us. We are somewhere in the middle of the line, everyone else is black and no one is concerned about their waiting time.

The security alarm sirens are going off in the neighbours' house. We can't see the house because of the giant fences around each property. Lee is reading and I am sketching in the yard, Michael is running on a treadmill upstairs, Christine is laughing on the phone. The dog with a Zulu name is barking in the middle of the yard. The sirens and the dog stop after five minutes.

2006-07-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

Hello from Durban South Africa,

So much happens everyday it's impossible to report on all of it. Since our last update we have met more new and exciting people. We left Jo'Burg and took a bus to Durban (the third largest city in South Africa for anyone who is keeping track). You can't go out after dark here (if you are white) so we had an exciting time sprinting to the backpackers (the south african version of a hostel) we were staying at. Considering we are each carrying over 40 pounds it's a miracle we got there right after sundown:):) We had a good time chillin with some belgians, drinking beer and went to a festival on the beach. Then we headed off to visit some friends of friends from Katia's job at Harvard. We slogged a couple of miles through the city and took a hair raising shared taxi ride to a suburb out of the city and now we are here... and here is VERY nice. It turns out they live in a very nice large house right on the beach!! They have a swimming pool and two great dogs! We are relaxing and enjoying ourselves walking on the beach and chilling outside.....

This is Lee's update... more to come from Katia:):)

we are in jo'burg!

2006-07-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

the flight was unending: 26 hour commute between two flights. now we are in jo'burg, where white people live behind giant electric fences. we are staying in a castle and everyone is really friendly. it is a city of malls, and white people commute between them in cars. we walked to one today and ran to get back before dark. we are not supposed to be out after dark, it's too dangerous. met a gardner from zimbabwe with huge shears, who wants to move to the U.S. and become rich. also met a french guy named bruno in modern glasses and a beret. he thinks france is subsidizing poland in the E.U. taking a bus to durban tomorrow morning. right now we are chilling at the backpackers' bar and meeting crazy people. we saw our first roach of the trip today on the wall next to a clock. we are officially traveling!