Change In Plans

Greetings from the Cape Town International Airport! We are sitting in a giant air-conditioned tent at the edge of the runway. This is the temporary domestic terminal for the next several months, until the big, new, state-of-the-art terminal gets completed. We all hope that they finish before the Fifa Soccer World Cup starts in 2010.

This short post is about our (temporary) departure from the Llandudno house, as we go off for a few weeks to the Northern Cape and then to Namibia.

Fortunately, we are returning to the exact same house at the end of January. The owner was kind enough to let us store ‘a few things’ in the garage while we are away. What we discovered is that during our four stationary weeks in Cape Town, we have somehow accumulated a colossal amount of stuff. We are traveling reasonably light for the next few weeks, but we have stowed more stuff in Llandudno than four average college students would take to furnish their dorm room. We will purge and ship boxes when we return to Cape Town.

We spent most of the morning packing, but Zola, Winston (his new BFF) and I got in one last boogie-boarding session on Llandudno beach. Zola tried using flippers for the first time. In the words of the surfer turtle dude from “Finding Nemo,” the flippers were “Like, totally awesome, dude.”

This afternoon, we are flying to Upington, a small town about 800 kilometers north of Cape Town. Tomorrow morning we are picking up a rented 4×4 desert vehicle, and driving about 3 hours to a private game reserve called Tswalu, in the Kalahari Desert. India and the kids went to Tswalu last January, and they have all been anticipating the return trip eagerly. The plan is to go on a lot of game drives, ride horses and hike, shoot bows and arrows, and feast in the desert. It should be a great few days.

On Saturday, we are driving from Tswalu through the Kalahari Desert. We will cross into Namibia through one of the seldom-used desert border crossings, and then camp for a few days in the desert. For about two weeks we will be driving all around the country: to the old German port towns on the west coast, to the huge orange sand dunes neas Sossusvlei, and to the Etosha National Park in the north.

India and I did similar long drives around Namibia four or five times in the past, but neither of us has been since before Zola was born. Someone told us that it hasn’t changed much, but now there are fancy places to stay.

My father and step-mother visited us in Cape Town the year before he died. My Dad loved Namibia, in part because its German colonial heritage reminded him so much of his own childhood. I still get teary eyed watching the videotape that he shot in the Namib desert, and listening to his voice on the goofy commentary.

Our time in Cape Town has been truly wonderful. Even if we didn’t have to retrieve our stored luggage, I would be thrilled that we are going to have another week here at the end of the month. On the drive to the airport, India said, “Next time, more butternut lasagna and more hiking. That’s what I’m talking about!”

In the meantime, desert adventure and long drives await us. Go Namibia!