For over seven weeks in June and July I traveled in southern Africa. It was not a hiking trip. An old friend and I set out from Cape Town and drove in a 4×4 “bakkie” through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. (My old friend grew up in Zimbabwe.) Our targets on the trip were scenery and wild animals and, of course, the whole special feel of Africa, new to me. But I did take some walks—nothing long or grueling, but scenic and interesting enough that I want to record them in this blog. The adjacent picture is me on a very short walk in the huge landscape of Fish River Canyon, southern Namibia.
Atop the Cliffs of Table Mountain
June 12th, Table Mountain, Cape Town: Two days after landing in Cape Town, I blew away any lingering cobwebs of travel atop Table Mountain. I wish I could say that I climbed to its 3,400-foot plateau, but I did not—I took the cable car. The plateau (it was winter down there) was mostly misty, windy, and cold. I was well wrapped up on my hike out to Maclear’s Beacon (no views). The mist lifted later on, opening up scenes of the city below and big sea-and-mountain panoramas south toward the Cape of Good Hope.
Heading for the Waterfall
June 16th, Cederberg, South Africa: The Cederberg mountains lie little more than 100 miles northeast of Table Mountain as the crow flies, but on this hike it did not feel like winter at all, even a mild African one. The sun was strong, insects buzzed, the air was still and dry, flowers bloomed. The hike was a simple 4-mile loop out to a waterfall and back. The waterfall turned out to be all but dry. But then, looking west from high ground on the return leg, Cederberg peaks came into view—weirdly sculpted, jagged, stark.
Fish River at Ai Ais
June 20th, Ai Ais/Fish River, Namibia: Across the Fish River from our campsite at Ai Ais stood a steep, rocky hill. The rising sun lit it up and the moon rose over it in the evening. I had heard there was a “pleasant diversion” of a trail to its summit and set off to enjoy it. I waded the sticky-mud river and began to climb a steep, rubbly canyon—too steep, too rubbly, and too uncertainly the right route, I decided after a bit. Still, I was rewarded with this view of the river and its world of steep, rocky hills.
At the Edge of Deadvlei
June 23rd, Deadvlei, Namib Desert, Namibia: “Vlei” is here best translated as “pan”, so in this case a dead pan. Not entirely dead though, as my picture shows. The center of attention at Deadvlei is indeed a forest of long-dead camelthorn trees set in parched clay. I didn’t spend much time there and instead walked to the western edge of the vlei, crossed to its southeast corner, and climbed 350 slipping-sand feet to a ridge of Big Daddy Dune. Atop the dune ridge I could look down on another pan, wet and very much alive after recent, unseasonal rain. (Deadvlei is the way it is because dunes encroached and blocked flood waters from reaching it.) This walk was perhaps just 3½ miles, but the steep dune made it feel like a decent workout.
Damaraland Scene
June 28th, Damaraland, NW Namibia: Our campsite near Twyfelfontein bordered open country—savanna, I suppose. Both evenings we camped there, I walked through its little hills and riverbed for a mile or two. On the first evening, I stayed quite close to camp; on the second, after a guided game drive had reassured me that meeting lions was unlikely, I wandered further. Apart from the overall scene (see picture), I liked the rock corkwoods on the little hills and the tall camelthorns in the riverbed.
Hippos at Elephant Pools (and red-billed buffalo weaver nests)
July 8th, Okavango Delta, Botswana: Nearing Elephant Pools campsite on the Khwai River, we were greeted close-up by a bull elephant. Next, the campsite manager warned us not to walk about after dark, not even for the few hundred yards to the latrines. If we had needed convincing, the sound of hippos in the night and a hyena’s night raid would have done the job. I did walk carefully around by day though, pondering bleached bones, turning around to avoid an elephant, and finally seeing the hippos that made all the noise. The photo was taken with zoom.
Main Falls of Victoria Falls
July 14th, Victoria Falls, Zambezi River, Zimbabwe: Toni and I, in the company of course of more than a few other visitors, walked the trails of the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls (or Mosi-oa-Tunya, “thundering smoke”). My photograph shows only a part of the falls. There are other cascades and gorges, just as spectacular. The falls gave us our first “rain” in a long while. The spray soaked us, and seemed to create where it fell, here a rainforest, there a drenched moor—a stark contrast from the parched woodlands beyond the mist’s reach.
Candelabra Tree outside the Great Enclosure
July 17th, Great Zimbabwe: Great Zimbabwe—the ruins of a 1,000-year-old, 10,000-inhabitant city, capital of the Shona Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe—presented a welcome opportunity to mix history and walking after two days of driving, sometimes on very rough roads. I walked up to, and scrambled about, the Hill Complex for great views over the whole site and the beautiful countryside around it. Next, down past the baboons to the Valley Complex and Great Enclosure.
Warthogs toward Sunset
July 20th, Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique: Even if the rangers would have permitted it, walking in Gorongosa NP would not have been advisable. We were to see lions there, and hippos, crocs, and tetchy elephants. But, to stretch my legs, I devised a circuit inside the fenced visitor compound. The fence cannot have been impenetrable, for I met plenty of warthogs, baboons, and waterbuck within it. The warthogs and buck kept to themselves. The baboons, not always, if food seemed on offer.
Bridal Veil Falls
July 24th, Chimanimani, Zimbabwe: The day before, we had arrived late in the Chimanimani Mountains. In darkness, driving a rough, overgrown track, and facing a ford, we aborted our plan to reach Mutekeswane Base Camp deeper in the mountains, thinking “this cannot be the way”. The following morning, at the National Park office in the village of Chimanimani, we learned that it was indeed the way. But, before going back, we decided to first take a look at nearby Bridal Veil Falls. In the end, we stayed there. My hike—6 miles, 3¼ hours—took me to the top of the falls, then through the hills behind, where there was a view of the village and, away to the east, of Monte Binga (8,004 ft) on the Mozambique border. I returned to the Falls through the village and, with baboons vocalizing in the woods, on the dusty Park vehicle track.
July 30th, on the long drive back to Cape Town, a stroll at Augrabies Falls, Orange River, SA
