01.03.2005

I have survived a flight! It was one heck of a night with tumbling winds, spawning panic in my heart sometimes. The only thing that calmed me was the movie (“Shall we dance?”) and the stars in the night sky (two shooting stars 🌠🌠). In the beginning we even flew higher than the moon—a very unfamiliar sight indeed!

In the end, we were late. About one and a half hours because of technical problems in Zurich. But we did arrive in Johannesburg. It wasn't a special airport but I was impressed by its cleanliness and a polished floors. Already on the plane I made myself familiar with some of the people of the expedition (what a word!)—and I started to learn the names of everyone who was in the group. Most of them were from Zurich, one of them from Olten, one from Schaffhausen, and one from Freiburg, Germany. And, of course, me, the one from Bern.

Two of the leaders were from Germany, one from Scotland called Graham (from a village between Glasgow and Dumfries with one farm, one church, and thirteen pubs), one from the US called Brian, and one from South Africa called Debbie. And then there was Peter Schmid, our professor.

As soon as you came out of the airport, we realized how warm it really was. A difference from -7°C to 25°C is quite a shock. We went into a huge car, covered with cloth on top and on the sides. I shall take a picture of it at some point. It's really amazing. Almost like in an Indiana Jones movie. Speaking of Indiana Jones: one of the guys who came with us, his name is Simon, came directly from Botswana, from another trip, and he sort of looked like a mixture of Indiana Jones and Elijah Wood.

We bound up the cloth on the sides of the car, draping it, so it was open, like glassless windows all around, above a wooden railing. Thus, as we went on the freeway we had a cool breeze accompanying us, driving away the warmth for a while. It took us some time (about two hours), until we reached the camp, but the small detour we took was well worth it since we saw a lot of the not very arid landscape (it's not bush but something you called “highveld”). We also saw a lot of slums and people trying to sell us fruit on the side of the street and others trying to sell us souvenirs as soon as our car stopped at the traffic lights.

The camp site we finally arrived at consisted of a broken-down house, which served both as the kitchen and storage room, a common tent with tables and six tents for two people each. The work that had been done on the site had been brilliant. I shall draw a map of the site as soon as I have time.

Shortly after I had dropped my stuff, I set out to explore the site a little and promptly came across a lizard that was about 20 cm long. It fled from me, naturally. I also saw some strange sort of cricket that made a very deep noise and only did so whilst jumping, and a grasshopper that looked like a twig when it sat still. It was truly amazing!

After a short excursion I went back to the others to help some of them set up their tent (like: Martina, Ursina, and Iris), because they brought their own.

Later in the afternoon most of the guides went out (not before warning us about scorpions and venomous snakes) to buy some food and stuff for the camp, like firewood. Most of the rest of us just sat there and looked over the plain and the hills of the campsite. Then, somebody noticed a flock of dots and another flock on the hillocks. It was a herd of sables and a herd of wildebeest and later also blesbocks turned up. They were just quietly grazing on the plains clearly visible with goggles, a few hundred meters away.

Later we had some sandwiches made of that typical English soft bread, sliced, with cheddar and cucumbers and tomatoes.

This day was all about relaxing and when the others came back from the shops we had a can of beer and Simon scared us with some horror stories of creatures from the Botswana bush.

Dinner was made far too quickly, but I ate my cheese pasta and the strange kind of small green pumpkin with delight.

We had the luck that Debbie and Brian did the dishes for us, so we just sat back and relaxed by the campfire, Stephan, one of the German group leaders, had set up. We had another can of beer. Night fell soon and with the first stars appearing we also became interested in the star formations of this hemisphere. Luckily, Martina had brought a star chart with her, so we soon poured over it with our torchlights and tried to find out where Orion, the raven, and the cross of the South were.

Later, Peter told us about his previous adventures on his journey here to Gladysvale (about close encounters with wild by baboons and the like), but also about John Nash to whom the whole 180km² resort, where Gladysvale was in, belonged to. He had, thanks to cleverly trading with airplanes in World War II, become one of the richest men in the world (Heck, he had even invited by Bill Gates at some point!) He had a lot of interest in anthropology, but after his daughter, who had turned mad, had died under mysterious circumstances, he became more strange and remote and wanted less and less strangers on his land, digging up stuff. It was only with luck that we had gotten the permission again to go to Gladysvale and make camp at the borders of the John Nash reserve. A few incidents with students in the past had not helped the matter either.

It was probably for the best that we didn't get to see John Nash at all, otherwise it would most certainly be, because he was going to complain about something.

It was soon after Peter had gone to bed that we, too, thought about sleep. Especially because a few of us had gotten so little of it last night.

Right now, I'm snuggling in my sleeping bag, listening to the sounds outside my tent. Mostly they are various forms of crickets, not unlike the ones we get in summer. But earlier I had heard a strange sort of pigeon, and even now I can hear what could be a pack of jackals howling a bit further away. And then there's this strange whining, and beating or clap-clapping sound, not too far away, too.

I'm not really worried though. I'm in Africa. And I'm happy. That's all that counts. (Even though I miss you!!) ❤️❤️

And yeah: They drive on the left side of the road here. Don't even dare to make a remark about that, Bryan!!

02.03.2005

Today we were supposed to be up at 6:30. I only managed to get up at 7:00. No surprises there, I guess. Well, since we were supposed to be off to the actual excavation site by 7:30 very little time was left for me to get awake, get dressed and get breakfast, and all the rest.

We took the same car as yesterday through the John Nash Reserve to our excavation site, Gladysvale Cave. It was like a mini-safari. We saw wildebeest, sables, blesboks, guineafowl, and a bird of paradise with a long, black tail called black widowbird. It was impressive and we stopped then and again to click some piccies, as they say. Just like your everyday tourist (and, of course, Stephan was laughing at us, for being like tourists, too).

As we arrived at the excavation site, we went into the actual cave first (there are a lot of butterflies up here of all different colors). Equipped with a headlight we went down a set of stairs and found ourselves surrounded by rock, partial darkness, calcium crystals and a whole lot of bats. At one point we had about 30 bats flying out of hole in the ceiling, and we felt the wind of their wings on our hair.

As we went back up again, we continued to the actual site and after a short snack of coffee, tea, and horribly pink cookies (ok, not only), it was working time.

At first, our only objective was to learn how to excavate. We got a shovel, a bucket, a brush, and digging tools. The goa was to use the digging tools to make a hole as big as the shovel. We started digging slowly. One layer after the other. And when there was enough loose earth, we took the brush and brushed it into the shovel to empty it into the bucket. In the morning we only had a look at the technique at a place where they hadn't found any bones in 9 months (So, we didn't break anything, probably). We brought the full buckets to sieves and sieved them first through a loose meshed one and then a small meshed one (wonderful layers of different colored sand gathered at the bottom! ^_^). It was hot and because of that the work was much harder than we anticipated, but we were under a cloth for the duration of the excavation.

We had sandwiches again for lunch.

We worked in pairs, and each pair had a supervisor. I worked with Martina and our supervisor was called Francina. She had another name as well, an African name, but unfortunately I forgot it every time she tried to tell me. Here, everyone seems to have several names. An English name, and then a name for the person in Zulu and in Tswana (two languages spoken in this region of South Africa).

In the afternoon, we did some more digging and I learned the following: bones are not white, but calcium blocks are. Calcium is sterile. The parts between two calcium layers are filled with bone fragments. Those are called breccia.

Bones are black, or light brown, at least. Rocks are black as well, or light brown if they are stalagmites. So, the question was: What is bone and what is stone? Not easy to answer, I tell you. But I'm starting to get there. I know what a rock is by now, because I found many.

When we went back to the camp, I was satisfied. I could dig and it was fun.

On the trip back we saw giraffes, and they are really curious things. They just stared at our car. Chewing. And there were zebras as well, in the distance. Weirdly enough, from a distance zebras look brown.

Back at the camp. I had introduced the term of Shenmue side quest the previous night and our side quest was to gather the wood of a tree that lay on a hill behind our camp beside the road. It was great wood and burned perfectly well because of its dryness. Oh, and on the way up that hill we saw two elands wandering over the plain.

The evening was spent by the campfire again.

Hmm… I think I have to write less still. This is just taking too much of my sleeping time. It's late again (10:30 pm) and I'm tired.

But all of this is so exciting!

And: I think I heard a hyena today in the morning. I hope not though. Only the big ones “laugh” and they are almost as dangerous as lions.

03.03.2005

“Wakey, wakey, wakey, we’ve got eggs and bakey, we’ve got coffee on the stove…” and I was too tired to remember the rest of the song Graham had sung. He walked through the camp, clapping two pan lids together and sang it to get us out of bed. It was by far one of the funniest ways to wake up I had experienced so far. Everybody else laughed, too. I woke up earlier today and also had more time to eat breakfast. We also had cornflakes today. Bliss, I tell you.

As we were off again, we experienced another mini-safari. We saw sables again, and ostriches, black widowbirds, and a jackal. We also saw another small herd of giraffes, and two kudus as well.

At the site we continued where we had started the day before. The Fossil Hunters, our African tutors, weren’t here yet. They were out to get the theodolite. This is a device to measure the distance, height and angle of a certain fossil in relation to the point where it stands. Like this, you can create a 3D map of all the findings.

At midday we noticed that Peter had been stung by some sort of wasp right above his eye, and the eye and nose were swollen. He took an antihistamine tablet.

Shortly before 1 pm the Fossil Hunters came and told us they were unable to get to the theodolite. We never knew the reasons, but the consequence was that we could only dig a hole until we found a bone, and then had to move on to the next unexcavated space. The bones were put into bags and in their place small pink flags were stuck into the earth, to mark their positions for the theodolite. So the whole site was soon covered with pink flags. We put the same number on the bags and on the flags.

We did that pretty much all afternoon. At one site, I found a bunch of small bones called “mouse penises” by Anke, one of our German group leaders. But other than that, I found bones about the size of my thumb at best (That wasn't really disappointing. I love that work!). Steffi found a whole vertebra in very good condition. Ursina found a tooth, a big one, a molar with a root about as long as my finger. We were told most teeth like that were from prehistoric zebra.


A few Zulu words from Francina:

jaboulele = happiness
booleh = rain
sau buona = Hello, Greeting.
|ha, ah = No

More words will come tomorrow. I'll take my notebook with me then.

When we went back to the camp, we drove by a lake and took a bath (I hadn't washed myself for a few days now). In order to not get sunburned, we used a mixture of sunscreen and earth. Since the earth was this red-orange color, it almost looked as if you were tanned. The problem with that was that you almost didn't get it off again, not even with soap. So, the funny thing is, even now I don't know if it's a tan or dirt that I have on me. Even though I took a shower by now (we have cool showers by the way).

Anyway, this lake was bordered by a dam and incredibly clear and clean. I think we’re going to be bathing there every night.

Back at the camp, I took a shower and we had some dinner. I guess now I shall be playing Meier, a dice game, with the others.

And: The nearest bigger shop is a Spar, that somehow struck me as interesting.

More Zulu words tomorrow…

04.03.2005

I have camera duty today. Every day, someone has to film ten minutes on Peter’s camera for the DVD. I’m not very good at it though. We had two fighting wildebeest and a flock of guineafowl on the way, but I was late to filming them both times. I didn’t film everything.

When we arrived, the Fossil Trackers arrived shortly afterwards with the theodolite. So we could make the measurements.


About the Fossil Trackers:

The “bosses” are Jabo, or Jabolani, and Lazarus. Then there are Mishac, Sara, Francina, Irene, and Hilda. Jabo and Francina and Mishac and Lazarus are both siblings. Lazarus was usually the guy who measured. His nickname soon became Choccy, an English form of the Swiss ‘Schoggi’, or chocolate, because he does like his chocolate. ^_^


Some more Zulu words:

lebou = yes, ok
(g)kunye = 1
(g)kubili = 2
(g)kuthathu = 3
kune (kooné) = 4
kuhlanu (hl is a ch, but with the tongue in the back of the throat) = 5
itshe = stone
tambou = bone

More tomorrow, maybe…

I guess I know some differences between a bone and a stone now. By next week, I may actually be able to tell them apart.


Bone

With big ones, the surface is soft, with small ones rather rough. The inside is filled with holes and slightly yellowish—but not too yellow, otherwise it’s sulfur.


Stone

With big ones, the surface is rough, with small ones soft. The inside is glittering because of all the calcine crystals.

If you try to break bones and stones, bones will break a lot easier. Not that I recommend trying to do that on purpose.

We are digging in the Pleistocene, a time period of between 2 million and 100’000 years ago. At my site, I was digging in stratae with bones that were about 1 million years old.

Lee Berger, the leader of the institute at the University of Witswatersrand came to us today (Graham can’t stand him for some reason). He’s an American, and he liked to talk. A lot. He also surveyed the site for a bit, there was nothing really interesting about him. I wondered what the relationship between him and the Fossil Trackers was.

On the way home, we saw two warthogs (Pumba!) and, again, a lot of sables. Apparently, their social structure is similar to that of stags. Groups of females with one male. The young ones have the shorter horns. We also saw blesboks, who stood in the road. When blesboks feel threatened they sort of cough/sneeze before finally running off. Really interesting, that.

Bryan, you would love the birds here. There are so many different kinds and you can hear throughout the day. And they sound so different from back home. So low and melodious.

I hope that at least it won’t rain tonight. We’re going to Johannesburg tomorrow. I’ll need to make a list of stuff I need to buy.


List:

And: I gave up washing my hands. The dirt won’t come off anyway.

Oh yeah, before I forget, speaking of birds, we also saw a hammerkop and a fish eagle near the dam lake. The fish eagle is the national bird of South Africa.


About mobile phones:

You can actually get reception here, which I found rather amazing, since it appears very much like we are in the middle of nowhere. But reception quality changes depending on where you stand. Taking one step the left can change your network choices drastically from one to four to none at all. That means pacing is absolutely out. So is calling for that matter. Text messages are where it’s at.

The behaviour is so erratic, that some people get almost superstitious about it, and there are these rumours, that if you only breathe or wave your hand over the receiver, you lose that precious link to modern day society, represented by a few pixels on a display. Some even swear by woodoo magic.

To observe mobile phone behaviour is equally amusing. Sometimes certain individuals would run around with their mobile phone held high over their head, yelling: “Where’s the reception? Where is it?” and if one was successful, others would herd around where it has come to a halt, like bison to a waterhole. Some more adventurous types would sometimes even undertake the 10 minute walk to the nearest hill to get a better transmission. Or, if the connection Gods are favourable, a phone call.

Also, text message services are very flaky. Some recipients would get their text messages only a day later. But I guess as long as we get some signal from home from time to time, it’s ok (not that I’m home sick or anything). ^_^


About students, professors, and whiskey:

One thing in advance: whiskey is good. It’s an absolutely marvellous invention, and it tastes, if it’s a good brew, exceptionally wonderful.

Another thing: too much alcohol is bad. Especially in the hands of field school teachers and professors (note: no, not in the hands of students).

We were sitting around the campfire last night, just four of us, the rest had already gone to bed. The field school teachers were up at the hut, and we realized that they were becoming louder than usual.

When we walked over to see what was going on, we saw that Peter, Stephan and Graham had drunken a whole bottle of Ardbeg. A whole bottle between three people. Graham had fallen asleep and hung in his chair so precariously, he nearly fell off of it, head lolling back, mouth open wide, and snoring. The other two could barely walk to the loo.

We wanted to wake Graham up, but Stephan warned us not to do so, since he would be more than just a little grumpy if we did. But since the others did nothing to stop the man from falling, but instead just laughed like small school boys and locked themselves into the house, we took it upon ourselves to put an ice box behind the chair Graham was sitting on at least.

Finally he woke up, but didn’t talk to us.

And the conclusion: what will become of us if we have to look after the well-being of the professors?


About the sun and the moon:

Since we are closer to the equator, we see the moon more or less like this:

It grows bigger and becomes smaller the other way around, since we are below the equator.

Also, the sunset is much faster here than back in Switzerland. It turns night very quickly. I wonder how it is at the equator itself.


Tswana:

mohala = (for) free, gratis

05.03.2005

We went to Johannesburg at 9:30 am. We didn’t really go into the city itself, but to a shopping mall. It was a rather bumpy ride, especially since Simon and I sat in the back of a rather uncomfortable Land Rover with iron benches and a railing that banged into your back every so often. Yay. Luckily the city wasn’t too far away.

So we spent three hours in this mall in Johannesburg, buying postcards, sunscreen, food, and batteries, and some more things for our daily survival. My desperate search for internet proved to be successful, but I didn’t have time to get on actually. Maybe next time.

After having eaten, we took the cars again and went to the flea market of hartebeest dam for a bit of souvenir shopping. The people at the market were really very aggressive. They came right at you with a cheerful “Hello, sister, how are you?” “Come into my store.” “Look around, take your time.” “Where are you from?” They were selling all kinds of stuff: beads, necklaces of hematite and malachite, masks, spears, carpets, towels, bowls, antelope butts (!), stone animals and so on and so forth. I lightened my purse of some money, not only spending it on souvenirs, but also on some AIDS charity lists (which in all likelihood were fake).

When we finally went home, I was pretty exhausted. Especially from the people on the market. By comparing my stuff to items others have bought, I realized that I’d gotten my souvenirs relatively cheaply.

At home we waited a bit longer for dinner and after some carrots and other veggies we talked a bit by the lamp light, and the with mantis gathering around it, which sometimes jumped right into your face.


About food: Part I

One of the foods here is called pap. This is somehow something like mashed potatoes, but white, out of corn and without taste. But with some salt it’s actually very good. (That’s the thing with the food here. They don’t spice the stuff, so you have to spice it yourself.)

06.03.2005

We had to go out early today to avoid local traffic, since all the people from Johannesburg are out and about on the road and everywhere. Today we had a morning excursion to the “Lion and Rhino Park” and to the “Wonder Cave”. The trip was shorter and less bumpy than yesterday.

At first, in the park, we went to a place with smaller cages with lions and zebras (not together, of course! ^_^) and Graham told us—a bit ironically—that these lions in the park are actually well fed and that you can see that by the moisture on their lips and their full mane. Lions in the wild eat only about every three to seven days. Usually, they eat two water buffaloes, or 14 kudus, or other antelopes per day. Sometimes they even manage to get an elephant, which will last them for several days. Wild lions have a smaller mane, and are a lot thinner as well. We even saw lions mating… our own personal porn…

Well anyway, on the actual safari we first saw vultures, springboks and, of course, rhinos. Their are so-called white and black rhinos, but the difference isn’t in the color, but in the behavior. Black rhinos are very dangerous, have mouths Shaped like a V, and they are browsers. The white ones are grazers and have a mouth shaped like a U, and they aren’t really dangerous.

Next up, we went to the “wonder cave”. It’s a cave with lots of stalactites and stalagmites of limestone, dolomite and breccia. Quite impressive, and the tour was entertaining. The cave used to be a calcite mine where men worked under horrid conditions for 50 pence for a whole ton of calcite.

After we went back up again and had some ice cream, we went to see the wild dogs and cheetas. Actually, it was breaking Graham’s heart to see them cooped up like this, even though the cages were rather big. Ok, they weren’t subdued to the food chain, but they were just cooped up and fed too often.

Normally wild dogs hunt in a way where they chase down prey until it can’t run anymore and then all the dogs disembowel it while it’s still alive. Then, it is either eaten from the front or from behind. It’s a rather gross way to die.

Later, we went to see the feeding of the lions and whilst waiting for the truck with the cow in it, we discussed South African politics and advantages of the black as opposed to the white (sometimes), that, according to Graham, were the problem here. The lion feeding was horribly commercialized, cars were standing all around. Sometimes the lions were even chewing on the tires of the cars in anticipation :D. The feeding itself was just a bunch of lions around a dead cow. So nothing special.

On the way home through the park, we saw a chameleon, hartebeests, warthogs and ostriches (they eat gross ^_^).

After we got home, we had some hamburgers, and the rest of the day off.


About stars:

We have different stares here. It puzzled me at first when I looked out of the plane and didn’t really recognize the formations in the night sky. One of the more prominent is most certainly the cross of the south, pointing towards the south. Then there is, of course, the keel and sail, the raven, the scorpion, and also Orion is visible here. They also have a constellation called the big dog, close to Orion.
It’s very interesting.


About the weather:

Up until now we had two nights of heavy rain (and dripping tents), but apart from that only sun, sun, sun. It makes the weather even more wonderful to know that in Switzerland they have snow and extremely low temperatures. ¬､¬


About wasp stings:

Peter looks a bit better by now. He claims that one of his healing methods is his tobacco. I’m not sure about that, but if it cleans his nose, I guess it’s fine…

I also drew a map of the camp today:

In the evening we did a real American “sundowner”. Or rather only seven of us, because the others were shaking their heads that we drove with a cooling box full of beer and gin up the nearest hill which, to reach by foot, only would’ve taken ten minutes. Even though, I didn’t drink a lot, but mostly took some piccies together with Ivana and Steffi, it was well worth it. I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. I took a lot of piccies. Honestly it looked as if the sky was on fire behind that mountain. But I guess even my photos didn’t really show it, since the colors are all wrong.

Anyway, as he went back down again, there was dinner.

And after a party of “Arschlöchle”—a Swiss card game—we went to bed.

07.03.2005

No “wakey, wakey, wakey” today, thus we were a bit late waking up. But we still drove off in time. More problems to our punctuality, more likely, posed the tree that we found was blocking the road about halfway there. It forced us to drive back and use a longer way almost around the park to enter Gladysvale from the other side. It was longer, but had the advantage that we saw some more animals. At first we saw one eland bull and then a whole group of eland cows. And some zebras as well.

Oh yeah, apart from that: about half of our group had gotten diarrhea by now. Good thing I’m not part of that half (yet…). And also some people suffer from sun strokes, and feeling sick. So, actually, I can consider myself lucky with my little bit of sunburn…

Today was another day of digging. I didn’t find a lot, except for a “mouse penis”, and bone fragments, and microfauna. Yay. Ah well, at least Sara found a bone the length of my underarm.

When we went home again, we had to take Jenny with us, which isn’t a person, but the generator responsible for our power and charging up our equipment, like mobile phones and the theodolite (which we learned how to handle today). Since our car was heavier with Jenny we didn’t get up one hill, and we all had to get out and walk up. It was a nice little walk though, for once over open country.

It was a good and easy day, but I miss Bryan like mad. Also my friends. Only an exchange of words, a few words would be great…

In the evening we played Yatzy, and the game with the ice bears around the holes and the fish and penguins or fish underwater. It was fun. ^_^

Oh yeah, today Peter got stung by a wasp again, just after his swollen “elephant man” eyes have gone back to normal again. This time he was stung into the hand, as he was standing beside a nest two of the wasps were building. (A Zelda moment—mostly because the wasps look like those in Ocarina of Time.)

08.03.2005

Because of that tree on the road, we encountered some water problems. We only had drinking water at our disposal and not showering water. I didn’t care, but some of our group disliked the idea of not showering.

Luckily we had the park attendant who came around at about 10 am to get that tree out of the way. So, direct access to the water source was secured again.

After a day of digging, and a faulty theodolite again, we were in for a special treat: the Fossil Trackers came to us for dinner and we were a really jolly round where only English was permitted. I guess I will write down some of the Zulu words again we learned that evening:

do[sho]lo = beautiful bum XD
injanga = moon, wish doctor, end of the moons
injama = meat
injamazane = animal
sawubona = Greeting (one person) = sau buona
san buonani = Greeting (many people)
tandi = love (tswana = lerata)
i, il (with vowels) = and, or, the
n|olo = back, forgiveness
(g)unjani = How are you? (one person)
(ninjani) = How are you? (many people)
unkuona = (I’m) fine.

During the course of our conversation it became clear that the relationship between the Tswana (Lazarus) and the Zulu (Jabo) is somehow like the one between the North and the South Indians, and since Laz was a bit stronger with words than Jabo, it was Jabo that was mostly teased.

It also seemed that Jabo liked Steffi a lot; probably because she, like him, has dreadlocks.

After we sang both South African and Swiss songs and had some dessert they parted (after having to change a flat tire on the car).

09.03.2005

Another digging day. ^_^ Jenny and Theo (the theodolite) were stubborn as ever. No batteries with Theo and no oil with Jenny.

Also today in the late morning we were visited by Lee Berger again. This guy becomes more and more annoying the more often I meet him. He’s one of those typical overly optimistic Americans (“This is good breccia. I’m certain that we find a hominid in this.”) with a heavy dialect and a horrible false and loud laugh. Did I ever tell you that I hate people who laugh too loudly about their own jokes? Well, now you know.

I guess when I look back to this day now, writing this in the poor light of this oil lamp, I can say that today was probably one of the hottest days of all. There was no wind at all, and I was sitting more or less in the bare sun all day. The horror, I tell you!

I was so glad when we finally stopped. It was even worse since I got a small skin infection, that burned every time I put on sunscreen. So I put on long sleeved clothes in order to protect myself from the sun a bit better. It did work, but it was sort of like a trade-off between being horribly warm or getting a sunburn.

Ah well, as you can read now, I survived the day. But I still have the feeling that there is a layer of dirt over my entire self, despite the washing and bathing. Even over my eyes. Because when I looked at the sky today, it seemed like a sort of bluish brown… or was that just in my imagination?

Well, anyway, I’ll go to bed now. Good night.


About animal sounds:

Sometimes I’m really annoyed that I haven’t brought a microphone. There are so many different sounds. Most of them are birds during the day. There are some which sound like humans whistling. Others sound like mobile phones or alarm clocks (forgive me this comparison, I am a slave of modern civilization, after all). I'd fill pages (not that I’m not doing that anyway) writing them all down, all the sounds. Of all the birds.

There are jackals, and crickets as well in the night. And a flock of pigeons (they sound different from our usual pigeons) you would hear every evening.

I think the morning sounds are the most amazing, they are more distinguishable, more differentiated than ours. Somehow it’s not a chaotic concert and voices, but seems to be much more ordered. You have to hear it to understand, I guess. Yeah, it really is bad that I didn’t bring a microphone…

10.03.2005

Today was another digging day. We had the Fossil Trackers with us again. Yesterday, they had a school course about anatomy. Francina said though that she didn’t like the course too much, since the organization wasn’t too good. I also learned some more Zulu words today. Amongst others Francina told us a tongue twister with a lot of clicking sounds. I need her to write that down for me at one point and then I need to learn it by heart. Just to show off. XD

Well, today wasn’t as warm as yesterday, and I was glad that there was a bit of wind to lighten the heat. I had lived through one hell of a night as a pain in my hip joint had robbed me of some of my precious sleeping hours. And then there was rain as well, and Gioia had been so kind to wake us in order to make us take in our bathing things we had hung out to dry the evening before.

After digging, we went bathing in the lake again.

When we came home and had a shower Brian taught us how to play baseball. ^_^ We were lucky to have an American amongst us who knew how to play it. It was a long time ago since I have last played this game, and I had forgotten so many of the rules. But it was great fun! The ball we had fell apart after a while and so we had to use a rolled together pair of Brian’s socks. Our team lost, since we didn’t have Brian. But we had too much fun to care.

After that we had dinner, but shortly before that I took a short walk. We were just before a thunderstorm and after a sunset behind the surrounding hills. The result was a truly apocalyptic sight. The one rather high hill was surrounded by a red glow, and deep black clouds, and sometimes a rather distant lightning and remote rumbling was herd. It looked as if the earth had opened itself up behind this hill and was to devour everything. Not that the world is really going to end in Africa. Where we are, I believe it’s literally one of the places where you will know one week afterwards if the world has ended… if you get to know at all.

The evening was again spent with diary writing and playing “Jass”.

And: I think the infection on my skin has become worse. I need to find some cream for it. It burns. >﹏<


About chairs:

Chairs are tricky things here. We have three different kinds:

The rubber chairs: They are made of plastic and are thus movable in ways you wouldn’t want them to. Especially with their legs they bend to places where you could end up hurting yourself. I admit that this sounds a bit dodgy. But the ground around the main tent and in the tent itself is pretty sloped. So you sometimes just fall if you lean into a certain direction. … Whaaah… ↷

The director’s chairs: The same counts for those. They are incredibly easy to bring to a fall. Like all director’s chairs they are foldable with a back that seems to have a life of its own. They seem to fall down every then and again.

The toilet chair: This is actually an official chair that is sold in stores. It’s a small foldable chair without a back, but with a hole in the middle of its bottom. Three guesses what it is for. ^_^ I still find it funny if someone uses it. Toilet chair in one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other. Ah, yeah. The fun of outdoor toilets…

Speaking of which…


About toilets:

In the beginning we only had the toilet chair since the toilet hadn’t been organized. We used to take the chair and a roll of paper and go to this G-shaped stone thing on the map to do our business.

Later we got this black round thing that became a pain in the… well, you know… mostly when there are a lot of people having diarrhea and the flys get too numerous and it’s not emptied too often… well, you get it.

But I guess there is worse. Though I have to say that the “hole method” in the YMCA camps is a better solution. But never mind.

Otherwise you just go into the grass. ^_^

The best loo we have is the so-called “loo with the view”. It’s in Gladysvale and it’s a metal pot on a metal grate over a rather deep hole. And an actual toilet chair on it. If you sit on it, you can see over a great landscape of hills and there’s also a leopard somewhere around there you can hear roaring from time to time. It’s about a three minutes walk from the actual excavation site, which must be a pain if you have diarrhea…

But it’s brilliant! And the path you walk to reach it is well worth it. (For example, today Luana found a chameleon on it, which was the main attraction during lunch. She caught it for piccies and for looking it up.)

11.03.2005

Another day of digging.

I had my duty on the theodolite today, so at least in the morning I didn’t get as dirty as I usually get. After a morning of more or less stressful coordinate writing, the batteries of our not very trustworthy friend Theo were empty again and both Simon and me were out of work. Since I still had to tag the small bags we were putting our bones in, I sat there with Jabo as Simon went digging again.

Jabo is a guy who looks like a rastafari. I had a very interesting talk about religion, relationships with black and white women, and generally, or literally, God and the world today, and I found out, that he in fact believes in evolution and in his work. After being in fact a very believing Christian, he has now turned to “disillusioning” people and convincing them of what he believes in. The one true thing. I have to say that I normally dislike such an attitude, with every kind of “religion”, but somehow he was a very nice person, despite the different cultures and the way we were raised. A very interesting experience.

In the afternoon we, Simon and I, were digging again and I found a nice long bone… no, actually I wasn’t able to find anything again. At least not much.

On the way home, we went bathing again…

Oh yeah, Gioia gives all animals names. A butterfly was called Frida today. And the blesbok which is rather territorial and always waits for us at the same bend of the road to Gladysvale is called Sepperl. There is also an eland, two hartebeests, the baboons, and more animals that are almost always found at the same place of the road. Just like the warthog family (two fully grown adults and three piglets). It’s so cute!

Something about bathing. As I said before, it is a small dam lake. Today it was rather windy and the lake had small waves breaking the surface. The reason why I came back to bathing is that we have something in our lake that made many people shy back from going into the water—leeches. Somehow I’m not afraid of leeches. I mean, hey, they don’t hurt when they bite you, they do not transfer any deseases, and these ones here are so small that they don’t really pose any great threat of blood loss. I find those in this lake particularily fascinating, because they are unpigmented and you can see your blood inside them, flowing through them, when they suck it off of you. They are only 1 to 2 cm long, so I’m really not afraid of them. But I still keep to the following ritual when I go out of the water:

  1. put my glasses on
  2. dry myself and remove the dirt
  3. remove the leeches (about 10 or so usually)
  4. put my hiking boots on

I just think that when leeches reach a certain size, they may become uncomfortable in the shoes.

Stephan went out earlier today to take the generator and fix it—yeah, it was broken again, it seems to like doing that—and to do the shopping. As we came home he had made a huge fire with the rest of the tree (the trunk!) that burned incredibly well because of the wind.

Later on, after dinner, Graham promised us ice cream (again) and this time we didn’t believe him. Finally, there really was no ice cream, but Martina got a bun. ^_^

Well anyway. I need to get to bed. Tomorrow it’s to the mall again. Yay, yay… ❤️❤️❤️

12.03.2005

Today was a special day. Not only did we not dig, no, we also had our first seminary. Right after we had eaten breakfast, we met in the main tent and Peter told us about the anatomy of bones and how to decide which bone or which tooth was which and from what kind of animal by looking at a certain set of characteristic traits for each bone. Then it was our turn to identify as many of the bones as we could, by looking at these traits. This is not easy with fossils, especially since many of them are broken and incomplete.

We managed to identify a good deal of fossils though.

After the seminary was finished we had a good sandwich lunch. (Oh yeah, the number of people having diarrhea, which had been everyone except for three people, me being one of the three, at one point, had sunken again.)

Then, we soon went off to the mall. The first thing I did when I arrived there was finding the first internet connection, I could come across—which proved to be one of the crappiest choices. Not only was it very slow, it was also thoroughly unstable and finally all the internet connections of this store, a phone shop actually, crashed, and this service had to be shut down. After wandering around pretty aimlessly for a while and realizing that the prices here were even more expensive than in Switzerland, Isa pointed out to me that there was another place with an internet connection. This one was both faster and less expensive, plus online instant messengers worked well on it. So, I could do what I had been looking forward to all week without problems: chatting to Bryan! After that I felt a lot better.

As we went home we drove by a restaurant called “The Carnivore”, a rather kitschy, fancy thing, where we reserved some seats because we were going to eat there tomorrow. I’m gonna say more about this restaurant then.

As we drove on though, something happened none of us really had counted on. One of the tyres of the Land Rover got punctured on the road and Debbie, who was driving us, had to stop at the side of the road. When we got out, we saw that the tyre almost had come off the wheel!

Now we had one problem: the jack was back at the camp to hold up the water donkey. Thus we had nothing to lift up car. Simon, Ursina, and Steffi went to a gas station that was nearby to try and get one. They did not only bring a jack, but also the guy who worked at the gas station and three other black guys. One of them was severely drunk, but claimed that he was a good mechanic. It turned out that the jack was only any good if you used it to lift up normal size cars, but not for a Land Rover, which is much heavier in comparison. The result was that the drunk mechanic tried to heave up the car with that jack and almost got crushed underneath it, as it suddenly moved and fell off the jack.

Finally Debbie had to scold the guy and his friend had to pull him from underneath the car. Good thing they drove away soon and Brian came with the big jack since Debbie had called him previously. He arrived with Gioia since she had to open the gates for him.

Soon, we had the tyre changed and were on our way home to a wonderful chili provided by our master cook Stephan.

It was a good day. Even though I feel a bit empty because I'm not together with Bryan.

Ah, well… it’s something I must go through.

13.03.2005

Another digging day. This time we dug on Sunday, and we had to make sure that we didn’t cross the path of John Nash. For one thing, he sometimes was known to be about on Sunday and for another we actually weren’t allowed to dig on the weekend, really.

Well, John Nash didn’t show up to mess up our day, but Jenny and Theo sure did their part. Theo fell out of sync three times today and had to be readjusted at least three times. And then the batteries ran out again.

Anyway, after a rather stressful digging and plotting time a refreshing bath in the lake did wonders to my constitution and my well-being.

When we came back to the camp we took a shower and then went as we previously had booked it, to this restaurant called “The Carnivore”. This place is an interesting clash of good and bad taste as it seems that here a theme park has met Africa. It was mostly kept in dark tones, dark brown wood and a stone floor were surrounded by masks and waiters in zebra-striped jackets. It was gorgeously out of bounds! At first, I didn’t know if I liked it or not, but finally decided that I did.

The general thing about this restaurant was that you were able to taste such interesting meat such as crocodile, kudu, zebra, sable, and like that—as Anke put it: if you see something on a safari, you’ll know what it tastes like here. ^_^ Of course, there was also a menu card for Steffi and me, the herbivores. The food was excellent, just a bit much. I had something called Maala, a rice dish on a sauce that tasted a lot like “Schinkenrollen”.

As we went home, we had another funny episode, as Gioia sort of out of fun or tiredness said that she would want to be driven right to her tent — and Brian followed her command.

14.03.2005

Today was excavation site excursion day, and it was rather stressful. After lunch we drove off to Sterkfontein, the biggest and most known excavation site and “home” of Ron Clark (arch enemy of Lee Berger for various reasons). It was the only site with a tourist shop, so we charged up there. On this site famous Mrs. Ples had been found and also another skeleton Clark is still working on, and chiseling out.

We saw how known it was, as the place was literally swept over by school classes shortly before we left.

The next site, was Swartkrans. A beautiful half-cave that hadn’t seen any digging since 1993 and thus was overgrown with many plants, and trees, and inhabited visibly by copulating grasshoppers, and supposedly by puff adders. It was there where Paranthropus robustus had been found and Brian had tried to prove his theories of men being the hunter of this species, and not the hunted and tried to determine the first use of fire with the help of burned bones.

Then there was Coopers, which was in the middle of a cow field. It too, was known for findings of P. robustus.

Kromdraai was separated into an A and B part and only in B actual hominids were found. There, one also understood that carnivores and herbivores weren't really to be set apart. Some animals ate both meat and grass.

We ate lunch at Plovers Lake, the site with findings of early Homo sapiens that now had become a home of owls, hyenas, and porcupines. The site was on the land of a farmer and so he had an unexpected guest. Joey, the dog of the farmer came to greet us, and was around us during the entire lunch. I liked that dog really very much!

The last site after Plovers Lake was Drimolen, another finding site of P. robustus. We had to drive through the rhino park to get to it. When we left, we met a few of the workers and they claimed they had found an ape skeleton which was now at Witswatersrand University. If that was true, it would be an interesting find since there are no ape findings in South Africa so far…

After that, we went home through John Nash Park and enjoyed the sights and animals again.

In the evening we made preparations for our five day trip tomorrow. It will be a safari and a trip to the Makapansgat digging site. I’m looking forward to it.


Some more Zulu words:

ikuni = wood
nja:ela = please
giabona = I see (like look)
giabonga = Thank you.
|o|o = frog


The tongue twister:

How Jabo wrote it:

How I would write it:
i|o|o / lag|umag|uma / la n|amuca / u|ho|ho|ho laffa

15.03.2005

Today marked the beginning of our journey to Pilanesberg Park. We not only needed to pack our stuff in the morning, but we also had to pack some of the tents and get them into our trailers, because we were going to sleep at some other place for five nights. It was a bit of a hassle until we finally got everything packed and ready, but we managed and went on our way.

We drove for about one and a half hours (with a rather unusual “pit stop” in between because of Steffi) until we reached another mall. A different one from the one we have been to the last two Saturdays (the first one had been called Cresta ^_^). There, we bought some food and I could finally make use of my phone card I had bought and called Bryan with it. I didn’t even realize that it was our two year anniversary until he told me! How silly of me! The funny thing about me calling him was though that even though it had been 10 o’clock in the morning at his place, he still was in bed and I had actually woken him up! Hehehe… poor him!

Anyway, we soon had to be off again and after another one hour’s drive through a wide, unpopulated landscape and scorching heat, we finally reached Pilanesberg Park. We got in with our three cars without difficulty, luckily, and soon found ourselves in a landscape of crude but vast beauty.

I guess, it makes no big difference if I say that we saw animals and describe how we saw them. I think I’ll just make a list of the animals I saw here:

Birds

Mammals

Trees

We had Brian as a driver, that explains the long list of birds. He sure likes his birds. Reminds me of another person by the same name… When we came out of the park, we had the luck of seeing two chatting mongoose around. Now, at least, I know what these things look like.

When we came home to the campground, there was dinner waiting for us and Graham made jokes about waking us early. We didn’t go to bed late, since there was no reason to stay up late anyway.

16.03.2005

OK, the joke about waking us early actually wasn’t one. The gates to the Pilanesberg Safari Park opened at 6, thus Graham woke us up at 5:15 a.m. sharp. Good thing we went to bed early yesterday. After my stomach had gotten used to the fact that I was actually awake, and had overcome the first wave of nausea, I brought down half a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea.

Soon, we were on the road again with “bird boy” Brian stopping for just about every single bird. Do you think that yesterday’s list was long? Check this out:

Birds

Mammals

Reptiles and amphibians

On midday, I was so exhausted, after all, the safari had been six hours long, that I just dozed off in the sun. I caught another sunburn on my legs because again… oh yeah, I had my first taste of Fanta grape. It was a bit sweet, but the good thing about it was that it tasted like one of my favorite kinds of grapes.

I really had to convince myself to go on safari in the afternoon. But luckily Brian decided not to stop for every bird this time, but to focus on the bigger animals. This is also how we saw a small pride of lions and the buffalo herd.

In the end, we even went to the top of a hill and had a magnificent view over almost all the park. It was spectacular!

When we came home, we had yet another very good dinner. This time it was our turn to do the dishes, and by us I mean Ivana, Iris and me.

After that, I had an unexpected massage evening. Two people, Iris and Martina came to me for massaging. And we had the idea of putting up a massage tent and buy some massage oil from the shop nearby.

Good idea, I’ll think of that tomorrow.


I guess now it’s time to write some stories about the animals:


About wildebeests and zebras:

Usually you find wildebeests and zebras always together, grouping in a herd. There are two theories covering this phenomenon:

One of them is that the zebra will graze away the rougher blades of grass, clearing the place for the wildebeests and the softer grasses, which is beneficial for the wildebeests.

The other is that in a group of both, a predator, like a lion, would rather take the wildebeests in about 80% of the cases. This is beneficial for the zebras.

So, actually this relationship is symbiotic.


About buffaloes:

It is said that buffaloes are usually very aggressive and dangerous. This is in fact true, but usually you are quite safe with a herd of buffaloes which are in a more or less fixed rank and order. It’s another case when you have loner males (mostly older specimens) which have been cast out of the herd. Most of them have to survive by themselves and thus will go against everyone and everything if you're unlucky.


About hippos:

Unlike most people believe, it's the hippo that is responsible for the most deaths in Africa (if you don’t count the mosquito and malaria). The only animal that comes even close is the crocodile. The reason for that is that people often get water from rivers and thus are often confronted with these animals.

One thing to know is that you don’t want to be on a hippo trail if a hippo comes along…


About elephants:

Elephants cause an incredible amount of damage to the trees. You mostly know if an elephant has passed by by the dung (like with most animals), because it has grass in it (like white rhino dung, hyena dung is white because of the bones they eat) and because of the many broken trees. For one thing, these trees are good for the ecosystem and for another they also have some mechanisms to root themselves back in again when uprooted and grow from the side on upwards again.


About kudus:

The age of the males is rather easy to determine. Young males without a harem will usually have one or two twists of the horns and older ones three, rarely four. Mostly, just like with stags, the males will fight for the monopoly of females.


About giraffes:

To determine the gender of a giraffe is fairly easy. All you need to look at is their horns (which are not really horns but so called ossicones, which, unlike horns, are actually like horn cores or bones). If there is a bald part at the top of them, they are males which have scuffed off their cones by fighting other males. Females still have furry cones.

Giraffes move with the food availability. If they have fed too much on a tree the thorns of those trees will start to grow, so if the thorns grow too long they have to change territory.


The story of the hunters and the buffalo:

Two hunters hunted a buffalo. When they sighted the animal they shot it, but it was only wounded and got away. They looked for it until it got dark and then finally gave up. As they went to the car they decided to look for it tomorrow by following its trail, and maybe find the place where it had fallen dead. When they had reached the car, they emptied their magazines and slung their rifles around their backs. The moment they were done and one guy turned around to say something to the other, the bull came out of the bushes and ran him over, crushing him beneath. Then he ran towards the car and knocked it over, and then turned to the second hunter, who was tending to his companion. The guy had previously grabbed his rifle and put a few shots in there and fired one at the bull, but it was in vain—he was crushed dead.

The investigation afterwards revealed that the bull, as soon as he had been shot, had run, turned around in a circle and had actually waited for the two hunters at the car for their return.


The story of the hunters and the leopard:

Two hunters wanted to hunt a leopard. So they killed a kudu, cut it open, so its bowls hung from it and hung it up on a tree. They waited the whole night for the leopard, but it didn’t come. So they took the kudu, went back home, and came back the next evening, hanging up the kudu and waiting behind a bush in the thicket. But also this night nothing happened, and after a rough night of falling asleep from time to time, they went back home again with their kudu.

They came back for a third night, and waited again by their kudu, but also this time nothing happened. When they went to cut off the kudu again, one of them turned to get to the car, and at this very moment the leopard came out of the bush and killed the guy by ripping out his throat. The other one wasn’t fast enough and got killed right after the first.

Investigation showed that while the hunters were paying attention to the kudu, the leopard was praying on the hunters…

17.03.2005

Today was our last safari day.

We got up again at 5:30 and took the car again, riding with Brian.

Today we saw:

There are also some photos from the other groups.

We also saw two brown hyenas and thought that we would wait where they are for a while and observe them. It smelled most horribly, like rotting meat. A very penetrating kind of sweet smell, and soon we saw that there was a carcass under a tree. The hyenas circled around it and one of them (with an injury above his eyes, supposedly from a lion) came close to it, but didn’t go there. It was probably cautious because of its injury and the memory connected with it. But then we saw the true reason why the hyenas didn’t go close to the carcass. At first only a flicking tail was seen in the grass and then the head of a male lion came out of the grass right beside the carcass. That was amazing.

On our onward journey, we had the bad luck of coming across the park ranger, who told us that our vehicle wasn’t allowed in the park (after the third day of being there!). So we had to get straight to the exit and we couldn’t get in with this car in the afternoon. So two of us had to use the official trip (I guess the thing with our car was a money/renting issue and not one concerning safety).

In the afternoon, we looked on the map to find out where there had been elephant sightings and drove to the place almost not seeing the elephants. There was a herd of about 10 or more elephants at a waterhole. An impressive sight.

Well, that was our safari. No leopards (probably because Gioia didn’t bring the salami) and no dassies. But a whole lot of other interesting animals!

In the evening we were in for a treat. Stephan and Peter were in a giggling fit, as they had put a rubber snake into Gioia's sleeping bag. The scream was Hollywood-worthy. It was hilarious.

18.03.2005

Today’s another driving day. We got up at about 6:30 and had some breakfast. Then, we broke down the tents and put the stuff in the car and were off to a two hour drive. The first stop was at a petrol station where we bought some snacks like roasted maggots (they actually have a key for the loo there you have to take with you, can you believe it?) and after another one-hour drive we came to another rather small mall in a city called Mokopane, where the majority of the resident people on the streets were black (about 90%) unlike in Joburg. We were stared at, being a bunch of white tourists in our Land Rovers. And those people were not only many, but also loud! And if you came from pretty much nowhere-land into this very lively kind of city, it’s some kind of shock! I went on the internet and tried to reach Bryan and my family at home with the public phone, but got the answering machine. After we had eaten, something small and fastfoodish, we were on our way again.

This time we went for our final destination: Makapansgat. We first drove down a pretty interesting highway with a very strange overtaking system. Then we took a rather bumpy road and Bruce (one of our three cars, there’s Bruce, Roxanne, and Sergeant Major) broke down. So we distributed the people on to the remaining two and left Graham behind to sort it out.

As we were a fair way into the land, we encountered another problem: we didn’t have to key for the gates! Good thing that we were lucky: one of the people living in this area came by to help us out (the keys were with Graham…).

Once we arrived in Makapansgat, I was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of this place. It was a meadowy area, our camp in the middle of a valley otherwise covered with the lush vegetation of thorn trees and grasses. Most prevalent were probably the euphorbias and the woodland aloe which made the whole thing seem like another world. There were also vines, as soon as you got into the ticket.

Makapansgat isn’t an open place for everyone. It’s owned by the government and under strict security supervision. We also had a variety of animals around. Baboons, for example, are often heard (especially the males with their rather rough screams) and sometimes seen in the trees up the hill nearby. And then we saw spiders, lizards, grasshoppers, and more. And at night we saw some fireflies, and I saw a mouse in front of my tent (which gave me a great shock, because at first I had thought it had bitten me).

Words are not enough to describe the beauty that is found here at Makapans. I just have to take as many pictures as possible.

Later in the afternoon, we took about a 20 minute walk through the thickets to reach a small lake that reminded me very much of the “emerald lake” in this small village in Maggia Valley. The only difference was that it wasn’t as steep where the waterfall was and you could actually use it as a waterslide. Weee!

After a refreshing bath and a walk back through thorn, thicket, and spiderwebs (which made our bathing superfluous, really) we came back and helped the others set up camp.

We had pizza this time around our rather nice usual campfire (go Ursina!) and after dinner Graham told his usual joke about having some ice cream (which is never true) and asked for someone to come with him and fetch it. I thought “what the heck, either way, I’m full” and went with him only to find that this time it wasn’t a lie. There was strawberry ice cream, and vanilla and all kinds of fruits to go with it. No need to say that Graham got a lot of hugs for this.

We soon went to bed. This time we had our tent beside Simon’s and even though I had heard from the others about it, I almost cracked up, when I heard him talk for the first time in his sleep. He speaks so clearly, that you would think he was awake, and talking to someone on his mobile. We even managed to talk to him and get an answer from him. ^_^

Speaking of mobiles: you have absolutely no signal here. That’s a bit annoying… ah, well…

And: as you might have read, Graham was able to fix the car, or rather get it repaired in the next town. We gave him a pretty warm welcome as he returned.

19.03.2005

I find it rather funny when you go to the loo and you chase away flocks of grasshoppers and some lizards. Of course I shouldn’t find that funny because there could be a lot worse in a toilet such as this, after all we do get black mambas and puff adders around here… but never mind. Anyway:

I think today was the most beautiful day of all of this whole Africa journey. We got up reasonably late, having breakfast at around 8:00 in the morning only, and then we packed our backpacks and went off to see Makapans cave. We went through a mountain forest with euphorbias and aloes being the most prevalent of plants again (but there were also wild bush-willows or rooibos, and all kinds of trees), and then we soon came to a more rural area with fields with cattle on it.

We soon reached the old limestone huts in front of the caves which used to be where the miners worked to gain lime for gold washing, before the first bones and breccia were found.

From there we went up a hill and through a narrow path sided by two stone walls. And then we came to the actual cave area.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to stare at this immense beauty. The stone of the cave was of an orange, and this, topped with the brown and green of the trees, was truly a fantastic sight.

If I say cave, you shouldn’t think of it as being underground, most of it was rather open and extremely wide. There was one such cave with two great holes towards one side that reached up all the way to the ceiling and to the bottom. And the cave was about 20 to 30m high. Two exits were more or less overgrown with plans wherever the light reached to directly. There were three caves like this, two more open than the first I’ve described. From those caves lead a multitude of smaller ducts into darkness. One of them we explored was filled with bats and porcupine needles which is, out of the sight of a biologist, a treasure trove. Another one had tree roots growing right through it from top to bottom like some strange kind of pillars. It opened up to one side where something like a giraffe tree sunk its roots down the side of the rock.

The whole place was magical and we even saw two brown owls and two barn owls in it, having their hideouts in the ceilings of the different caves. If I could compare this cave to one thing (and I hope this does not sound too nerdy) it looked very much like the Voltaic Age in Myst III: Exile. But here there are a lot more trees and plants growing to give a nice contrast to the orange-red rock.

I’m still overwhelmed by the sheer mass of impressions from this cave. I’ll have to get the pictures developed.

When we came out of the cave area again, we first took a look at the former lime stone burning hut and foremost the fossils having been laid around it for the breccia around them to decalcify. I took one bone with me… even though officially you’re not allowed…

We soon came back to the camp, rested there for a while and then went out to the next cave. The so-called “cave of hearths”. It wasn’t as impressively built as the Makapan cave, but it counts as a historical ground.

The story behind this cave is that in the Bur War the Zulus were united under King Chaka Zulu and fought against the Burs. Yet they did not persist long and had to retreat deeper and deeper into the land until they finally fled to the “cave of hearths”. They lived there for some years and the cave is called like this because you can still see the smoke of their fires on the walls, as they made dark patches. Soon, the Burs found the Zulus though and killed them all and in the cave. So, the entire cave is actually a huge graveyard.

Today it is not only that, but also some excavations are made nearby and the site has been transformed into a hide of dassies, with dassie dung everywhere… we respected the dead though, and took none of the bones we saw with us.

On our way back on one of the fields we went termite fishing. You put a stick in a termite hole and wait for termites to attack and bite it. Then you pull it back out and bite the termites back part off quickly, so they don’t bite you. I didn’t have the courage to do it, but Ursina had a go. She commented, as a joke, that it tasted like chocolate banana.

As we came back to the camp, the others wanted to fight themselves through the thicket again and go bathing in the lake. Stephan and I were too exhausted somehow, and so I took the time out and Stephan went to sleep in his tent. I somehow couldn’t sit still for long though and thus I helped Graham with work and cooking. I also went to Mokopane with him to get some stuff. Since we both aren’t very talkative people, it was a rather silent trip. But I didn’t really care.

In the evening, when we had dinner and everyone sat by the campfire. Graham entertained us with another set of his military stories. I still felt rather tired so I went to bed early, but not before staring at the beauty of the moonlit sky over Makapan Valley.

20.03.2005

We had another driving day today. After getting our stuff and the tents together, we got into our cars (me as always with Brian in the biggest one) and drove off. I have to say, to my own disgrace, that I don’t know much about this journey except that we stopped halfway along the way to get some food at a Spar, and that there was a small local airport on the way with the ringing name “Wonderboom”. I’m not really sure if that is advantageous or not, but I guess since it was Afrikaans it probably meant something else anyway. The reason why I didn’t get much of what was going on, is that I was still so tired that I got lulled to sleep by the driving.

We didn’t go directly to the campsite, but first went to Graham’s and Debbie’s house. It was a rather big house in the middle of a settlement of very huge houses with great gardens. All of this area was protected by guards at every street and entrance. What a great difference to the roughly put together metal houses on the outskirts of Joburg! What a great gap between poor and rich!

Graham and Debbie have three dogs, several cats, a huge white house and a garden (with a gardener, black, of course). Their whole property is about 120m² big. We ate at Graham’s, sandwiches as always, and then took a shower and relaxed in the lawn, which was full of dog poop (something for Ursina ^_^, since she had at one point on a safari taken an elephant dung with her).

Later in the afternoon, we went back to our camp at the John Nash reserve, and apart from the cows grazing between the protea trees on the other side of the hill, it almost felt like coming home.

The evening was as usual; building up tents, sitting at the fire with a wonderful dinner… and finally discussing all kinds of different things together. You can see by how the discussions are these days that we have become more familiar with each other and pretty close companions. Oh, how I hate to go home tomorrow!

21.03.2005

Actually, we would have wanted to go to Johannesburg today, and later on to Pretoria. We would have visited Witswatersrand University and a museum. Would have. But thanks to the fact that for one thing it was Human Rights Day today and that neither Lee or Graham had told us that this was a national holiday (and thus the uni and the museum are closed), we had to go digging. No wonder that the moral today wasn’t too brilliant.

And having no milk for breakfast and having Sergeant Major, the biggest of the cars, breaking down on the way there didn’t help much to brighten our mood either.

Finally, we took the car which would get the water and all 13 of us were loaded onto it. 5 in the car, 5 in the back, and 3 on top of the car. Anke was our gallion’s figure on the motor hood.

Soon after we had arrived and had started to work we became hungry, and the general mood wasn’t really all that brilliant. All we did was wait for the car with our lunch and continue to dig. The only thing that had brightened up our day a bit was that Nadine and Gioia had composed a slave song and sang it to us at one point. It was rather funny.

At last, Debbie came with the car and most importantly, the food. As we were chewing quite happily on our sandwiches, she told us that Graham had hurt himself, slitting his hand open, when he had gotten the water with the other car. So he had to go to the hospital to get it stitched up. It really seemed that today was a day of unlucky happenings!

The afternoon passed quicker, but the mood still wasn’t too bright. Not very many people went swimming today, and I couldn’t go with them anyway, because I needed to be back at the camp quickly, to get a shower and get to the airport and go back home.