North to Chitengo

Rich and Carlos carefully loaded up the back of our extended cab Toyota Hilux, carefully wrapping the whole load in plastic and tying it all down with rope and plastic-coated laundry wire for the long trip north. All of the worldly posessions we are takng to our new life in Mozambique are in this truck -- too much to make the trip by airplane, the usual (and more quick and comfortable) transport to the park. We also needed to bring this new vehicle to the park for the Rich's Science Services Department to use for research and other work in the park.

Good thing they spent the time they did doing a good job, as we had a terrible storm with lots of rain and lightning the night before we left - and more rain along the way. The storm during the night, the heat, and the whining and barking of the dog (who got locked up during the night for bad behavior) made for a pretty bad night's sleep for us all on a night that was already short because of our 3:30 AM departure for the 14-hour trip north. Because the roads in Mozambique see all manner of traffic, including cars, trucks, bikes, pedestrians, chickens, goats, and cows, we wanted to get most of our driving done early in the morning while people were asleep, and to finish the drive before dark (early evening is the worst time for driving here). We also had to make the park gate by 6pm, as a new strict gate closure rule is being enforced.

We stopped only once, for breakfast at about 8am, pressing on the rest of the day, eating food we had brought in the car. Ian was amazing, keeping himself entertained with little matchbox cars and plastic animals who had all manner of adventures in the back seat. I don't recall the details but the play involved time in jail for naughty animals, lots of fights between animals (we are learning about agression between animals in pursuit of females and territory), and trips by the ambulance to deal with injuries. Thank heavens for the portable DVD player, too. We are not a TV watching family for the most part, but I am often thankful for our decision to buy this little piece of electronics when my patience for entertaining Ian is wearing thin and I can keep him entertained for even just thirty minutes by turning on the DVD...

We made the gate by 6pm and arrived at the camp just as the sun was setting, passing many scurrying baboons along the road on the way in to Chitengo. Happy to have finally arrived...

Kruger National Park

Rich had been asked to present at an annual conference of scientists doing research at Kruger National Park in South Africa, so we had a great opportunity to see a "seasoned" park (Kruger is the largest and one of the oldest parks in southern africa) with an abundance of wildlife. Rich attended the conference by day as Ian and I explored the park in our truck. Kruger is very well developed - paved roads throughout the park, and even those roads that are gravel are passable in a standard car - no 4WD required. Very funny to see people in Mercedes Benzes and Volvos driving around on safari, so locked in our mind is the idea of safari in a truck...

On our first evening in the park -- actually as we raced against the clock to make the drive to our camp before the 6pm gate closure -- we saw lots of great animals: giraffe, impala, baboons, monkeys, kudu, warthogs, and -- the two great sights of the day -- a leopard and a white rhino, each of which we managed to see as they happened to be crossing the road on which we were driving. Not bad for a 90-minute drive! We managed to add water buffalo, crocs, hippos, hyena, elephant, tsessebe, and a variety of other grazers to our list during our 4-day stay. The hyena encounter was particularly exciting: we were driving in the dark on our way to the conference dinner when we came upon it across the street from the staff housing, not more than 20 feet from our vehicle!

Another great animal sighting happened during a conference dinner at the golf course - the resident hippo of the golf course pond ambled up onto the grass near the golf club where we were, grazing away! Ian was amazed to see an entire hippo not more than 50 feet from where he stood...

It was particularly interesting to be in Kruger with an eye to developing our own park. What aspects of the park did I like as a tourist? what things would I change? What amenities were available for staff? The camp where we stayed, Skukuza, is the main headquarters of the park where the majority of the park staff live (in a "village" next to but well-isolated from the tourist camp), so the staff facilities are quite good: a gym, playing fields, a large swimming pool equiped for a swim team, a golf course (! ok so we don't want that at our park), and much more. It looked like a pretty comfortable place to live.

Arrived in Africa!

After a long, reasonably brutal flight, we arrived in Africa! We had discovered upon arriving at the airport in Lisbon at 11:00 pm that our original flight -- an all-night flight -- had been cancelled, so we spent the night with our friend Maria, sans luggage (which we had decided to check in early so that we could save time in the morning). Those of you with kids might understand why we were bummed about this switch to an all-day flight! so many hours during which to entertain a 4-year-old... Then it turned out that our rebooked flight was not direct to Maputo as the cancelled one had been, but rather stopped in Joburg for 2+ hours enroute to Maputo.

We finally arrived Maputo after 11:00 PM on Saturday, but with immigration, visa purchases, and very slow luggage, we didn't manage to get out of the airport until well after midnight. Poor Ian - it was all he could do to barely hold it together. And it was HOT and muggy compared to what we were accustomed to... I suppose I should have been happy that 5 of our 6 bags showed up, but I wasn't, as the missing bag was mine!! (it did manage to show up a full WEEK later after much effort to track it down...) But at least we had arrived.

We spent 2 nights at our friend Carlos' house in a "suburb" of Maputo, adjusting to our new surroundings. Ian an I mostly flopped around as Rich had African adventures (flat times, hitch-hiking, running out of gas....) while trying to accomplish a few necessities in Maputo. We then packed up again and headed West to Kruger National Park in South Africa for the next phase of our adventure...

Vamos aprender Portugues no CIDAC

We spent four weeks in the care of CIDAC, a non-profit organization in

Portugal working on development cooperation and development education. We worked five hours per day one-on-one with our teachers: I had Manuela (with long braid and necklace) in the morning and Marisa (scarf and glasses) in the afternoon; Rich had Guida (alas, no photo!) in the morning and Manuela in the afternoon. Manuela was born and spent much of her life in Mozambique but now lives outside Lisbon.

Rich had a decent background in Portuguese from his many years of work in Mozambique, but I started from near zero - as I joked, I arrived knowing how to count to ten and as where the bathroom was! But with the patient and talented efforts of my teachers, I left with a better base for learning more in Mozambique. It's always easier to understand than to speak, so I find that I can piece together a lot of what is being said around me if I really concentrate, but I still blubber when I open my mouth. Actually, for at least the first week of classes, every time I went to open my mouth in Portuguese, Turkish came out! So I guess I still know a bit of Turkish from my time there in 1988 afterall... Not that that helps in Portugal!

We hope to be able to get back to CIDAC in the next year or so to keep working on our developing language skills, and will also work with a teacher in Mozambique in the intervening time.

Alentejo

Our good friends Manuel, Viviene and Alice (1 year) arranged a great weekend getaway to west-central Portugal to the region of Alentejo. Some of you may remember Manuel, Viviene, and Alice as friends we met in Madison who now live in Brussels, but Manuel hails from Lisbon originally. Manuel happened to have a conference to attend in Lisbon during the first week of April, so they were able to extend their visit and spend a weekend with us showing us some sights, including the historic city of Evora, where we took a group photo in front of a temple ruin in the middle of the city.
Manuel found us a great rural inn near the historic town of Monsaraz (the photo of the green hill topped by a village surrounded by "castle" walls ) from which we could walk easily up the hill to visit Monsaraz or to the local restaurant for delicious local specialities, the names of which are now escaping me (remind me, Manuel!), along with the wine for which the region is famous. Inside Monsaraz we found the bull-fight arena; no bullfights happened there while we were there, but we did find some of the equipment the bullfighters used to practice, and Ian polished up his bullfighting skills. We did find, in the neighboring village, a "running of the bulls" event at which local men taunted the bulls and the bulls chased the men, but no blood was shed or lives lost, we are happy to report. Needless to say, we all stayed safely in the stands!
On our way bac to Lisbon, we detoured to Manuel and Viviene's favorite beach along the Atlantic coast, about 45 minutes west of Lisbon. while the weather in Alentejo and along our drive back had been cool and rainy, when we reached the coast the clouds parted miraculously and we were treated to an afternoon of gloriously warm sun. Ian and Alice frolicked in the waves, and we all took turns burying Ian in the sand. We bid farewell to our friends, expecting to see them next in Mozambique, and headed back to Lisbon on the local train.

Ian the cleaner

Here is Ian cleaning our porch in Lisbon. He is a very good cleaner. He mopped the porch and cleaned the table every day, whether it needed it nor not! how fun to slop around water...

Aveiro & Coimbra

We took an express train north to the city of Aveiro to meet with a colleague of Rich's, Carlos Fonseca, a biology professor at the University of Aveiro. The train was very comfortable and particularly exciting for Ian, who asked questions incessantly about how fast we were going, where we were, etc. Aveiro is a relatively new city near the coast, famous for salt production and for its canals -- some refer to Aveiro as "the Venice of Portugal". We had a quick visit to the Atlantic Ocean beaches -- very windy but beautiful -- and then headed Saturday afternoon to Coimbra, about 30 minutes inland from Aveira, where Carlos lives.

Coimbra was quite different from Aveiro -- very old (boasting the oldest university in Europe) and hilly, divided by a river. Ian particularly enjoyed our visit to a park that featured tiny replicas of the many different types of traditional houses from around Portugal as well as composite buildings of the many famous historic sites of Portugal (cathedrals, castles, etc.). Carlos and his girlfriend Constancia were very warm and hospitable, and introduced us to their good friends who lived at Gorongosa in the 1960s! Our young Portuguese language skills limited our ability to swap too many stories with Luis and his wife, but we made a good connection for the future. Carlos also drove us to the village of his family and to their family retreat in the country -- how we longed to stay at that idealic setting for longer! Old stone houses perched on the hill above a river with a small dam to divert water to power an old (and still functional) mill for grinding flour that created a small pond perfect for paddling in the resident kayaks. So peaceful... Must stay here during our next visit to Portugal!