Namibia with Pierre and Frank

Hi guys (and especially Testronic friends!) I’m in Namibia with Pierre and Frank. We’re in a strange little town called Swakopmund, German in name and in practice, set between the desert and the sea, where you can try all kinds of extreme sports.
We chose quad biking in the desert, probably because for a couple of months we tested a video game called Pure, where you had to ride quads. It’s incredibly fun, sorry for overusing that term, but it really was fantastic, also because we went through spectacular landscapes. Sometimes, from the dunes, you could even see the sea.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t take many photos because we only stopped a couple of times. Anyway, let’s go in order...

It’s hard to sum up these past few days because they’ve been very intense. I met up in Windhoek on the 17th with two friends I used to work with in Warsaw: Pierre (French) and Frank (German). Since our work team was made up of an Italian, a Frenchman, a German, and a Spaniard, out of professional habit we added a Spaniard, Pablo, to the group.
We rented a 4x4 Nissan with two rooftop tents, and it’s incredibly convenient: total freedom. The tents go up in about three minutes; you just pull them out from one side and they open like an accordion.

The landscape changes a lot, and the roads come in all kinds: some are paved and in excellent condition, others less so. Then there are stretches where you need four-wheel drive, and also some real hardcore off-road sections, like the one that runs along the river marking the border with Angola, where at a certain point we had to give up and turn back.

Another thing that stands out is that the roads are almost always deserted: you can drive for dozens of kilometers without seeing another car. Only in towns do you see more traffic, and maybe bump into one of them! By the way, it wasn’t my fault: even the police agreed with me because the guy I hit didn’t have working headlights. Basically, all of a sudden I found this van completely stopped in the middle of the road for no apparent reason... I braked and swerved to the right to avoid it, but there wasn’t enough time and baaaam! The van wasn’t damaged at all —or rather, it was already so beaten up that it was impossible to tell if we added anything— but our car took a bit of a hit: the fender got dented and the headlight was pushed in. This happened in Opuwo.

As our first stop, we headed north to Etosha National Park, which, together with Kruger, is the most famous park in southern Africa. We explored it back and forth in our 4x4 for two days. There were an insane number of giraffes, plus a lot of other animals. On the last day, we even spotted two lions.
Then we continued even further north, practically up to the border with Angola, all the way to the Epupa Falls. We slept right next to the river, about thirty meters from the waterfall.
That whole area is inhabited by the Himba, a people who cover their skin with red ochre. The women have distinctive braided hairstyles, which vary depending on whether they are married, eligible, or children, etc. They also traditionally go topless.

Afterwards, we headed south along the Skeleton Coast, a desert region that borders the ocean. We saw a colony of thousands of seals, with a huge number of pups about a month to a month and a half old. They were all very noisy, and the whole area smelled pretty bad. In general, the adults were lounging on the rocks while the pups were swimming and playing in the sea. Now we are in Swakopmund.


The 22-hour bus ride wasn’t too dramatic. The bus was large and spacious, and there were hardly any people on it. The hostess, Janet, somehow took a liking to me and kept coming over to joke around. Then, during the night, she came and sat next to me, showed me a lot of funny videos and photos on her phone, and then we fell asleep. The next morning I was in Windhoek.


Petrol station


Etosha National Park


Etosha National Park


Etosha National Park


When I was almost losing hope, we spotted two lions. They were under a tree, far away. Then they got up, and we followed them from the road, and at a certain point they crossed right in front of us!


Road.


The first Himba woman we met.


Himba children.


Himba family.


Camel Trophy Namibia.


More photos of the Himba people.

Cape Town and Farewell to South Africa

Hi guys! I’m currently in Namibia, where my friends Pierre and Frank have joined me, and we’re traveling in a 4x4. I’ll share some pictures soon! For now, I’ll tell you about Cape Town and South Africa, which I left about 10 days ago. Cape Town is an amazing, vibrant, and sunny city, and I left it reluctantly, just like South Africa as a whole.

I’d like to briefly share my impressions of South Africans, as much as possible without falling into clichés. I have to say from the start that I’m forced to divide them into “white” and “black,” which in itself shows how strong the issue of racial division still is. It would feel absurd, for example, to talk about New Yorkers or Londoners by separating them based on skin color, but here it’s impossible not to notice that, in general, there is still too much difference between the two groups.

White South Africans, as I already mentioned, are incredibly hospitable. They never leave you on your own and are always eager to talk and to listen. They’re extremely proud of South Africa, especially its natural beauty. However, it’s easy to notice that they sometimes slip into racist remarks, often framed in terms of “culture” or “tradition,” and so on. But to be honest, I think this kind of thing happens everywhere in the world when people talk.
Moreover, even those who expressed some racist thoughts always behaved in a genuinely kind and friendly way towards Black people, at least in my presence. I think it’s just a matter of time. Hopefully, things will already be different in the next generation. In fact, one young white guy I met complained about the ignorance and closed-mindedness of older people when it comes to racism. In the end, it mostly comes down to the kind of education people receive.

Regarding Black South Africans, I believe there is still a lot of resentment towards white people, and it would be strange if it weren’t the case. We are not talking about events that happened 100 or even 50 years ago, but only about twenty.
The brutality and atrocities committed under apartheid are beyond description, and it is not easy to simply pretend that nothing happened. White individuals or movements that fought against apartheid were relatively few and had limited impact (although there were also white anti-apartheid activists who were arrested, persecuted, and some who died in prison or during protests). Apartheid was maintained through a brutal police state and by the usual supporters of any system: the small but widespread willingness to collaborate and the tendency of the majority to look the other way.
Oppressors, as in all such cases, would not have given up even a fraction of their power if they had not been forced to do so by the determined struggle of Black South Africans and, eventually, though quite late, by international economic pressure and boycotts.
It takes enormous moral strength, like that of Nelson Mandela, to move on from such a history and forgive so much so quickly. On top of that, widespread poverty, especially among Black communities, helps explain why in cities white people are often targets of petty crime.
In short, there is still an open wound, but I believe it will heal slowly over time. In coastal villages, where the atmosphere feels more relaxed, it already seems like something of the past. it should also be noted that almost all the workforce is Black, while most property owners are white. In other words, there are still many inequalities and challenges that need to be addressed.

At the hostel, I ran into some friends I had met earlier in the trip again, including the German guy. He had been in Malawi and Tanzania in the meantime.

As I mentioned, I’m currently in Namibia, which I reached after a 21-hour journey! I’ll talk about that in my next post.


Cape Town.


On Table Mountain.


Little shop.


All summer, from the afternoon onward, something very strange happens: a cloud forms on the mountain, but mysteriously, it never seems to move. No matter how far it drifts, it always stays the same size.
For a long time, people thought it was some kind of scientific effect caused by hot and cold air mixing between the two sides of the mountain. But then the truth came out: it’s smoke.
Centuries ago, a pirate who roamed these parts challenged the devil to a pipe-smoking contest. That contest is still going on, and the outcome is uncertain. At stake is the soul. And that is indeed the “Devil’s Peak”.

Bus.


Road.


A ship in the harbor.


One of the many beaches.

Port Elisabeth and Buffalo Bay

“One who possesses virtue is like a newborn child:
poisonous insects do not sting him,
wild beasts do not harm him”

— Taoist saying


To be honest, there wasn’t really any danger, because they are still just “babies”. That was in Port Elizabeth, from where I had planned to visit Addo Elephant Park, but the next morning I woke up late and there was no way to get there anymore, so I gave up.
In the end, it’s as if I’m “pulled” toward the sea: every time I decide to go a bit inland, something stops me (the Drakensberg from Durban, Hogsback from Chintsa, Addo from Port Elizabeth, etc.).

The hostel in Port Elizabeth was run by a white couple who lived upstairs. There was a lot of tension because just a week earlier their son had been arrested. I didn’t want to ask more, but I think it was a drug-related story. He’s probably a good kid who ended up in some kind of mess. The lady was always very kind to me, especially after she found out I was Catholic. I’m not really Catholic, but I was still in a kind of “awakening phase,” she had just filled my head with her son’s story, and when she found out I was Italian she asked me enthusiastically: “Ahh, so you’re Catholic?!” I didn’t want to disappoint her, nor get into any theological discussion, so I just hinted that I was. She was happy with that, and showed me various Madonnas and crucifixes around the house, and said her mother had personally met the Pope John Paul II.
Then, as an alternative to Addo Elephant Park, she suggested a park near the prison where she was going with her sister to visit her son.

So we took a taxi together to this big prison, and afterwards the taxi driver and I went to the park, which was actually more like a zoo: there were some animals roaming freely, but the dangerous ones were behind fences where you either couldn’t enter at all or could only enter by car (like the photo of the lioness licking her lips), or accompanied by guides after signing a waiver stating, more or less, that in case of losing an arm or a leg, they accepted no responsibility.

And so I ended up among white lion cubs. In the end they’re just like giant kittens: same behaviour, same movements, and they love being scratched under the chin. And because they are small they want to play. But while kittens give you little scratches, lion cubs give you proper gashes, and in fact the guides had their hands and arms badly scratched up, full of scars! But it was a very fun experience anyway.
They were about nine months old. I asked the guide how long they would stay there, and he said they would remain until they behaved well enough with the handlers or visitors. So, in practice, for every lion, at least one person will experience the moment when the little one “doesn’t behave well enough”. Ok...

On the way back, the taxi driver was more excited than me. He often took his hands off the wheel to mime real or imaginary lion movements, especially the sudden paw strike to the leg that I had skilfully dodged (from the one on the right in the photo with me in the middle), and the moment when the big lion, while eating, suddenly jumped up, making the woman at the gate yell for us to close the car windows. He was also constantly asking me if lions in Italy are that big, and there was no way to make him understand that we don’t have any (although, thinking about it afterwards, he was right: in the end it was a zoo, so in a way there are lions in Italy too).

Then we went back to the prison to pick up the women. For bureaucratic reasons, those bastards of prison guards had not allowed the mother to see her son. Only her sister had been allowed to speak to him for five minutes, through a glass panel using a phone. Moreover, almost everything they had brought him the previous time had been stolen by the prison guards! Bastards!!

After Port Elizabeth I ended up spending a couple of days in Buffels Bay near Knysna, where there was practically nothing, and I only met a young Norwegian couple and a guy who claimed to come from Mars. And tonight I arrived in... Cape Town! But I’ll tell you about that next time.

Ah, unfortunately I can’t stay here long because my two friends have moved the meeting from here to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, so I have to meet them there as soon as possible (it’s basically as if, just three days before, an appointment in Rome were moved to Amsterdam… but anyway, when you’re in travel mode, it’s not that dramatic).
















And after this, for dessert... a fine “dekaro à la cru”.




Window




With this simply delicious girl, Mika, I won a “body shot”: she lay down on the counter and her mouth was filled with alcohol, which I drank straight from her mouth! Probably, the sweetest kiss of my life! :-)




Chintsa.




Buffalo Bay.

Coast to Coast: Durban, Port St. John’s, Coffee Bay and Chintsa

The most cool Tatoo of this hot (not so much actually...) African summer: I LOVE DEKARO!! :-))

Hi everyone, and best wishes for the new journey we’ve all embarked on together around that fiery ball. I’m in a place called Chintsa, another beautiful seaside spot.

Let me tell you briefly... from St. Lucia I went to Durban, the third-largest city in South Africa after Johannesburg and Cape Town. On the bus, I met a very nice English guy, Scott. He is traveling in the same direction as me, and I had already met him in Swaziland and briefly again in St. Lucia. He told me that the hostel I was planning to go to was rubbish, so I went to the one he had booked instead, and then we visited the city together.

It is set along a long beach and a large harbor, and the city center is made up of a mix of different styles, from colonial to modern. It has a very large Indian community, brought here by the British to work as slaves in the sugar cane fields. So basically the British took slaves from India and brought them here, and took indigenous slaves from here and sent them all over the world! Yes, we Europeans are like that: such “creative” people. We’ve been pissing off the rest of the world for centuries and centuries, but of course all in the name of bringing “civilization”.

On Christmas Eve we went to have dinner in a fancy restaurant together with the only other person staying in the hostel besides us: a beautiful 18-year-old Australian virgin who was telling us she didn’t know when to do it, how to do it, etc... Scott and I were very interested in the topic. Joking aside, Gemma is here doing volunteer work to help children with AIDS.

Then I ended up in Port St. John, crossing part of the Drakensberg, the Dragon Mountains, where I had thought of staying a few days and from there also visiting Lesotho, but I realized I don’t have much time and unfortunately I have to choose between various options. The thing is that by mid-January I have to be in Cape Town because two dear friends I worked with in Warsaw will be coming for a couple of weeks, and from there we will rent a car and go to Namibia (I also take it for granted that my dear friend Vito, who assured me he will be in Cape Town for New Year’s Eve —basically the day after tomorrow— will bail on me, as always ;-).

In Port St. John I was staying in a hostel that is sort of a hippie community. It was located at the foot of a mountain, in the middle of the jungle, facing a beach where a river tributary flows into the sea. Some people had been there for years, others were just passing through like me. It was the classic hippie place: people of all ages and races, lots of “peace and love”, and a ton of dogs, cats, and weed.

On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, about a thousand people came onto the beach, and the road below was packed with cars parked everywhere among barbecues, music, and alcohol. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been good for the past four days; only today the sun has come back.

Now I’m in Coffee Bay, a very beautiful place that I’ll tell you about next time.









Monkeys in St. Lucia.




One little shop in Durban market.





Gemma (pat me)




Port St. John




Woman in Port St. John




Coffebay




Coffebay hostel, The Coffeshake.




Walking on the cliffs of Coffebay.




All this area is full of these circular little colored houses.




One of the many beaches on the Wild Coast.




Child in Coffebay.




Chintsa, view from my room.