Nov 09 Survey - Amsterdam

I've been back for over 2 weeks now and still haven't written anything about Amsterdam. But know that, if Biscarrosse made me want to quit on the spot, Amsterdam made me re-fall in love with traveling and really excited for wherever the next survey will be. When people ask me about my favorite surveys, I usually differentiate between cities I most enjoyed while on-site, cities I would go back to on my own dime, and cities that I am grateful I had the opportunity to visit (i.e. that I most likely could not visit on my own since visas are really difficult to obtain). Amsterdam wins on all counts--although it's in the Schengen Area so accessibility isn't an issue. It’s the first city I’ve surveyed that I can really see myself living in. And it’s only three hours from Brussels by train, which made me constantly ask why we hadn’t come more often as a family (which apparently we did but I just don’t remember). Before this survey, I only had two concrete memories of Amsterdam: visiting the Anne Frank House as a child and coming to a Brown acceptance party with the Benelux Alumni as a senior in High School over 8 years ago. For all intensive purposes, Amsterdam was a completely new city for me.

One of many canals.

I felt at ease in Amsterdam in a way that I haven’t with previous surveys. It’s very… European… in a familiar way… with lots of canals… and Europeans… The only thing that took some getting used to was crossing the street as there are three different road systems that overlap each other. Clearly you have the roads for the cars, and then on the sides you have bike-lanes (which are really a whole second set of roads) and then overlapping all of this you have the tram lines. So crossing the street is no longer a simple exercise of looking both ways for cars, but now bikes and trams and taking into account the different speeds that they all move at and having eyes in the back of your head for the rogue biker that chooses to ride on the sidewalk in the opposite direction and then getting to the other side and realizing that you’re actually in the bike-lane and not back on the sidewalk quite yet. So really, the same rules that you use to cross the street in Africa apply here as well, namely Be Aware and Do Not Hesitate. And when I’m talking about bikers, there are swarms of them whizzing by, with equally unsafe mobile texting habits as car drivers. There are at least a dozen at any given intersection, none of them wearing helmets. But the whole system works surprisingly well… it’s like a chaotic conveyor belt where everyone seems mostly aware of their surroundings and are able to flow with and cross traffic without getting hurt. And given the organization of the city center, the best way to get around is by foot, tram, or bike. Leave your car at home.

The Mask (guy in orange), Death, and Darth Vader in Dam Square.

I think it also helped that we have an office in Amsterdam. I got to meet those colleagues for the first time and they were very helpful with suggestions on outlets and telephone calls in Dutch. Their presence gave me a sense of grounding that other survey cities lack: I wasn’t isolated in a foreign place. And people are so friendly in Amsterdam that I was randomly befriending strangers throughout the week. I mean, half of the streets of Amsterdam Centrum are populated by tourists, all consulting the same maps, using the same points of reference. People are open and approachable. Amsterdam reminded me of how positively spontaneous travel can be—something that I felt was missing in my last few surveys. It was the best possible way to end this survey.

I amsterdam, in front of the Rijks Museum, which is currently under renovation and only exhibiting a portion of its exhibit.

Nov 09 Survey - Biscarrosse

Every survey has a city that makes you want to crawl into a corner and die… or at the very least never go on survey again… Biscarrose, France was that city for this survey. It’s a town that’s maybe 100km southwest of Bordeaux. It’s a popular summer destination as the area has lakes, the coast, vineyards, Bordeaux, fun in the sun… and in the winter it has lonely rainy miserable versions of those things and a hotel with unreliable internet.

The church in the town center on the one day of glorious sunshine.

Anticipating bad weather and a quiet town, I viewed this survey as a bit of a retreat away from busy-ness and activity. And my family came here for a vacation many years ago, so theoretically I’ve already seen all there is to see (although I was too young to remember it, and there is some debate as to whether I was actually included in this family vacation or whether it was before my time). So I felt very little pressure to do much with my free time, and any thoughts I had about regional exploration were quickly drowned out by the almost constant rain/drizzle… and the need for a rental car that made my heart quiver. So I read a lot (I was totally engrossed in and overwhelmed by The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Really highly recommend it). Spider Solitaire, Jon Stewart, and NPR filled in the rest of the gaps.

The survey itself was a little awkward as, apart from the supermarkets, most of the stores are smaller local non-chains where you can’t subtly collect your prices. The stores are like as big as my living room and it’s just you and the shopkeeper—you can’t blend into the aisles or the crowds of shoppers. So when trying to price the International Herald Tribune, I didn’t have the heart to tell the shopkeeper that no, I didn’t actually want to buy it after he had already rung it up… Or when trying to price cigarettes at the convenience store, I just stood in front of the counter and stared at the wall of cigarettes, looking for my targets and trying to memorize a few prices while hemming and hawing when the shopkeeper asked me what I wanted. They probably thought I was a total idiot when I just smiled a “thank you” and walked out… or they were on to me. The smallness of Biscarrosse Ville became very apparent when the attendant at the furniture store asked if I was new to the area as she had seen me (stealthing) at the hair salon. If I were the paranoid type, I would think that all of the different shopkeepers were comparing notes and beginning to piece it all together…

I think that this was the first survey where I actually felt guilty about stealthing. In other countries, I could take advantage of whatever socio-economic-racial power dynamic that almost always put me on top and allowed me to be vague and noncommittal when people asked what I was doing. The power dynamics make it easier for me to control the conversation and ask my questions without properly answering theirs… or avoid their questions altogether if language is a barrier. However, manipulating that power dynamic raises a whole host of other moral questions that I really wrestled with. I won’t go into them now, but it worries me that I felt guiltier in France where there were no language barriers or power plays than I did in Africa where there were. Maybe it’s because I am able to lie by omission in Africa, which feels less malicious than outright lying to people who I feel a connection to, being Francophone Europeans and all.

Luckily I priced the stores on the beach on my one day of sunshine and got a 5 minute glimpse of the ocean.

I had one down day in the area due to the November 11 holiday. I spent it in Bordeaux as I was flying out the next day for Amsterdam from the Bordeaux airport. Now, my experience in Bordeaux was also rather disappointing, but I am more forgiving of this as the place has so much potential. I would definitely come back to Bordeaux, but only in the spring/summer and only with other people and only in a car. There is so much to see and do in the area when it’s not raining and when the museums are actually open.

Place de la Bourse.

One of the longest pedestrian shopping streets in Europe, aptly named Sainte Catherine.

Nov 09 Survey - Bucharest

My survey in Bucharest, Romania was the first time that a survey actually felt like a business trip, where you only see the airport, the hotel, your place of business (malls and supermarkets) and the taxi rides between. In other cities I’ve always had a least a bit of a time buffer or even a down day that allowed me to see something in town or nearby. Not so with Bucharest. I was in town for 2.5 days exactly and working the entire time. My only down hours were late in the evening in the hotel lobby/bar, transcribing my secret prices from my Blackberry into the survey book… it was me and a bunch of businessmen watching football. The total gender and age imbalance that makes me an anomaly at business hotels is relevant here as well.

From what I can tell, Bucharest is a really international and happening city. It reminded me of Brussels, as the areas I was in had a lot of foreigners, allowing me to eavesdrop on different conversations in my language of choice as I ate alone. The city itself emits a great sense of grandeur, combining some of that old historic European charm with the big Communist impressive buildings and/or spaces. There are some absolutely massive squares and roundabouts with some grand government building/monument, and others with a bit of a Times Square feel to them with all of the advertisements, although minus the video screens and twinkling lights… maybe that was a poor comparison.

Anyway, these were my interpretations from various taxis as we sat, stalled in constant traffic on these grand boulevards, in the rain… fleeting thoughts as I prepared my stealth lists on my Blackberry (this job has made me an excellent texter). Since the malls were open until 10 PM at night, I was in no rush and actually quite enjoyed the hour long stop-and-go traffic in the nice warm interior of the car as it gave my feet and my back a well-needed rest. I don’t think my various drivers were too thrilled with the constant traffic though. They all seemed to have their different coping mechanisms:

-one channel-surfed through the radio, a bit of a teaser as he kept skipping all of the good music. At least there was very little of the constant techno that I experienced in May.
-another spent the duration of the ride on his different cell phones to family/lovers explaining that he just had to drop me at the World Trade Center and then he would be home… or at least, that was my interpretation given the tone of his voice (I think the other person on the end of the line was angry or didn’t believe him) and my most likely misplaced assumption that I understand snippets of Romanian, it being a Romance language and all.
-my favorite driver had downloaded some American TV shows on to his GPS, which sparked a conversation about Friends and Seinfeld. I recommended he look at The Office next.

Before leaving, I was able to do a brisk speed-walking tour of the city’s highlights… or at least what I perceived to be the highlights after skimming through the In Your Pocket guide for Bucharest. I took some photos, although I’m not sure what of.

Like this... it's a nice building, but what is this?

My main goal was to see the Parliamentary Building—the second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon.

The Parliamentary Building.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take the tour as I wanted to walk around a little more and get at least a minimal sense of the city, having spent the last two days in malls or on the phone in the hotel. I wandered through the Old Town and jay-walked my way around until it was time to check-out of my hotel.

So… Bucharest passed in the blink of an eye. And my survey takes me from a big happening cosmopolitan city to a small town over an hour outside of Bordeaux… in their off-season… presumably in the cold and the rain.

(I love this: I’m sitting in the airport in Bucharest, waiting for my flight to Paris and they keep showing this video over and over on the screen of passengers who are trying to force various local foods into their suitcases. And these items all come alive—a full chicken roaster runs through the check-in area with a fat tourist running after it; a businessman gets killed by a string of contraband sausages-turned-snake; a woman tries to catch a flying cheese that has escaped from her hiking backpack. Customs, you get a 10/10 for entertainment. Message received loud and clear. No flying cheese in my bag.)

Nov 09 Survey - Prishtina

When I saw that Kosovo was on our survey list for this quarter, I thought: this is a perfect example of the one-off opportunities that this job provides. Because, honestly, who wakes up and says, “I want to go to Kosovo”? Maybe one day, but it certainly isn’t an international vacation destination yet. Now, I have to admit that this survey highlighted my ignorance of the Balkans more than anything else. Yes, I remember Milosevic and the NATO bombings on the news in 1999, but that doesn’t mean that I was actually paying attention and really understanding what led to said bombings and everything that followed. Now having some firsthand experience in the area, I am dying to get my hands on some good books and to do some self-educating when I am back home. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

Now, here's what I think I know: after the 1999 NATO bombings, Milosevic agreed to withdraw Serbian troops and to allow a foreign military presence in Kosovo. Enter the transitional UN administration, UNMIK, and the K-FOR, NATO peace-keeping troops. After Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, UNMIK handed over many of its responsibilities to the new Kosovo government and to EULEX, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo. Kosovo’s independence is only officially recognized by some 70 UN member states and is not a UN member itself as its application would probably be vetoed by Russia. Obviously Serbia does not recognize its secession.

The Newborn monument to mark Kosovo's independence, photographed from behind. Yes, people signed it and now it's covered in writing.

Harri and I entered Kosovo by land, taking the bus through the mountains from Skopje, Macedonia. The border crossing was smooth. We weren’t sure what to expect as Kosovo has yet to set up visa and entry regulations. We were told to just show up at the border with documentation to prove why we were there (hotel reservations for tourism, an invitation letter for business, etc). Apparently our passports sufficed and, after Customs scanned the bags onboard, we were through. After checking into our hotel, we met up with my high school librarian’s husband’s cousin, Shkumbin. He gave us our introduction to the city and put us in touch with a translator, although it turned out that language wasn’t as much of a barrier as I thought it might be as many people speak English quite well. Prishtina seems to be filled with people who left in the 90’s and have recently come back from somewhere else—notably Belgium and Germany—and we would get into different conversations in French and German and English. This seemed to happen a lot with cab drivers.

The view from my hotel room on to Rr Garibaldi.

Shkumbin took us out to an excellent dinner, and we continued to eat really well for the rest of the survey. Eating out is extremely affordable and extremely yummy. There are lots of hip and trendy restaurants/bars/cafes where many of the internationals go (UNMIK, EULEX, KFOR, various NGOs), as well as the wealthier locals. It felt like there were two parallel worlds running in Prishtina, and the restaurant scene was a perfect example: there is one version of Prishtina for those with money and one version for those without. It was the same with stores—there were the small local shops and then the fancy supermarkets with imported goods and often counterfeit designer clothing (Armani jeans for 25 EUR anyone?) Indeed, one of our clients commented that the presence of so many internationals is driving prices up and it will soon hurt locals who do not earn foreign salaries. This disparity made me think of other survey experiences in locations where there is such a wide gap between the have's and the have-not's. Kosovo uses the EURO (although this seems to be the place where EURO bills come to die as some of them are in such poor shape that they probably wouldn’t be accepted anywhere else in the EURO zone), but it didn’t always feel like Europe.

Harri and I were the first surveyors from our company to survey Prishtina , so it was a tough week trying to find new sources and outlets. Although centrally located, our hotel didn’t make the task any easier. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Prishtina, a landmark in the city that is Grand in name only—I felt myself die inside a little bit each time I walked into the lobby. It’s a relic of the good ol’ Soviet times that smells of smoke and is honestly a little creepy. It seems that everyone else felt the same way as our other preferred hotels were already booked up. Apart from one really great guy at the reception, “customer service” did not seem to be a part of the staff’s vocabulary (I mean, would you do your laundry at a hotel where they give you a black trash bag and no list and tell you to just “leave it on the bed and the maid will pick it up”… yeah, but will I get any of it back?!?!)

We chose to do a day trip on our one down day to Prizren… unfortunately we were not in the know and so left Prishtina on the one day that former President Bill Clinton was coming into town for a ceremony to unveil the Bill Clinton statue on Boulevard Klinton. We saw the statue before his visit in our surveying the city, but it was partially covered (we thought as a Halloween prank, but apparently covered in anticipation of its unveiling). Clinton is well-loved by the Kosovo Albanians for his role in the NATO bombings of 1999.

If you zoom in, it actually does look like him.

Prizren is the cultural and historical capital of Kosovo. It was beautiful to walk around the old center and up to the fortress that overlooks the town.

My favorite view in Prizren: the 15th Century Ottoman Bridge, the Sinan Pasha Mosque, and the Kaljaja Fortress above.

In 2004 there were riots that led to vandalism of some Serb-Orthodox churches and homes in Prizren and other towns. As a result, the remaining Serbs left Prizren and the churches are now blocked off with barbed wire and guarded by KFOR soldiers. We had to ask permission to enter one of the church grounds from the guards outside; I guess we looked mild enough because they allowed us in but watched us the whole time. We really wanted to see the Saint Savior Church, but it was totally closed up with a sign warning that the guards had permission to shoot… so… understandably no visit there.

Case in point: Saint Savior Church.

We hiked up to the fortress, skirting the edge of the old Serbian Quarter where we passed the Saint Savior Church. The area is now a collection of abandoned buildings and stray cats. It was a steep hike but worth the views from the top. We were up there when the city's multiple mosques did their calls to prayer... true surround sound.

From the fortress looking down... yes it was cold up there!

The Saint Savior Church seen from above... notice the military vehicles along the wall?

Now, one thing that struck me in Prishtina was the international military presence. I would discretely stare at the soldiers’ arms and the vehicles’ license plates to determine what flag they were carrying (Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Monaco, and USA, to name a few). They blended in somewhat in Prishtina as they were completely outnumbered by the civilian population, but in Prizren there were so many of them. There is a KFOR base right at the edge of town and we kept leap-frogging with groups of German soldiers throughout the day. Seeing the soldiers and "No Guns Allowed" signs on restaurant and shop doors was a good reminder as to where we were.

Trying to generate a good rapport with the local community... we also saw a KFOR ad on a bus that showed a US soldier kneeling to give a little girl a flower... I'm sorry, but am I the only one who finds this a little unintentionally creepy?

No dogs. No Bikes. No guns.

Nov 09 Survey - Skopje

I started this survey with a total lack of enthusiasm or proper preparation outside of the work aspect of the survey. I attribute this to the fact that I am now finally feeling more settled in Brussels to the point where I would actually prefer to stay in the city than leave on the survey… so this is actually a really good sign in the overall context of me. And apparently it helps with the survey experience: if you go in with minimal knowledge and expectations, it’s hard to be disappointed.

We arrived in Skopje, Macedonia on Monday and initial impressions were that it’s a dreary / dismal / gray city with excessive graffiti and depressingly over-cast weather (even worse than stereotypical Belgium). I’m sure that it’s better in the spring/summer as we got a teaser of what it could be like with warm sunshine over the week as the weather improved, which lead me to revise my impressions of the city to slightly less dreary and dismal, accompanied (or caused?) by eau-de-old-cigarette-smoke that permeated literally every place we were in. Actually, the permanent residual smoke would be my one real complaint about the city.

There are many statues in this style throughout the city... these musicians were my favorite

The area of Skopje has been inhabited for over 200 years, so it’s an old place… but you wouldn’t know it from walking around as much of it was rebuilt in 1963 after an earthquake destroyed 80% of the city. And of course most of it was rebuilt in the Soviet mass-concrete aesthetic. The city doesn’t have a whole lot to capture your camera lens. It’s come a long way from when a 17th Century Austrian general called it the most beautiful city he’d ever seen in all his conquests of European Turkey… before burning it down to the ground. The only noticeable standing historical monuments or areas in the city are the Stone Bridge, the Fortress, and the Old Bazaar (a series of smaller streets lined by shops and cafes).

Downtown Skopje as seen from the Fortress across the river.

Another statue with the Stone Bridge behind it.

The 66 meter Millennium Cross on Vodno Mountain, built to mark 2000 years of Christianity in Macedonia. We kept seeing this from multiple points in the city and on our last day took a cab halfway up the mountain, walked the remainder, and hitch-hiked back to our cab.

Despite our lack of preparation, we got a few ideas on what to do with our free day and ended up taking a bus to Ohrid, a lake-side town close to the border with Albania. It was a foggy three hour bus ride each way through the mountains from Skopje but well worth the day trip. It’s a beautiful town to wander through as it is on a hill giving great views over the lake, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Standing on the lakefront with some of Ohrid in the background.

In the Middle Ages it was known as the Slavic Jerusalem for having 365 churches — one church for every day of the year. One day wasn’t anywhere near enough time to visit everything in the area, so we concentrated ourselves on the sites in town—several churches, a monastery, and a fortress. One of the churches, St. Sophia, had 11th century frescoes on the walls. When Ohrid was part of the Ottoman Empire, this church was converted into a mosque and the frescoes were covered. Maybe half of them have since been restored. Three young women were minding the church and one of them gave me a small tour. My too-brief visit in St. Sophia’s was a highlight as I talked to my new friend and listened to her and her friends sing in a space with such beautiful acoustics. A colleague commented that this job makes you really appreciate moments… this was one of those moments for me.

We were lucky with the weather and the views we got of the town the higher we went up the hill. We reached our goals: Church of St. Clement and the Fortress. St. Clement’s supposedly has relics of the saint inside, but we couldn’t see anything recognizably relic-like.

The Church of St. Clement

Old Ohrid's defense system... hefty fortress walls.

On our way back down into town, we came across the Church of St. John at Kaneo. It sits with its gardens on a cliff overlooking the Ohrid and the lake.

The Church of St. John at Kaveo as dusk is falling.

We were in town during the off-season. I can only imagine how busy the place is during the spring and summer—there’s just so much to see and do in the area what with monasteries and the mountains and the lake.

We've since left Skopje and are now in Prishtina, Kosovo. Good-bye Cyrillic alphabet (for now?) at least you get easier with practice!

Nov 09 Survey

By the way--I'm on the road again... although I wasn't organized enough to post anything before heading out... and then I spent my first week internet-less thanks to my brick of a computer... and now when I suddenly miraculously am able to connect here in Kosovo, all of the links on the blog come up in Cyrillic... and I guess it shows that I don't use this often enough to instinctively know where to go! But I am slowly triumphing over the frustrations of modern technology and wanted to share my schedule with you. If I still have internet when I wake up in the morning, I might even tell you more about the survey itself!

Skopje, Macedonia (OCT 19 - OCT 26)
Pristina, Kosovo (OCT 26 - NOV 02)
Bucharest, Romania (NOV 02 - Nov 05)
Biscarrosse, France (NOV 05 - NOV 12) including two nights in Bordeaux
Amsterdam, Netherlands (NOV 12 - NOV 19)

Europe on the verge of winter. Yummy.

Aug 09 survey - Maputo

My last stop was Maputo in Mozambique. As a former Portuguese colony, it was the biggest linguistic challenge of this survey. But I found that I could be more or less understood if I butchered my Spanish, and I could more or less understand if the other person spoke Portuguese slowly and clearly. And it felt good to have Spanish tumble across my tongue after spending several weeks speaking an altered English.

Maputo has a bad reputation for safety--I was advised not to walk anywhere at night, not to bring any bags with me, not to wear anything that might be interpreted as a sign of wealth and therefore a worthy target (because I don't stick out at all, right?). All of these counsels, and my shaken confidence from the pickpocketing, made me very cautious. But everything I'd heard felt a bit alarmist as I walked around during the day--the only danger were the street vendors who would jump on you when you showed even the slightest interest in their displays.

The view from my hotel room... the Indian Ocean and a birding tree

Lazy Sunday morning in Maputo... empty streets downtown

Part of a mural along the water

I was able to do a semi day trip out of the city when my driver got a last minute call from a Portuguese couple who wanted to go to the beach on Macaneta Island. The three of us split the fare and spent a total of 5 hours in the car and on a short ferry to enjoy a total of 2.5 hours on the beach (late start and bad traffic). It's the end of the African winter, so not really beach weather... but still very pleasant to walk barefoot in the surf and watch the little crabs dart in and out. Also very yummy grilled fish lunch.

The beach at Macaneta

Crabs darting in and out of their burrows

But oh my God (funny, I noticed that all of the TV channels in southern Africa edited out any use of the word God--both in expressions of anger and surprise), five weeks is a loooooong time to be gone. I was happy to come home by the end. I reached a point where--as a friend in Brussels so eloquently explained--I missed anonymity. Being a pale white girl in southern African countries, it was pretty much impossible to blend in. I was noticed everywhere that I went. Now, back in Brussels, I can relax and blend in, new passports safely stored at home.

Aug 09 survey - Windhoek

I don't seem to be cut out for this blogging thing... I think about what I want to write, but never find the time or energy to actually post. And now I'm back home--been back in Brussels for two weeks now. I don't want Blantyre to be the last impression from this survey, especially when there was a gem like Namibia on the calendar.

Namibia was the other place in my survey where I scheduled a free day and had committed to a weekend outing, so I arrived in Windhoek anxious to start the work. The hotel I was staying in was in a mall with a supermarket. I checked in, dropped off my things, and within 30 min was working. My bubble burst when I got back to the room and realized that I couldn't find my travel wallet... which had both of my passports inside. I tried to keep calm but reached a level of anxiety that made me want to cry/scream/vomit when I realized that the wallet was most definitely not in my room. After talking to hotel security and thinking back over the previous hours, I realized that I must have left the wallet in the side pocket of my bag, making it ripe for pick-pocketing as I was surveying. And then I remembered two guys bumping into me at the top of the escalator, and if it wasn't them, then others ample opportunity to snatch it. This whole not-knowing-exactly what happened has really bothered me--at least with a mugging there is no doubt--I always came back to the hotel kind of hopeful that maybe I had overlooked the wallet under the corner of something, or that someone had turned it into the police (HA!). But no such luck. I was able to get an emergency US passport that I used for the remainder of my survey. Thank goodness for the embassy's efficiency. And thank goodness for my managers' support--it was very calming to know that they had my back. I've been through two crises on surveys now (hmmmm... and both were in Africa...) and each time it's been really reassuring to know that they are there.

Once the crisis was minimized, I only lost a total of 2 hours from the survey. And luckily it was the easiest survey I have done so far. Namibia is a former German colony; Windhoek feels like a mini Europe in the desert (real streets with real sidewalks and real traffic lights). Many Afrikaners emigrated there from South Africa, and it was very familiar to hear so many people speaking Afrikaans (derived from Dutch)... like Belgium, but with a lot more sunshine?

I finished the survey on time to leave the city for the weekend. I joined a tour to Sossusvlei, 5 hours southwest of Windhoek. It's in the Namib desert, which is the oldest desert in the world with some of the highest sand dunes in the world at 300 m. I really enjoyed traveling with a group. We were a random mix but got along really well.

We spent all day in the Sossusvlei, leaving our camp at 5:50 AM to be in the park for the 6:15 sunrise. In the early morning light, the sand dunes are rich shades of yellow, orange, and red.

Sand dunes with vegetation... and some wild ostriches (the black dots in the left half)

Stereotypical Sossusvlei picture of a dune post-sunrise

The Sossusvlei is a clay pan. On the rare occasions that the Tsauchab River gets enough rain that it comes this far, this is where it ends. I think that the last time this happened was in 1997. Hiking the sand dune next to the Sossusvlei provides some absolutely beautiful views.

The view while hiking the dune along the Sossusvlei

Catching my breath overlooking the dry Sossusvlei... getting ready to run down!

We hiked three dunes, our highest being Dune 45 (150 m). Hiking up sand dunes (takes about 20 minutes) and running down them (takes about 2 minutes) is extremely fun, but quite exhausting! It's like walking up a down escalator that swallows your foot and fills your shoes with sand... and running down is like running on softness, racing sand beetles and geckos before they burrow in to the cooler sand underneath...

The view while climbing Dune 45

The Dead Vlei is another clay pan, cut off from water by the sand dunes. The dead trees in the vlei are popular for photographs, preserved for over 700 years by the area's dry heat.

All of the dead trees in the Dead Vlei

Playing around to get the focus on the trees

Experimenting with the focus... see how dry it is? The dry air gave me the worst hair weekend ever!

So... Windhoek stole my passports, but Namibia stole my heart :) In the desert I almost didn't care about the pickpocketing (although I was sad about the souvenir entry stamps and visas that I no longer have. I just hope that Immigration kicks the ass of anyone who tries to use them or steal my identity). I would have been happy to end the survey on this desert high, but alas I had one more city to go... on my new emergency passport... which I'll get around to posting (the city, not the passport).

Aug 09 Survey - Blantyre

Blantyre was a slow exercise in loneliness and disappointment. There is usually an energy/mood dip mid-survey when you feel that you’ve accomplished so much (17 days on the road) and yet you lose heart when you realize that you’re really only halfway there (21 days to go, including the week in Blantyre). My dip lasted for four out of the six days that I was in Blantyre.

The city is fine... small, low-key and I quite liked it when I first arrived. I came without any contacts or expectations. After two longer and more tiring surveys with Matteo, I was looking forward to an easy Blantyre and a hopefully painless transition to traveling alone. I was at peace with a bland Blantyre experience until my expectations were raised by someone who offered to meet up for a drink and to put me in touch with one of his friends for weekend hiking. Suddenly Blantyre was filled with potential... potential that remained unfulfilled as those invitations never solidified. And the ensuing disappointment really flavored my Blantyre experience. Once your expectations have been raised, you can no longer be at peace with low-key and dull.

Much of my disappointment in Blantyre was in myself and the way that I handled the city. I'm not outgoing or confident enough to just approach random people, although I am quite open to being approached. I'm not comfortable going out alone at night (especially in an unfamiliar place), which would increase my chances of meeting people. And yet, while I want to meet people on the road, I’m really tired of all of these “first conversations.” I realize that none of this bodes well for my future surveys.

So rather than go crazy in the hotel on my day off, I arranged a driver to Mulanje for some hiking, which is about 70 km from Blantyre. You're supposed to have a guide in the park, so we picked up this guy off the side of the road. I don't think he was an official guide--he looked like he had just come from church, wearing a leather jacket and a dress shirt--he certainly didn't have any naturalist background. But he knew his way around the paths and we didn't get lost. It was a nice hike, very quiet and calm with only the wind and birdsong to listen to since the three of us hardly talked. The second highest peak on the African continent is in this mountain range but we couldn't see it through the clouds.

I never saw the Armed Guards, nor whatever it was I was being protected from...

The waterfall: our hike's destination

Mountain and forest views

It was a pleasant journey to the park through hills with tea plantations. My driver and I had a misunderstanding as I thought we were visiting one of the plantations. He drove right on by and we got back to Blantyre in record time.

Hills and hills of tea plantation fields

Well, I did make one friend in the city. There was a street vendor who would follow me to and from the hotel, calling out, “Sistah! Sistah!” His inventory included batiks, necklaces and booklets and I think his goal was to sell the majority of it to me before I left. The necklaces on his arm clinked so I could always hear him coming. His friendly persistence made me laugh but after the first two days I started looking for alternate routes back to the hotel to avoid him.

It was a looooooong week in a small city that I am happy to be gone from.

Aug 09 survey - Lusaka

Well... there isn't a whole lot to say about Lusaka, Zambia. We spent the majority of our time in the two mini-America malls. Our hotel was in one of the malls, and the other was less than a 15 min walk away. So, for the first three days (Tues - Thurs) I didn't venture beyond that 15 minute radius. And then when I did leave it on Friday, it was to the water company and the Office of Road Transportation. We were 90% finished with the survey by the end of Friday, so Saturday was a bit of a low-energy day. The intensity of the last two weeks really caught up with us and we were both quite low key. It was one of those days where we didn't do anything and yet were exhausted. It would have been a perfect day for lounging around at home... but that doesn't quite work in a hotel room.

So on Sunday I finally got into the center of town for a walk and some non-mall air (Matteo had escaped the mall earlier than me when he went to get some car prices). But of course, seeing as it was a Sunday, the place was quite deserted. We walked around the local market, where the main aisle was for piles of shoes and rows of bootleg music. For the CDs, each stand would play its own music in an effort to drown out the stand that's 10 meters away, also blasting out a different song. I think that that was the most exciting part of our wandering.

The highlight of the week was a friend that Matteo met through Facebook. She joined us for dinner and drinks several times, my favorite being a Zambian restaurant on my last night. A taxi took us to Sylva, a catering school that has a restaurant that is closed on Sundays. The driver got them to open for us, with a limited but very yummy menu. The base of the meal was nyshima, a cooked porridge that is made from maize and eaten with vegetables and meat--in my case a whole fish. The nyshima reminded me very much of Uganda's posho, also made from maize. Both of these dishes have been my favorite meals in their respective countries. The maize has hardly any flavor, but the dishes that it is eaten with are so flavorful and the two combined really compliment each other. And it's such a nice break from the monotony of "international" hotel food. And even though I'm eating cautiously, I've got well-established traveler's diarrhea... so... really, what the hell...

As uneventful as Lusaka was, I would still like to come back and give myself adequate time (and money!!) to visit the country's highlights--Victoria Falls, the game parks, the Zambezi River--as we weren't able to do any of those things. There's a reason that we couldn't find any postcards with pictures of Lusaka itself. In planning the survey schedule, I really pushed to have our free day in Madagascar so that we could see the lemurs, which I don't regret at all... just next time, it's going to be Vic Falls!

Matteo's photo of Cairo Road... ghost town on a Sunday.

Aug 09 Survey - Antananarivo... with much love!

We finished our first city and are on the eve of finishing our second… which means I’m well overdue for something on Madagascar. Let me preface this entry by saying that we survey Africa and Latin America in August. After spending the last survey surrounded by a foreign language and a foreign alphabet, I longed for the familiarity of a better known continent with a language that I could speak… like Latin America… especially because Cuba was on our list for this quarter. Unfortunately, too many other surveyors also wanted Cuba… so here I am in Africa again. And I’m realizing that this job is a wonderful way to push my boundaries and go to less familiar places that I might not necessarily choose on my own. As it is now, my surveys to Sudan (Feb 09) and Turkmenistan (May 09) are the ones I most appreciate as they are such impossible countries to otherwise get in to. I can see myself going independently to Latin America much more easily than to Africa or the Middle East. So I got excited for this survey and then in the week leading up to my departure the excitement turned into cold feet and an increasing sense of dread. This is my fourth survey, so you would think that this part would get easier; but the fear of the unknown is always lingering as you prepare. After the cold feet began, I didn’t start smiling until we were boarding our connection from Johannesburg to Antananarivo. And then I couldn’t stop grinning because I was thinking, DAMN! I’m going to Madagascar!!

A colleague was supposed to survey Antananarivo (Tana for short) back in February but her trip was canceled less than a week before her departure due to riots and lootings. Basically, there was a coup of sorts where there is now a transitional government and the transitional president has promised elections in two years. When the coup was taking place there were lots of demonstrations where many people were killed and stores were burned and looted. In fact, the main shopping malls we were to survey had been targeted (I found a local blog that showed pictures of the empty shelves and burned insides of the building and wondered how we were going to get our work done). There is still uncertainty and tension in the city. A summit was proposed to help resolve the presidential crisis between the ousted president and the transitional government as the latter is not recognized internationally. One of the managers of the survey team sent us this a few days before we left Brussels: “Officials increased security measures in Antananarivo July 20 following a series of foiled bomb attacks that killed at least three people and injured three others July 18-19. Police also discovered bomb-making material and found 20 bombs planted throughout the city during weekend violence. Random roadblocks and security checkpoints are possible.” And then apparently there was an explosion and injury on the day of our arrival when a kid picked up a box that had a bomb in it. Naturally, I didn’t tell my family any of this… until now. Needless to say, everything was fine while we were there. We did get pulled over at one checkpoint where the only purpose seemed to be to force a bribe from us rich white foreigners. That experience, and the city in general, gave me a lot of food for thought on skin color and gender in travel that will have to wait for another post.

Tana is built on a series of hills, meaning that the roads are windy and there are lots of staircases between different parts of the city. The cobblestone streets, the hills and the colorful houses that climb them give the city a combination Mediterranean/Latin American feeling. But Madagascar is a poor country… so take that feel of the Mediterranean town and imagine it after 40 years of neglect, with trash and traffic and crumbling sidewalks… and lots of poverty… and persistent hawkers and beggars who tap on your car window as you’re stuck in traffic. According to the CIA Factbook, 50% of the population lives below the poverty line. And I remember reading/hearing somewhere that Madagascar is one of the 5 least developed countries (in Africa? in the world? Sorry—I can’t back any of that up with a resource). Madagascar was a French colony until its independence in 1960, leaving behind a legacy of European-styled architecture, French cuisine, and the infuriatingly confusing way of saying “70” and “95” in French: the respective equivalents of “sixty ten” and “eighty fifteen.” People were incredibly friendly and helpful and, apart from my five second mental delay with the numbers, the survey went smoothly and we were able to get the information we needed.

The view from my hotel room.

Before leaving Brussels, we set up a lemur safari for the weekend in Andasibe/Montadia National Park, a windy hilly 3 hours to the east of Tana. Much of the wildlife in Madagascar is endemic to the island, so many of the animals that we saw on our hikes are unique—this is Africa’s version of the Galapagos. The Andasibe area has 12 different species of lemur, most notably the Idri Idri, which is the biggest one and very vocal. I got a video of the Idri Idri doing the morning calls, but I can't get the video to load. Technical difficulties...

An Idri Idri in the wild

We also went on a night hike, which was the equivalent of CSI meets Blair Witch Project: we walked down the road, searching for lemurs/chameleons/frogs by moonlight and by flashlight in the treetops, similar to how CSI spots drops of blood in a living room with just a small pinlight. We had surprising luck considering how small our prey was and the vast territory we covered. We found a mouse lemur (the smallest lemur, weighs about 40 grams and insanely cute) and our guide would randomly point out frogs or camouflaged chameleons that weren’t any bigger than your pinkie finger. Good eye, good eye!

On the second day we went on a 3-hour walk in primary forest looking for extremely elusive lemurs. It was so calm and peaceful... and rainy and muddy. We were soaked by the time we left the forest.

Path??? What path???

Our reward afterward was to visit our lodge’s sanctuary where they have tame lemurs. It’s actually several man-made islands that you can visit by canoe with a guide. The lemurs are all tame as many of them were previously abandoned pets that the lodge rescued; none of them were captured from the wild. It was a wonderful way to end, seeing several different species (even some that aren’t from that area of Madagascar) and feeding them, petting them. Some of them were particularly friendly, jumping on to our heads and shoulders, others taking our hands in theirs to eat the carrot or banana piece straight out of our open palms. Their fur is incredibly soft, and the palms of their hands are a bit leathery the way I would imagine another primate's hands to be. And they're just so freaking adorable and comical. The perfect way to end our time in Madagascar.

Bamboo lemurs

With our new friends and their climbing/jumping antics

I Like To Move It Move It... Ringtail lemurs!