[Gaborone]
[Antananarivo] [Durban]
[Maputo]
After a hectic month back in the office, which culminated
in a Sunday morning task force to deal with the crash of Egypt Air Flight
990, I was again off to southern Africa to conduct crisis management exercises
at several U.S. embassies and consulates in the region.
One of my two traveling companions, Ron Hawkins, and I left Washington
on Friday, November 5, on a Northwest Airlines flight from Dulles International
to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Our 13-hour layover in Amsterdam
allowed us time to take in a bit of the famous Dutch city. My old
friend and fellow Foreign Service Officer Greg Patrick, who lives in nearby
Brüssels, acted as our tour guide. Ron and I met Greg at Amsterdam's
central train station, then headed off together on our obligatory visit
to the impressive Van Gogh Museum, followed by the obligatory boat tour
of Amsterdam's many canals. All of this would have been more enjoyable
had it not been cold, windy, and pouring rain (winter is apparently not
the best time to visit the Netherlands). We nevertheless had a good
time and managed to cap our afternoon with a couple local brews at a trendy
pub called Insiders, which we later learned is owned by former Swedish
tennis star Björn Borg.
Gaborone
After an even longer flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, we made the
final leg of our initial journey aboard an Air Botswana puddle-jumper to
Gaborone, the dusty capital of Botswana. Only after our flight
did Ron, whose job involves writing the well known State Department "travel
warnings" for countries in the region, bother to mention that Air Botswana
had recently had an aviation "incident" on the same route. Aside
from being badly jet lagged, though, we arrived in one piece.
The consular officer in Gaborone, a friend of Ron's, graciously arranged
for us to take a game drive Sunday evening at Mokolodi Game Park, just
outside the capital city. This is apparently one of the parks President
Clinton visited on his trip to Botswana last year, as evidenced by the
many pictures of the Prez on the walls of the park headquarters office.
Our two-hour game drive was a fruitful one: we spotted Elephants,
White Rhinos, Zebras, Giraffes, Kudu, Red Hartebeest, and a variety of
other antelope. We also visited a large enclosure within the park
that is home to its two resident Cheetahs. In addition to the wide
array of mammals, the game drive revealed a decent collection of bird life,
including Golden-breasted Bunting, Pririt Batis, Spur-winged Goose, Black-cheeked
and Blue Waxbills, Swainson's Francolin, and abundant Long-tailed Shrikes.
A walk around the grounds of our hotel early the next morning produced
a Diederik's Cuckoo, Lesser and Southern Masked Weavers, a Groundscraper
Thrush, Crested Barbets, and a Brown-hooded Kingfisher.
Antananarivo
As any birder worth his binoculars knows, Madagascar is the "Holy Grail"
of African birding. Having separated from the African mainland 165
million years ago, the island boasts nearly 100 endemic birds as well as
numerous endemic species of plants and animals, including the monkey-like
Lemurs for which Madagascar is famous. I was understandably excited
about the prospect of visiting the island, and had purchased (and nearly
memorized) a field guide to the birds of Madagascar in hopes of seeing
as many of the local specialties as possible during our brief visit to
the island's capital, Antananarivo.
"Tana,"
as the locals call the capital, is a city of more than a million people
located nearly 5,000 feet above sea level in the island's hilly central
region. The lengthy drive from Ivato airport into central Antananarivo
took us through farmland, verdant rice paddies, and sprawling, dusty barrios.
The capital's center, where we stayed, is built on steep hills heavily
accented with the lavender blooms of Jacaranda trees. Looking down
on the crowded city streets while the hazy sky turned orange and pink from
the setting sun, I had the strange feeling I was not in Africa at all,
but rather in Indonesia or Malaysia.
The Malagasy people, like their culture, are a unique blend of Polynesian,
African, and Asian hues. The architecture of the capital city is
equally diverse, making greater use of wood than the typical concrete construction
of many African cities. While this gives Antananarivo a unique atmosphere,
the popularity of wood in Malagasy architecture has contributed to the
regrettable deforestation of large sections of the island.
To my great disappointment, our hurried itinerary did not allow much
free time for birding, and the decidedly busy, urban setting around our
hotel was nearly devoid of wild fauna. I was, however, lucky enough
to spot a Madagascar Fody -- a bright red, sparrow-like bird -- in a park
near our hotel, and a Madagascar Wagtail in the narrow alley outside my
hotel window.
Durban
If Cape Town is the San Francisco of South Africa, then Durban is its Miami.
Located on the Indian Ocean some 900 miles 
northeast
of Cape Town, Durban is a tropical melange of British, Indian, and Zulu
influences superimposed on a modern South African city. Durban is
the capital of the Kwa-Zulu Natal province and has the distinction of being
the fastest growing city in South Africa. Its white sand beaches,
off-limits to the city's non-white residents during Apartheid, are
now densely populated by sun seekers and surfers in wetsuits. Durban's
version of Miami's Cuban population is the large Indian community that
has influenced life in the city for more than a century. Mohandas
Ghandi lived and practiced law in Durban for nearly 20 years before returning
to India in 1914 and leading the struggle for independence there.
And Durban's rendition of Miami's South Beach is called, well, South Beach.
Unlike Miami, however, one can still get a decent seafood dinner (with
drinks) in a beachfront Durban restaurant for under $10.
Our visit to Durban coincided with the Commonwealth Heads of Government
meeting, which was attended by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and former South
African president Nelson Mandela, whose aircraft happened to arrive at
the Durban airport just moments after ours touched down. Imagine
our disappointment when we learned the motorcade of Mercedes Benz sedans
waiting on the tarmac wasn't for us!
With
less than 24 hours in Durban, we didn't have much opportunity to see the
surrounding area, but Ron and I spent several hours walking the length
of the "Golden Mile," and had dinner at one of the many trendy open-air
restaurants on the beach. After conducting an exercise at the U.S.
consulate the next morning and grabbing a quick lunch at our hotel, we
were again off to the airport for our flight to Maputo.
Maputo
You've
got to be a little intrigued by a place where the main streets still have
names like "Avenida Kim Il Sung," and "Avenida Mao Tse Tung." Mozambique
is also the only country, as far as I know, that has an AK-47 assault rifle
on its flag. I'd been hearing about the place for several years from
my Canadian friend Susan MacGregor, who runs an air transport company in
Maputo that provides support for USG-funded de-mining programs. Mostly
what I remembered from her stories was that there were only about three
decent restaurants in all of Maputo, and all the expats frequented one
called "Mundo's." At least two other people with whom I'd spoken
in the past year had confirmed this fact.
Maputo is now in the midst of what could be loosely described as an
economic boom, and new restaurants and hotels abound. I was nonetheless
on a mission to find Mundo's and see what all the rave was really about.
My mission didn't take very long. As it turned out, Mundo's was right
next door to our hotel. I discovered this fact approximately 25 minutes
after arriving at the airport on a Friday night and being driven into the
city in Susan's "company car," a tiny brown Toyota sedan whose foremost
feature is that it is not an attractive target for potential carjackers
(which, as it turns out, is rather important in Maputo).
In honor of our arrival, Susan organized a full night of social activities
to introduce Ron and me to life in Maputo. After checking into our
hotel around 8:30 p.m. and quickly changing clothes, we followed Susan
across the street to her apartment, 
where
a number of her friends had already congregated. Ron and I got acquainted
with the crowd -- mostly Canadian and Dutch expats -- while scarfing down
a local approximation of Domino's Pizza and sampling "Dos M" (two
M's), the common name for Maputo's most popular brand of beer, Mac Mahons.
At some point, our now-very-noisy group migrated down the street to an
outdoor bar, where we won free shots of grain alcohol for guessing the
correct answers to trivia questions in Portuguese -- it's amazing what
a couple American tourists will do for free booze. After about an
hour or so, we piled into Susan's car and drove to an upscale nightclub
and literally danced the night away. Around 4:00 a.m. we left the
still-hopping nightclub and drove back to Susan's eleventh-floor apartment
to watch the sun rise over the water of the Bahia do Maputo.
Needless to say, Ron and I spent most of Saturday sleeping off the activities
of the previous night!
Although Susan left Maputo on Saturday morning to return to the U.S.
for a company meeting, a couple of her friends were kind enough to invite
us along to dinner the following night. Along with a group of roughly
eight other expats, we ended up dining at Costa do Sol, one of Maputo's
best seafood restaurants. Located on the beach just north of the
city, the open-air restaurant enjoys a steady ocean breeze, which helps
offset the otherwise muggy heat of Maputo in the summer. Costa do
Sol's specialty is prawns, a delicacy for which Mozambique is famous throughout
southern Africa. Though I didn't try them that night, I had the opportunity
to sample Costa do Sol's delicious prawns a couple days later when we again
ended up there for lunch with the Deputy Chief of Mission from the American
Embassy (Susan's restaurant theory, it seems, is still largely accurate
despite the rapid pace of change in Maputo).
Between work-related obligations and wandering around town on foot,
Ron and I were entertained by Susan's friend Daphne, a Brazilian Alanis
Morissette look-alike with a degree from American University in Washington,
D.C. Despite her deceptively perfect American English, Daphne is
a native Portuguese speaker and was able to keep us out of trouble during
our short stay in Maputo. An aspiring travel writer (you can read
some of her works on the Boots'n'All
travel site), Daphne works for Pathfinder
International, an NGO that promotes reproductive health and works to
prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Mozambique.
Though we never made it out of the city during our visit, I'm told that
Mozambique boasts fantastic beaches, islands, and dive resorts. With
significant new economic investment pouring in from South Africa and elsewhere,
and a government that was recently re-elected in free and mostly-fair democratic
elections, Mozambique is a country that appears to be changing for the
better, though much progress still remains to be made in the wake of the
country's devastating civil war, which only ended in the early 1990s.
After four restful days in Maputo, I was nearly (but not quite) ready
for the 36 hour trip home to Washington, a trip that would take me through
the Johannesburg airport for the fifth time in ten days. In spite
of the rather insane pace of our trip, Ron and I managed to have a great
time seeing new places, good friends (both new and old), and picking up
a few new life birds along the way (well, I did, anyway!).
[Gaborone] [Antananarivo]
[Durban] [Maputo]