africa

Africa
Click here for video introduction

The following are highlights from Brad and Barbara's recent trip to Africa. They were guided on their trip by Cathryn and Carl Hilker (who have made numerous trips to the Continent.) Brad said that Africa is so beautiful that it is difficult to describe. A very big thank you to Brad for sharing the details of his journey. (Please note that the photos are in a "thumbnail" format. Click on photo for full viewing.)

Day 1

"When we arrived in Cape Town the full moon was setting over Table Top Mountain as the sun was rising. Quite an introduction to Africa.

I almost lost my life the first day. While visiting a winery in Cape Town, I tried to be Indiana Jones and stop a carriage of black stallions. I jumped onto the carriage and lost my balance. I slipped off and fell underneath the carriage. I was able to grab onto a board, pull myself up and stop the horses.

We also visited gardens in Cape Town - the most beautiful one can imagine seeing."

Brad and Barbara at Table Top Mountain.

The above mentioned stallions one stop before "taking off".

Brad and Carl Hilker show off their injuries after "Indiana Jones" incident.

onward from Cape Town.......

From Cape Town Brad, Barbara and the Hilker's traveled to Laurie Marker's farm (CCF Headquarters) on the Waterburg Plateau in Namibia. They spent four days there - visiting farms, seeing animals and relaxing. Brad helped Laurie take digital photos that will be used in future CCF brochures. While there, Brad asked Laurie if there would be any chance to see a cheetah released back into the wild. She told him that it might actually be possible to do so.

Brad and Chewbaca
(Chewbaca is in his "playtree" )
Drew Pearks, Elissa Knights, Brad and Barbara, Matti (CCF guide) and Cathryn Hilker at CCF.

Next stop Botswana.....
"We went to the Mambo Camp on the Delta - at that camp we went on four safaris. Two a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We saw leopard, two male cheetahs, a big male lion, and a new baby zebra. It was not more than 12 hours old, you could tell because the placenta was still there. We also saw a wart hog and every grazing animal that you can imagine. From there we went to the Jao camp. We did a night drive and followed a male lion for an hour and half while he tried to find his mate. They would bellow to each other. At times the lion was so close to the truck that we could have reached out and touched him. The lions were probably three miles apart maybe more, they kept roaring to each other. It got late, so we had to go back."

Next we went to Victoria Falls - it was beautiful. We were there for one. day.

an afternoon nap in Mambo.
a wild cheetah enjoying the afternoon sun. "Limpy" the leopard hides in the grass at the camp in Mambo - his back hind leg had been broken at one time.

once again from Mambo - Brad said this "was very funny and cute". This new baby was just learning to walk. The placenta was found near-by. a beautiful picture but a scary experience. Right after this photo was taken the elephant started coming towards the group at Jao.

Taking flight.......
From Victoria Falls the group traveled to Swakomund via private plane. The beach area that they flew over were the same dunes shown during he opening credits of "The English Patient" They next went on to Palmwag Camp and another safari. This particular camp was in the desert. When flying in, they could not find the landing strip and were running out of gas. Obviously - the landing strip was found. On this particular safari, Barbara spotted a male lion and Cathryn made a rare find. "Cathryn saw a Mountain Zebra - it was as if we found a unicorn. Very rare. It has a piece of skin that dangles from it's neck. It's ears are bigger and darker. The stripes are different on the butt - black and white a regular zebra is black, gray and white."

Barbara with the airport kitty in Swakomund. This is a very old kitty ~ when pilots from Namibian Air fly in, they bring tuna. The kitty goes out and meets the airplane to get the tuna.

after leaving Palmwag.......
Brad, Barbara, Cathryn and Carl continued on to Epupa where the falls were "more beautiful than Victoria Falls. It really truly looked like Eden." Next they visited the village of the Himba Tribe. Brad found this experience fascinating. "The smell was very intense, when we arrived they were killing and skinning a goat. They marked a cow by cutting off it's ear." Brad also noted that they paint themselves red and wear jeweled leather collars. They are naked from the waist up and wear goat skins or leather. He said that the kids were really cute. They were also shown the traditional wedding outfits. A very interesting experience indeed.

Epupa Falls

The Epupa Falls are in northern Namibia. The river separates Namibia and Angola. Brad and Barbara at the falls.

Carl Hilker, Barbara and Brad at Epuppa Falls

The stone that the man is holding is ground into a powder, mixed with fat, placed in the halved Ocher (right hand) and used as body paint.

Barbara holds a baby goat. The structure behind her is one
of the village houses.

Barbara and children of the Himba Tribe.

Visit to the Himba Village

the last day.......
Brad and Barbara's last day of the trip was quite special. As mentioned earlier, Brad had asked Laurie Marker if there would be a possibility to witness the release of a cheetah back to the wild. It happened that two brothers had been trapped by a farmer. The farmer had called CCF and requested that they come remove the cats. One of them had dental problems, so the pair spent about 10 days at CCF. After leaving Epupa, the group traveled back to Laurie's farm. Brad described the release as "very fast, lightning fast-but amazing. Quite a finale" Brad said that it was a very emotional experience that touched all of them - especially Cathryn. After watching the release, they had lunch and then flew to Windhoek and then home.

If you look closely at the crate, you can see the eyes of a cheetah about to be released back to the wild.

Brad and Barbara give Laurie Marker a hug.

Cheetah Release

Freedom!

A Travelogue from Carl Hilker

- Greetings from the Outback of the Dark Continent -

I have just returned from a 35 day trip where I had the pleasure of
being in, over, under, upon, or in the airspace of six African countries,
namely Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Republic of South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It was definitely, without question, the most convoluted,
complicated, sometimes-coordinated trip of my life, anywhere in the
world. The only mode of transportation that was not used was trains or
subways. Aircraft, of course, were the norm. I had TWENTY-NINE flights in ten different types of aircraft, ranging from Boeing 747's to a balloon, covering roughly twenty thousand statute miles. About three thousand of those miles were flown by me in a rented Cessna 182 which performed marvelously out of remote sand/grass airstrips with great gusto, kept in the air with "old avgas" pumped out of rusty drums, and always three to four hundred pounds over "maximum gross weight"! My passengers (the unwitting, unknowing, unsuspecting, but willing) consisted of my wife, Cathryn, the Phantom (of the opera), Brad Little, and his wife (the "I" of the King and I), Barbara McCulloh, of Broadway fame. Our (small airplane) travels were concentrated in the Northwestern portion of Namibia, along and inland from the Skeleton Coast, through Damara Land and Kaoko Land, some of the most desolate and remote areas of the planet, literally moonscapes, but delightfully beautiful and indescribable! One of the two highlights of this portion of this trip was to spend two days at Epupa Falls, on the Kunene River at the Angolan border, watching (the falls, of course) and an "undisturbed" camp of the legendary Himba people, who inhabit the area. The other highlight was to drop in (literally) onto a farm owned by our French CCF tracker pilot and witness the release, back into the wild, of a pair of Cheetahs which were bachelor brothers. They had been live-trapped in a "non-friendly" area farther south, and would have been shot, had not CCF intervened. (This is one of the continuous missions that CCF does for the preservation of wild Cheetahs.)

There was a side trip to Botswana into the Okavango Delta region to
Mambo and Jao camps. Here, we discovered that the level of supreme
creature comfort, opulence, and luxury in the wilderness (as well as
beauty) has been ratcheted up to a hitherto undreamed-of level from our
last visit, a few years ago! The mosquito netting for our bed was bigger
than our entire tent that we had in Tanzania! Our "little guest
cottage", which was a house on stilts at water's edge, was bigger than
most homes in the USA! We could have entertained 100 people on our
porch, alone! Since a Lion ate a lady guest, recently, the walkways are
also elevated boardwalks on stilts, lighted with kerosene lanterns. Ours
was one third of a mile, each way, from main lodge and back! The bird
life was legendary, and I probably added about three dozen birds to my
"first time ever life list!" The most memorable one "for pizzazz" is the
Eastern Paradise Whydah, and the song that I miss the most comes from the Swamp Boubou! Aircraft and boats did best in the delta, but jeeps were okay on the high ground. Mosquitos never came near me, but then, again, I seldom bathed, ate lots of garlic, and drank old wine and cheap rum!

This side trip ended at Victoria Falls, which were the most
spectacular we had ever seen, from many past visits, due to the high
water and massive rainfalls which had just ended. Speaking of which, we
really lucked out on the weather, everywhere, but particularly in
Namibia. Some of the heaviest rains, thunderstorms and hailstorms in
recorded weather history preceded us by a scant 24 hours! When I turned in our rental van in Namibia, I carefully saved all of the various parts of the undercarriage that had been ripped off traversing deep sand and hydro-planing across water holes at 120 kmh! The four vehicles that I rented in RSA and Namibia also accounted for about 3000 kilometers of land travel.

This entire sojourn started (but should have ended) at Capetown,
"the jewel of Africa", where we did all of the things "you are meant to
do", and a few things that you shouldn't. The Cape of Good Hope, Cape
Point, lighthouses, Stellenbosch Gardens, native art and flea markets,
quaint wineries with tasting sessions and Grande Restaurants with
platters of oysters, prawns, and lobsters with fine wines all were
consumed and or appreciated with gusto!

One should not, however, park one's van at the Table Mountain cable
car area, so that, with one slip of the clutch & brake, it begins to
slide over a cliff in loose gravel! (Talk about people evacuating a
vehicle in seven nano-seconds! Wow!) And, one should not get involved, between wine tasting sessions, with a carriage ride (on a cobblestone road) with a carriage that is SO antique and authentic that it breaks an axle and starts disintegrating, being drawn by a beautifully-muscled pair of Black Stallions in panic mode, and yours truly and the Phantom end up, in a botched rescue attempt, a la Hollywood stagecoach scenario, being dragged underneath the wreckage for too long a time! The blood has long been washed away, but the tattered clothes and scars will remain with us forever!

Speaking of modes of transportation, you can not get more basic than
a horse, and we all enjoyed a beautiful ride on a five mile desolate,
deserted beach of white sand (complete with a 100 year-old shipwreck) on the Western Cape! Being a "has-been" geologist, I was always on the
lookout for a diamond, opal, quartz or amethyst crystal, etc., but my
best find was a glob of Ambergris that was coughed up by a whale, eons
ago, either a Right, Humpback, or Minke, which are the common ones in that area.

Annie Beckhelling, our director of the Cheetah Outreach program in
South Africe, surrounded us with Cheetahs and All Goode Thyngs whilst in the RSA.

One ironic aspect of this journey was that, for the first time in
seventeen years of African travel, I carried a fly rod and a "minimal
pack" of fishing equipment, hoping to meet the legendary Tigerfish, Nile
Perch, etc. Not only that, but my fly rod was the latest,
state-of-the-art type that was a five piece, nine foot pack rod that
could fling a salt water lure into 30 mph winds, but, alas, it was not to
be! The pace of this trip was like a U.S. Marine exercise. You lived
out of a duffle bag and never unpacked! You just pulled clean
(hopefully) clothes out of one end and pushed dirty clothes into the
other! I had two mornings of trout fishing at a vineyard, and the box
score was; the Trout got one "wooley buggar", and I got zip!

Well, I know that you really didn't want to know this much, but
there, you have it!
C.H.

More photos...........

Arrival in Cape Town.

A carriage ride.

Kirsten Bosch Gardens in Cape Town - It is said that these plant types originated in prehistoric times.

Where the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans meet.

Cape of Good Hope

Horse back riding on a Cape Town beach.

A very good percussion band in Cape Town.

Barbara and Chewbaca

Laurie Marker

Chewbaca

This is "chewy's" favorite tree - his play tree. Cheetahs will sit in trees to watch for prey. Farmers will sometimes put traps in by trees in order to catch cheetahs.