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(1985 Eddie Murphy hit produced by Rick James? Anyone? No. Ok. On with the Blog)

We've been busy little Springboks since we last checked into the Blogosphere. Mostly that means we've spent an unspeakable amount of time on the bus. These aren't your luxurious, posh, climate controlled, "hey Jenny should i have my complimentary champagne before or after the film?" Argentine buses. These are cramped, sweltering, late, scary, local in your lap, "Hey, Jenny I just walked in on a fat naked woman shooting up heroine in the bus bathroom." African buses. (actually happened, I thought the roads were way too bouncy to hit a vein properly). And we spent some serious time on them. Get your calculators and add along with me: 11 hours plus 10 hours plus 10 more plus 5 (1 on foot for craps sake) plus 11 hours plus 26 freakin hours. The number you end up with is roughly equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of Botswana.

Traveling through Africa independently is like eating a diamond studded bran muffin. The result is extended periods dense with shit, interspersed with sporadic moments of shimmering, sparkling brilliance.

First the shit and we've seen more than a Taco Bell bathroom. Our travels started with a bus ride from Jo-Burg to Maputo, Mozambique. There's a visa requirement to enter the country, but we've gotten all of our visas at the border everywhere we've gone and had no problems. So, accompanied by our new pal Phil (yes another Australian), we hopped on a bus and made the trip without any sort of troubles. That's a lie of course.(if you believed it, please consult our Bolivia blogs to learn how travel has gone for us so far.) We got yelled at by the attendant (i struggle with African names because of accent, but i beleive hers was Cerberus three-headed hound of Hell, forgive my dialect) "No Visa, No Board" she screamed. We finally coaxed her to let us onto the bus by saying we'd get it at the border and if we held them up they could leave us. (they won't actually leave us will they? foreshadowing...) So the trip started fine, until we got to the border. The scene was absolute chaos. Everyone was running around like crazed chickens wearing the look of intense confusion you'd see on a group of Texans in a heated "Spell your own Name" Contest. The concept of a line apparently hasn't matriculated it's way so far south because customs was a shouting, pushing, clowns into a Volkswagen bug kind of affair. We battled, shoved, sprinted, and pistol whipped our way to the front of the line, knowing that if all of our fellow passengers finished before us our bus would leave us behind. So we payed our visas, handed over our passports and sighed a huge breath of relief since these things usually take the amount of time needed to put the stamp to the paper. that is until we heard, "Ok, just step into the waiting room and it'll be about 15 minutes." Crap on a stick. So we wait, and wait, and wait, watching all the faces we recognize from the bus trickle through. Phil goes to sweet talk the bus driver, Jenny goes to secure our bags if they get left behind and I continue to wait. Finally our passports come up and I grab them from the customs agent like a baton in the 400m relay. I go running down the tarmac (i think that's only at airports, but it sounds cool) at my fastest sprint. What followed was a riotous game of "Where's the White People?" We finally rendezvous in time to book the final 100 meters to the bus as the last passengers boarded. We flashed a smug "we made it bitch" smile to the attendant and passed out in our seats for the next few hours til we made it to Maputo.

More shit: I've been on Malaria meds for three weeks by the time we hit Mozambique. The side effects of which include nausea, headache, increased sun sensitivity and scary, violent lucid dreams. But you have to take them because Moz has cerebral malaria, which is the kind that contributes so heartily to all those insane death statistics. Malaria is the biggest killer in Africa and no one will let you forget it. Which results in the most intense bouts of hypochondria the world has ever seen. Sunburn, hunger, fatigue and having to pee all become concrete indicators that you've got the sickness. Your days of fun and sun are all underlined by a latent, intense terror that at any time you could be in ruin. Good times.

What else?? Oh yeah, i got my credit card info stolen. I checked my bank statement on the internet and noticed some very dubious charges on my account. ("Baby, I swear, I honestly just can't remember spending a thousand dollars on mufflers yesterday") So I had to cancel my card, call the States during normal banking hours (which start at 7 pm here) and we're having to live off of Jenny's meager funds until a new card can get to me. (Fortunately I happen to have been spawned by a duo of Superparents who are bringing the folks at Bank of America to their knees as we speak.)

Also, Swaziland Sucks.

Finally on to those shining kernels of unreadable value:
There were a few moments that made the whole trip worthwhile. We went to a showing of the Lion King stage show at this ridiculously gaudy casino in Jo Burg. It was quite an incredible show (much to my chagrin since i was complaining about having to go for a week before). The experience was enhanced by the fact that all the characters were actual Africans. Mufasa's big booming James Earl Jones voice with the addition of that killer accent made the whole thing feel much more authentic. Jenny squealed like a school girl the entire time while I tried to maintain my macho despite the unbearable urge to bounce along to "I just can't wait to be king." Also our tickets were less than $20, find that on Broadway.

A huge portion of those crazy bus trips were used to get ourselves to a tiny little town on the Mozambique coast called Tofo. Tofo actually found a way to blow even the best beaches Brazil had to offer out of the water. The beach was too perfect to describe, the weather amazing and best of all, there was no one there. We're used to stepping over people and dodging soda salesmen on our perfect beaches. Here we could walk for a half hour while only passing a single local boy selling brackets. Also the water, our first dip into the Indian ocean, was warm as a nice salty bath and the clearest visibility I've ever seen. For the most part, we spent our days lounging on the hammocks, scarfing great food and generally trying to do as little as possible.

We did however embark on quite the adventure during our time there. We booked a tour that started out by Jenny, Phil, Myself, this Italian Marco (a traveling legend who once traveled overland from Indonesia to Rome!) and a few others launching our speedboat through pounding surf. Tofo is too small for a dock. We got destroyed by the waves and had to keep pushing as we hit swells so large they meant that most of the time my feet were digging into nothing but open water. We finally launch the boat and head out to sea through massive surf caused by this crazy Tropical storm that was near Madgasscar at the time (it hit Tofo 3 days after we left). Once out on the ocean, the search began. After two hours all we had seen was a turtle and rusted oil barrel. We were getting sunburnt and seasick (Phil and I were the only ones out of ten who didn't yack) and altogether impatient. Finally our guide stopped the boat and said "Allright, there it is." I was in the water faster than you can say Sweet Potato Biscuits. I hit the drink, took a few seconds to adjust my mask and pressurize my ears and quickly looked up... straight into the face of a 20 foot whale shark. This mammoth and docile creature was just cruising through the tide with no concerns in the world. We followed the slow swimming fish for a good 45 minutes. Sometimes it would dive to about 30 feet and just be this immense writhing blackness below you before it would gradually come back up. Jenny and i got the best view of all because everyone else had jumped back into the boat due to sickness or fatigue and we swam along with it after one of its longer dives. While everyone else was stuck on the boat we were lucky enough to have it rise underneath us. It came so shallow that its fins actually breached the surface. Meanwhile Jenny and I darted around its body at no more than arm's length for a few solid minutes. I was able to feel the thrust from its tail fluke, watch its gills contract, observe the little fish that lived in its mouth, stare down its throat and even gaze into its eye for a brief yet undeniably romantic moment. No touching though (single tear). The shark finally gave me a look that said "I've got a hot date at the plankton fields" and disappeared into the crystal abyss. It was a sureally peaceful moment in time ever extenuated by the contrast of climbing back onto the deck to all the violently ill passengers and plowing at breakneck speed through the surf until we hit the beach (at full speed) and rolled back onto dry land. Jenny's final comment on the experience was a big glob of watery puke on my feet. Elephant Juice you too baby.

It's not many who can use the phrase "my other shark experience" so I consider myself blessed. We had yet another shark encounter that couldn't have been more different. We woke at 5 in Cape Town before a 2-hour drive down the coast. We hopped on another boat (dock this time) and headed out to sea. After a half hour of chumming and waiting, we finally got our first glimpse of the violent fury that is the great white shark. We spent the next 3 hours watching the sharks attack our bait lines and gasping every time it would rip the poor tuna's head off. When they asked for volunteers to get in the water, Jenny and I got in our wetsuits and faster than you can say "holy crap this water's freezing" were in the cage. Watching these beasts from eye level is unbelievable. They would just circle around and attack the bait a few feet from our faces (i didn't quite struggle to follow the no touching rule here). There was one moment, when submerged in the cage, the shark became interested in our movement and swam straight up, maybe two feet from the bars, and stared straight at us. We hung there: Myself, Jenny, the shark, my genitalia (which was somewhere in my throat) for a few beats just taking each other in. The shark as fascinated by us as we with it. Then it gently floated away behind the murky curtain of the sea. That was all we needed. We got out of the cage for good because you can't possibly compete with that.

After that we've been gallivanting around Cape Town, taking in it's great beaches, wine tasting, and nightlife. By nightlife i mean being kept up by rowdy jackasses (Monday night we didn't sleep at all because at 2 am a concert started in the bar across the street that i could only describe as Raffi doing Bon Jovi covers.) We don't love South Africa. It's too familiar. Everyone dresses, talks, and acts the same as at home. Cape Town is beautiful. The beaches are gorgeous and the whole city sits beneath Table Mountain, which breaks incoming clouds like waves crashing onto a rock in truly breathtaking fashion. It would however fit beautifully in La Jolla. It's like home without the pizzaz. Nothing is fresh or original. It's all just a co-opted version of some other country's culture. If South Africa were a boy band, it would be O-Town. (It's important to note that when I speak of South African culture, I mean white South African culture. The lack of safety and infrastructure down here confines the traveler to the minute bubble of the white upper class. It's a frustrating and saddening state to come to a country with such dissidence between cultures and only be able to tell one side's story.)

Well, we're off to Egypt today. Then Rome with Ma and Pa Childers. Until next time, watch I love the 80's so you get the title pun.

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