London Town

A timely reminder from 5am in the morning in what is in effect my home town. After 4 years directly and pretty much my whole life indirectly around this place I've finally realised what I am going to miss most about London - that is when I bail like most half-sensible people....

....namely that I shall always miss the opportunity of walking across a great city from top to bottom just to get home. To know where you're heading (more or less). To never really feel threatened. In a nutshell to feel at home transversing one of the true metropolises of this world and simply love doing it. After a good hour and a half's walk to finally cross Waterloo bridge and stare at the unique view. Savouring it. Lapping it up. 4.45 am, yourself and the view.

Glorious and to be most decidedly missed!

CAPE TOWN

I have departed and my time in Africa is no more....for now. From the confines of Dubai's very boring airport a quick note on a very special place...

Cape Town...

High expectations totally blown away. A place of many negatives, but as far as I could gauge superlative positives. In short, I fell for the place. The people, the vistas, the attitude and of course Table Mountain. That monstrous jutt of rock that looms over the city in a way that it quite simply should not. It is imposing and unreal. It has to be seen to be believed.

To going to bed at 6 with a final Jaeger in hand and waking up at 12 with another waiting. To trekking up Lions Head and being greeted with views beyond views. To zooming to Camp's bay in a random's sports car and watching the sun fall from the African sky for the final time. To the accompanying mojito. To sharks, the Atlantic and the Pacific. To fun. To attitude and the people I met. To dancing bare foot and chilling on a Long Street balcony.

A place to which I must return.

More later....soon...

Stormin' to Maputo

Sitting on the back seat of a Mozambican bus. Behind, a second bus on dodgy tow. In front a guy with a colostomy bag - seemingly at death's door. On either side people. A crush.

A flash in the distance, a far off storm. More flashes, rumbles smothered by the struggling engine.

Instantaneously, a singular bolt of lightning rockets from the sky and earths in the red dirt.

The flashes multiply. The lightning forks. First to the front, then to the side.......then all around. Rain drops appear on the windscreen, but again noise is muffled.

Bolts of electricity more stark, impressive and multiple then I have witnessed eject all around. The instant discharge seems anything like an instant. Staring out the window your vision jumps to the next flash... and the next - a reflex reaction, instinct triggering base emotion.

"She's electric" plays on the stereo. A huge smile on my face as we ride the storm into Maputo.

South Luangwa National Park

I will find it hard to describe just how amazing a place South Luangwa is and how wonderful a time we had there.

Four hours on a nightmare road north of Chipata (a corrugated dirt surface that causes trucks to vibrate and slide - we ourselves skidded off the road once) - an Eden. 9,000 or so square km of Savannah and woodland. The park is shielded by the Luangwa river. In rainy season a wide arching river. Now in the dry season a thinning strip of water filled with an estimated 19,000 hippos and flanked by fat Nile crocs, basking in the baking sun.

Across the thinly wooded plain herds of impala, kudo and water buck. Nervous water buffalo and zebra. Every so often the imposingly lanky, but somehow gracefully goofy presence of a giraffe or four.

Lakes filled with fish and perused by thousands of birds. Herons, ibis, the odd duck. Peering down from above mighty fish eagles with their bright white heads. Baboons sitting on their butts.
Then, out of nowhere a pride of lions. Chewing over the remains of yesterdays buffalo. The huge male sitting nonchalantly. Lionesses stretching. Cubs playing.

At night the atmosphere changes. Lions are on the move. Civets and Jenets climb down from the trees (each creature somewhere between a mongoose and a cat). Hyenas prowl, menacingly. Miniature owls scower the terrain for the odd elephant shrew. And then.... a leopard. With stealth it stalks a warthog, strikes and squeezes the squeaking life out of a youngster. Then chews on the mortal remains from the vantage of a tree.

Quite a place.... and here's some further insight from a lens:

Until next time....