Lost!

 

Ashima was inside a machine that hurtled through the space-time fabric, slicing it with the silence of vacuum that filled the empty spaces in the Milky Way. Around her at a distance were nebulae with their vividly colored stars. She could see sparkling stars dot the space outside and blue, red and yellow clouds creating swirls that breathed warmth into the cold, unsympathetic blackness.

Ashima looked out of her speeding vehicle. She was sitting curled, as if in a womb and she had no control over her own situation. Fifty and with knees that hurt, this was an uncalled for adventure… she would love to be out of it. Ashima had a bad left knee. Her kneecap had got displaced for some reason, which she herself had not been able to figure out. After two years of physiotherapy, she was able to walk. But, she could not run, jump, dance or crawl…

As Ashima tried to move her mind away from the pain in her knees, a blinding light seemed to tear the space-time continuum and she landed with a thud on a solid surface. The capsule in which she had been hurtling opened and the seat almost ejected her out. She was back where she had been last week…in the grasslands of South Africa.

“Is it in Maropeng again?”Ashima wondered.

Around her was a clear blue sky, the kinds of which can only be seen in South Africa. She had been a bit intimidated by her adventure into the cave of Mrs Ples, the Taung child and the Little Foot, the home to two to three million-year-old fossils that had been discovered from the 1940s to the 2013 if she recalled right.

The cave had been dark. She had gone with her family and a guide. They were in a group, which was being given a conducted tour of the cave. The cave had been fascinating though intimidating too. The guide had shown them minerals on the walls of the cave and fifteen meter long stalactites… evidently lot of South Africa had subterranean caves… they were even explored in King Solomon’s Mines. And the lake in this cave had reminded her of the lake seen by Allan Quatermain and his cronies. She had just re-read the book before coming to South Africa. The huge lake with it’s blind worms squiggling in the corners brought to her mind the blind fishes in another cave of subterranean Africa on the edges of Kalahari. The blind fishes had been colorful, almost like bits of flame. They were part of a TV documentary by Richard Attenborough. They had watched it just before they caught their flight to South Africa from Singapore… only here the worms were tiny and colorless, almost white.

The guide had clearly stated that the group was not allowed to wander as the cave systems were enormous and if one wandered away, one could be completely lost and eventually die of starvation… It had been difficult for Ashima to keep pace but she had come all the way to see this… see it she must… so she had trudged along till she almost collapsed from exhaustion. They had to crawl or slide along parts of the cave. As Ashima could not put her weight on her knees or crawl on the hard surface for fear of injuring her kneecap again, she had to bend double and walk. It was really tough, even though the stretch was short. She felt breathless and on the brink of collapse! Finally, when her heart beat till she felt exhausted with it’s pace, she told her family she could not survive the ordeal! Her twenty-year-old son had called the guide, who had been very kind to her. She helped Ashima take off her woolens which she had needed in the cold wind outside but was not needed inside the cave with its constant perennial temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. The group stopped as she rested and she went slowly the rest of the way. In any case they had been close to the exit. Despite the terror of the situation, Ashima had a tremendous sense of achievement and she had decided that she would make herself physically fit to see more of the subterranean world! But, definitely not this soon… and also she needed the time to improve her fitness level…maybe in a few years…not just yet…

The guide had also said that no one knew exactly how far these caves could stretch… Such caves were made of limestone and they formed a receptacle for varieties of fossils over the last three million years. They believed that the hominids fell into sudden sinkholes that appeared in these sites… what if she too fell into something similar, thought Ashima… Just as she feared, like Alice in Wonderland, Ashima was plunged into a hole that seemed to stretch out endlessly… she was falling, falling into a sinkhole… all alone like the millions of years old Little Foot they found… Ashima passed out.

When she came to, Ashima found herself surrounded by strange monkey like creatures almost as tall as her. They were looking at her and making funny noises. They looked like the pictures of hominids she had seen. Ashima was terrified! She was lying on some kind of soft fern. It was a pale colored world… the vegetation around was more brown and white, actually sepia toned, and there was a strange kind of light that emanated from the walls that surrounded the group. Was it some kind of phosphorescence?

Where was she? As she regained her consciousness, she could hear the trickle of water… her throat felt incredibly parched… These creatures were touching her with their furry hands… she fainted again…this time from fear.

Ashima came to her senses again as some kind of a soft receptacle was being pushed into her mouth and she felt a trickle of water flow down her throat…she was too scared to open her eyes. Reluctantly, she looked up and she found a pair of kind eyes looking down at her. The face was that of a hominid. As soon as she opened her eyes, more of these creatures came running to see her…

“Where am I?” wondered Ashima, “In some subterranean world? Who are these creatures and what has happened?”

From a distance, she heard a voice say, “I was lost too and I landed in their world… I have seen eyeless monstrosities. I have battled sightless dinosaurs. These creatures are very kind compared to those…”

Ashima turned to the source of the voice. A man dressed in ragged khaki and with a long beard stood at a little distance. His beard was of an indeterminate brown…Ashima’s whole body felt cold and hurt… she felt all her bones were broken.

“ There was no speech a few million years ago… we have both travelled back in time to a time lock,” the reedy voice drifted to her as the man came forward to her line of vision.

He had a frayed unkempt wispy beard and an uncouth look about him. His clothes were in tatters. His feet had the remnants of boots on them. She looked at him from the side of her eyes in surprise. He saw her look and started speaking again.

“I am Professor Nowiki from Poland… I made a time machine, which I hoped would help me travel back in time to meet Prof Lidenbrock, the one who went into the Icelandic Snaefellsjokull volcano and came out of Strombolii… I wanted to join his expedition. I was living in the early twentieth century… The first trial took me to a world, which was filled with sightless monstrosities. When I managed to escape back to my machine, the time knob malfunctioned and brought me here. As I stepped out of the machine, it collapsed into a sinkhole and disappeared… I cannot access it any more… I have been in this time lock for almost a century now… I think…”

As his voice faded, Ashima felt terrified. She was surrounded by curious furry hominids. They occasionally touched her. Some of them touched the professor and then her, perhaps to sense the difference. She wanted to get up and run away. She wanted to be securely back with her family… Her whole adventure had landed her in a nightmarish situation. Would she ever see her family again… her two sons and husband…She was desperate to see them, to find them…As tears trickled down her terrified eyes, she heard her husband’s voice calling out to her, “Ashima, Ashima…. what happened? Why are you shivering and weeping?”

And Ashima opened her eyes. Thank God she was on her own bed, by her husband, Sharad. What she had witnessed was, in reality, a nightmare… it was still night…

She sat up and told Sharad the story… “Well it is a good story… you could write it down at some point… maybe an impact of visiting the cave and watching too many adventure movies, Star Trek…”

Ashima took a sip of water from the bottle by her bedside and laughed and said, “You are right you know… except, maybe, the bearded guy was perhaps a figment contributed by my love for Journey to the Centre of the Earth… And I really want to see more wonderful things like that cave, maybe go down the Snaefellsjokull volcano…”

“ It is 3 am! Night still. Go to sleep now… crazy woman,” said Sharad half asleep. Ashima lay down, cuddled close to Sharad and closed her eyes again.

 

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Animal Antics

Monkey

Kingfisher

Heron

Mudskipper

 

A monkey sat and watched the passers by in the middle of the walk with thoughtful eyes. A little boy was trying to hold a conversation with the creature…the monkey stared at the child with a patient look. Passers by were taking pictures with their mobiles. I was returning home from a walk by the waterfront and paused to take a picture too.

Every now and then, I see otters at play in the ‘river’ in front of my home. They dive and they swim in the fresh water reserve. One of them even likes to pose for cameras! Earlier the fresh water reserve was a sea inlet and was called a ‘river’. The name has stuck to this water body, which has a walk lining its shores up to the sea. A decade or two ago, we used to have schools of small shiny silver fish jumping in the water during high tide. I do not know the scientific name of the fish but we christened them the jumping fish…Now, they have been replaced by fishes that don’t jump, otters and turtles.

Snail eggs

We also see a variety of snails and birds fishing by the river. The snails lay eggs that look very pink, almost the color of a flower! Especially visible by the river are a herons, egrets and kingfishers. A Brahminy kite glides in the sky every now and then. I have even spotted a koel on a treetop from my window at home, sitting by the river and calling out…somehow the koel’s song always reminds me of the cuckoo in Wordsworth’s Solitary Reaper.

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

And a “Cuckoo-bird” can also be found around here…in fact many cuckoos…

The other day when I was returning home from my evening walk, a monitor lizard crossed the jogging track on its way to the river. It gathered a number of joggers. Some took pictures and some merely watched.

Now, you must be thinking I live near a zoo or in an animal reserve.

I don’t.

I live in a flat in the heart of Singapore. Many perceive this city as a paradise for shoppers and a place lined with cement brick and mortar. Almost half of Singapore is green (47 per cent) according to a research published by an online website (http://www.skyscrapercity.com) whereas Shanghai has 2.6 per cent of greenery, Mumbai 2.5 per cent. New York and San Francisco have greenery below 20 per cent! And in the 47 per cent greenery, live birds and animals in harmony with man and nature.

Each morning, I wake up to bird songs. I watch butterflies flit from the yellow angsana flowers that cover the heads of the trees near my home. If the butterflies are yellow, they almost seem like flowers taking flight. White and pale green butterflies do stand out.

The other avian visitors near my home are sunbirds, pigeons, mynahs, doves, orioles and flocks of parrots. The orioles blend in well with the yellow angsana blooms and like the butterflies, seem to become a part of it. Parrots on the top of trees look almost like quivering leaves. The only issue is they make so much noise that you know there are parrots out there somewhere…they can also be seen in the seaside parks squawking and flying from tree to tree! Sometimes they fly in huge flocks across the river.

Oriole

Dove

Sunbird by it’s nest

Once, one of my neighbors had a sunbird nest in her balcony garden. It was a little yellow sunbird with a nest made of dry leaves and twigs… such a quaint sight!

Oriental whip snake

We discovered snakes sometimes live by the sea. One evening, when my children were renting cycles from a shop by the beach, we saw a green snake entangled amid some vines outside the shop. It almost looked like an extension of the plant! Later on googling, we found it was called the oriental whip snake. Evidently, a family of whip snakes nested near the shop and the shop owners let them be… live and let live was the motto they adopted!

Pigeons by the pool

Pigeons and mynahs often take sips from our swimming pool. Every now and then, we have white pigeons among the grey. Thankfully, in our condominium, we only have bird visitors. I heard a monkey went for a swim in the pool of a neighboring condominium on a hot day!

Why he opted for the pool when there is a fresh water reserve right next to the condo is something that remains a mystery… maybe the monkey liked the color of the pool. After his swim, he felt peckish. He found a table laden with food in a home with open windows. He helped himself. Unfortunately, humans draw a line at sharing their meals with monkeys and they were forced to call authorities to help. I believe, the monkey has been relocated to greener pastures!

Monkeys are a common site in most nature reserves in Singapore. We have had monkeys relaxing on the roof of our car when we were returning from a walk in a nature reserve one day. Ducks, swans, crocodiles and mudskippers can also be spotted in some of them. Of course one has to be careful in reserves with crocodiles. Reserves with crocodiles do put up signs that ask one to watch out for these creatures. One good thing is most Singaporeans who visit these places are educated enough not to tamper or tease wildlife. These creatures live outside the realm of ‘tourist spots’ or zoos, in places more frequented by the local population. Sometimes you can see flying squirrels leap from tree to tree though they are less common than normal squirrels or monitor lizards.

Crocodile

Squirrel

Snail

Monkey lazing

I have seen a mynah frighten a monitor lizard as it strolled across a lawn littered with picnickers on a Sunday afternoon. The mynah squawked and pecked near its eyes till the monitor lizard found shelter under a fern and rock overhanging. A crowd gathered to watch our tiny, feathered friend object to sharing the lawn with a lizard that was more than ten times it’s size.

Monitor lizards by and large seem to walk around freely. I remember, one rainy day, we had a huge traffic jam in the road outside my home. The jam had been caused by a monitor lizard parking itself in the middle of the road! Cars had to wait for it to cross, pretty much as we did in Kruger animal reserve in South Africa. Of course, there it could be monkeys, zebras, kudus or elephants crossing. In Singapore, it was a jam caused by merely a monitor lizard!

 

Monitor lizard fleeing in fear

 

 

 

 

Book of the Week

 

 

Title: Peony

Author: Pearl S. Buck

Published: 1948

 

Peony is a novel set in Kaifeng, China, in the 1850s. It is my favorite among Pearl S Buck novels because it propounds tolerance and looks beyond the borders of religion, culture and nationality. It gives a clear portrayal of how creating walls in the name of culture and communities can only bring them tumbling down.

The other thing that I liked was how Peony, the protagonist, develops into a wise and respected woman, an advisor to her former employers, revered by the people who she served as a child.

Peony, named after a flower that has mythological significance in both Greek and Chinese lore, starts her life at eight years of age as a bond maid in a rich foreigner’s family that had emigrated from Palestine a few generations earlier to avoid harassment. She was bought as a companion to the only son of the house. She learnt writing and reading while her young master studied. Peony, as expected, fell in love with her young master, David. However, knowing that she would never be accepted as a daughter-in-law by the family, she overcame her desires and helped her young master marry a bride who would bring him happiness in the long run.

Her mistress, an upholder of the Judaism in China, was keen that her son marries a Rabbi’s daughter. Both the Jewish women (David’s mother and future fiancée) loved what they believed to be Judaism as it was interpreted by their Rabbi. They believed that they were the chosen ones and superior to the ‘ heathens‘. Their religion drew borders and created only rifts with the local population. In the middle of the book, there is an interesting dialogue between the Rabbi and a liberal Chinese trader, Kung Chen.

“There is only one true God, and Jehovah is His name,” the Rabbi declared, trembling all over as he spoke.

“So the followers of Mohammed in our city declare,” Kung Chen said gravely, “but they call his name as Allah. Is he the same as your Jehovah?”

“There is no god beside our God,” the Rabbi said in a loud high voice. “He is the One True God!”

Kung Chen, a buddhist and an open thinker, is appalled by the Rabbi’s intolerance and tells David, Peony’s young master, “None can love those who declare that they alone are the sons of God.”

Perhaps, with this one statement Pearl S Buck has summed up the issue faced by many in the current day world, intolerance towards others’ beliefs.

I have not looked into the authenticity of the historical fact or the religious belief of those times. But what struck me was that this is an age-old truth. Intolerance only breeds hatred and violence, as it does in the book.

Earlier the Jews who came for refuge to Kaifeng were not intolerant. Over a period of time, the group grew smaller and became more rigid.

In the past, a liberal minded follower of the same Judaism had engraved on a plaque in the same temple where the Rabbi propounded his intolerance: “Worship is to honor Heaven, and righteousness is to follow the ancestors. But the human mind has always existed before worship and righteousness.”

It is the human mind, which helps us make choices. When we stop thinking, we lose touch with reality and become fanciful, as had the Rabbi and his daughter. After all, the human mind has been made by God who, probably, wanted us to think and take responsibility for our thoughts and action.

Peony by her actions generates the positive feelings of calmness, peace, harmony and tolerance whereas the Rabbi’s daughter generates passion, violence, intolerance and fear. She is so passionate and intolerant in her outlook that she comes to a sad end.

Peony, on the other hand, gains in social and spiritual stature.

I also love what the book does with Peony, a woman who might have become a concubine in the royal court of China. She defines her own position by her selflessness and opts for a more meaningful existence. She rejects power and glory for love and kindness, values that would make for a happier world.

Her role in the latter part of the book reminds me of a few lines that are often quoted and were written by Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney in Illinois around the same period as when this story was set…

 

Little deeds of kindness,

Little words of love,

Help to make earth happy

Like the Heaven above.

Cape Town Cruise

Rain clouds heading for land

Cape of Good Hope

Tabletop Mountain

Penguins at Boulder beach

Dassie

As I stood on top of the lighthouse in Cape Town and the wind ripped through my hair and face, I could see rain clouds drifting towards the landmass from all sides. I was filled with a sense of wonder and exhilaration. Those were the seas that Bartolomeu Dias must have sailed in 1488 when he landed after being tossed across the stormy waves on a landmass that he christened the Cape of Storms. And that is where I was standing! So, much had happened since then. The whole world had changed over this one discovery. It had drawn closer in quest of ‘Gold, God and Glory’.

The Cape was only renamed Cape of Good Hope by Dias’ monarch, the King of Portugal, King John. He called it Cape of Good Hope “ for the promise it gave of finding India, so desired and for so many years sought after”.

Vasco Da Gama was the one who, with the help of a pilot from Kenya, ultimately ‘found’ the sea route to India. He landed in the Keralite city of Khozikode (Calicut) in 1498, ten years after his predecessor had discovered the Cape of Good Hope. The Arabs had been trading with India from the seventh century. However, they did not need to use the Cape of Good Hope as they crossed only the Indian Ocean. The Arabs also made no attempt at blocking other traders. The Portuguese subsequently conquered land to try to monopolize the trade. The British, the Dutch and the French later beat them at their own game!

Cape of good Hope

While driving through the park towards the Cape, we had seen distant crosses dot the landscape in memory of Dias and Da Gama…but the highlight was the view from the Cape with the sea stretching out and beating against the tall cliffs with the strong breeze

I could see the old lighthouse at a distance. There is a trekking route to that point too as there is to the beach.

view from the top of the Cape of Good Hope

Walking trail to the beach

The new lighthouse is above the ticket counter and restaurants. Tickets are only needed if you ride the trolley, which takes you part of the way to the lighthouse. The trolley does not go up to the top. You have to take the stairs built into the cliffs. There is a walking trail all the way up too. The view from the top with the sea beating on all sides is unparalleled. A sense of euphoria envelops ones being as the beauty of the wide expanse makes ones heart sing.

The cow-sized goat

Below is the beach, unlittered, white and pristine.  The walk to the beach has breathtaking views all along. When we headed back to the visitor parking from the beach, we saw a huge goat grazing. It was almost the size of a cow!

Interestingly, Cape of Good Hope is not the Southern most point of Africa. The Southern most point is Cape of Agulhas about 150 km east-southeast of the point where I stood. That is where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean meet… but the history of mankind found the Cape of Good Hope and popularized it long before the factual misconception was revealed.

The restaurants are near the parking lot, midway between the beach and the lighthouse. In the outdoor seating area, there was a monkey chasing a lady with a pizza. He wanted a bite too! While one could merrily enjoy the plight of another chased by a monkey, it was difficult for me to empathize with the red wing starlings that I met at the Cape. The birds wanted a bite of my sandwich whenever I stepped into the outdoor picnic area. They swooped down so close to my hand that I could almost feel the beat of their wings. I was compelled to run and take shelter inside the self-service restaurant. I did not dare step out till I finished my sandwich!

Starlings at Cape of Good Hope waiting for a sandwich!

Seagulls on a picnic table

Egyptian goose

Ducks roosting

As somebody told us, the birds in Cape Town are crazy… we saw an Egyptian goose knock at the window of a jewelry store in the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. It stood patiently and knocked but, unfortunately, no one answered. It waited and waddled but went back to knocking every now and then… a very persistent and patient bird one must say. We saw ducks roosting on their eggs along the edges of this historic area, named after the British monarch and the prince, who made a splash in this part of the world with his visit to Africa in 1860.

Seagulls were one of the most prominent occupants of the Waterfront. They screeched, they flew, they even occupied most of the outdoor picnic tables made for people. They had no fear of humans. They did not sleep at night! We were staying in a hotel in the Waterfront. Sometimes, the seagulls even knocked on our windowpanes late at night.

The Waterfront is of course dotted with shops and restaurants.

Old Well at the Museum

The other interesting thing is the old battery that they dug up along the waterfront, the Chavoness Battery built in the early eighteenth century to protect Cape Town. This was excavated in the 1990s by students from the Cape Town University and now stands as a museum. The Chavoness Battery Museum had some interesting exhibits like guns, cannons, cannon balls, an old well and walls. It was an extension of the Castle of Good Hope. The Castle of Good Hope was built earlier in the 1660s by the Dutch. That is now located in the heart of Cape Town and houses the Castle Military Museum.

One of the things most visible from the Waterfront is the Table Mountain. It forms a backdrop to the whole of Cape Town and is one of the most popular tourist venues in South Africa. The cliffs at the Cape of Good Hope are an extension of the Table Mountain National Park. The Table Mountain is a flat plateau made of rocks dating back to 450 to 500 million years. It is home to one of the most iconic creatures we had never met before met, the dassie (hyrax). They belong to the same clan as elephants, Paenungulata. One would presume that relatives of elephants would be huge, like mammoths. But these were not huge. They were rodents, cute ones that liked to pose for the camera. They basked on the rocky surface of the Table Mountain absorbing the heat from the sun and attention from tourists.

View of Robin Island from Tabletop

Tabletop

view of the bay

Table Mountain has fabulous views and unique plants. You can see the whole of Cape Town stretching out to the sea. It glitters and glimmers like jewel in the sunshine. The sea changes colors as the waves splash against the rocks and white foamy waves create fluid borders that keep changing. One can see Robin Island, where the famous Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. The vastness and the sense of freedom one experiences at the top are unique as is the geographical structure of this National Park. These mountains form a natural amphitheater to the city bowl and the table bay. While queuing for almost a couple of hours to get to the top of the mountain in the cableway, the view is one of the things one can enjoy. From the top, the view is breathtaking as is the walk around.

Agama Lizard

Dassie

Sunbird

Starling

Sunbird

Other than catching up with dassies, colorful sunbirds, red winged starlings and an agama lizard basking under a rock, we saw the unique flower called Protea, after which is named a hotel chain adopted by Marriot in South Africa. The branch in Cape Town has history. It is housed in an old prison built for white prisoners and showcases torture weapons!

Red Bus

Behind the hotel, by the Waterfront and aquarium (which was under renovation) is theRed Bus Tour office. The Red Bus is a great way to experience this sunshiny town with fabulous beaches. You can sit on top of the open bus and take a tour of the whole city or get off where you want. We took a red bus to and from the Table Mountain and got to see not just the Tabletop, where we spent the day, but also fabulous beaches on the way back. We even thought we saw a whale at a far distance. The whale disappeared before we could photograph it.

Penguins are more open to photography we discovered at the Boulder Beach. The South African penguins are cute and funny to watch. They waddle when they walk and tumble and glide into the water.

Penguins at Boulder Beach

Swimming

Mingling and nesting

Though the Boulder Beach, like the Cape of Good Hope, is a part of the Table Mountain National Park, it can not all be done on the same day. Distances are huge and to do the Park justice, you need at least three days to a week. On the way to Boulder Beach, we stopped at a port in Simon Town. This is a naval base and a good spot to buy souvenirs. I bought a few things from a local artisan who told me her name. Her name had a clicking sound in it and she said, it meant luck. This is one of the customs I found most appealing in South Africa. The locals tell you their names and the meaning of it before they sell you anything.

The sunsets, like in the rest of this beautiful country, are like molten colors rippling through the horizon.

Tablecloth of mist starts over Tabletop

The other unique thing I found was the ‘ tablecloth’ that spread over the Table Mountains. When it rained or grew cloudy, a misty cover seemed to spread itself over the mountain and one could see it distinctly from the Waterfront! The tabletop disappeared in the mists! It was a strange sight and one could keep gazing at it… just like Wordsworth did at the daffodils…

I wonder what he would have written if he saw the views and the amazing landscapes in South Africa…

Mist covers Tabletop

 

 

 

Where the Journey Begins…

Along the way

The Three Rondavales

Bourke’s Potholes

The first thing you notice when you drive out of Johannesburg is the vastness of the landscape. It stretches in endless fields of grass that flow in the breeze like the lion’s mane. Patched with light gold and green against a vivid blue sky, it is a restful experience after the toils of the city.

The savannahs of Africa rolled out a welcome to us as we journeyed to check out a part of the continent where mankind originated… after all it was the original home of our ancestors and that is where we all belonged… between Ethiopia, where lived Lucy, and South Africa, where were unearthed more bones of our ancestors who lived there many thousands and millions of years ago. We only moved out to populate the world about a hundred thousand years ago….

Museum at Maropeng

We went to Maropeng to familiarize ourselves with what is known as the Cradle of Humankind. Maropeng rose out of the landscape like the hills that dotted all of this area. It was covered with green grass and resembled a small hillock. Only, we went inside this hillock to a museum that exhibited the bones found in the Cradle of Humankind. The Cradle of Humankind are a series of underground limestone caves which stretch 47, 000 hectares 50 km to the south of Johannesburg. Prior to 2010, it hosted more than a third of hominid fossils dating back to 3.5 million years. Here they found the skull of Mrs Ples, a 2.3 million year old fossil dug up in 1947, little younger to the 3.2 million year old Lucy found in Ethiopia. The most remarkable thing about the museum was that it started by telling us we were all united!

Bones of Homo Naledi

The skull is exhibited in the Maropeng visitor center and museum along with the latest bone findings of the Homo Naledi from the Rising Star Cave Systems. The Rising Star caves housed bones of 15 hominids belonging to a new species in the hominid genealogy, the Homo Naledi. While archaelogists argue whether we have a direct link to Homo Naledi, what I found most interesting in the Maropeng museum was it stated the obvious at the entrance, “We are one species”.

I loved the way the museum posters and write-ups said all mankind is united under the banner of the homo family.

Then we went to explore the Sterkfontien Cave where had rested the bones of Mrs Ples(a 2.3 million old Australopithecus Africanus dug up in 1947). We were welcomed to the ‘home of mankind’ by fellow human guides … only they looked different and spoke better English than what I am used to hearing in Singapore. They began the tour by welcoming us to our homeland! That was most marvelous… it was the first time we were in Africa and yet what a warm welcome!

The caves are actually not visible outside. They lie below the grasslands and hills. The caves are dimly lighted and a have constant temperature of 18degrees Celsius. We had to wear helmets with lights. It is not possible to go through these caves without guides, as people have been lost when they have wandered off on their own, I have heard.

Here rested the bones of Mrs Ples

We saw the place where they found Mrs Ples, strange rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites. Sometimes, we needed to crawl because the roof was so low and, sometimes, we needed to slide down smooth rock formations. We could not see much. One of the most interesting things was an underground lake. It had very clear water but we were not allowed to touch it, as this is a protected world heritage site. The guide shone her torch into the water and showed us eyeless worms. They were squiggling near the edges! As we slid down the last rock slide, the guide turned off the light and the cave was plunged into frightening abysmal darkness. We could not see our own hands! Perhaps this is what Allain Quatermain and his friends experienced when they were trapped in the treasure caves of King Solomon’s Mines…

I have never been caving but after the sweat, darkness, physical exertion and fear generated in my heart, I would still want to go back into more such caves. It was a cathartic experience. When we came out, I felt so fortunate to be alive and well! I experienced a sense of victory. I felt like an adventurer out of Indiana Jones, Laura Croft, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and King Solomon’s Mines. It gave me a sense of achievement to have survived what Mrs Ples or the less fortunate Homo Naledi could not survive. The guide told us that one of the possibilities was that these ancient creatures had fallen into sinkholes created by the large system of limestone caves in Africa! And in those days, there was no rescue and no lights inside the caves!

While, the Maropeng experience gave us a sense of being one species, the newly opened Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, made clear how men drew borders and hurt his fellow creatures to have what they considered a comfortable life.

At the Apartheid Museum

Sub-Saharan Africa had remained untouched by the outside world till the fifteenth century when Bartholomew Diaz found the Cape of Good Hope. After that ‘Gold, Glory and God’ found their way into different parts over the centuries. It was sad to see how the African hunter-gatherer culture was annihilated to a large extent by the colonizers who sought to raise the standards of the local population by cultural imposition. This must have been one of the bleakest periods in human history as with the help of technology and gunpowder the colonizers ‘tamed’ the colonized, worldwide. And it was only twenty years ago that South Africa was officially rid of apartheid. There were artifacts from the past and photographs documenting the plight mankind suffered.

Near the Apartheid Museum, is the Gold Reef City. This is an amusement park made out of an abandoned gold mine. It has good places to eat and it had rides for youngsters, preserved homes of European gold diggers and abandoned gold mines.

Inside the abandoned gold mine

The abandoned gold mines were the most interesting to visit. We descended 75 meters into the bowels of the Earth in a miner’s lift. The mine was evidently 4 kms deep. However, it had to be abandoned as it started filling up with water faster than they could pump out. Again, here a guided tour was imperative. Our guide showed us how the miners and overseers worked, dynamite boxes and first aid kits. We could hear the water flow all the time underground and we even saw it seeping through the walls.

This cave or mine was an easy stroll and did not generate any feelings of terror, as did the cave of Mrs Ples. Of course, one has to be free of vertigo, claustrophobia and heart conditions to make this descent. The lift is open and you can see the walls of the mine as you go down. It is an interesting experience.

The homes of the miners were like European cottages with an occasional raucous cry of the hadeda renting the air. Hadedas are one of the most common birds in Johannesburg. You find them everywhere, in gardens, on trees by the roadside… and once they wake up, they make sure everyone wakes up as they keep calling out… On my first day in Johannesburg, I was shocked to hear their call!

Hadedas

These creatures roamed the gardens of the miners and posed for pictures.

One of the quaint things we saw was a cup with a rim to hold up moustaches in one of the parlors! Unfortunately, we could not get a good picture of the cup due to it’s positioning. We had to look at the homes and objects through glass windows that restricted us only to the corridors of the homes. My younger son was fascinated by an ancient bathroom, a long drop!

Sandwiched between Johannesburg and Kruger Park is the scenic Panorama Drive. It passes through scenic Transvaal country. We stopped at a place called Dullstroom for lunch. This was a colonial settlement and looks like a little European town. Dullstroom is known for its trout. The place reminded me of a little town I had seen twenty years ago in USA called Helen of Georgia. It had the same old world charm with the addition of excellent trout that we had for lunch. The service was good and the bathrooms, like elsewhere in South Africa, very clean!

The Old Transvaal Inn at Dullstroom

Along the Panorama Drive, we saw another abandoned gold farm, now called Bourke’s Luck Potholes for the strange holes hewn into the rocks. This is located a few hours drive from Johannesburg and very close to the Kruger National Park in an area called, Mpumalanga. The Potholes are named after the gold digger who bought this land to mine gold. It is at the junction of the Blyde River, the river of joy, and the Treur River, the river of mourning. The Treur is a tributary of Blyde but was named the river of mourning in 1844. A group of Voortrekkers under Hendrik Potgieter was thought to have been lost as they sailed down this river. Hence it was named Treur, mourning. However, when they returned from Mozambique along another part of the river, it was christened, Blyde, the river of joy.

Potholes

Potholes

Potholes

Waterfall at Bourkes Potholes

potholes

The rocks at Potholes are hewn into formations like Swiss cheese or potholes. The colors of the rocks range from white and black to red and yellow. The currents are really strong. The ultimate beauty is the wide and high waterfall that gushes over these formations. Potholes, despite its strange nomenclature is one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

Blyde river Canyon

A little further down north is the Blyde River Canyon. This is one of the largest canyons in the world (according to Wikipedia) and, surprisingly, very green. It is a remarkable sight!

Along the canyon are the three Rondavels, a curious mountain formation that looks like thatched huts or rondavels. These formations are a result of erosion. The three geological formations along with the flat-topped mountain were at one time referred to as ‘The Chief and his three wives’. The flat topped mountain was named Mapjaneng (the chief) after a legendary Bapedi chief who defeated the invading Swazis in a battle near here.

The Three Rondavels or ‘The chief and his three wives’

The three peaks (from left to right) were named Magabolie, Mogoladikwe and Maseroto, after his three wives.

The Panorama Drive along the Blyde River transports one to unusual landscapes which haunt the senses with their uncanny and stunning colors and appearance.

View from God’s Window

God’s window, another attraction along the drive, is supposed to be very scenic with a fabulous view. It is scenic but after Potholes and the Rondavels, you wonder why they call it God’s windows… It has a great view but to me the Potholes were the most amazing of all God’s creation.

The distances in South Africa are vast. And it is truly glorious to have the feeling of endlessness that stretches out through the laid back landscape and the open clear skies. Their sunsets and sunrises leave one amazed. The panorama of the colors range from purple, yellow, gold, orange, blue and it seems the horizon has been set aflame.

While motoring around the vastness and beauty of South Africa, one feels the stretch and the call of the infinite universe. One falls in love with the vastness and beauty of this unique creation we call our home, the Earth.

An African Sunset

Looking for lions

Lionesses relaxing

Female Impalas

Leopard on the prowl

One sunny day, we went to look for lions in Kruger National Park in South Africa. We spotted zebras, giraffes, a leopard, a rhinoceros, elephants, hippopotamuses, baboons, impalas, kudus, a variety of birds and more fawns and monkeys and even, warthogs and crocodiles…but not the elusive king of beasts.

We heard four lions had escaped from Kruger during our sojourn. But did we meet any of them?

I think I heard them at midnight as I woke up to the sounds of roars in my hotel room at Kruger gate.

My elder son and our guide heard them too around six in the morning when they were queuing up for tickets to enter Kruger. We had to buy a permit every time we went into Kruger. As lions are supposed to be more likely to be visible in the small hours of the morning, we decided to enter as soon as the gates opened at 6.30 am. The rangers had said the lions were at the bridge in the hedges.

Lioness stalking it’s prey

We saw a lioness stalking her meal of water bucks around mid-day. Unfortunately, the waterbucks had sixth sense and walked gracefully to the other side of the waterhole, leaving the lioness hungry and lonely. She ultimately disappeared into the bushes.

On our last day, we saw three lionesses basking in the sun on a sand bank mid-morning. We were so excited that we got off the car and stood on the bridge watching them! Getting out of the vehicle is not something one does in Kruger for one could frighten the animals or become a prey to them incase they are hungry and starved, though they are supposed to be rather averse to human meat.

Male Impalas

Impalas are popular on the menu for predators. We spotted a leopard stalking a herd of impalas. A drongo let out a warning cry and alerted the impalas. The males stood alert looking out in all directions for the leopard. The leopard was cornered. Our guide told us a leopard is wary of the male impala’s antlers, which could well injure them, thus, retarding their ability to hunt. And if they were not able to hunt, they would starve and die. The leopard tried to go into hiding in the bushes but the impalas got the better of him. Four males with big antlers stood facing him as at least twenty to thirty female and young impalas walked gracefully away… There was no running, no chasing, no roaring… none of the excitement we had thought would be a part of our jungle adventure.

Though we did not see predators chase preys, we did see impalas and wildebeests chase each other in play and we did get chased by angry elephants a couple of times.

Giraffe grazing

Kudu crossing

Wildebeest crossing

Rhino crossing

Zebra crossing

Animals by and large liked to cross roads that were made for men to drive on in Kruger. We saw zebras crossing, impalas crossing, monkeys crossing, kudus crossing, wildebeests  crossings rhino crossing… and, we thought, therefore, as a matter of course elephants crossing…

The first time the elephant that was headed for the road got angered when my thirteen-year-old shouted for excitement on seeing a bull come towards the road and the car. Our windows were open. His voice carried and the elephant headed for us and our guide started the car and headed for the far distant reaches…

An angry elephant

The second time, we queued up with a number of cars to watch a herd cross the road. The big ones crossed. The little ones crossed. The medium ones crossed. But, the biggest one had yet to cross. We were all watching one young elephant that seemed to have turned berserk and rushed every now and then to the road and trumpeted. We wondered what was up? We also wondered what had happened to the biggest one till our guide saw a huge, angry elephant charging towards the car in his rear view mirror as the vehicle was in it’s path. The big bright red object was not an obstruction the giant elephant cared for and she would have it out of her way…Suddenly with a strange purr, the frightened red object ran off at full speed!

The elephant crossed the road and passing cars heaved a sigh of relief and congratulated us on our lucky escape!

Why this sole elephant decided to cross the road where we had parked is an issue on which we still need to ponder and wonder…

One of the best ways for spotting animals in Kruger is to stop where there is a crowd of cars. That is how we spotted our lions, the elephant herds, giraffes and zebras…and a number of other sightings. And our car started the crowding for the leopard that my husband had found stalking the impalas. Other cars followed to watch the drama. In Kruger, humans stay in car cages and view the animals that roam freely. Sometimes, the animals walk right by your car. Occasionally, they walk with your car. Birds hop by. Once a flock Guinea fowls crossing the road held up traffic! Sometimes, it is monkeys…I recall how vehicles containing humans drew to a halt when some baby monkeys decided to play a game of hopscotch in the middle of the road!

Calf drinking milk

Another time, we paused as not only were elephants meandering all over but also a calf had decided to drink milk from his/her mamma in the middle of a jungle path. Cars waited patiently as the animal finished it’s feed and frisked off merrily behind his/her mother.

Though we spent two-and-a-half days looking for lions in Kruger, we saw very less of the park as it stretches over an area that could contain more than 27 Singapores, and beyond to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Limpopo river. We only saw the part around Sabi River and drove out ultimately through the South Gate, close to Nelspruit. The land rolled out for miles beckoning animal lovers. It was relaxing and entertaining to watch crocodiles with their mouth open, waiting for their dinner at the water holes, hippopotamuses stroll into a stream and giraffes munch leaves in the afternoon sun. We even caught two young hippos play and splash water at each other.

A variety of eagles, vultures and birds dotted the landscape. At lunch, we were surprised by a Cape glossy starling waiting for crumbs. At dinner, outside Kruger gate, we had a night visitor from the park, a bush baby. It created a stir among the tourists. It did a round of the Lapa barbecue area and we were all taking pictures of it. Cute would be the right word for this exhibitionist! The next day, we had a picnic breakfast at a hilltop in Kruger and had a yellow-billed hornbill visit us. It even posed for our cameras…

Cape glossy starling

Brown snake Eagle

Storks in a social weaver’s nest

Red-billed hornbill

Yellow-billed hornbill

There are many lakes, waterholes and hills. The part that edges Mozambique is very scenic. We saw the Orpen Dam with its lush vegetation, the South African blue crane, Egyptian geese, hippos and crocodiles. We watched the animal and bird life through binoculars as they were unreachable and far…

But we had still not seen a lion. The land with its unique vegetation and animal life concealed the king from us.

I was also wondering if humans had ever inhabited this vast landscape or had it always been home of only animals? There were no clear answers till I googled …The land had earlier belonged to the Tsonga people, who were evicted by Paul Kruger, the president of the Transvaal Republic between 1883 and 1900 and other nature park lovers. The first cars drove into Kruger in 1926. Paul Kruger played a heroic role in the Boer wars and left the country when the Boers faced defeat in the hands of the British in the 1900s. He died in 1904 and was brought back to South Africa to be given a hero’s funeral and buried in Pretoria.

I wonder what happened to the Tsonga people…Perhaps the lions that evaded us through our entire sojourn in Kruger could tell us…

Maybe the lions in Kruger National Park avoided us because we had seen a lion behind a caging of electric wires in the Lion Safari in Johannesburg. That time, we had got off the car on the way to the Cradle of Humankind and the lion was fenced…We did not explore the park as we wanted to experience the wilds in Kruger…instead we went to see the goldmines and were taken around by a Tsonga guide. She told us that her name meant ‘to give’ in Tsonga!

The caged lion

 

In Quest of a Home…

My home is anywhere under the blue skies. I enjoy drifting like a cloud, exploring the world and in my thoughts the outer space. I see no boundaries… no limits in space or time…no barriers of cultures, language, religion or politics…

However, when recently a friend asked me why I was not contributing to develop my home…the place whose language I use as my mother tongue and where my ancestors had paused for a considerable period of time, I grew defensive instinctively. I tried to condense my life… Then, I started to say that I believe in mankind and not borders…and therefore lacked a need to belong or to be tied down to a region. I explained I try to help people in need wherever they are irrespective of borders. I see myself as a citizen of the world, a term coined by my fourteen-year-old more than half a decade ago…

The simple answer would have been do I consider the place my home…? I have never lived there. My great grandfather moved out… and none of his children returned to the region, leave alone his grand children… his ancestors had lived there for probably a little less than one and a half centuries. Before that, they were in an area that now belongs to another country…The first time I visited the city for a few days was when I was sixteen. Subsequently, I have visited the town a number of times because I really like the place. The issue now is that for the last twenty-five years, I have not even lived in the country I was born. For, more than the last couple of decades I have been roaming the world. I have lived in a number of countries, including China…

And yet stories are made and songs are sung to glorify Man’s homing instinct. John Denver’s song… Country road take me home to the place I belong…is a song I liked all along… but perhaps I like it for the ‘blue ridge mountains’ and the ‘… river’, for ‘the misty taste of moonshine’… I am not quite sure…

I love L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, again a story that centres on the protagonist Dorothy’s need to return home. I almost wept when Dorothy after her adventures in the land of Oz clicked her magic shoe clad feet and repeated, “There is no place like home. There is no place like home…” and she was magicked back to her home in Kansas…to the farm…and to aunty Em…Dorothy’s whole adventure took place because she wanted to return home from where she had been deposited by a swirling tornado, in the wonderful Land of Oz with it’s rainbow, Emerald Palace and magical creatures…

Analysing my tendencies, I would probably have continued in the Land of Oz like the wizard, who could not leave because the balloon did not take off…yet the story is about Dorothy and not the wizard…

There is something magical about visiting unexplored lands, a kind of promise that opens new horizons for the mind and heart. I loved reading the travels of Marco Polo, even though it may have had it’s biases. Tagore has a song that says  “kothao amar hariye java neyi mana, mone, mone…” ( “I can lose myself anywhere in my mind…”).

…And I do find myself getting lost in the mists of time when I read Marco Polo. Those days they wandered in search of trade through so many lands fraught with so many dangers. Then, at some point Marco returned home facing more adventures, weaving more fantasies (he talks of unicorns the size of elephants, cannibals and men with tails!). Despite his wonderful adventures he returned home, first to be imprisoned, then to become a merchant. But, what endears him to the world is the retelling of his marvelous adventures by his co-prisoner Rustichello da Pisa…

Sometimes, I wonder if all our ancestors had returned to their home, like Dorothy and Marco Polo, where would we all be? In the heart of Africa where mankind originated, where Lucy danced in the wilds? And how many people would the continent support? If we also retained our original culture and homes, what would we be like?

Perhaps, that is why this summer I am off to find answers to these questions in the rolling plains of Savannah grasslands that beckon me with the lure of endless mysteries… I am off to explore the part of the landmass where our ancestors originated…

The land that was first populated by man rolls out an invitation to explore why we all did not return home or why we developed other parts of the world which we spread out to populate over centuries and millenniums…and not our original home…