I'm taking these little guys as a sign that spring is really here. These goslings are residents of the Company Gardens, a large public park and botanical garden that sits across the street from my apartment. They're Egyptian Geese, a beautiful species of fowl with dark masks and brilliant green feathers on their wings, and one of Cape Town's most unusual avian residents.
On a recent sunny morning we decided to take breakfast outdoors . It went quite well, until our outing was broken up by a flock of helmeted guinea fowl.
We had stopped on the way at the bakery at Jardine, which I'd been wanting to try for months. The bakery is quite brilliantly designed-- just a window and a glass counter facing onto the street, so patrons can order coffee, pastry, or sandwiches, then either enjoy them on the high sidewalk tables (standing only), or take them to go.
We ordered some croissants and lattes, and took them up to Signal Hill. It was a little windy, so we had the picnic grounds entirely to ourselves. We grabbed a table from which we could look onto both the sea below and Lion's Head behind-- private breakfast with a brilliant view. I had chosen an almond croissant, which was fantastic. I was just finishing it up when we were set upon by the guinea fowl, who were eager to gather up our crumbs.
So at least they were guinea fowl with good taste.
It’s daisy gazing season in South Africa. Along the West coast, spring brings the blossoming of beautiful Namaqua daisies to the shoreline grasslands. On Sunday, five us squeezed into a tiny car, and drove north in search of the flowers. As we got away from the city, we caught sight of sudden patches of intense pink, purple and blue bursting through the grass along the highway, and they seemed to hint at what we should expect to see. But in the end, we weren’t terribly successful. The daisies we encountered once we reached our destination were somewhat underwhelming-- we mainly saw a dusting of faintly pretty yellow blooms, not the bold carpeting of colours we wanted.
Thankfully, we found other things to distract us. We visited the West Coast National Park, which is an unbelievable landscape of fynbos, sandy dunes, and turquoise water. Set just a few hours north of Cape Town, it’s an incredible daytrip I’d never known about.
And while we had set out expecting to view daisies, in the end we spent more time viewing wildlife—ostriches, springbok, wildebeest, bontebok, and a huge herd of eland, which looked bizarrely out of place in the coastal setting. Most interactively, we encountered five tortoises, three of which we helped to cross the road.
While looking through images of National Parks for several of last week’s entries, I came across these nearly identical images of blesbok from Mlilwane National Park in Swaziland. I hadn’t planned to take such similar images at the time, but somehow nearly everything matched up. The two shots were taken almost exactly six months apart—the first in the dry winter month of July, the second in rainy steamy December.
Before heading to Addo, we booked two drives: one for sunrise, and another for just after sunset. Our sunrise drive went well, and we saw loads of elephants, herds of buffalo, and several lions, along with two cubs. When we showed up for the night drive however, we were practically warned off by the driver. He had just taken another group around for a sun-downer drive, and had only seen two kudu. Plus, it was looking like it might rain. And if it rained enough, we’d have to turn around. We discussed it, and in the end decided to go out—if nothing else, it would be nice to be out in the bush in the dark.
In the end, the drive was unbelievable. The rain settled over us, but never enough to send us back to camp. And perhaps out of enjoying the rain, the animals came out too. We saw black backed jackals, trotting through the scrub landscape. We saw several spotted hyenas, including two young cubs that gave in to their curiosity and prowled around our vehicle. We saw a porcupine, its massive coat of quills shimmying as it scurried to get out of the spotlights glare. And we even came across a herd of elephants, staying out long after their bedtime; they passed by close enough that we could practically touch their bristly skin.
While in Kruger, we did get to view quite a few real kudu-- but the one I was admiring the most was this well designed one on our National Park dishes.
Well, we've made it to South Africa, and have had an insanely busy week of seeing friends, visiting family, making big announcements, and staring at wild animals in Kruger National Park. We're heading back to Cape Town this weekend, where I'm looking forward to finding an apartment, settling in, starting up some big projects, and getting back to writing more regular entries from my new home.
There is something a touch dull about those toucan prints, though-- maybe they're just a little too innocent. For it to really work well with our style, we might need images that are just a little off, just a little dark-- like the zoological watercolors of Walton Ford. Though he uses the tropes and style of eighteenth/nineteenth century naturalists, he uses his works to comment on themes like colonialism and the natural sciences. I like the bizarre painting of the gluttonous heron above, or the ominous image of the gharial and the monkey below. Anyone know if he's done one of tropical birds?
I was hoping to have my first Mexico post up today, but I forgot to bring my camera usb-cable with me to Mexico. I'll try to be quick and get one up tomorrow after I return home. In the mean time, I'll offer a taste of the tropical style I'm enjoying here in Puerto Vallarta.
It's been interesting being back in a tropical clime, yet one where the sense of style is so vastly different from Southeast Asia. Browsing through the boutiques here, we've seen white cotton textiles embroidered with blocky animal shapes, wooden crosses covered in tiny silver milagros, and-- a personal favorite of mine-- massive over-the-top paintings of brightly colored toucans. Toucans are such awkward birds, that even when rendered gracefully, they come off looking a little clownish. The paintings are a little too baroque to go with our style, but I think the toucan prints above are a good compromise. The pared down scientific quality of the above prints might work well with our more understated tropical lifestyle.
While browsing in Bangkok's Siam Square, I came across a small candy shop selling these unusual sweets. While the rather hard 'caramels' aren't particularly tasty, I rather liked the vintage animal illustrations that adorned their wrappers. They seem to be inspired by scenes from a circus- aside from the badger with a handkerchief, which has left me rather puzzled.
Fairly soon after I moved to Bangkok, I bought a set of watercolor paints with the idea to work on a few illustrations about the places and creatures that I encountered while exploring Southeast Asia. Finally, after living here for nearly ten months, I completed my first one. And whether it was having just finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or the influence of Jess Gonacha of Treasuring - this painting ended up being all about fish.
Tropical rivers have always held a fascination for me, and few regions are as defined by their waterways as Southeast Asia. There's the muddy, empire strewn Chao Phraya; the life giving Tonle Sap; and of course, the monstrous, epic Mekong. Part of what makes these waterways so mysterious is the strange creatures that it conceals.
So, in simple stylized forms, I depicted some of my favorite aquatic creatures. In a style inspired by scientific murals (like the one at the Maputo Natural History Museum, pictured above) and the 'Freshwater Fish of Thailand' chart that I had in my classroom, I set them out to display their bizarre forms and shapes. The star of the piece is of course the star of the river itself, the Giant Mekong Catfish.
I spent my first stay in Cape Town mainly in idle, quietly in awe of what an amazing city it was. On cool evenings I'd sit with a book on my apartment's balcony; the light would be seeping from between nearby Table Mountain and the apartment towers that hugged its base, and in the distance I could hear the broken-horn call of a flock of hadidas as they flapped down into a neighbor's yard. One of my favorite things about living in Cape Town was the incredible bird life. Though I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Cape Town is a piece of Europe on the African continent, I'm willing to concede that it gives that appearance. Though the city's calmly ordered streets, elegant sidewalk cafes, and charming homes give it a European atmosphere, the unusual birds that roost throughout Cape Town reveal the city's true exotic nature.
To some degree, it even seemed almost as though each neighborhood had it's own bird that reflected its character. Gardens had its hadidas, Sea Point had its seagulls, Rondebosch had its guinea fowl. Further afield, Vals Bay had its indiosyncratic African penguins, and Cape Point its delicately-exotic ostriches. I even hear that Flaminco Vlei actually gets flamingos in certain seasons; I imagine that with their awkward forms and garrish feathers, they'd fit in perfectly with the tasteless ostentation of the suburb.
After a long day of bird-spotting, Love Birds Cafe on Bree Street is the ideal spot to relax. The setting, aside from the prerecorded soundtrack of chirping birds, is serene, and the baked goods and coffee are incredible. The decor is simple yet sharply styled. The stark farm-house furnishings are contrasted with an odd collection of serving-ware that reflect the cafe's theme.
The gulf-side town of Prachuap Khiri Khan is famous partly for its cheap, delicious seafood, but also for its abundance of monkeys. Around the city center, they can easily be observed wreaking quiet havoc: sifting through trash, starting fights, nabbing bananas.
Back in July, Bordeaux and I visited the Chiang Mai zoo, mainly so that I could see the beautiful Mekong Giant Catfish. While there were a few odd elements- a confusing layout and an abundance of concrete trees- it was a rather impressive zoo, with a wide range of animals scattered throughout the beautifully landscaped forest. One of the most intriguing aspects of the zoo was the use of hand-painted signs to identify animals. With their bold colors and dramatic lettering, they made even the penguins look like stars in an action movie.
In writing my recent entry about finding inspiration in giraffes, I thought back to some of my own wildlife photographs. On my last trip to the lands north of the Limpopo, I focused less on capturing the movement or interaction of animals, and more on the forms and patterns created in nature. Through taking photos with slightly polarized light and dark spaces, I tried to contrast animal forms with areas of abstraction. In the above photograph, which was taken in Mosi oa Tunya National Park in Zambia, I was drawn to the strange abstract space around the giraffe created by the thicket of branches and dry leaves. While this might not be the type of thrilling wildlife photography featured in National Geographic, I hope these images captured some of the odd visual appeal of the African bush.
Chobe, Botswana
Chobe, Botswana
Mosi Oa Tunya National Park, Zambia
I saw the giraffe photographed above while on a game drive in Swaziland; he watched us intently over the brambles of an acacia, flicking his purple tongue and dark eyelashes. I've always found inspiration in the forms of certain animals, and I find giraffes in particular to be rather handsome. I usually like the way Afrikaans describes the creatures of Africa, but the Afrikaans word for giraffe is kameelperd, or camel-horse, a composite that hardly captures the awkward beauty of these strange creatures. 
Having spent a beautiful but rough week in Southern Laos- no good coffee or muesli!- the Cambodian town of Kratie welcomed us with an array of simple but comforting Western pleasures. The dining highlight of Kratie was the cafe at the Star Guesthouse. It was situated in a corner spot, across from the food market. Over breakfast or lunch, we watched the goings-on at the fruit stands, and admired the bundles of green bananas that hawkers lugged by. The cafe had a wide range of coffees, good sandwiches using imported ingredients, and my staple breakfast, muesli and yogurt. Kratie itself was a pleasant town, with aged and faded French architecture, and a packed market selling fresh fish and colorful fruit. Just a few blocks away from the town center, and the neighborhoods become starkly more rural; bamboo and wooden stilt houses replaced concrete apartment blocks, and horse drawn carts plodded between moto traffic. The town also had a beautiful location along a wide stretch of the Mekong, which was best viewed from the promenade at sunset, as the golden light filtered through the colonnade of trees.
The dolphins are best seen from Kampie, a small town roughly 15 minutes moto ride from Kratie. The road out was easily one of the most interesting part of the trip. The were beautiful wood homes, with ornately carved accents on the roof and along the eaves; tiny bamboo houses, perched on stilts over muddy water; and all of this piled along the road against a backdrop of intensely green rice paddies. As the moto slowed down, I easily spotted the entrance to the dolphin site; there was a tacky dolphin statue, fading in the tropical sun. We paid the entrance fee, which had risen to about $7 US (well worth it, especially if it actually goes toward protecting the dolphins' habitat)- that included a boat trip with local guides, who were required not to use motors or to chase the dolphins.
From the dock, it was a ten minute boat trip out to the deeper pools that the dolphins favor. I had been worried that we wouldn't see any dolphins- perhaps still thinking of my elephant-less visit to the elephant tower at Ban Na- so I was very surprised how quickly we saw the first dolphin. It's silver fin sliced out of the water, and it disappeared again. I was confused by the fact that the boat driver didn't stop, and didn't seem to pay it any attention- but when we got to our destination, I saw why. We anchored the boat, and watched the water. The dolphins were everywhere. They would appear in pairs, the two fins usually rising in unison. They aren't as playful or as outgoing as their bottlenose relatives, but they still came fairly close to the boat. Occasionally they would show themselves long enough for me to see their distinctive blunt noses and bulbous heads. We watched them for an hour, during which time I tried unsuccessfully to get a good photo. Thankfully, the experience of seeing these strange and rare river creatures more than made up for that.
Compared to the relative ease with which Bordeaux and I got to Khao Yai in Thailand, getting to the national parks in Laos seemed like far more of a mission. Our guidebook- the rather dismal Rough Guide to Laos- gave essentially no information on getting into Phou Khao Kaouy, aside from advising that we take a tour. We almost dismissed the idea of going entirely, and began planning on heading directly to Southern Laos. Thankfully, while walking up Vientiane's Lane Xang, Bordeaux and I came across the Laos tourism office. There, they gave us information on the park, and recommended to us Ban Na village, where they offer treks, homestays, and a night in an elephant tower. The staff at the tourism office were even able to give us detailed information on getting there by public transport.
The trip to Ban Na by public transport was rather easy- we caught a bus to Ban Phabat, and then walked 2 km to the village, where we were greeted immediately by a guide. While we filled out registration forms and waited for the trek to start, we had time to take in the village. There were several women making baskets, men working in the fields, and children playing hopscotch. One small girl competed with me in making odd faces, and two boys tried to impress us by doing strange tricks on their bikes.
From the village it was a 4 km walk to the Elephant Tower. We first crossed through rice paddies and bamboo groves, crossing bridges built of thin planks and bamboo poles. Past the cultivated land we entered 'elephant territory', a scrubby green woodland. Though the guides didn't speak much English (and we didn't speak any Lao), they were friendly and extremely personable, and pointed out the strange insects, tiny frogs, and snakes that crossed our path.
The tower was fairly basic, but well set up. There was a stream below the tower, where we were meant to bathe. The water was cool, fresh and clear, with a shallow rocky bed- perfect for cooling off, until Bordeaux spotted one of the seven-inch leeches wriggling toward us. For dinner our guides fixed a large tasty meal of noodles and sticky rice. After eating, they went through a book of animals with us, asking the English names for some of the birds and mammals in the area, teaching us the Lao names in return. At bedtime they set up mats, sleeping bags, and mosquito netting, and switched off the lanterns. A storm was growing in the distance, and lightning silently flashed over the forest. We fell asleep to the sound of rain on the metal roof.
So, we saw neither elephants, or any large animals. It was certainly disappointing not to see any of the elephants, but even so, the experience of the tower was well worth it. The forest around the tower was beautiful- huge trees and bamboo thickets. Additionally, the Elephant Tower has been set up as a source of income for the village, and many people in town are involved. By visiting, it can promote the development of conscientious tourism in Laos, allow villagers to develop income from the wildlife that destroys their crops, and hopefully encourage more tourism opportunities in Laos' wild places. But above all else, the experience of being in the forest canopy was incredible, particularly at night, when we were surrounded by the humming of insects, the chirping of bats, and the soft steady rhythm of the rainstorm. It gave a unique chance to see Lao village life, and to experience the nighttime rhythm of the jungle.
