The 2010s: A decade to remember

Tbilisi, December 12, 2019

A mere 19 midnights separate me from the first day of 2020, the third decade of the 21st century.  (Yes, I know; the century should really start in 2001, but who really thinks that way emotionally?)  It is hard to believe that I have been blogging on this site intermittently for just over a decade now.  A few days ago I did my year-in-review post; now it's time for a decade in review.

One of the more terrifying aspects of getting older is that not just months and years pass by, but decades, without me being really aware of how long I've been alive.  This year was full of thirty-year anniversaries:  the Tien An Men massacre and the fall of the Berlin Wall were both pivotal moments in my conception of the world, with the gloom and menace of the Cold War suddenly replaced by an exuberant, giddy freedom in Eastern Europe, while the Chinese Communist party stamped on humanity's face with a jackboot.  I was barely 21 when those things happened; now I'm 51 and the optimism of December, 1989 has morphed into the dystopian ethnonationalism of Hungary, Poland and the United States, while the Chinese state's relentless authoritarianism has plumbed new depths in the repression in Xinjiang.

So I think that the spinning of the decades counter on our calendar is a good time to take stock of what I have been up to for the past ten years, mostly from the point of view of travel.  I don't have much time to write this, so it will necessarily be a cursory summary of a lot of travelling!

2010--The post-Silk Road Travels

I welcomed in the 2010s in Malta, That same morning I hopped over to Italy and rented a car to explore Sicily, a fabulous corner of the world, before making my way up Italy with a stopover of a few days in Naples, once one of the richest cities in Europe and now a poster child for urban decay, although blessed with Pompeii, Herculaneum and smaller amazing Roman ruins.  I then headed into Venice on my bicycle for the symbolic final ride into the city that Marco Polo returned to in 1295.  

After a brief skiing and job-hunting trip to Switzerland, where my sister Audie was living (and still lives), I hopped a flight to Ethiopia in early February for a cycle tour.  I spent two and a half months exploring Ethiopia's mountainous landscape and ancient culture, and dodging incessant rockthrowing by a substantial fraction of the youth of the country.  I also crossed (by public transport) into Somaliland and Djibouti before looping back to Ethiopia after my hopes of getting a Yemeni visa were shot down.

In late April I flew with my bicycle back to Canada to find a job offer from a school in Switzerland waiting for me.  My mother had taught at Leysin American School from 2001 to 2003, and now I was about to follow in her professional footsteps for the second time (after my miserable first international high school teaching experience in Egypt in 2004.)  After a few months of relaxation in Canada, including a car trip out to Newfoundland for my mother's 70th birthday, I flew off to Switzerland in early August.

2010-2015--The Leysin Years

I ended up spending five years teaching in Leysin.  It wasn't a fabulous school (despite the eye-watering tuition fees) but it was a wonderful place for an outdoors enthusiast like myself to be based.  I lived in a century-old building that was once a tuberculosis sanatorium for the wealthy of Europe (Stravinsky and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia both visited in the glory days), with an unbeatable view out across the Rhone valley to the Dents de Midi and (on clear days) a tiny sliver of the peak of Mont Blanc.  The skiing in Leysin was decidedly sub-par most weeks of most years, but there were always places to explore via ski touring.  The cross-country skiing was excellent, and in the fall and spring the road riding on a racing bicycle was incredible.  There were tennis and squash courts, and great hiking to be had.  It was a busy schedule, with teachers worked absolutely to the bone, but I generally always had energy for adventures whenever I could fit them in.  I ran the pub quiz in our village pub for almost the entire 5 years, which was great fun and an intellectual break from trying to hammer physics and mathematics into my students.

That first fall I mostly explored around Switzerland, by bicycle and on foot.  I stayed in Switzerland for the Christmas break and tried to ski (although it was the beginning of an epic months-long snow drought).  I also ran into a sporty New Zealand woman named Terri who turned out to be a wonderful partner in exploring the mountains and the world, and who is still with me nine and a half years later here in Tbilisi

2010 new countries:  Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somaliland (or Somalia, if you don't regard Somaliland as de facto independent).  

2010 year-end country count:  93

2011

I prowled around Switzerland all winter in a fruitless search for decent snow.  Eventually my supplications to Ullr the snow god were answered and enough snow fell for two weeks of excellent ski touring cabin-to-cabin in the mountains with some of my similarly skiing-obsessed colleagues.  

That summer I spent the entire break cycling from Tbilisi, Georgia (where I am typing this now) to Tallinn, Estonia, via as many of the ex-Soviet and Eastern European countries that I could.  I rode through magical Svaneti tragic occupied Abkhazia to Sochi in Russia, where Terri flew out to join me for a couple of weeks of hard cycling along the Black Sea coast, through Crimea (then part of Ukraine), Trans-Dniestria and Moldova.  Terri had to return to work, but I kept cycling across Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine again, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and finally Estonia.  I covered 5500 mostly flat kilometres and really fell in love with the countries I was crossing.

In the fall Terri and I got away hiking most weekends, all the way into early December since it didn't snow at all in the autumn.  When it started snowing, though, it didn't stop and we had a memorable ski season.  

At Christmas, I zipped off to the Persian Gulf to explore (very briefly and superficially) the UAE, Qatar and a tiny corner of Oman, before returning to Leysin for New Year's.

2011 new countries:  Denmark, Abkhazia, Russia, Ukraine, Trans-Dniestria, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, UAE, Oman, Qatar.

2011 year-end country count:  108

2012

The winter of 2011-12 was epic for skiing and ski touring, probably the best of my five winters in Leysin.  Spring break was spent doing more ski touring before finally retiring the skis and taking out the bicycle.

The summer vacation was spent in the highest mountain ranges of the world.  Terri and I flew to India and trekked through the magical mountains and plateaux of Ladakh for a memorable month.  Again Terri had an earlier work deadline than I did, so I flew off to Kyrgyzstan to indulge my Reinhold Messner-inspired fantasies of mountain climbing.  I had had my eye on Peak Lenin and Muztagh Ata for years, so it seemed like a good time to try my luck.  My luck wasn't in on either peak, with terrible weather, heavy snowfall and poor conditions.  I decided that really high mountains weren't really my thing and flew back to Leysin to start my third academic year.

That fall I finally made it to Slovenia, the one Balkan country that I had not yet properly visited.  At Christmas I decided that I needed a bicycle tour, so I flew down to Lome and spent three weeks cycling around Togo and Benin.  It was a good  bike trip, but I didn't really warm to the two countries as much as I would have liked.  It was my first taste of West Africa after several trips to the north and east of the continent, and I resolved to come back one day to explore in much greater depth.

2012 new countries:  Slovenia, Togo, Benin

2012 year-end country count:  111

2013

The 2012-13 winter was also fabulous for snowfall in the Leysin region, and I had a great winter of skiing, ski touring and cross-country skate skiing.  Terri and I had a March break that overlapped for once (we worked at different schools with very different schedules) and we had hoped to do a week of ski touring.  Instead it suddenly stopped snowing at the end of February, and after waiting with crossed fingers for a while, we eventually booked a last-minute trip to the Maldives instead.  It was slightly self-indulgent, but it was also a reintroduction to diving for Terri, which proved to be a great thing for our future travels together.

That summer we set off together for Iceland with our touring bicycles.  We had a wonderful time exploring this tiny gem of a country, even if Terri did find the steep hills on dirt roads a bit challenging and annoying.  Then Terri returned to work and I flew to Canada for the first time in three years, visiting my mother in Ottawa, my father in Thunder Bay, my sister in Jasper and my friend Greg over the border in Montana.  The summer vacation was not yet over (I loved my epic summer holidays in Leysin!) and I returned to Europe to try my hand at a new (for me) form of bike touring:  riding a racing bike, travelling ultra-light and sleeping indoors.  I cycled from Avignon back to Leysin over as many Tour de France cols as possible (Galibier, Izoard, Agnel, Iseran, etc), then returned to southern France with Terri for another week of cycling.

That fall, the start of my fourth year in Leysin, did not go well.  I was teaching five different fairly challenging IB science and math courses, and I burned out spectacularly from overwork.  Not long after a long weekend in Dublin with Terri, I ended up having a minor nervous breakdown in early November and being sent off on medical leave for a few months, during which I went exploring Gran Canaria by bicycle and Laos by motor scooter.  It was a sobering reminder of my own mortality and of how unsustainably hard I was working at LAS.

2013 new countries:  Maldives, Iceland, Ireland

2013 country count:  114

2014

I returned to work after Christmas on a reduced teaching load and had a reasonable time of it, although it was a miserable ski season.  A few skiing friends and I spent spring break skiing in the Dolomites in Italy which was an incredible time, although I couldn't ski the last few days because of an incredibly sore back.

That summer Terri and I decided to take it physically a bit easier than usual since we weren't sure how recovered I was from my breakdown.  I flew to Bali via a brief visit to sad, ruined East Timor, and then Terri and I spent a month diving our way around Indonesia, with visits to Bali, the Togean Islands and the amazing Derawan Archipelago and its manta rays.  Terri had bought a small house in northeast Bali a few years earlier, and it made for a perfect base for our expeditions. After Terri's inevitable return to work, I stayed on, exploring the Solomon Islands and expensive, dangerous and deeply unpleasant Papua New Guinea before crossing back into Indonesian New Guinea for a few weeks of birdwatching and diving. 

That fall was the start of my last year at LAS.  I had already decided that I was going to leave, but LAS' deeply autocratic First Family had decided that I needed to be forced out, which didn't make the final year much fun at work.  Luckily it was a charmed autumn with perfect weather almost every weekend and a never-ending series of hiking and biking weekends that lasted almost into December that left me with a permanent grin and indelible memories of the fall colours blanketing the Alps.

I flew off that Christmas with three colleagues to show them the Japanese powder that I had been pining for during the many snow droughts of my Leysin years.   

2014 new countries:  East Timor, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea

2014 year-end country count:  117

2015

After some epic skiing in Hokkaido, I returned to Leysin for my final ski season there.  The snow was miserable for most of the winter, and when it did snow, I nearly got myself killed in an avalanche that took away quite a bit of my skiing mojo.  During spring break Terri and I flew to Georgia for a few days of skiing which reminded me of how much I liked this small, historic country in the Caucasus.

2015-18:  Three Itinerant Years

Mid-June saw me say farewell with affection and great memories to my colleagues and friends in Leysin and to the outdoor playground of the Alps.  Terri and I headed off for a month of cycling down the Danube, followed (for me) by sailing and cycling in Finland and Norway while Terri finished up her 15th and final year at Kumon Leysin Academy.  When she was free, we abandoned the bicycles and set off on foot to trek in the Pyrenees and then the mythical GR20 hiking route in Corsica.  Terri flew back to Switzerland for her Swiss citizenship ceremony, and then we were off, both finally free of work and commitments for the foreseeable future.

We visited our families and then rendezvoused in Ushuaia, Argentina for the extravagant splurge of a lifetime, a trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula on the MV Ushuaia.  Despite a fire on board on the first night, and having to dodge between South Atlantic hurricanes on the return journey, it was an incredible, life-altering trip that always seemed to have a David Attenborough voice-over playing in our heads.

After that, we started cycling north through Patagonia, stopping to hike in places like Torres del Paine and El Chalten.  We said good-bye to 2015 in a little town along the Carretera Austral, the little-used dirt road linking the remote communities of southern Chile.

2015 new countries:  Finland, Sweden

2015 year-end country count:  119

2016
We kept cycling north in early 2016, finishing on the island of Chiloe.  After a few days visiting friends in Santiago from my year of working there in 1999, we took an interminable bus trip to Paraguay with our bicycle and spent a few weeks cycling there before ending our South American sojourn in the genteel urban settings of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

From here we switched continents.  We had talked for years about driving a 4-wheel-drive through Africa, and now it was time to put the dream into action.  We flew to Zambia where we spent several weeks working at Olive Tree Learning Centre, Terri's school that she helped establish in an impoverished shantytown in 2006 and which she has been supporting and growing ever since.  A group of Japanese students from Terri's former school flew down from Switzerland to meet us and do a service trip for which they had raised a large amount of much-needed funds, followed by a wildlife safari to incompable Chobe National Park across the Zambezi River in northern Botswana.

Afterwards we flew to Cape Town and started searching for vehicles, preferably already fitted out for overland exploration and camping.  Just as we were starting to despair, we got tipped off about a vehicle for sale in Johannesburg, and flew up to inspect it.  It was love at first sight, and so Stanley (as in Henry Morton Stanley) entered our lives.  

Most of the rest of 2016 was spent driving Stanley around southern Africa.  We explored Kruger National Park, then cruised through southern Mozambique before being turned around by civil conflict further north.  We drove back to South Africa, survived a potentially deadly car crash and then (after repairs) drove north into tragic but beautiful Zimbabwe for a month.  We popped out into Zambia and then turned east into Malawi before returning to Zambia, where we explored the north before heading down to Livingstone and spending more time at OTLC.  Finally we headed south across the wildlife paradise of Botswana before popping back into South Africa.

We took two-month break from Stanley from late October to mid-December, doing some tour guiding in Greece and some road-tripping through the Balkans before flying to Madagascar and its enchanting, endangered lemurs.

It wasn't until nearly Christmas that we were back in South Africa, picking up Stanley after some expert improvements had been made at Blinkgat, the camper manufacturer who had first put Stanley together a couple of years earlier.  We spun down through Swaziland and into KwaZulu-Natal, where we welcomed in 2017 in a wonderful wildlife refuge, Bushbaby Lodge.

2016 new countries:  Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Madagascar, Swaziland.

2016 year-end country count:  130

2017
The year started with some of our favourite bits of Africa.  We drove south through KwaZulu-Natal and the Orange Free State and drove across the breathtaking mountainous country of Lesotho before getting tired of the rainy season and bolting north towards Namibia.  Namibia was incredible, and we had many unforgettable nights camped out in the depths of the Namib desert or the semi-desert just inland of it.  All good things must come to an end, though, and what ended this idyllic period was a summons home to Thunder Bay, where my father was trying to recover from aggressive thyroid cancer.  We drove across the Caprivi Strip for one last visit to OTLC in Livingstone, then bolted back to Windhoek to store Stanley until we could return.

The next few months for me were a blur, as my father's recovery stalled and then a terminal decline set in.  He died at the end of June, and most of July was spent cleaning out the house where he had lived for 46 years (and where I had grown up and returned to for three decades after leaving home).  At the end of July my mother and I drove to Ottawa with a U-Haul of family heirlooms, and I flew off to Bali to rejoin Terri.

We spent the rest of the year in Indonesia, doing a lot of scuba diving and (in my case) learning how to take underwater photographs of the strange and wonderful creatures that live on tropical reefs.  I was also hard at work finishing the manuscript of my Silk Road cycling book.  In mid-November I crossed to the next island to the east, Lombok, and spent three weeks training to become a scuba instructor.  It was an intense course, but I passed the exam and set off immediately with Terri for jobs in Raja Ampat, the legendary diving area off the western tip of Indonesian New Guinea.  The job wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but it taught both of us a lot, and we got to dive almost every day with manta rays, which is a priceless experience.  We said farewell to the year on tiny Arborek Island in Raja Ampat, after a whirlwind 365 days.

2017 new countries:  Lesotho, Namibia

2017 year-end country count:  132

2018
Terri and I said goodbye to Arborek early in January, glad for the experience but keen to move on.  We stopped off in Ambon for some memorable muck diving, then returned to Bali for a month of heavy rain and occasional diving.  I was still hard at work writing, and in early February I finished the first draft of my manuscript, just in time to fly to New Zealand for 2 months of exploring with Terri.  We covered much of the North Island of the country, more than a quarter century after my first visit there in 1992.  We hiked, biked, paddled and drove around many of the incredible natural sights of the country, and were amazed afterwards at how much we had seen.

A very brief sojourn back in Bali, and then we were off again, flying to Namibia to pick up Stanley.  We had had some serious problems with Namibian Customs about Stanley not having the right paperwork (we thought he did!!) and so we had to move him to storage in South Africa.  We decided that we should explore Namibia in greater detail while we did, and we ended up spending six memorable weeks in the Namibian desert, camped out under the stars, looking for elephants and zebras and giraffes.  Eventually we drove down to rainy Cape Town and put Stanley into storage there.

While we had been in New Zealand, I had accepted a job offer to teach in Tbilisi, so when we returned to Bali, I packed up my possessions and flew to Canada to visit my mother and then, at the end of July, on to Tbilisi.

2018-2019:  The Tbilisi Years

I had always enjoyed Georgia during my three previous trips to the country (2009, 2011 and 2015), so I was looking forward to living there full-time.  Terri and I spent the late summer and autumn exploring the beautiful mountainous regions of Tusheti, Khevsureti and Mtiuleti, with fall break in the enchanting western region of Svaneti, then loaded up our expedition van (Douglas the Delica) as the Christmas break began and headed off on a three-week skiing roadtrip.  We welcomed in the New Year in a small homestay in the frosty mountains of the Goderdzi Pass area.

2018 new countries:  none (first time since 2005!)

2018 year-end country count:  132

2019

I've just written a long blog post looking back on this year, so I will be brief about this year's travels.  There were a number of (generally disappointing) ski weekends north of Tbilisi, a week in France skiing with my sister Saakje and her partner Henkka in March, some fun camping weekends in the spring and then a summer of mountain exploration in Kyrgyzstan and back here in Georgia.  This fall we drove around Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (now renamed Artsakh) and today (in a few hours) we are flying to Panama for a Christmas get-together with my mother, Saakje and Henkka.

2019 new countries:  Panama

2019 year-end country count:  133

I hope that the 2020s will be just as active, if not more so, in terms of exploring new corners of the globe.  With a new and much longer-range installment of Stanley's Travels coming up starting in September, 2020, I hope to add a lot of the countries that are still missing from my collection.  I still have roughly 90 countries left to visit; I would love to have that total down closer to 30 when I'm writing the next installment of the decade-in-review.

Stanley's Travels in Review: Top 13 Camping Spots in Southern Africa

Thunder Bay, April 20

When you're on a long overland trip, camping out of your vehicle, at first you don't pay as much attention to where you're camping as you do to what you see during the day, but over time you start to appreciate the finer points of a campsite that make it just right.  After all, you end up spending a lot of time in and around your campsite, so it's always a bonus if it's a memorably beautiful spot with a great sunset, splendid views, a roaring campfire, a feeling of isolation and no noisy neighbours.  Looking back on Stanley's Travels, I realize that it wasn't until about halfway through the trip that we really started to appreciate some of the incredible places that we got to park Stanley.  I think that on our next loop through Africa, we will try to arrange the trip to spend as much time as possible in beautiful places in the middle of nowhere, enjoying the surroundings, eating well and having sundowners and crackling fires.

I was going to make this a top 10 list, but as I went through the preliminary list, I got to the point where I didn't want to cut out any of these great places to camp, so I made it a baker's dozen of great places to camp instead.

1.  Nsobe Camp, Bangweulu Wetlands--Zambia

In the shade of our own termite mound on the edge of the plains

Cycling through the lechwe herds

Pancakes cooking on an open fire

This inexpensive, isolated campsite was absolutely perfect for us.  After a long, tough slog along a rough track to get there, Nsobe was a wonderful refuge.  On the edge of a huge grassland plain, a number of isolated campsites are each tucked into the shade of a couple of trees growing out of the top of a giant termite mound, the only shelter for miles.  It's pitch-black at night, making for great stargazing, and the staff bring firewood and heat water for showers.  The sites are far enough apart that you're barely aware of other people, while in July, when we were there, distant grass fires make for dramatic sunsets and flickering firelight at night.  You feel as though you're alone in the middle of nowhere, with thousands of black lechwe antelope and thousands of smaller grassland birds all around.  Just 8 km away is the ranger station at Chikuni, where you set off on foot to look for rare shoebills in the papyrus swamps, while wattled and crowned cranes dot the grasslands nearby. It a wonderful place to stay, and it's hard to tear yourself away once you've arrived.

A perfect place to camp!

Smoke-enhanced sunset

2.  Wild Campsite #2, Damaraland--Namibia

Location, location, location

Hardy desert trees

We camped wild a few times in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, but we really should have done it more often. Damaraland, the strip of semi-desert (karoo) inland from the Skeleton Coast, was perfect for just pulling off the track and finding a spot to set up for the night.  When we return for more adventures in Stanley, Damaraland will likely be the first place we head.  This particular campsite, just off a very rough 4WD track that we followed from Brandberg West to Twyfelfontein, was wonderful.  We stopped atop a small rise that gave sweeping views over the surrounding desert plains.  We were surrounded by rare prehistoric-looking welwitschia plants, and when we walked along the nearby dry riverbed we saw lots of droppings and footprints of desert-dwelling black rhinos, although we didn't spot the animals themselves.  There was a sense of complete middle-of-nowhere-ness that was exactly what we wanted.  Although we weren't that far off the track, there is only about one vehicle a day using that track, and we saw no other humans for a day and a half.  Sitting around a flickering campfire watching satellites and meteors moving across the Milky Way was an unforgettable experience.

Late afternoon light on the nearby hills

3.  Ngepi Camp, Campsite #22--Namibia

Another perfect view over the Kavango River

Great road sign

This was a place that we loved so much the first time that we came back again a second time.  The Kavango River in the Caprivi Strip of northeastern Namibia is an idyllic place to sit back and watch the river flow, maybe with a fishing line in the river or with a birdwatching guidebook in your lap. There are a lot of campsites along the river, both on the Namibian and the Botswanan side of the border, and I'm sure a lot of them are fairly similar in terms of views, isolation and beauty, but Ngepi really won a special place in our hearts.  The people that run the place are exceptionally friendly, funny and efficient, and the hilarious signs all around the camp are worth searching out.  The particular campsite that we took the second time we stayed there, #22, is the furthest from the main lodge and as a result is the quietest and most isolated.  You hear hippos grunting and splashing in the river nearby (and out on the grass at night, once you're in bed), and elephants and leopards calling from across the river in the national park.  The firepits are well-made, and the views out over the Kavango are fabulous.  The entire property is a birdwatcher's dream, with dozens of species skulking in the bush or splashing around in the river.  The campsites are pretty widely separated, particularly as you get towards #22, and the overland trucks which are the mainstay of Ngepi's business model are all housed at the other end of the camp, so that you barely notice their presence.  It was such a peaceful, beautiful, restful place that we chose it for our last destination of the trip in March, 2017. I'm sure we'll be back again in the future!

Note:  Since my camera gear had been stolen by this point, the photos here come from other sources: one from Alli's Excellent Adventures, and the other from Angel and Quail on Trail.

4.  Kapishya Hot Springs--Zambia

Hot spring perfection!

This is another oasis in the wilds of northern Zambia that was hard to tear ourselves away from.  We stayed there for three nights and could easily have stayed longer.  The big attraction is, of course, the hot springs, a big rustic pool with hot water bubbling up through the sandy bottom.  We spent hours relaxing there under the forest canopy, watching kingfishers darting along the river.  The grounds make for great birdwatching, and there is lovely walking to be done in the bush that surrounds the lodge.  The campsite is quite removed from the lodge and wasn't at all busy when we were there, so we felt more or less on our own.  Great views out over the river, lots of firewood to stoke up a campfire, and a feeling of peace and tranquility that is very seductive.

It was impossible to drag Terri out of the water!

5.  Kori Campsite #3, CKGR--Botswana

A rather comical slender mongoose

Birds lured in by our portable bird watertrough

The southern parks in Botswana (the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) are amazing places and not much visited compared to the parks in the north of the country.  The Botswana DWNP have done a great job of providing a relatively small number of very isolated rustic campsites (the only facilities are a firepit and a long-drop toilet) out in the middle of nowhere, with no fences separating you from the animals.  Kori Campsite, in the Deception Valley, was absolutely perfect; with the nearest campsite at least half a kilometre away, you're not really aware of other people.  There's plenty of game around, just over the track in the grasslands of a nearby pan:  big kori bustards and secretarybirds, playful bat-eared foxes and jackals, lots of springbok and gemsbok.  Right in the campsite there are slender mongooses and plenty of birdlife, including playful yellow-billed hornbills.  It really feels like being a San hunter-gatherer as you sit around your flickering campfire under the stars, listening to the yips of jackals and hyenas in the night.  Most of the campsites in the CKGR and the Botswanan side of the KTP are similar, and it's worth putting in the effort ahead of time to try to book these sites for some unforgettable nights out in these arid Edens.

Terri loving our pre-dinner stroll across the grasslands

6.  Pomene Lodge Campground--Mozambique

Setting up camp

Flamingoes in the lagoon

Perfect view out towards the beach

We had heard of Pomene for years before our trip, as it was the subject of a nature documentary that we saw on TV when we were living in Switzerland.  We were almost talked out of going there by travellers who said that it wasn't worth the long sandy drive, but we decided in the end to go.  We were very glad that we went, as it was a superb place.  Out at the end of a 60-kilometre sand track that needed our tires deflated almost to zero, Pomene Lodge is located at the end of a sandy spit lying between the Indian Ocean on one side and a beautiful lagoon on the other.  Our campsite looked out towards the ocean, out of which we watched a full moon rise, and a brief stroll brought us out to a perfect sunset-viewing spot looking west over the lagoon.  There were hardly any other campers around, and it was quiet, peaceful and very beautiful.  Every morning women from the local village would walk by with fresh fruit (including amazing passion fruit), bread and fish for us to buy.  We rented sea kayaks from the lodge and had a wonderful paddle across the lagoon and up a forest-lined river.  There was great birdwatching, with flamingoes in the lagoon, and we spotted dolphins frolicking in the lagoon mouth a couple of times.  A long but beautiful hike down the beach gets you to the old ruined Portuguese-era hotel at the point, and (more to the point) the amazing blowholes.  Well worth the trudge.  All in all, it was a very elemental, naturally stunning setting, and we would gladly have spent more time camped at Pomene if we hadn't run out of money (they only take cash at the lodge).  

Ho hum; another perfect sunset

7.  Leeupan Bush Camp--South Africa

Nice setting for Stanley 

Sociable weaver nest complex

This place occupies a special place in our hearts.  We first heard of it in October from a fellow camper in Upington, Northern Cape, South Africa.  We had passed it by as we left Botswana and entered South Africa, and we were too lazy to drive back north to visit it.  It remained on our mental radar, though, and when we beat a retreat from persistent rainy weather in January, we took a detour into the middle of nowhere specifically to camp at Leeupan, and ended up staying three wonderful nights.

Leeupan is located close to the Botswana border, not far from the village of Van Zylsrus, right in the heart of the South African section of the Kalahari.  The landscape consists of a series of red sand dunes running parallel to each other, covered with typical African bush vegetation.  The campsite is on the other side of the main gravel road from the Leeupan farm, and so it's very, very quiet.  There are some basic facilities (flush toilets, showers), but the main appeal is the isolation, the wildlife and the stars at night.  When we were there it was pretty hot during the day, and Terri escaped from the heat by soaking in the "swimming pool", which was really the water reservoir but which served the purpose of cooling us off.  The sunsets were spectacular, and there was plenty of firewood around to stoke up a decent-sized blaze every night.  The evening temperatures dropped to a very pleasant cool, and we sat out every night beside the fire watching for satellites passing overhead and for eyes glinting in the night on the ground, as nocturnal grazers (mostly springbok, but also a springhaas) came in for water at the little drinking trough that the owners have set up.  It was a perfect temperature to sleep at night with our roof hatch open, letting the stars and the moon bathe our faces with a faint glow.

Ooh La La cooling her belly

There were lots of leopard tortoises and birds to be seen, including a very impressive sociable weaver nest complex, but the unique feature of Leeupan that had us driving a couple of hundred kilometres out of our way is that it's next to the Kalahari Meerkat Project property.  These are the meerkats featured in the nature documentary series Meerkat Manor, and Leeupan was the only place that we saw these ridiculously cute social mongooses in the wild. We talked to Lorraine, the very friendly owner, and told her that we were eager to see meerkats.  She talked to her farm workers, and they indicated the vague area that they had last seen the meerkats.  We went for a stroll in the late afternoon and suddenly there were a dozen meerkats under the leadership of the indomitable Ooh La Laa scuttling around energetically, frantically digging into the sand in search of scorpions and crickets to eat.  We stood and watched them for a good long while until one of the Kalahari Meerkat Project volunteers came around to do her evening behavioural observations and we had to leave.  It was a special encounter and was the icing on the cake of a beautiful camping spot.

We love meerkats!

8.  Bruintjieskraal Campsite #12, Baviaanskloof--South Africa

Not a bad place to park

We stayed here for only one night, as we were in a hurry to escape rain and get up towards the Kalahari and Namibia.  It was, however, an incredibly beautiful isolated campsite with a swimming hole and fishing spot right next to the vehicle.  There is a covered private kitchen area that would be useful when the weather is poor, and an excellent private ablution block.  There are a number of campsites spread along the length of the river, but #12 is by far the largest and most isolated; we couldn't hear or see any of the other guests in this popular weekend retreat from Port Elizabeth.  The scenery is very pretty, as the campsite is set in a narrow gorge (a kloof, in Afrikaans; hence the name). It's also a good base for hiking and mountain biking.  It's certainly a place that we would go back to if we found ourselves in that corner of South Africa again.

Morning view from our campsite

9.  Pontoon Camp, Kasanka National Park--Zambia

The campsite attendants stoking up our fires

We were out of cooking gas, so we used the open fire

Pontoon Camp is a beautiful spot in lovely Kasanka National Park.  It's right on the edge of a marsh lined with dense papyrus reeds, into and out of which slip the normally shy sitatunga which are the most aquatic of the antelope family.  Every morning and evening they would make an appearance, coming out onto the grass to graze.  There were lots of waterbirds as well, particularly the coppery-tailed coucal and the African jacana.  The campsite is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and there are only 3 spots, each with its own showers and toilets and fire pits, widely enough spaced that you don't really notice your neighbours.  It's very quiet and the night is full of owls, bats and spiders whose eyes sparkle in your flashlight beam.  The campground has a couple of attendants who kindle fires, heat the water for showers and generally take care of you hand and foot.  Highly recommended.

Sitatunga buck

10.  Otjiwa Lodge, (Campsite #10)--Namibia

Simple, clean and rustic--the way we like it!

This was another place we liked so much that we came back a second time.  It's only about 2 hours north of Windhoek, and we stayed here a couple of times when returning to the city.  Otjiwa is a private game reserve with a fancy lodge but also 10 well-maintained campsites.  We stayed both times in campsite 10, the one furthest from the lodge and other campers, and it was magical.  There's great bush for walking, lots of birds and a feeling that you're much further away from civilization than you really are.  Both nights we stayed here we had great braais (barbecues) over the campfire and sat out under the stars in perfect contentment.  We don't have any photos that I took here, so I lifted a couple of photos from the Otjiwa website and from madbookings.com

Very secluded campsites nestled in the bush

11.  Khami Ruins Campsite--Zimbabwe

Lovely location under the trees

We stayed here almost by accident.  We had planned to visit Khami, some of the most atmospheric historical ruins in Africa, but when we got there, we saw what looked like a perfect place to camp at a little picnic site.  We asked at the site office and it turned out it was set up for camping, despite the lack of a sign.  It turned out to be a wonderful spot, very atmospheric, under the canopy of some towering trees.  I love camping at historic spots, and we were right between two sets of stone ruins.  We climbed up the hill to one set of ruins to watch a full moon rise, and it was absolutely breathtaking.  

Sunset serenade atop the ruins

12.  Elephant Sands--Botswana

The cottages have a great view over the waterhole

Up close and personal

We ended up spending only one night here, blundering in after dark, guided by our GPS to the nearest campground.  It turned out to be a serendipitous jackpot of a choice.  The campground is very atmospheric, popular with overland groups.  It's built around a big waterhole popular with elephants who wander in at all hours, day and night, to have a drink.  The elephants wander right between the vehicles and tents and buildings and seem completely unconcerned about humans being present.  The bar/restaurant area is a perfect place to sit and watch the elephants drinking, wallowing in mud and doing pachyderm stuff.  It would be great to go back there and spend a couple of days just hanging out with the elephants.

13.  Chelinda Campsite, Nyika Plateau--Malawi

Sitting around our campfire

Terri trying to charm the passing elands into posing for a photo

This remote campsite, high up (almost 2000 metres above sea level) is in a very pretty area. The campsites each have a roofed structure to spread out in on rainy days, and have fabulous views out over the plateau.  Eland, bushbuck, reedbuck, zebra and roan antelope all wander by the campsite, and the bushbuck were right beside Stanley when we woke up.  The campsite staff light campfires before dawn and before sunset, and they're necessary to take the edge off the mountain chill.  Lovely hiking and cycling around the campsite, with lots of animals to see, particularly herds of roan, the loveliest of antelope.

Bushbuck in our campsite

I think the remoteness and wilderness in a country like Malawi where overpopulation presses against you more visibly than in the rest of southern Africa is a welcome relief.  As well the mix of cold and wildlife is unusual for most of Africa and is something special.  I am a big fan of the Nyika Plateau.

Elands passing by the campsite