Dark Night

Africa

Grandpa and Stan came down so we could fly out of LAX and we were off on our adventure. First stop: Madagascar. We visited Fort Manda, where the walls that were eight feet tall and six feet wide seemed to be made out of rock, but were really composed of coral, eggshells, and sand. There were still cannon there, and an amazing view of the Indian Ocean. We visited Nosy Boraha for the legit pirate's graveyard and idyllic scenery, Nosy Be, which had everything--Lokobe Nature Special Reserve with adorable lemurs, forests and vanilla orchids (and snakes, kind of eek), ylang ylang plantations, rum distilleries, and beautiful coral reefs. We stayed in its capital of Hell-ville (totally non-damnation) for the food and the beaches; I got to dive while my grandpa  and Stan snorkled; there were amazing huge turtles and colorful fishes. We saw the stunning beaches of Les Trois Baies,  stands of cool baobab trees, and beautiful forests and waterfalls.

Then we were off to Malawi and its exquisite scenery: the Lower Shire Valleym which was an extension of the Rift Valley (that made me a little nervous because of Rift Valley Fever, but we didn't hear of any of that while we were there), a tour of Nyika National Park, where we saw elephants, zebras, leopards, lions, buffalo, and an astonishing number of birds along with waterfalls, and neolithic shelters. There was also the Ntchisi Forest Reserve, an extraordinary gem, contained some of the last indigenous rainforest of the country and there are beautiful orchids, abundant bird life, troops of samango monkeies, baboons, hyenas and the odd bushbuck and bush pig. A black leopard had recently been sighted on the mountain near the lodge, but we did not see it. I refrained from making Black Panther jokes. Our last stop was the exquisite Lake Malawi, the Lake of Stars. It's a very interesting lake, scientifically speaking, a meromictic lake, which means that its water layers don't mix. The stratification and oxic/anoxic boundary is maintained by fairly small chemical and thermal gradients. It's home to an astonishing 700 species of cichlids, the water is crystal clear, and we did some scuba diving. I saw a monitor lizard swimming while we were out. Bit freaky but very cool. It's a UNESCO heritage site for a reason.

From Malawi, we went north to Ethiopia, where we went hiking in Simien Mountains National Par, where among the beautiful vistas and waterfalls, we saw two species of baboons, a couple kinds of moneys including vervet monkeys, servals, jackals, Ethiopian wolves, Gelada and Walia Ibex. In Addis Ababa, we got in a cooking class, visiting the market for the ingredients and learning how to make injera, a fermented bread that is an edible plate for the traditional Ethiopian stew, so delicious. And we had a coffee ceremony. Finally, my beverage of choice gets its due.  We also took a guided tour of the city, including the some of the historic churches in the area, the Shiromeda textile market, the National Museum where you can see the skeleton of Lucy, the old town of Piassa, and Merkato, the largest open market in Africa.

The next day, we continued northwest to Egypt. Tourism there was still kind of iffy, following perceptions of danger from the transition of power from Mubarak to Morsi, the airline bombings, the bombings of Coptic churches, but we were so close, and the treasures there are so tempting that we went, although our tour was not as extensive as we might have wished. We flew to Cairo and explored the Giza necropolis, watching as scientists worked on the preservation of the badly eroding Sphinx, continuing our day trip to the ancient capital of Memphis with a slight detour to the step pyramid of the pharaoh Djoser and the Heb-Seb Court. Although Memphis today is largely ruined, there are still beautiful, relaxing gardens with statuary, and it must have been utterly magnificent when it was in its heyday. Time, sand, and wind have largely scoured the ancient monuments of their color; it was difficult to imagine what they would have looked like, fresh with colorful paint rather than the austere natural stone we're used to. There is a ruined colossus of Ramesses II (of course, the guy was everywhere) and the Alabaster Sphinx. We sailed on the Nile for a few hours, and of course went to  the Egyptian Museum.