Hair it is

Oct. 21, 2008
Cape Town, South Africa

Have you ever seen "Girls Gone Wild?"
Neither have I.
But the title alone quite fits my foray into Cape Town, my escape from 43 degrees Celsius heat in Maun.
I met my Sacramento Bee friend Kelly Swift here on Saturday. She left Kendwa Beach in Zanzibar after about 6 weeks hanging out and diving. I've been in and out of the Botswana bush, where it is brutally dry and hot. This was a quick getaway before Kelly heads to the orphanage for volunteer work and I go back into Botswana to host my friend Sandy Garcia coming to visit from Austin, Texas, and to head out to a bush camp as a volunteer with Wilderness Safaris' nonprofit Children in The Wilderness.
Since we arrived Kelly and I have romped through the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront shopping mall like two teenagers. I haven't been this excited about shopping since I was 16 and working at Ivey's in North Hills in Raleigh, N.C. It's totally out of line. We're trying on Jimmy Choo shoes. We're looking in the windows at Gucci. We're drinking Cape red wines. We're dining on sushi and fantastic Southern Indian food at Masala Dosa on Long Street....You name the girly extravagance, and we're on board.

Yesterday we had our hair cut and colored. I suffered the ignominy of the receptionist saying to me about my boxed color jobs from the Okavango Pharmacy, "Oh, that explains your hair's strange color." The way they handled my hair was worthy of an ER room, in triage. Several times Claudette my wonderful stylist explained the sorry condition of my hair by referring to the "boxed color." Well, you try living and shopping in Maun for beauty products, sister. Not an easy spot. At any rate, the hair looks fabulous. The city life is a welcome break from the bush. And today it's head to toe polish at a spa. Girls gone wild....One of these days we'll see the sights of Cape Town. But not today.

My passion for African skies

I never tire of the African sky.
Here the sun is setting over Kendwa Beach, up island on Zanzibar, where I lay on a white beach with nothing to do but survey the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Now that I'm back in dusty Maun, I ask myself, "Now, why exactly did I need to rush away from the sea and the skies of Zanzibar?"

I left my pal, Kelly, there. She plans to hang out and write in a room just off the beach. She had planned to come visit in Maun, but when she heard about the heat, the
lack of air conditioning, the venomous snakes that occasionally show up in my storybook cottage (no reptiles have visited yet on my watch, thank goodness)and the flurry of mosquitoes this time of year, she paused and made a different plan that involved staying put.

I'm glad I saw Kendwa and its sunsets. I'll carry them with me on this journey.

From my cottage tonight I will look up at the Maun sky in awe. And, yes, I'll slap a few mosquitoes from my arms as I toast my days on this continent -- all of Africa, from desert to delta to the sea.