Don't mess with a Dune Ant

As I mentioned previously, survival against the harshest imaginable conditions was a constant theme for us during our visit to Namibia. Well, not for us as well looked after tourists, but certainly for the all of the wildlife around us. We were constantly awed at what we learned about the ingenious survival techniques of desert dwellers. And not only must the animals be incredibly resourceful, but tough, tough, tough.

Take the Dune Ant. Every time I photographed one, after one or two snaps, the insect would sense me and, rather than scurrying away, actually stop its activities to look up at me and cock its sharp mandibles menacingly. As if to say, "Hey! Hey! Yeah, you, the papa-frickin-razzi. I'm workin' here. We ain't all on vacation. Get that lens outa my face before I bite your ass."

After coming home I read a bit more about the Dune Ant, and I'm even more impressed. They actually herd scale insects like livestock in order to milk their sugary secretions. And, according to a short description I read on PBS.org, they can navigate by the angle of the sun and "in order to limit water loss, they breathe in short rapid bursts." They also fiercely defend their nests and will fight intruders to the death, pinning a rival ant to the hot sand to cook it alive. Wow.

Have a look at this video courtesy of Animal Planet which explains more about this tenacious ant. And click the photos for a better, close up view.

Leopard, Namibia

Namibia, day 1

On our first day in Namibia we rented a truck in Windhoek and drove about 2 hours southwest from the capital to a small lodge to spend our first night before venturing further afield for the rest of out 10 day road trip. Beautiful drive. Incredibly hot, unbelievably dry. So dry you actually don't sweat--any moisture evaporates instantly. In fact by the end of the first day I had a pounding headache from dehydration. The rest of the trip we drank around 3 liters or more each per day.

After four years in London, I guess I've come to take water for granted. If anything, the English climate has turned water, in my imagination, into an ever present, gloomy, drizzly weight that must be endured for endless stretches with a scowl and an upturned collar. A roadblock to wearing my new high heeled turquoise suede ankle boots. A compelling excuse to skip morning runs and therefore a contributing factor to my body's modest but nonetheless alarming new tendency toward muffin top in the absence of regular cardio. All of these unpleasant things, rather than the precious stuff of life it is most everywhere else.

So it was humbling to notice, when we stopped our truck so I could hop out and open a wooden gate to allow our vehicle to drive into the lodge on a dusty, heat emitting road, a swarm of tiny purple butterflies coating a patch on the ground. Why? Because upon closer inspection, I realized they had gathered to lick a faintly moist patch in the sand, most likely deposited by a leaky vehicle that had stopped previously in this same spot to open the gate.

A hundred tiny creatures, whipping their little tongues at the dampness. This was life or death for them. I immediately poured half of my water bottle onto the ground, hoping to give them a party.

Most of them scattered as soon as I approached and started taking pictures...only a handful of brave (or extra thirsty) ones stayed behind. Click to enlarge...notice the little guy coming in for a landing to the right in photo four below.

How Scott saved my life in the desert

Spent a cleansing and beautiful two weeks in South Africa & Namibia over Christmas & New Years. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

We are still sorting the 3500+ photos and will post an album soon, but thought you'd like to see my heroic Scott in action changing a tire on the side of a hot, dusty, lonely road in the middle of absolutely nowhere in the Namibia desert.

Never mind how his cowboy driving and cavalier attitude toward warning road signs as we approached a rocky river bed may have caused the blowout...we were in a double cab 4X4 Nissan Pathfinder gas guzzler with the double CD collection of Johnny Cash performing live at Folsom and San Quentin prisons blaring on the stereo. How could he be expected to drive any other way??

It wasn't until we'd driven a few kilometers past the river bed that we turned down Johnny to pinpoint where a certain troubling noise was coming from....when Scott saw smoke coming from the back rear tire we realized we better stop to have a look.

The tire was a mess! Scott got to it right away, but it didn't help that the handle on the jack was from a different model and so didn't actually connect with the cranking mechanism. But thankfully Scott was prepared with his leatherman (the only time I've ever seen him use the thing aside from once peeling fruit while hiking). And so with some strategic assistance from some nearby boulders (don't ask), we were on our way after only 45 minutes.

I stood by feebly holding our road map over Scott's head in an effort to shade his face and head from the sun, which was giving off about 120 degrees of unforgiving heat. After a while I gave up and started taking pictures.

Click on album for larger view...

Back from the deep freeze

Scott and I have just returned from five days in St. Petersburg. Fascinating. Amazing museums, churches and architecture. We splashed out on a spa hotel which had a nordic ice cave among other features....more soon once I've downloaded photos.

In the meantime, here I am enduring said ice cave for the specified 5 minute period before heading to my choice of hot sauna (courtesy of Scott's blackberry--yes, he had it with him in the spa.)

Botswana & Zimbabwe

Just realized that I never posted any of our pictures from Botswana LAST YEAR. In case you are still interested, here goes:

Sandibe Lodge, Okavango Delta (click here & select slideshow for larger view):



Savuti Lodge, Okavango Delta (click here & select slideshow for larger view):



Chobe National Park (click here & select slideshow for larger view):



Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (click here & select slideshow for larger view):

Sri Lanka

Just back from an inspiring two weeks in Sri Lanka. A fuller post with photos in the coming days, but here's a little preview from the Sinharaja Rainforest Reserve, where we spent a few days birdwatching. These speedy leeches could be found everywhere (including attached to my leg sucking my blood):

Oporto

To view larger images, click here and choose slideshow.

Scott and I are just back from 4 days in Porto, Portugal. Amazing little city. It's been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, it's the home of port wine, and it's a quick 2 hour flight from London. What more could you ask for?

It rained--poured--the entire time we were there, but somehow we didn't mind. Our first stop was to purchase cool umbrellas from a local store (Scott was firmly redirected by the shop keeper when he tried to purchase a "women's" umbrella), and we didn't look back.

Highlights include:

--Amazing "azulejos" tiles on facades all over the city

--Learning lots about port wine and visiting cellars and tasting lots of port (makes for a delightfully hazy trip)

--Beautiful architecture spanning medieval to baroque to rococco to art deco & beyond

--Day trip to stunning Douro valley (east of Porto, where grapes are grown)

--A few memorable meals, including lunch at Graham's port lodge--traditional bacalao (salt cod) dish, and at another restaurant whose name I can't recall with yummy fusion food including a basil salmon fritter and spectacular chocolate suffle with mango ice cream

--Creepy church shrines/saints' remains/statues. My favorite is a carved wood panel from the Sao Francisco church, depicting Os Santos Mártires de Marrocos--a group of missionary monks beheaded in 1219 in Morocco:

Capetown

So much to recount from our long, long African holiday. I spent a bit of time in South Africa for work. You can catch up on that leg of the journey on my work blog.

Scott then met me in Johannesburg and we headed down to Capetown for the weekend.




Beautiful spot. Highlights include:

-- good wine (courtesy of local Stellenbosch vineyards);

--a relaxing stay at a very lovely B&B called Cape Twenty Two located in the Oranjazicht neighborhood, Afrikaans for "Orange View," since in colonial times one could see the orange groves below, whose harvest allowed ships to guard against scurvy;

--a day trip out to the Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope (described by Sir Francis Drake in 1580 as "The most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth." Read its fascinating history here); and

--watching the resident colony of (highly comical) penguins at Boulders Beach, part of beautiful Table Mountain National Park.

You can view our photos below or click here for a larger version (be sure to activate slideshow)

Safari!

Amazing time in South Africa, Botswana & Zimbabwe. More pictures coming shortly.

Bruges

Feeling the travel bug, we decided to take a drive to Bruges, Belgium, this weekend for a quick overnight stay. We left at sun up on Saturday, driving through the Channel Tunnel and up the coast of northern France on to Bruges. The drive took us about 4 hours total.

Bruges is quite beautiful (it's often referred to as the "Venice of the North" because of its canals). The city's historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and does not disappoint--much of its medieval architeture is well preserved.

By the14th century Bruges had become an important commercial center (wool, cloth, banking) but later fell on hard times and its canal to the sea silted up. As a result the city went into hundreds of years of decline (by the mid-1800s was the poorest city in Belgium) but the upshot is that without economic development, the city center remained virtually unchanged.

Bruges' other claim to fame is as a base for the Flemish painting school and the city is home to a number of small museums with masterpieces by the likes of Jan Van Eyck and Hans Memling.

My favorite paintings from the weekend are:

"The Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele" painted by Van Eyck in 1436:

"Sibylle Sambetha" painted by Memling in 1480:






















And "Portrait of Jacquemyne Buuck" painted by Pieter Porbus in 1551:







We took a number of photos of our own in between eating waffles, nibbling local chocolates (ok, more like scarfing) and toasting one another with glasses of heavily intoxicating Belgian beer:



[For larger, higher quality photos, click here].

On the way back, we tried in vain to find any kind of museum or interpretive marker in Dunkerque, France, commemorating the heroic efforts of some 900 British civilians, who in 1940 crossed the Channel in their own small boats to rescue some 300K French and British soldiers who were pinned on the beach by the Nazis. Instead, we found a run-down Atlantic City-esque seatown resort with a number of sketchy drifters wandering the streets. Locating the Bureau de Tourisme, we quickly dismissed the listing on its billboard for the local Musee de Beaux-Arts. Our mistake. Upon return home, a quick Google reveals the museum has an impressive collection of 16th century masters. Crap!

We also struck out in Calais. This is the town where the Channel Tunnel is located, but also an important English holding during medieval times so I was curious to see if any medieval architecture survived the test of time. As far as I could tell, it did not. We didn't spend much time exploring, as Scott quickly pronounced it to have a depressing, has-been feel, and I couldn't quite convince him to stop the car. So we continued on and spent our last hours in France awaiting our appointed crossing time trolling the Channel Tunnel duty free shop buying chocolate and Belgian beer. I guess I can't complain.

Normandy

Scott and I spent drove to Normandy for the Bank Holiday weekend. It still amazes me that whereas before, living in the States, our most exotic 3-day weekend would be on the order of Vermont, it's now France. In 5 hours drive. Just like that.

We stayed in Bayeux, home to the famous Bayeux Tapestry, a 230 foot long, expertly embroidered cloth depicting the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. It is believed to have been embroidered a decade or two after the conquest and is a truly fascinating historical document. I've wanted to see it for quite a while, and was not disappointed.

Bayeux is also home to a stunning 900 year old cathedral. Of course the heads of all statues within reach of several waves of protestant zealots and revolutionaries have long since been lobbed off, but luckily lots of beautiful carvings have survived. And also lots of creepy ones! The kind that I suppose were supposed to help people in 1100 better envision the fires of hell.

And of course there are the D-Day landing beaches. We spent all of Sunday winding through narrow country lanes that have probably changed very little since 1944, following occasional signs pointing to "D-Day Le Choc" (le choc = the impact). Scott was an excellent guide, reading aloud first hand accounts of Allied soldiers who landed at each beach we visited.

I suppose it is inevitable that with the passage of time WWII holds less relevance for people, even here, but I couldn't help feeling that WWII meant little more to people than a means to part tourists from their euros, as opposed to a fascinating aspect of the area's history. The "museums" are nothing more than garages filled with rusted debris, a few heavily made-up 1970s mannequins in army fatigues, and Glen Miller playing over loud speakers. The exception is the American Cemetery which has a thoughtful interpretive center where I actually learned something about the experiences of the soldiers buried there.

Early Monday morning we set off for home, planning to stop for breakfast in Rouen to see the cathedral there. Unfortunately it was closed! But Rouen has a lovely and well preserved medieval town center which we wandered around for a while, and a number of other really excellent churches such as the Abbaye de Saint-Ouen.

Take a look at some photos, either in the slide show below or, for better images, here (and click SLIDESHOW).

Scotland & Lakes District

Spent a lovely week in the Lakes District and Scotland earlier this month. It's taken me a while to download and sort through all of the photos. It was a fascinating trip--we essentially drove the whole length of the UK.

The Lakes District in Cumbria is stunning. It's a large national park with some of the most dramatic hiking I've ever done, and home to Beatrix Potter. It's hilly and so so green. Feels like it is at the end of the earth, but only 4 hours drive from London. We saw the handsome Red Squirrel which is native to the area, and climbed up the Catbells and also Hellvellyn (highest peak in Cumbria). Here are some photos (click here and select slideshow to see the album online, with better quality photos than slideshow below):



Scotland was beautiful as well--even more so than we expected. We drove straight up from the Lakes District, passing through Glasgow and then heading up to Glencoe in the Highlands, in the western part of the country. The Highlands have an expansive feel, almost like being in the American West--long stretches of uninhabited prarie. Almost impossible to capture in photos.

To sum it up in 50 words or less: Rain, wool, fog, clouds, bone-penetrating cold, rain, God-awful food, midges, exhausting hikes, sheep, rain, scrabble, asking Scottish people to repeat themselves, scotch, ferns, stone walls, hills, rain, sea birds, ruins (pre-historic, Roman, Medieval), amazement that people really do speak Gaelic up there, oh, and did I mention rain?

But in spite of a decided lack of creature comforts, it was an excellent trip. All the credit goes to Scotland's natural beauty. We were so inspired by our surroundings no amount of rain, cold, or dubious pub meals could dampen our spirits.

We spent most days hiking and in the evenings, after unsuccessfully hunting for a decent meal, we'd curl up with our books (though it was a challenge to fall asleep with the sun not setting until nearly 11!). I was quite absorbed in an historical novel about Lady Jane Gray followed by a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, while Scott was engrossed in the new Alain DeBotton book.

We managed to climb Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK, though it was not as easy as we expected. There was snow at the top, and a pair of snow buntings hopped around at our feet on the peak, hoping for a few crumbs to fall as we ate a snack. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos, as we found our camera and various lenses are too cumbersome to hike with--hence we've only got photos of our first hike in the Lakes District.

On the days we weren't hiking, we took day trips to various places: we visited a scotch distillery, which was fascinating and deserves a post on its own; we scooted up to Loch Ness (couldn't resist); took the ferry to the Isle of Skye, and, on the next to last night found an oasis in the Crannog Restaurant in Fort William, where we had a truly inspired meal with mouth watering smoked salmon, excellent wine, a serene view of Loch Linnhe, and a heavenly sticky date pudding with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Here are some photos (click here and select slideshow to see online album w/ better quality photos):

Scotland photos coming soon...

Since you've been gone...

One thing about the world: it keeps to a tight schedule. It doesn't put its plans on hold when you have your nose buried so deep in your new job you don't have as much time and energy as you normally do to document it on your blog. Flowers don't wait for the weekend to bloom so that you'll have time to photograph them. Ducklings at the local pond don't slow their growth in hopes that you'll have the chance to come by and see them while they are in their super cute phase. Nope, not a chance.

I seem to have a lot of things swirling around in my head these days. Lately, while sitting on the tube or walking on the street or lying in bed at night, I notice that my brow is deeply furrowed for no apparent reason. I like my job, I guess I just don't always like working. It gets in the way. There have been dozens of times over the past few weeks where I've seen something beautiful, or something interesting has happened to me, and I've thought about what a good blog post it would be. And then I get busy and nothing comes of it.

So, here's my attempt to recap 5 notable things from last two weeks:

1. Spiders are back. Everywhere. To Scott's dismay, the whole country seems to be, well, crawling with them.

I was waiting on the train platform the other morning going through my wallet to weed out old receipts, and underneath my wallet I was holding, in the same hand, a rolled up New Yorker. In the short time it took me to pull out all the old receipts and toss them into the trash bin, I noticed a spider had begun spinning a web in the 3 inch space between the magazine and my wallet!

It inspired me to take a tour of my garden to try to document some of them [click photos for larger versions]:



1a. Remember that nursery web spider that beat the glass with his fangs when I trapped him last summer? I found a new one who lives in the rolled up end of one of our rugs in the dining room. I watched it leap onto a smaller spider and ominously drag it into its dark, hidden lair. It has been very difficult to photograph because every time I notice it outside the rug and try to approach, it scurries back inside.


1b. A number of spiders have taken up residence behind our sideview mirrors again. I think that they must do it because the mirrors reflect light from our porch lamp at night, which attracts bugs. Smart spiders.

2. The aforementioned flowers are blooming (from our garden):



3. We have discovered a colony of bumble bees living under our lawn. They come and go out of a small hole in the grass. I watched one bumble bee chewing the blades of grass to keep the hole tidy and unobstructed. They are very fast little bees, and this is the best I could do to capture their high-speed comings and goings.


4. Though it's true that a growing duckling or gosling waits for no one, we have managed to spend some time at the local pond in the past few weekends observing their downy cuteness.

The park sells little bags of grain that you can feed them. Some will eat out of your hand. This little flock of older ducklings descended on me voraciously.
Only one of the ducklings was brave enough to feed from my hand (the alpha duckling?) while the rest just quacked at me urgently until I threw some food their way. The mother watched me very closely to be sure I didn't try anything funny with her children, and she quacked disapprovingly when one of the ducklings first started feeding from my hand. Isn't she pretty?
Our Disney-esque afternoon with cute animal babies was shattered when we noticed one little yellow gosling floating face down in the pond. Scott convinced me it was irrational to ask the groundskeeper to perform avian CPR; we left on a low note.


5. We drove out to see Canterbury Cathedral, where Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop, was murdered by Henry II's knights in 1170. Murdered doesn't really do it justice. The top of his head was sliced off with a sword, and one overeager knight plucked out his brain with the tip of his sword and swirled it around the cathedral floor. After his death, local visitors to the site began to experience miracles and so the cathedral became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Middle Ages (one such group of pilgrims is the subject of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales). The site is stunning. The items in the giftshop, on the other hand, struck me as a bit questionable.

Texas

Phew! The poor Sobremesa blog has been the victim of serious neglect in the past month, owing to out-of-town visitors, Easter break, a heavy work schedule at the new job, and 10 days in Texas. But, I'm back!

Texas was really relaxing. We spent four days in Austin for Dylan & Phil's wedding and then drove south through San Antonio down to Rockport, on the Gulf of Mexico, for a week of birding.

So many highlights, it's hard to know where to start.

First, being invited to share such an important event in a friend's life is really special, and Dylan's wedding was simply beautiful. You could tell that a great amount of love and care were taken in planning every aspect--the ceremony, the food, the music, the flowers, the setting--but not in such a way that the marriage was eclipsed by the event. It was sincere, personal, and uplifting. Congratulations again! I also got to spend some nice quality time with my friends from college and my friend Donnell.

Other Lone Star highlights [click photos to enlarge]:

1. The sun.

2. Tex-Mex to die for, especially at Las Manitas Cafe in Austin (Scott & Donnell at breakfast, below) and Nichas in San Antonio:

3. Bluebonnets in bloom and various other roadside wildflowers:

4. Visiting the San Antonio Missions:

5. Learning that global warming is in the Bible and that a Winnebago is capable of towing a Hummer down the highway.

6. Being regularly addressed by waitresses as Mija, Mamacita and on one occasion, Sir.

7. Being the only non-pick-up truck/SUV/Hummer on the road at all times.

8. Making Scott pull over every 5 miles to photograph herds of cattle:

9. Various roadsigns:

10. Beautiful scenery:

There's a lot more to tell about the spring migration and the birding portion of our trip. Until tomorrow...