Cookies and Lecce?

I guess that should be Leche (Spanish for milk). Anyway, yesterday we said goodbye to Otranto and headed north and inland to the city of Lecce. Kilometer after kilometer of olive groves. Great weather for bicycling.

There's Jordan in his Tour de Vietnam cycling jersey - it's a real hit among our fellow cyclists. They all want one.

Several kilometers before lunch at Masseria Copertini, this "stray?" dog joins us. He keeps up with us all the way. We have a new companion.

Another big hit was Dewitt's cycling shorts. Check them out! I've got to get me a pair.

It's More Fun to Drink Wine Than to Make Orecchiette

Yesterday's bicycle ride took us thru a zillion olive groves and then along the coast south of Otranto. They have these lovely narrow paved roads thru the olive groves - great for bicycle riding, but they go every which direction. How anyone can find their way without directions is beyond me. They say it was to confuse invading armies - I believe it.

Every so often we come to a small town - cappucino break! Each small town looks alike - a central plaza, a main church, city hall, a combo bar/coffee shop/convenience store, and lots of old men sitting around drinking espresso and talking politics. A nice, peaceful, low stress lifestyle.

We ended up at the town of Castro Marina for lunch, but our restaurant was closed. For what reason? Who knows? So we found another restaurant, but had to schedule our meal around a wedding reception at the restaurant. Only in Italy - a wedding reception on a Thursday afternoon.

After lunch (everyone takes at least an hour and a half for lunch), not many of us were in the mood for a long, uphill ride back to Masseria Montelauro. So Lewis crammed a bunch of us into the van and rode us up the steepest hill before we got out and pedalled the rest of the way. What a guy!

Before dinner, we had an cooking class - making homemade orecchiette, Puglia's famous pasta shape. Caren claims they are shaped like penis caps - how would she know what a penis cap looked like? What exactly is a penis cap? Something you wear in cold weather?
These two women were able to crank out the little pastas very quickly. After several glasses of wine, not many in our group could tackle the pasta making anyways. We left it for the kitchen staff to do the cooking and we settled in for eating and more drinking.

Do we really have to bicycle ride again tomorrow? Perhaps it will be raining when we get up tomorrow morning.

Everyone Conquered This Area at Some Time

Last night we stayed at the Masseria Montelauro. A "masseria" is an old fortified farm. They built walls around the farm compound to try and repel invaders. It seems like every ancient civilization invaded this area at least once. Hundreds of years ago, Otranto was overrun by the Turks and they slaughtered thousands of local people. The Pugliese people still remember.

In recent years, people have been buying up these old farms, rebuilding the ruined buildings, and opening small, luxury hotels. This place is gorgeous - on a hillside overlooking the coast, surrounded by olive groves and farmland. The rooms are ultra-modern design (very Italian).

We ate dinner at a 12th century castle that has been restored by the original family. Quite a building, but it must be terrible to heat in the winter. Lots and lots of Puglia wine to drink - good thing we're not driving the van home. We're headed off now on our second day of bicycling. The next post will cover our coastal ride and pasta making class.

Otranto























This is where the bicycle tour begins - along the Adriatic coast near the town of Otranto (see the far right side of the map). This is the heel of the boot of Italy.

We spent the night in Brindisi after a LONG flight from LA (LAX-Cincinnati-Rome-Brindisi). An hour after we checked into our hotel by the harbor, the airport was closed. A couple of Albanians (with NO weapons) hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane and it was forced to land where???? In Brindisi. There we are watching "Breaking News" on CNN and the pictures show the plane landing where we just landed not an hour before. Caren always wanted to be on CNN, but this was cutting it a bit close.

Our bicycle group numbers 22, but one woman got delayed on business in London and will catch up in a day or two. She needs to get her priorities straight - Italian food, good wine, and gorgeous landscapes take precedence over a little work.

Our tour guides are Lewis (a Canadian) and Francesco (from northern Italy). The first ride is along the Alimini Lakes to the coast, winding up at Otranto harbor for lunch. The weather is PERFECT.

We're Off to Italia

Next week, we're headed off on another exciting adventure. This time we're going to Italy - first for a week long bicycle tour through Puglia (the heel of the boot), followed by two nights outside of Rome (in the town of Tivoli), and four nights in the Maremma region of Tuscany (along the Mediterranean coast). We're looking forward to a lot of great sightseeing, food, wine, bicycling, and making new friends.

The weather should be a lot like it is now in LA - mid 70s during the day and low 60s at night. We think we're staying away from the crowds of tourists, but we'll see.

There was an interesting article about the Maremma region in the NY Times Sunday magazine back in May. Here's a link to it: NY Times Article

For those of you that are geographically challenged, here is a map that shows where the province of Puglia is located in Italy.
Our bicycle trip starts in Brindisi, then goes on to Otranto, Lecce, and finally, Savelletri (outside of the city of Bari).

And here is the Wikipedia article with everything you ever wanted to know about Puglia: Wikipedia article

Spencer Swimming

Here is a short video of Spencer (our younger English Springer Spaniel) doing his favorite pasttime - swimming. He'd swim all day if we had the patience to keep throwing his toy in the pool.

Slide Show of a Few of Our Africa Pictures

Here is a sample of the 2,000+ photos we took on our southern Africa trip:

The LONG, LONG, LONG flight home

We finally arrived home on Friday at 3:30PM Pacific Daylight Time. We left Eagle Island Camp in Botswana over 35 hours ago.

First, there was the Mack Air flight in a six-passenger Cessna from our camp's airstrip to Maun. Then there was the Air Botswana flight to Johannesburg. Yes, there is an Air Botswana, they fly jet aircraft, but they don't have a frequent flyer point program.

Then we had a three hour layover before boarding our SAA flight to NY. The SAA flight was the "killer". It was originally scheduled to fly from J'burg to Dakar, Senegal to refuel and change flight crews before continuing on to NY. But there had been a two day fuel workers' strike in Dakar, so we had to fly to Sal, the airport at the Portugese-owned territory of Cape Verde off the West African coast. There we picked up four SAA flight crews that had been stranded during the strike AND then fly to Dakar where the strike was now over so we could drop off the flight crews.

Altogether we spent 20 hours on the SAA flight, new personal records for flight time for both of us.

Arriving at JFK, we hustled thru customs and hopped over to the jetBlue terminal to catch our flight to Long Beach.

Of course, we had to make a refueling stop of our own at Papaya King. After wolfing down a couple of good NY hot dogs, we enjoyed the DirecTV on jetBlue where we caught up on the news for the first time in two weeks.

It's amazing. The Middle East is in turmoil, the stock market is doing crazy things, Bush is doing his usual bumbling act of traveling abroad trying to play diplomat so he can avoid his problems at home, and there are brush fires in SoCal. Nothing changes.

Time to catch up on sleep, do laundry, let "the boys" in the house, and start editing the photos and video.

Visiting a Botswana Village

This morning, one of the stops on our game drive was to visit a Botswana village. It was disturbing. Here we have so much and the people we met have so little.

The villagers have a 40% HIV infection rate. There is very little food they can grow because the animals eat most of it.

They get regular visits from a medical team, but children have to go to boarding school in Maun (over 100 miles away).

Their homes are huts made from the mud of termite piles and reinforced with layers of used soda cans to prevent the rain from washing away the walls. The roofs are thatch.


Like we saw in Zambia, the villagers' primary source of income is selling baskets and other handmade souvenirs. They do gorgeous work so we felt good buying multiple items. One Aussie surgeon in our group just decided he needed to hand the children money. It was a good gesture.

Flying Over the Okavango Delta

This afternoon we took a helicopter ride over the Okavango Delta. What a way to see things!

The pilot takes the doors off the helicopter so we can get a better view. Don't worry - we're strapped in pretty well. It's a true E-ticket ride.

After take off, we fly most of the time at 50-100 feet above the ground. That way, we can see the animals quite well as we cross the delta area and several islands.

From the air, you can really see how enormous the Okavango Delta really is. It stretches to the horizon in every direction. No people to be seen anywhere. No roads except the tracks where vehicles go on game drives during the season when the water level in the delta goes down. All transportation is by boat or by air. Yet we know there are other lodges/camps down there as this is a national park.

Caren shoots away using the digital camera and Jordan is recording video with the camcorder. You can see herds of elephant, giraffe, hippos, impala, and zebra quite easily.

Here are some photos from the helicopter ride and our game drives at Eagle Island Camp:

The Okavango Delta in Botswana

Here's a good crossword puzzle word for you - ENDORHEIC. Give up?

It's the name for a watershed from which there is no outflow of water. The Caspian Sea, Dead Sea, Great Salt Lake, and Crater Lake are all endorheic watersheds. So is the Okavango Delta in Botswana where we now are.

It's the world's largest inland delta, flowing into the Kalahari Desert. The number of different types of wildlife is incredible - birds (of all kinds, shapes, and sizes), antelopes, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, buffalo, giraffe, etc.

This is a photographer's paradise. Click on the satellite photo for an enlarged view.

City Boy Freaks Out

This is a story that Caren will tell for years to come....

We are coming out of our tent cabin at Eagle Island Camp about midday, heading to the main building. As we walk along the path, we hear a noise to our left. There, not 10 feet from us, is a bull elephant walking in the camp, heading towards us.

What does Jordan do? He yells "RUN" and starts doing so.

What does Caren do? She whips out her camera and starts to take the elephant's picture.

What does the elephant do? He keeps heading towards us because what he really wants is to get over to the water and start eating some more fresh grass. These elephants eat and crap all day.

Here is the fellow who stars in this story:















Caren delights in recounting to people how Jordan freaked out when the elephant made his surprise appearance. Obviously, this camp has ZERO fences around it and animals could meander thru the camp whenever they wanted.

The Dung Walk

This morning we went on a mokoro ride thru the channels to one of the islands in the delta. A mokoro is like a large canoe, originally carved out of a single tree trunk, but now made out of fiberglass.

Once ashore, we went on what Caren called a "dung walk." We hiked the trails on the island, looking for animal tracks and their droppings. Supposedly, a good tracker can locate the wild animals by examining the dung and foot prints. Caren is putting together a new puzzle she's going to title "Who Did That?" The player has to match the picture of the dung pile with the proper animal. Multiple choice, of course.

Some Photos from Savute Elephant Camp

Here are a few of the photos we took at Savute Elephant Camp. Yes, you can get that close to all the animals. They are NOT tame, but they have no fear of people as long as you don't make any sudden movements or noises.

Impala Male
Three male lions - brothers


Yellow Hornbill (aka Flying Banana)

Moon rising at Savute

Leopard


Wildebeast at watering hole

Savute Elephant Camp

This place is not to be believed. Here we are out in the middle of nowhere, actually in the midst of the Savute (Dry) Marsh which is part of Chobe National Park in Botswana, and we are staying in this luxurious safari camp run by the Orient-Express people. The camp has a maximum capacity of 24 people and the staff outnumber the guests.

There are twelve "rooms" that they call tents, but these are the plushest tents I've ever seen. They are very comfortable bungalows that happen to have heavy tent-like walls and roof.

The food is to die for (not to die from) - they have a great South African chef who plans the menus for all three O-E camps in Botswana and then instructs the local people on how to prepare and serve the meals. Every single food item has to be shipped in - the non-perishables by truck from South Africa and the perishables by truck and plane from Maun, Botswana. It's an amazing logistical problem, but you never realize the extent of it when you're eating ostrich steak, kudu stew, or amarula mousse. The food preparation and presentation is equal to any Michelin two-three star restaurant.

There is NO way not to gain weight on this trip. We have a light breakfast before heading out on a morning game drive at around sunrise. We come back to camp around 10:30, and at 11:00 sit down for a full brunch. Then it's "siesta" time until High Tea at 3:00. At 3:30 we head out for another 3-4 hour game drive before sitting down for a huge dinner (preceeded by drinks of course) at 8:00. To top off the meal service, we stop about 3/4 of the way into the morning game drive for coffee, tea, and snacks, and during the afternoon drive for "sundowners". We got to like living in this style. Going back to (only) three meals a day will be tough to deal with.

Getting here was a real experience. First, we drove in a van for an hour from Livingstone, Zambia to Kazangula (the border village where Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe all meet). It was actually a well paved road (one of the few in Zambia). The van broke down about half way there due to too much water in the diesel fuel - it's a common occurrence since the petrol stations water down the fuel to make more money selling it. Fortunately, our driver knew how to flush out the fuel line and we were off after a 10 minute delay.

At Kazangula, we got on a ferry boat to cross the Zambezi River and enter Botswana. They don't want to build a bridge, because everyone thinks riding a ferry is more fun. No one cares much for doing things quickly here - enjoying the experience is more important.



Exiting Zambia was quite quick (they stamp your passport). Entering Botswana was another story - you wait in an immigration line to get your passport stamped, then you have to walk across a damp rug to kill any germs on your shoes because they don't want hoof and mouth disease entering the country. (As if it's not already here.) It's a total joke. The office is plastered with posters warning people about money laundering, using condoms (they are free for the taking from a wall dispenser), and smuggling. All this in a country the size of France with a population of about 1.5 million people.



Then we drove to the airport in Kasane and boarded our 15 passenger Cessna. No flight attendant, no tickets, no meal or beverage service. The pilot walks thru the terminal and finds the people on his flight list. He ushers you thru their version of TSA security and you walk across the tarmac to the plane. 40 minutes later after flying at 4,500 feet and not hearing anything above the roar of the engine, we land at this dirt airstrip and we're picked up by the Orient-Express guides. Then it's another 15-20 minutes on a sand road to get to the camp.

I was right - no internet, no telephone, no television. But everyone on the staff introduces themselves on a first name basis and they make you feel totally at home. Why not? They want you to enjoy what they get to experience every day in this paradise - zillions of animals throughout a huge semi-arid dry marsh area, clean air, fantastic sunsets, and night skies loaded with stars (and a full moon during our stay).