Into Africa

It was about 81 degrees today, here in the Northwest Corner, with 86 predicted for tomorrow.  Well nigh impossibly warm, sunny weather for Seattle, considering that we've reached only the last day of April and the first of May.  I recall one of my blog entries a couple of years ago lamenting that it had barely reached 80 once, at a time when we were already well into mid-July.

It's become my tradition that I leave Seattle in what may well prove to be the nicest days of the year, traveling to some far-off destination with far less attractive weather.  Take my hikes in the Scottish Highlands and in the English Lake District, for example.  Please.  (I'm joking -- those were excellent and memorable hikes.  Excellent in every respect but the weather, and even the weather was authentically British.)  

So I'm keeping a close watch on Johannesburg, in whose direction I launch myself on Friday.  Tomorrow's high will be 74 degrees.  Not bad, of course, but not a better-than-balmy May Day in Seattle, either.

I eagerly await my trip -- a marathon 41 hours of travel.  That includes a five hour layover in San Francisco, where I'll meet up with my sister at the airport, and a 12 hour layover in Paris.  You can do a lot in Paris in twelve hours, but I'll be arriving at about 2 a.m. Seattle time, with half my trip still lying ahead of me.  Shall I sit in the airport, in broad daylight, and try to sleep a bit?  Or shall I go into town and see a bit of springtime in Paris?  I guess I'll play it by ear and see how I feel.  I'll still have another eleven hours of flight ahead of me, from Paris to Johannesburg.

Less than two hours after my scheduled arrival in Africa, my cousin -- the fearless leader of this safari -- has scheduled a three-hour bike tour of Soweto.  Soweto, of course, is the native township where student uprisings against the apartheid government began in 1976.  At least 176 students were killed during the demonstrations, with observers making other estimates of up to 700 deaths.  All because the government tried to force the use of the hated Afrikaans language in the black schools, on a strictly equal footing with English. 

I don't know whether there's any true analogy, but I think of Soweto as being the Harlem of Johannesburg.  One obvious difference from Harlem, of course, is that in South Africa the native blacks were the overwhelming majority of the country's population.  In any event, the area has great historical significance -- today's Soweto lies within the Johannesburg city limits and represents about a third of the city's population -- and visiting it should be a memorable experience.

I suspect that I'll be ready for bed and a sound sleep immediately following the bike ride and dinner.  Bright and early the following morning, we fly to Livingstone in Zambia -- and admire Victoria Falls for a day and a half before driving westward into Botswana.