It's Safari Time! Whatever You Do, Don't Run.

I finally got to go on a safari this weekend, after years of thinking about what it would be like. It did not disappoint. The interesting thing about a safari is that people go into the wilderness to see some of the worlds most deadly predators, yet disturb the their habitats, scare off potential prey, terrify their young -- and all the while fully expect not to get eaten. To be fair, in my experience, the animals have not really minded the land rovers driving around them, as the tourists are often respectful and quiet. If you remain in your seat, the animals think that the truck (and everyone in it) is just one large creature that makes a lot of noise but is otherwise harmless. Still, though - I am of the mind that if you are going to go into such an environment, you're running the risk of getting eaten and you need to be comfortable with that. We humans are slow, have poor eye sight, poor hearing, poor sense of smell, have no camouflage, and have no claws/tusks/big teeth/venom. We have intelligence, but are otherwise an absurdly easy target for a hungry cat.

At one point on our trek, we got within a few feet of eight lions consisting of three mothers and five cubs. Few things in nature are more dangerous than disturbing a mother lion who is with cubs too young to fend for themselves. Except disturbing three mother lions with cubs. Our guide told us to be as quiet and still as possible: "Do not make a sound and do not stand up. If you do, these lions WILL kill you, and probably me... and there's not a whole lot any of us will be able to do about it." Counter-intuitively, if you ever find yourself in the decidedly unlucky situation of being confronted by a large predator such as a lion, DO NOT RUN. Make yourself as big as possible (do jumping jacks and shout), to show your dominance. In a  pinch, flail your arms and sing something by Miley Cyrus -- that tends to scare away most living things. Just don't run. Food runs. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last weekend, one of our local drivers, a Zimbabwean named Tendai, picked a group of us up to drive us across the border to South Africa to spend some time in Madikwe Game Reserve. The program coordinator of the Botswana-UPenn partnership has a relationship with the owner of Tau Lodge, one of the swankiest of the luxury resorts in the park. As such, we got a very significant (~50%) discount to stay there, therefore making it financially possible to do so. It consists of a main lodge with a few private ''cabins" on either side, all of which overlook a watering hole. Upon arrival, we spent some time on the deck of the cabin, and saw buffalo, impala, and giraffes all spending some time getting wading in the shallows.

My cousin Kenny and I had our own cabin, and we had initially hoped to sleep with the doors open and simply put down the mosquito netting over the beds. That way, we could see and hear the animals galavanting about in the distance. However, before I knew what was happening, a group of monkeys had invaded the porch, with one or two pounding on the side of the wall next to me. I looked over, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a third monkey skulking behind me stealthily, trying to steal one of my flip flips which were resting on the floor inside the cabin. It was a diversion. I got my flip flop back, scared off the monkeys, and decided that we would still get a nice view even if the doors were closed that night. A photo of the guilty monkey is below.

Throughout the course of our stay, we went on two game drives and were (amazingly) able to see all of the big five: elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard. Leopard is BY FAR the rarest of the bunch, and we saw one within the first 15 minutes of our first game drive. A young leopard was hanging out at the top of a tree, munching on a warthog that he had caught a few hours earlier (see photo near the top of the post). To give you an idea of how rare a sighting this is, I had recently spoken with a woman who had been on safari 14 times and only seen a leopard once, and that was merely a glimpse as it slipped into the bush. 

Another interesting point is that, almost universally, the animal that rangers down here are most afraid of is the buffalo. The old males are the worst of the lot, since as they age they get slower and fall behind the herd. This makes them upset. And thus they become the old male bachelors, which like their human counterparts, are some of the grumpiest and most unpredictable of creatures. They are immensely powerful, surprisingly quiet, and have a tendency to charge without warning. They have been known to even walk up a path and then loop back behind a group through the bush and charge from behind. Don't forget that these beasts have sharp horns and have no trouble ripping apart pesky lions. 

Before we came back to Gaborone, we were not only able to see lots of animals, but those animals in the wild with their young. Elephants, rhinos, lions, impala, warthogs, and more were all out and about, showing their respective infants the ropes of life in the African bush. It was an excellent experience. 

Botswana - the Land of Diamonds, Desert, and Hitchhiking Adventures!

So I'm here in Botswana for the next month volunteering at a center for orphans and vulnerable children (many of whom have HIV/AIDS), as well as doing economic and healthcare research. And explore the country while getting myself into as many awkward/strange/hilarious situations as possible.

Thus far, I must admit that Botswana is an impressive place in its own right. And it's very impressive by developing country standards. Education and healthcare are free to all citizens, and the economy has steadily increased for the past 40 years thanks primarily to the diamond industry (which accounts for >1/3 of GDP), and also the beef exports and tourism. People are justifiably predisposed to hate on the diamond industry, but as far as that goes, Botswana has done a really good job of recapturing a substantial portion of the profits and redeploying the proceeds into diverse areas of the economy. And for African standards, the country has a high GDP per capita of roughly $14,000 (at least as of 2008, but I have a hunch that this may be skewed given large diamond industry revenues and the small population). This figure has fallen since the global recession. I believe that currently your average teacher makes somewhere in the ballpark of $4,500 per year.

Geographically speaking, Botswana is roughly the size of Texas. The country faces no challenge to its growth, with two small exceptions: it is entirely landlocked, and it is 90% uninhabitable (thanks to the mighty Kalahari Desert). As a result of the latter factor, Botswana's 1.8 million people live in the small, inhabitable portions along the eastern border. The people making up this number are called 'Batswana' (not Botswanans or Botswanians or some other derivation thereof), and the singular form of a person from Botswana (the first part is pronounced like 'Boat') is a Motswana (sounds like 'Moat'). And they speak a language called Setswana, which has similar origins to Zulu, in addition to English.

The capital, Gaborone, is located in the southeast. Gaborone is pronounced "Ha-bor-ron-ee" (Note that the g's pronounced as h and and the r's are rolling). Expats call it 'Gabs', with a hard g. The city has a little bit of everything: modern multi-story buildings; not so modern tin roof shanties; innumerable strip malls selling goods of dubious origin; and public transit consisting of 'combis' which are barely functioning vans that may or may not be marked, have undefined routes around the city / surrounding villages which are not published, are filled beyond capacity, and are only boarded by jumping in the road and hoping one stops for you since proper stops don't really exist. If this sounds like hitchhiking to you, you are getting the picture. It goes without saying that I really enjoy riding combis. So far, I get the impression that riding a combi is something that mostly locals use; I have never seen another foreigner or white person riding a combi so far (not that there are many white people here in general). As an added benefit, everyone seems to get a kick out of my poorly executed but well meaning attempts to speak Setswana.

On a darker note, Botswana suffers a massive HIV/AIDS problem. This cannot be understated. It has the second highest HIV rate in the world with 25%+ of all people being infected. This figure is largely believed to be an under-estimate due to a variety of factors including poor reporting data and social stigma (which prevents people from either reporting if they are HIV+, or not getting tested at all). For those of us disinclined to deal with numbers, that means that (statistically) at least one out of every four people in this country are HIV+. This is outrageous, and incredibly devastating in every aspect of life. The disease has effectively wiped out an entire generation, which has dropped the life expectancy of the entire country down to around 50 years, created a decline in skilled workers and left innumerable orphans...many of whom were left with nothing from their parents - except, of course, HIV.

I'll provide a more in-depth exploration of the topic and my research in a later post.

The Road to Africa

I left New York's JFK International Airport in the middle of last Friday afternoon, knowing well that I'd not be getting to my final destination of Gaborone, Botswana until late on Sunday night. The journey entailed a flight and lengthy layover in Amsterdam, followed by an 11 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. Once in Jo'Berg, I'd spend the night and then catch a 7 hour regional bus north to Gaborone the following afternoon.

Unable to sleep on the flight to Europe, I found myself wide awake at 6 am and leaving Amsterdam's airport through the 'Cabin and Crew' area of customs, hoping to avoid lengthy lines and relying on the assumption that the workers would be too tired to care.  I had 5 or 6 hours until my next flight, so rather than spend the next several hours downing Bloody Mary's at the finest Applebee's in the Netherlands, I'd stash my one, medium-sized bag in a train station locker and kick around Amsterdam for a few hours. 

I met an amiable Frenchman in the train station who had the same idea, and we decided to combine forces and explore the city for a few hours. We caught a 6:45 train to the City Center, but found ourselves somewhere surrounded by dykes and cow pastures thirty minutes later, and realized that we had taken the proper train, but in the wrong direction. After correcting our error, we got into Amsterdam by 8 am, which left me exactly 2 hours and twenty minutes for me to explore the city, get back to the station, find my bag, get through customs, and catch my flight before it left. 

John-Pierre and I began to search the city center for an open cafe to grab a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Sadly, neither of us expected everything that everything would be shut down at that hour, so we decided to give ourselves a walking tour. It really is a beautiful city - full of small, winding streets and canals, that couldn't help but to remind me of Venice. Except for night walkers, which I don't remember being accosted by in Venice. It must be noted that, at such an hour on a Saturday morning, those still remaining "unselected" are of a decidedly unique breed. As John-Pierre astutely put it, "Zose remaning are zee beasts of zee night...", and with a lengthy pause, added "...you must not let zem catch you"  in his thick Parisian accent. We spent some more time in search of a coffee shop whose products were of the more standard blend (the last thing I wanted was to be locked in a tin can at 30,000 feet for the next 11 hours, battling a hallucinogenic nightmare), and I made it back to the airport and boarded the plane with roughly five minutes to spare. 

That night, I landed in Jo'Berg and got a place to stay outside the city. Exhausted, I slept for the next five hours and then spent the morning wandering the outskirts of the city before making my way to the bus station. I was warned by multiple independent sources that, under no circumstances, was I to walk around the city in the immediate vicinity of the bus station. Generally speaking, the surrounding blocks of a bus station in any city are dodgy at best, but the area surrounding the Johannesburg bus station has a rather high concentration of the city's already impressively high violent crime rates. Rather than take my chances, I opted to spend some time reading in the station and listening to the impressive selection of Genesis songs which blared from the speakers throughout. 

The bus ride to Gaborone was uneventful, with the exception of Kietumetsi, the 40-year old mother of two who touched my leg enough times that I am still unsure as to whether or not we are now dating. The bus trip ended at a gas station in the center of the city, and I was able to find my way to the flats which I'd call home for the next several weeks, but only after I exchanged my new girlfriend 9 Euro for equivalent Pula, since she currently lives in Ireland and was visiting her family for the next two weeks (and all the ATMs were closed).

After a 2+ year respite, I have fired up the blog again in preparation for my journey to Botswana. I'll be there for a month, doing volunteer work at an orphanage as well as doing research. I'll be stationed in the capital city of Gaborone, which lies in the south of the country. Botswana was formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, but earned its independence in 1966, when it -- in what was one of many inspired political reforms -- changed it's name to Botswana. Among its African brethren, Botswana stands out for its strong economy, progressive social policies, and lack of wars. The country relies on tourism and mining, principally, to drive its economic growth. There has also been a strong push for healthcare services, as it has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS on the planet. I fly into Jo'Berg, South Africa on Friday, and will be spending some time before taking the 8-hour bus across the boarder to Gaborone.

Rainforests and Reefs, Part 2

After a good night’s sleep, I woke up to go diving more excited than I have been about pretty much anything in a long time. You need to understand something first. Diving in the Great Barrier Reef is a goal I have had as long as I could remember. Waking up knowing that you’re going to check something off your life’s 'To Do' list is absolutely fantastic.

Ryan’s life goals (created when I was about 4 years old):

• Scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef
• See the Great Wall of China
• Go to outer space
• Climb Mt. Everest
• Learn to fly (superhero style; not by way of planes/choppers)
• Learn to move things with my mind
• Become James Bond

So, as we can see, some are more difficult to achieve than others. But, I’m a firm believer that if you set a goal, you must achieve it. So hey, at least I have one down. Only time will tell about the others, although I can guarantee some of them will be ticked off before my life has run its course.

Anyways, with this in mind, my friends and I got picked up at 8am from our hostel tucked away in the rainforest, and were dropped off at the dead end of a dirt road, with the driver pointing to a small footpath through the brush to an unpopulated beach. Sitting a few feet from shore was a small boat, which we waded to through the water to and climbed aboard. This smaller boat took us to a fairly large catamaran, and it was there that the crew launched off and took around 25 people off to a special section of the outer reef located about 30 kilometers from shore. The thought is that the more remote the spot of reef, the less disturbed and more ecologically diverse it will be. So here we were, 4 hours north of nowhere, in Cape Tribulation (again- pop. 52) a place where there’s no electricity unless you generate it yourself, and no water except that from rain or rivers, getting on a boat and going 30K further out to an exceptionally remote section of reef.

It was spectacular. I spent some time diving in the morning, and then the afternoon was spent snorkeling. I saw hundreds of tropical fish, eels, rays, unbelievable colors of coral, fields and fields of absolutely huge giant clams, and sea turtles. Fascinated by the sea turtles, I swam about for 45 min following this particularly large one, getting within a foot and just following him. Twice I tried to reach out and touch him but he always swam a few feet further away when I reached out, not getting scared and trying to escape, but simply stayed at arm’s length, probably as curious about me as I was about him. After a while I was a bit flustered that I wasn’t quite able to touch him, so I began swimming back towards the boat (I was a few hundred yards out by this point with no one near me and I was getting quite tired). After a few minutes on my way back I hear shouting and I stop swimming and look up. Then, pointing back to where I had just been, the captain was shouting something. I turn around, and a sea turtle swam right into my stomach! I swam a few feet with him and this time it let me pet it and swim with it, which was absolutely exhilarating. A French guy named Michel happened to be nearby at this point and was able to snap off a few pictures of me hanging out with my sea turtle friend. I gave him my email – I hope he sends them to me!

(Sea turtle just like the one I swam with) 

Anyhow, that just made my world. On the way back, I spent some time chatting with the crew. There was Kane -  the dive instructor, Jen and Kate – the snorkeling instructors, and the captain, Travis. After chatting with the captain for a bit, he offered me a job on the boat as a snorkeling instructor starting in June. I said that I will see what is going on after I finish my master’s in May, but if I have some time off after, I will certainly come back and work on the ship for a month or two – perhaps more. I talked it over with the crew and told them I’d let them know in a few months when I have a better idea of what’s going on in my life, and also promised I’d make sure I brought up sufficient rum from Cairns – you know, just in case we get stranded out on the reef for a while and use up our water rations. To this, Travis said “Well, in that case I’ll hold you a spot. Good men like you are hard to come by.”

 Hmm… living in the rainforest with no phone service, and working on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef… wow. Pretty spectacular. Not exactly the standard choice for a Carnegie Mellon graduate student (unless in the area of marine biology), and not the path to riches, but it would be an unequivocal life experience. And it is one I am going to give a great deal of serious consideration to.

Also on the boat, my friend Kunal and I made friends with this young doctor named Anita, who grew in Australia. A very interesting girl, she seemed to be well-informed on a wide range of topics, and Kunal and I greatly enjoyed her company. When she found out that he and I needed to get back down to Cairns the next day, she offered to give us a lift.

The next morning Anita showed up and picked us up. She gave us a great tour of NE Australia, and brought us a bit out of the way to Mossman Gorge (a beautiful gorge in the rainforest with a river running through it where we spent an hour or two swimming in the pools and waterfalls), and Port Douglas (a beautiful and ritzy resort town) for lunch.

In the evening we stopped randomly at a beautiful cliff overlook and talked to a guy who was doing hang-gliding off of it. Anita had to get to her friend’s house-warming party, but he agreed to take us up, and we told her we’d meet up with her later in the evening. The hang gliding guy took Kunal up first, but as he landed at dusk the wind died out and he wasn’t able to bring me. On the way back, he said that he could take me up the following day if the wind was strong enough, but I explained that I had to catch a 6am flight. Maybe next time. I wasn’t too sad, though. Kunal’s main goal for the trip was to go sky diving, and since we weren’t able to fit it in due to time constrictions, and my main goal of diving in the reef was fulfilled, it was best that he got his chance. Plus, a 40 min hang gliding session over the reef is probably better than a 30 second free fall over the land.

That night, we met up with Anita, her friend, and some of our friends of ours from Adelaide that were also in Cairns. Since Kunal used to be a professional Bollywood dancer, he has been teaching me all sorts of dance moves since I moved to Australia. So, of course, we found a place to go dancing and ended up doing a little routine up on the stage. A fitting end to a spectacular vacation.

The next morning, sleep deprived, Kunal and I flew back to Adelaide. I packed the rest of my things, and the following morning flew to Sydney, where I am now. I’ll spend a few days in Sydney, meeting up with my friend Peter (a friend that is a CMU grad and lives in Sydney – who also graciously offered to put me up for the duration of my stay), and Brian – the Irishman I met on my trip in the desert. With either one of these individually, things get pretty exciting. But with both combined – who knows what is in store. After this, I’m off to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Hong Kong until Christmas.

To give you a preview: to get to Siem Riep in Cambodia, I can either take a bus, or I can take a boat up through the Mekong river Delta and cross the border that way. Of the boat options, I have two. The first is the luxury boat- which includes the 6 hour boat ride on a nice boat, a big lunch, hot towels, and other such niceties – weighing in at all of $25 USD.

Or, I can take the local option of a little wooden local boat that cuts up through the jungle and takes your normal, every-day passengers – the public bus version. These are the narrow boats you see in movies that maybe carry 10 people, and some animals. All I know is that it takes a bit longer, you are “probably going to get wet”, and it costs $1.70 USD.

I think we all know which option I’m going to take…

Rainforest meets Barrier Reef

Shop owner: "Do you have any idea where I am?"

Call center: "Yes, sir. Our records indicate you are in Cape Tribulation, Far North Queensland, Australia."

Shop owner: "Right. And it is far away. I mean - it's far away, and then a bit further. And you can still get me that computer in 24 hours?"

Call center: "Of course, sir. Not a problem. We have sourcing centers all over the world. We will have it there overnight."

-----------5 days later they called back and said they have no way of getting his computer here, and he would  have to drive 3 hours to the nearest small city to pick it up. This is the story that a local store owner told me as he was hanging up the phone. Land-line, by the way. There is no cell phone service up here. He was referring to a conversation he had with Dell Computer's tech support 2 months ago regarding a problem that has still not been fixed.

That's where I am right now. Cape Tribulation, population: 52. Nestled in the remote upper Northeast corner of Australia, it is extremely isolated. And it is in the oldest rain forest in the world. To get here, you have to fly to Cairns, then take a 4 hour ride up the highway to Cape Tribulation on a road that is often flooded out, and on which you must board at least one ferry to get transported across saltwater crocodile infested river. So, that's what I did.

And trust me, these crocs are no joke. They 'snapped at' one of the boats last week, and the boat (which was made of metal), was completely crumpled and bent in the front. No one bothered to tell us what would happen if a croc got mad and properly attacked. But, we were told that if the captain indicates to move to the center of the boat, we must move to the center of the boat quickly, because the crocs can, and have, ripped people over the railing and into the water. Oh, and it is mating season, so the males are a bit more aggressive right now. Although I did see some small ones basking on logs and such, the large ones remained allusive to me. Perhaps sensing the inquisitiveness, the captain reminded those of us on the boat several times to always avoid the banks of these rivers. More specifically, the rule of thumb is "Be croc-wise. Stay out of the killzone." I found it helpful.

I must admit though, this place is stunningly beautiful. The kind of beautiful place that I thought people edited on computers for hollywood movies, but didn't actually exist. And I have seen a lot of places.  In fact, Cape Tribulation is the only place in the world that has two UNESCO World Heritage Sites touching one another. The two sites are the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, respectively the number 2 and number 1 most diverse ecosystems on our planet. I spent today trekking through the rain forest, and saw all sorts of wild insects and plants and animals which are found nowhere else, ranging from the nearly-extinct fruit bat to little green ants that are used for medicine and whose bodies taste like electrified lime juice and shock your tongue. I can verify this. After some time, I did a high-wire trekking thing in the top of the forest canopy, moving from tree to tree via cables. During which time one of the guides explained that you can walk 100 meters in this place and pass more species of plants than if you walked from the top to the bottom of the entire United States. Wild. They are still discovering new species of insects and plants all the time, since most of this forest is unexplored. Tracing its origins back ~200-240 million years, the Daintree has more ancient species of plants than anywhere else - numbering at 19 discovered so far. We are talking about types of trees that are the same today as they were before the dinosaurs existed, when all the continents were connected.

I also went for a long walk down the beach this evening. It was beautiful. I wanted to go in for a swim but no one is allowed to. Not that anyone is there to enforce this rule, but considering that the waters here during this time of year are teeming with Box Jellyfish - the most poisonous thing on earth - you'd have to have a death wish. The pain is so unmatchable the people usually are still screaming after they go unconscious and have been injected with something like morphene.

Luckily for me, you generally dont find them in the reef; just near the shore. Which is good, because tomorrow I'm fulfilling my life-long goal of going diving in the Great Barrier Reef. It will be an all-day affair, and I got a little underwater disposable camera in preparation. And just in case our little jellyfish friends are present out there, everyone will be wearing a 'stinger suit'.

A Journey into the Unknown: Part I

I think I had an idea that this journey was going to be one for the record books when the 1985 short-bus pulled up at 6:00 in the morning and the first thing I could see other than the glare of the rising sun off of a pair of dark black sunglasses was a sunburned, mustached man behind the wheel, finishing off what appeared to be his third Red Bull. Half asleep, I threw my bags into the attached trailer and climbed aboard. Five minutes later, I knew that this was going to be one for the record books when he was laughing hysterically driving the wrong way down a one-way alley, honking at a cab that was trying to use the street in the generally accepted manner.


I was departing for a 7 day journey into the outback, and the driver Mark (pronounced in Aussie as "Maah-ck") couldn't have been more pleased. This was exceptional, considering we were departing for an all-day, 1000k drive due North into some of the most inhospitable land in the world. Armed with a head full of knowledge, an evil laugh which seemed to suck in air in preparation before belting out in hysterics, and a matching army-fatigue green shirt complete with some well-worn shorts that were so small that I felt uncomfortable being on the same street as him, the 50+ year old road-warrior rocketed his rattling steed off into the desert. I have to admit, though - that meager bus could really move. Exhausted, I was slipping in and out of a light sleep to the sound of an odd mix of techno/disco fused tracks playing from his iPod when I was jolted by our vehicle lurching violently to the right and our bus passing a smaller car on the shoulder. A few other people on the bus woke up, too, and so I asked:


"Everything all right up there, Mark?"


He turned down the music and looked up into the rear-view mirror and smiled, saying "You bet, Mate! No draaah-maz - I reckon we'll suh-voyve this droyve. Ahhhh -hahaha" and with the hysterical, evil laughter he turned around completely to spend a few seconds laughing and peering at his passengers. Then, he looked forward and pulled back onto the road, not once losing speed. I looked down, and searched in vain to find something with which I could fasten myself to the chair or floor in the absence of seatbelts. 


A few hours later, and shouting once again, Mark said "We will be stopping up here a ways, so you all bettah use the toilets and get some water. Two litres, minimum. Three is better. Because after that, we're in the land of big hats, big heat, and big flies. You wont be finding any more shade or toilets out here, mate. Where we're going, it's just us and the outback. Something happens, and it will be at least 8 howas (hours) before a plane will be able to get out here, find you, and get you back to a hospital. At least 8 howas, mate. Ahh-hahahahaha." And with that, he adjusted his big straw hat and looked forward again. 


When we stopped, Mark filled up the bus with gas and then two extra containers with it as well. Just in case we ran out. The heat was over 100 (f), and it wasn't even noon. Plus, we had only entered into the desert an hour or two before. I ran inside the station and came out with a Snicker's bar. I started chatting with Mark and started asking him about where he grew up. He said that he grew up on a station just like the one we were at. A station, he explained, is different than a farm. A station is entirely self-sufficient and called a 'station' because it is much larger than any farm is. The outback, he explained, has a fair number of them - the biggest of which is larger in size than Belgium and has somewhere between 60-70,000 heads of cattle, many of which have never seen a human being before. When it comes time to round them up, station-heads have to use helicopters.


Many of these remote outposts also have a gas station as well, but the primary business is often sheep or cattle farming. Generally, only one or two families live on a station, hundred, and sometimes thousands, of kilometers away from the next-nearest station, town, or city.  Mark and his 8 other brothers and sisters grew up with only one another and a handful of aboriginals that worked on their land with them to keep company. They got their education from School of the Air, which were three one-half hour school sessions that took place over radio broadcast per week. Children all across the outback would tune in during those times, and after the broadcast could ask questions via radio. Homework assignments were written and mailed to the school to be graded and eventually returned. The first time he saw a TV was 18 years ago.

Mark spent a lot of his youth reading and working on the land. Additionally, having grown up with many aboriginals, he knew a lot about their history and customs. He explained some of their expert survival tactics in the punishing outback heat that had been passed down through generations. These people survived for thousands of years in some of the hottest places on earth, where there is virtually no water or shade, living off extremely scare resources. Like I mentioned before, Australia is the driest continent on the planet. 80% of it is desert, and it is the same size as the US. When I say that going through the outback is big, hot, and remote, I mean it. The heat can get in excess of 140(f), and the road temperature (when and where there are paved roads) can get over 150 and the pavement actually melts. Often times, the Australian Army would come out to his family's station and the aboriginals would teach the army folks desert survival skills. Mark's eyes seemed sharp enough - several times he pulled off the road in a hurry to drive off into the sand a bit to point out a group of kangaroos or emus way off in the distance, or even a small lizard on the shoulder. 


By dusk, we had traveled over 1,000K's into the desert to a small town named Coober Pedy - the Opal Capital of the World - and a place so hot, so desolate, that much of their population of 2,000 live underground in what they call 'dugouts'. I mean, it's a mining community, so they essentually use the same mining techniques to get opals as they do to build their homes. We slept underground, too. 

In fact, Coober Pedy may be the armpit of the world. 


More to come....