Back to Africa -- 2/14-2/18

 I flew to Johannesburg on 2/14, enduring a 3 hour layover PLUS a 3 hour delay when our plane had issues and we got a replacement. Johannesburg is 8 hours ahead of us and we arrived at the hotel around 11:30 pm on 2/15. Fortunately, I flew a day early so I had time to recover before the folks who took the pretrip got here. 

I am rooming with my friend Sandy, and her friend Janice is on the trip too. We flew to Victoria Falls the next day and settled into the Shearwater Explorers Village, where we stay the next 4 nights. It was a busy day that ended with a Sunset Cruise on the Zambesi river. There were birds, hippos, and elephants to watch as we cruised and ate dinner, which included a small appetizer of crocodile (tastes sort of like chicken....).

Zambesi Sunset

Island of birds

Three hippo photos

The next day, we were off early to Victoria Falls. Jim and I visited here on our 2016 trip, but that was in the winter. It's summer here and the volume of water was higher and the mist was so dense that it created rain so that sometimes it seemed we were in the middle of a rainstorm. My shoes, socks, pants (up to me thighs despite a long raincoat) were all soaked, but the falls were spectacular.

In the afternoon, we went to a humane tour of elephants. We each had  a chance to get up close and personal by dropping food pellets into its trunk. It was kind of fun, but I haven't got the pictures of me from Sandy yet. The elephants also knew commands like high 5. It definitely felt like the exploitation level was pretty low.

Today we visited a local village and school. At the village, we saw one household (95 in total), got to see the interior spaces.

A welcoming ritual by the headman. He dropped
some herb (ground pepper) into the gourd and 
poured it onto the small 3 pronged (dead?) 
tree (stump?).

We followed that with a talk with the headmaster and women, asking them about their lives and they asking us about ours. Mary, one of the other travelers, was an Iowa farmer and described her farming practices with corn, which they also raise. They were shocked to hear that 80 acres of corn could be planted in 3 hours and harvested in 1 day. 

From left: translator, headman (who had pretty good
English) and several of the household ladies.

They made us sadza (a thick porridge of cornmeal, and has the consistency (and taste) of heavy mashed potatoes) and a yummy mixture of pumpkin leaves and peanut butter sauce. I was iffy about both so I tried very small servings, which were actually good. 

Then we headed to the Chidobe Primary School. We gave them school supplies from their request list and then were each assigned a student guide or two, The studutns provided a full tour of the school rooms and grounds. I don't have many photos here, but Sandy let her two escorts take pictures with her camera --and got 200 interesting photos! My guide was a charming 11 year old girl who looked more like 8. 

My guide is on the left.

We got home around 3 and I vegetated a while before doing the blog. I hope to source additional photos from the other photographers to show more of our experiences. Tomorrow we leave early for game viewing in Zambia.

5/2: Explore Trani and Olive Oil/Winery Visit

Our guide today led us past the water front to the old part of the city which is a maze of streets that curve around, which made it difficult for invaders to see where their objective was. She showed us 2 street signs on the same street. The lower one meant what you would find if you went to the left, the upper one to the right.  

There were piles of nets like these laying
around on the dock. They either need
repair or replacement, but they reuse
the good parts.

The fisherman on the right is working to fix his net.

This church outside the old city walls
was designed to look like the much
larger cathedral. There were always
religious pilgrims coming thru and
the church took the same name as
the cathedral and basically scammed
the pilgrims into staying there and
paying them instead of the church
they were really seeking.

Entry to the old city. The street ahead leads
to the Jewish quarter and business district.
There is also a street to the left that was
residential.

Entry to the residential area

The two filled arches were for
the tax collectors, and the Jews
in the town had been given that
job by the king.

We stopped at a ceramics shop with kitchen tools and our guide
had us guess what this was for. The top piece has 4 spaced
holes. We were clueless. Turns out it was for soaking the
bread that had been dried for preservation, and the holes
let the diner drain the excess water.

When the Jews were expelled during the Inquisition,
their temple was converted to a church and a bell
tower was added. In 2009, the church was converted
back into a Jewish temple, but the bell tower was
historic and couldn't be removed, so they replaced
the cross with a Star of David.

Because of the way the city was
laid out, the side of the cathedral
was more prominent than the front,
so this false front was created.

Initially the church was quite small and this is the second
enlarged sanctuary on the 1st level. They needed a saint
and a 19 year old who went around yelling things about
loving god was considered crazy. The bishop had the idea
that he was ill and in fact he died 2 months later and then
miracles he had caused were documented or created.
They raised him to a saint and said his name was Nicholas
At the same time, there was another better known St.
Nicolas, much older, who was the St. Nick that became
Santa. The 2 cathedrals were fairly close together and
having a saint of the same name as the famous one
allowed the church to say Yes! when asked if this one
was dedicated to St. Nicholas.

Above and below: a second, much grander story was
built. The 600 pipe organ is visible in the top and the
main sanctuary below. There was a wedding scheduled
for later in the morning so we got the pleasure of hearing
the organist practice. When Baroque style became
popular, the cathedral responded with elaborate paintings
on the pillars and ceiling, which were removed in the
modern era to restore its original simple beauty. I found
this much more inspiring than all the fancy overdecorated
churches we have found throughout the world.

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The original door, no longer in use,
is displayed at one side in the back
of the sanctuary

We left the cathedral and hopped on our bus for our trip to the winery/olive maker. They have been continuously in business since the 1600s. We got a tour of the wine and olive oil making areas, then had lunch with wine and olive oil tasting. As in Taormina, the 'tastes' were actually 3-4 ounce glasses of wine. We tried a white, rose, and a red. The rose and red were made from the same Nero grapes, but the rose is only exposed to the skins for 2  hours vs. 2 weeks for the red. The red was also aged in barrels for several years before being released. We tried a 2019 and the 2020 will be released later this year.

They have a lovely garden area with sayings like "A meal without wine is called breakfast". I thought I took a photo of one, but apparently not.

They used to use these fiberglass barrels,
but now use steel.

These red circles mark the old concrete, fiberglass lined
fermenting areas.

This barrel is about my height. Unlike a
few places in the US that feature barrel
tastings, the only person who tastes from
these is the wine maker.

The olive oil processing is all machine driven now to ensure that the cold pressing is the correct temperature to qualify as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the only type they produce. Once the stems and leaves are removed, the entire olive, including the pit, is crushed. The result is piped into a centrifuge and the oil goes from there into a filtering machine, and finally to storage. 

Lunch was a combination of salad and small bites, many of which we've had before, and a lentil pasta which I skipped. The dessert is a south Italy specialty that we encountered on our 2017 Sicily trip. St Agnes refused to marry because she was wedded to the church and so she was martyred when her breast was cut off. The nuns started making the cream filled buns to celebrate her sacrifice.

Dessert

After we got home, I had a delightful massage and retired to my room to blog and vegitate. We have one more tour tomorrow, then time to pack to fly home on Saturday. It's been a great trip, but I am about ready to get back to normal.

5/1: Transfer to Trani by Way of Matera

 We left early today because it is Italy's Labor Day and crowds at our first stop were anticipated. We arrived in Matera around 10am and set off on our tour. This is a UNESCO World  Heritage site that has been occupied for the last 35,000 years. Inhabitants used the existing caves for homes and eventually build housing faces in front of the caves. As we have heard before South Italy was largely regarded as a worthless place with lazy people by the ruling parties in the north and little was done to improve life in the south. 

The cave dwellers lived until the 1960s much like their very early ancestors did without electricity, running water, or sewer systems. Because of the steep rocky terrain, livestock was kept in the same dwelling space, which helped to heat it. in the 1950s, this situation became general knowledge and a law was passed to provide other homes and force people out of the caves, but the community resisted because of the close personal interactions they had built up in the compressed space and moving usually meant losing these important connections.

In the meantime, Matera beccame a bustling village above the cave valley. After a brief tour of the upper area, we walked down into the cave valley.

Another purgatory church, dedicated
to help people progress to heaven

The images on the door show that even
in death, the wealthy had preference.
The top row of skulls have a crown or
a bishop's mitre.

Temporary art work: an olive tree
where people are part of the growth.

The Drop below was created by a former Kamikazi pilot, Kenjiro Azuma. The aftermath of WWII led him to turn to art as a reason to live. He came to Italy to study in 1956.

Above and below: The Drop

From here,we started descending. The background shows original caves. The normal-looking homes with the streets and steps are facades to the caves behind them. We visited a cave home that had an English audio tour to explain what everything was.

Central water source

The top of the roof sloped to better capture water and
guide it to an individual cistern

Each door is a different family and the courtyard was for
all. There were many children, half of whom did not make
it to age 3 because of the appalling sanitary conditions.

Church in the rock

Access to the cistern from inside

Plate fixed using the sail-shaped tool on the wall below.

Brazier used to help heat the room

Sleeping for kids and storage

The matrimonial bed with a stable behind it

From here on in, everything is part of the original cave

The kitchen area, with its limestone blocks was the part
of the building that extended out from the cave.

Typical engagement present: the more flowers represents
the greater wealth of the suitor.

Lots of buildings like this are waiting for someone to 
love them. You can buy them cheap, but there is nothing
inside. The estimate is it will cost $3,000- $5,000 per
10 sq ft to rehabilitate them, and can take a long time.

Jean, my long-lost twin sister and me above the cave city.

We got a chance to wander around for a while and were amazed at the throngs of people who had appeared since we started. There happened to be a street market and I found a couple of pairs of earrings I needed. I also found a few more gifts. After lunch, we bussed to Trani, a seaside town with next to no tourist experience, that will be our home for 3 nights before we fly back to the states. We got a chance to explore and had a dinner based on snack-sized foods.

The view from my window. The room is quite large and
has a little balcony.

Another view of the harbor towards town.

The largest boat here with a mast about
half again as tall as any other. It.s owner
is a business magnate based in Bari.

 

Part  of the sea wall

The two tone building on the left is our hotel. I am on
the 1st light colored level, sort of in the middle.

Part of our dinner. We also has a kind of pizza
called pinsa. The cheese was in little chunks under
the toppings. Ir was all pretty good.