Adventure Travel in Africa

Foodie Friday: Peri-Peri Chicken

January 22, 2010 By Danny

Having just spent 9 months in Latin America we consider ourselves to be something of chicken experts. For several months in Central America, if we weren’t eating chicken with our rice and beans it was because we were eating eggs with our rice and beans. So imagine our surprise here in Africa to find equally great chicken once again, but this time the chicken owes its success to the mix of cultures here in South Africa.

Although it is obvious that this country consists of people of English decent and African decent, it might be less obvious how many other cultures call South Africa home. There are the Afrikaans, descendants of the original Dutch settlers, sometimes called Boers. The Portuguese settled the country just to the north (Mozambique) placing some Iberian culinary delight to the mix. And just like up north in England, being part of the commonwealth (South Africa left the commonwealth toward the end of Apartheid) lead to large influx of Indians, with their own distinct culture and tastes.

Today, the spicy chicken this mix has created, mostly on account of the piri-piri (translates as ‘hot pepper’) spice which the Portuguese settlers discovered when they arrived here in Africa, and a scent or two from Asia courtesy of the Indian influence. Mixed with some lemon, garlic, and I’m sure some other secrets, Peri-Peri chicken has been exported all over the world through a restaurant called Nando’s Peri-Peri. (There is one in DC…guess what, it’s not Peruvian!) The Peri-Peri seasoning is spicy to say the least, never disappointing, and always in need of a lot of water to help wash it down.

Why it is good to be King…

January 21, 2010 By Jillian

Swaziland is the last absolute monarchy in Africa and trust me it’s good to be King. A beautiful mountainous country, the Swazi people are incredibly friendly and good hearted. A small nation (smaller than Kruger National Park), Swaziland is famous for its cultural heritage…or perhaps specifically for the Umhlanga (Reed) Dance. It would be great to travel around the world from festival to festival, and I think there’s even a guidebook dedicated to festivals around the world, but alas traveling long term we don’t have the money to pick up and go every time a place has a special occasion. The Umhlanga Dance however I think might be different, at least for our male readers. As I said before, its good to be king.

Traditionally Swaziland is a polygamous society, and although the country has modernized in many ways, polygamy is not uncommon in Swaziland today. So who benefits the most from this tradition? Well, the King of course. He currently has 14 wives. Yes, 14. Every August the king has the opportunity to choose another wife at the Umhlanga Dance, where virgins dance bare breasted in front of the Ndovukazi (Queen Mother) and of course, the King. Hundreds perhaps thousands of young ladies. Although he doesn’t have to choose a wife every year, a virgin chosen cannot refuse the honor. Tradition dictates that the chosen women must bare the King a child before they are officially married, proving that they are fertile. So like I said, it’s good to be King.

Every shop, stall and restaurant in Swazi it has a portrait of the King in traditional Swazi dress. Sort of like having a portrait of the President up in government offices, although the King wears brightly colored textiles and arm bands. I’d love to see an official Presidential portrait in that garb. Although Swaziland is still an absolute monarchy, the rumbles of democracy increase every year. A few years ago the King purchased a brand new airplane to go along with this three limousines. It’s good to be King, but its not good to flaunt it when your countrymen are starving from drought. With actions like this, it probably won’t be long before the mounting internal pressure forces the king to abdicate some of his power. Although, I doubt he’ll give up the Umhlanga Dance.

When Animals Attack…

January 20, 2010 By Jillian

After our elephant experience in Kruger safety around animals has been on my mind, so when I saw an article in a nature magazine entitled “animal safety” I flipped to the article. The advice was basically this: hippo, rhino, elephant, lion- stay away and if you can’t stay away get away quickly and quietly before it notices you. Well that’s helpful. With no specific advice to follow, I crawled in our tent each night planning what I would do if say a hippo disturbed us in the night. Hippos it seems kill the most number of people every year in Africa, so when I heard the hippos calling to each other at night in Mlilwane Nature Reserve in Swaziland I was a little anxious. The campground was surrounded by a fence, but when your mind wanders, well it can really get going and the first night I dreampt we were trampled by hippos in the night. Awaking in a cold sweat I was thankful to see only monkeys in the morning light. Until my thoughts turned to other recent warnings about monkeys taking off with stuff… like our sandals which lay not more than 6 inches from me outside the tent. Quietly I pulled them into the tent and fell asleep.

Five days hiking in Malolotja Nature Reserve, climbing execution rock in Mlilwane, and surviving four nights camping in the Swazi bush without an animal attack, that’s our time in Swaziland in a nutshell. Packing up our car at dusk I rummaged through the trunk looking for passports when I heard a rustling noise beside me. Searching quickly for the source, I was confronted by a male ostrich not more than 10 feet away. Having seen him by the swimming pool earlier that day, I figured I could shoo him away without a problem. Waving my arms and screaming shoo shoo, I looked like a lunatic, and the ostrich treated me as one. Looking at me with his head cocked to the side, the ostrich wasn’t even bashful about stepping closer. With visions of being cut open head to toe by an ostrich nail (have you seen the size of their feet) and warnings of their nasty temperament ringing in my head, I dropped everything and ran into the car, locking the doors. With the hatchback still open I continued my shooing from inside the car, a bit braver this time. Without so much as a glance in my direction, the ostrich began pecking at things I had left scattered on the ground. Unable to see him, only hearing him peck at our wordly possessions in the back, I resolved to get him away before he destroyed something. Truly, my thoughts ran to the clif bars, which I knew were left on the ground. Not knowing what else to do I honked the horn, which made absolutely no positive impact on the ostrich. Instead he began to rustle things in the back. So I turned on the vehicle and reved the engine. Again, he poked his head from the trunk and looked at me, practically daring me to continue my nonsensical actions. Finally I leaned out of the passengers seat of the car, waved my hands and screamed as loud as I could at the monsterous beast. From the lodge area a game warden, finally noticing my situation came running waving his arms and shooing the ostrich out the fence. Safe at last I climbed out of the car, thanked the warden profusely who was laughing with (or more likely at) me and headed back into the lodge.

Barely looking up from his book Danny asked me where I had been… needless to say that night as I crawled into the tent I wasn’t so worried about the hippo attack… I was dreaming of the ostrich sausage we grilled in Kruger…hmmm….karmic payback.

Enough Driving Already

January 18, 2010 By Danny

Our camp on the third night was supposed to offer us with plenty of cheetah sightings but somehow we missed out on that and the nearby leopard. Pulling into our fourth and final camp we were simply exhausted of sitting in the car and were quite pleased to find out that this camp not only had a resident lion pride but also offered bike tours through the bush…so we signed up.

The bike ride was easy enough, just making our way through the bush and through fields. We took in a bit of education, learning that the buffalo would eat the grass in front of us even though it tasted bad because they were so big they had to eat anything they could find and no one else ate that grass. We learned that the bike ranger with us had used his gun once, Dec ’06, to give a bull elephant a few warning shots. We also talked a lot of lions and how they are opportunistic hunters who will basically take what can get. (this is foreshadowing)

In the end, other than rhino tracks we only found live hippo to look at but it was quite nice sitting on the riverbank watching them as they woke up (nocturnal) and began setting out to begin their night of foraging for food. Apparently they can travel as far as 15k in a single night, before returning where they started from, in search of food. As a result, they make nice easy trails for bikes to follow and we followed one of those back to the truck…hoping (well, I and the rest were hoping, Jill wasn’t) to get up close and personal with an elephant but we didn’t. Back at camp nothing was stirring but a couple of hyena looking to collect food scraps.

The next day as we were leaving camp we very nearly ran into hyena as they were running around doing something, probably with a carcass but we couldn’t see. Another car there told us that if we turned around and went the other way we’d find a pride of lions, and we did….a bunch of them including not just lioness but also a big lion who couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to sleep, or mate.

Continuing on with the day we saw more elephant, zebra, giraffe, ostrich, and buffalo as well…all before we stopped for our first break…probably our best morning yet. Driving out of the park though we were being very careful to stop at the stream beds that were rumored to house leopard and the fields rumored to house cheetah but still no no avail. Then suddenly Jill screamed “stop, lion.” Yes, we know the video is awful, but we thought you might get a kick out of it!

After having seen our fill of lion earlier in the day, this wouldn’t have been quite so exciting except that this lioness was hunting, completely frozen and staring down a couple of warthog a mere 10 meters away. Usually the cats don’t bother hunting in the day so this was quite a sighting and we were, well, excited at the chance of seeing an actual kill. (The bike ranger the night before had only seen 2 kills in the 4 years he’d been working at the park.) In the end, the warthog got away (the lioness missed the pounce and probably didn’t want to chase it down in middle of the day when it was hot out…warthog isn’t so big anyhow) but you can see from the video, we were clearly excited…and missed most of the action but oh well. It seems that lioness was part of a group of about 5 that had been likely sitting minding their own business when the warthog strolled nearby and this lioness couldn’t resist the opporuntity, despite the sun, since they were so close. In that little group there, not far from where we saw (likely) this very pride hunting two nights prior, we saw several lioness, another lion, and even a cub. Not a bad way to end 4 days in Kruger, not bad at all.

Foodie Friday: Potjiekos

January 15, 2010 By Jillian

When the hostel sign said, “Tonight, Free Dinner!” we were expecting meat from the braai (barbecue), so when we saw a large three legged cast iron pot on the coals we were a bit confused.

Like settlers during America’s westward expansion, Dutch settlers in South Africa brought their own form of cooking, potjiekos which survives today as a traditional Afrikaner cooking method. Very similar to a stew in the United States, potjiekos is a dish of meat and vegetables slow cooked over the fire in a caldron that we would call a “dutch oven.” Essentially a layered stew, the cast iron pot sits on the coals for several hours without opening the lid.

Starting with a layer of meat and potatoes on the bottom, the pot is layered in order of cooking time with more potatoes, butternut squash, onions, zucchini, mushrooms and other vegetables. From the sounds of it, you can use just about any vegetables you have lying around, douse them with water or the more traditional flavoring- beer- and cover. The pot simmered for about 4 hours at our hostel, but the time depends on what ingredients you use.

Like the braai, a potjiekos is a social event, with everyone standing around, enjoy the company waiting for the food to finish. “It’s done when the time’s up,” the hostel owner told us, and after explaining that he’d made the dish more than 600 times we left the art of the potjiekos in his hands.

Foodie Friday: Peri-Peri Chicken

Why it is good to be King…

When Animals Attack…

Enough Driving Already

Foodie Friday: Potjiekos

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