My original intention was to make an elaborate post describing our itinerary, reminiscing about the previous three trips to Botswana, and waxing poetic on that special something that makes Africa unforgettable, inescapable and intoxicating. It is all those things but I am at the moment too exhausted to even try to describe them.

But part of the process of getting ready was loading up an iPod Nano we’ve picked up for our friend and guide, Alwyn. He spends most of his year in-country, guiding and camping in the Okavango Delta. An iPod is the perfect companion. I loaded some music. But I also dropped a couple of videos that he had taken on his own trips. I thought I’d share them here now, as well.

For the record, tomorrow we fly to London and spend a day as tourists. Then it’s on to Livingston, Zambia to rest, see the Falls and shower. then, into the Kasane, Botswana and Chobe – an area of countless elephants. We’ll begin to move across to Moremi, and camp all the way: here’s a quick video of our typical accommodations in the Delta:

We hope to get one night in the Kalahari sleeping under the stars as we make the move across the country. We’re not quite as hardy as the locals, whom we have visited briefly on our journey through Kwai. The San Bushmen are regarded as one of the world’s oldest cultures, having lived as hunters and gatherers for over 20,000 years. From Wikipedia:

“Genetic evidence suggests they are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, peoples in the world — a “genetic Adam” … from which all humans can ultimately trace their genetic heritage.”

While there, I’m going to try and sketch out some blog posts by hand, and get some accompanying photos. many thanks to photographer Paul Eekhoff for the loan of an extraordinary camera body, the Olympus E-330, and Tony Delitala for his lens. I’ll gloat about the gear later also. For now, I’m prepping for two weeks offline, in a world where we camp like this:

Lion in Camp

The best part: Carol and I are taking Liam for his first trip to Africa. This will be the most special one yet.

More — much, much more — to come!

Gus O’Connors, Doolin, originally uploaded by ahowes1343.

A conversation today with Murph got me thinking about Doolin. Somewhere, we must have some photographs (although I think at the time we were mostly videotaping) so I’ve snagged this one from Flickr—tip of the hat to ahowes.

Even in the absence of snapshots, the images in my head are crystal clear: singing Galway Bay with my father in the front garden of the house we’d rented overlooking Doolin and the Bay; going down to the pubs and hearing the music, smoking rolled cigarettes, and drinking the best Guinness I’d ever had. One of the nights we were there, my brother Len and I had gone down to the pub on our own, leaving my Mom & Dad, Carol and Anne, and Liam, just 4 months old, at the house. It was brilliant — great fun, great music. After a night of listening, we were walking to the car when an old farmer politely asked for a ride up the hill. As we drove, he told us he was a musician. We had seen him in the pub, just listening intently; he seemed shy but friendly, and was glad for the lift. He let us drop him close, but wouldn’t allow us to go out of our way, assuring us his farm was not far beyond the turn to our rented place. We guessed that he was going the last mile at least on foot.

After Murph dug up a Russell Brothers LP he had brought from Doolin, we wondered aloud if it was one of the brothers. I realize now that the Russell Brothers are quite rightly the stuff of legend. Their music is celebrated still today, and a generation of folk musicians count them among their heroes. By all accounts, their talent was huge and their nature unassuming.

Doolin, the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher—the whole place was infused with a kind of magic. And the music from the pubs provided a soundtrack that was breathtakingly Irish. That we might have passed some time with one of the its grand old men was a myth too massive to resist. Now, after reading this biography of Gussie Russell at the Micko Russell Festival website, it became even easier to imagine that Gussie Russell was the man we met that night in Doolin:

Of the three Russell brothers, it can be said of Gussie that his was the life that was least changed by the music, though he lived and breathed it as much as Micho and Packie.

He continued to farm the small family holding. He also worked in the quarrying of the flagstone in Doonagore. He fished off the rocks near the Cliffs of Moher, and he travelled out on his Honda 50 motorcycle.

His musical instruments were the tin whistle and flute, which he played with great accomplishment. His repertoire of tunes was as extensive and varied as his brothers, though his natural shyness and self-effacement meant he was often the ‘forgotten’ brother.

Yet his talent was much admired. Where and when he felt comfortable and at ease he played but otherwise people did not intrude in his privacy. As often he preferred to simply sit in on the music sessions and listen; his upper body swaying to the music, his eyes transfixed in some concentration of the tune as if he was playing. Gussie Russell died May 18, 2004.

Read more abouth the brothers at the County Clare Library site and the Micho Russell Weekend (just passed this February, 2008) web site.

In the middle of this shot, people are doing this:

I remember seeing people swimming—in what is known as the “Devil’s Pool”—from the Zimbabwe side of the falls, each of the three times we’ve been there. I don’t know if this years’ trip will provide an opportunity to get back to the Falls.

But I do know that I won’t be swimming there!

More great shots Fogonazos blog…

And am I ever glad we did. I highly recommend this drive. It is spectacular!

It seems like every island had a home or cottage, no matter how big or small. And if they didn’t—they were building…

It’s a Jazz and Heritage radio station in New Orleans called WWOZ and it is absolutely amazing. I’ve been listening for two days and the mix of music is fabulous.

Having been a number of times to New Orleans – all pre-Katrina – I know what an incredible town it is for music. Listening to this station takes me there again.

It tells me two things: first, nature is beautifully unpredictable. And second, the power of documenting man’s environment no longer belongs to conglomorates but is in the hands of everyone. This incredible footage wasn’t shot by a news network or heavily-funded documentarian; it was uploaded to YouTube by a tourist.

Theoretical physicist Steven Hawking experiencing zero gravity, all expenses paid by Richard Branson of Virgin, on the Zero G (it cost him about about 100K but regular trips are about $3500; book your seat today.). One of the smartest men in the world experiencing something he only imagined, sponsored by one of the coolest men in the world, who can imagine with the best of them. And suffering from advanced Lou Gehrig’s disease, there’s not a whole lot of great sensations that Hawking gets access to.

Branson seems to be around here a lot these days – in Toronto recently creating an environmental campaign, and speaking at what looked suspiciously like a get-rich-quick-conference, if only for the presence of Donald Trump. Organizing this one really shows his creativity and compassion. It’s a treat for all of us.

I think it was Coudal’s blog that noted the dali-esque nature of the shot. Brilliant.

Great Way To Start

I’ve been fortunate to have had many, many great travel experiences in my life.

When I began my career as a young singer/actor in the early eighties, I was one of a handful of performers traveling to exotic locales to perform targeted entertainment for corporate audiences. These were no 5-shows-a-day car launch industrials; there were couple of Toronto companies that specialized in high-end corporate shows when the format was in its infancy. We were well-paid, well-looked after and most importantly, well-traveled, spending our winters in the Bahamas, the Caribbean and the southern United States—mostly laughing, sometimes singing for blue-chips like American Express, Labatt and IBM. It was—for young entertainers—the best experience you could imagine and a wonderful way to fill in time (and pay rent) between stage shows. There was an even better fringe benefit, in that I met my gorgeous wife Carol while on one of these shows on the Garden Island, Kuai, Hawaii.

Later, as I began to work primarily in film and television, the horseshoes up my butt continued to work: my first decent film job was a nearly two-month location shoot in Israel (Iron Eagle II
with Lou Gossett, Jr.), my television show Katts & Dog (internationally Rin Tin Tin, K-9 Cop) was for a couple of seasons a French co-production shooting part of each cycle in Paris, France and one stretch in the South of France, and I picked up guest spots on shows like Ray Bradbury Theater in Wellington, New Zealand (in a future post I’ll try and recount how a drunken wrap party turned into a visit to Queenstown to bungy jump with the sports’ founder A.J. Hackett). All in all, as entertainers, my wife Carol and I pretty much circumnavigated the globe—her travels as a singer even took her to Hong Kong.

Still Going

In later years, as I launched a career in the communications industry, I began to wonder if my world travel days were behind me. In fact, they’d only begun. While launching a theatre project called Harbourside Playhouse in my adopted-hometown of Port Credit, I met a wild and wonderful entrepreneur/theatre-angel named Victor Deschenes. Our relationship developed into friendship and business, and my company began to perform communications consulting for his critical delivery company, Expedite Plus. As someone in the global emergency delivery business, Victor and his wife Rosanne were no strangers to world travel. In fact, their view of the world was different than anyone we’d ever met: they travel it like most people travel their city. They would think nothing of being on the other side of the world for breakfast; business might take them there or they’d simply follow their nose because they knew of something interesting that might be happening—no matter how far away. Victor has introduced Carol and I to countless extraordinary travel experiences, which over the coming years I will likely reference here. But for today, I wanted to focus on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Last year, we joined Victor and Rosanne on a South Pacific cruise. How’s this for an itinerary: Tahiti, Bora Bora, Christmas Island, three Hawaiin Islands and then across the Pacific to San Fran.

And on a cool December morning, at about 7:00 am, we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Victor knew the Captain of the ship we were on, having traveled with him before. He made arrangements so that my son Liam and I could join the crew on the bridge for the Bridge passage.

We met the pilot that boards from San Francisco to guide the ship through. We looked overhead as the iron passed seemingly a few feet from our foreheads and the massive ship drifted through. We could see one of America’s most gorgeous cities yawning out before us, and the feel the rush of the vehicles overhead.

It was a moment that transcended almost any urban experience I had ever had. On a ship under the Golden Gate Bridge shortly after sunrise. This next shot is of the Queen Mary 2 as it passed under (I obviously don’t have shots of our passage from a distance:~) Then there’s a shot from my point-of-view taken from the Radisson Navigator. You can see a Flickr slideshow of some shots here.

Breathtaking. It truly was.