Story#251
Dunes before sunrise
The gate opens at dawn and everyone drives too fast to Dune 45. We climbed the ridge in the dark, sat down at the top, and the desert turned from grey to orange in about four minutes.
Africa: 149 stories, quotes and facts, part 2
14 stories, 32 fun facts, 3 quotes on this page. It covers Namibia, Botswana, Africa, Victoria Falls, Zambia, Great Zimbabwe and 21 other places. Page 2 of 2.
Page 2 of 2
14 stories, 32 fun facts, 3 quotes on this page. It covers Namibia, Botswana, Africa, Victoria Falls, Zambia, Great Zimbabwe and 21 other places. Page 2 of 2.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Fun fact#529
Makgadikgadi was once a lake
These salt pans are the bed of a superlake that dried up thousands of years ago, and they are visible from orbit.
Quote#858
Do not follow the path
Do not follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail.
Fun fact#531
Zambia and Zimbabwe share a waterfall
Victoria Falls is neither the tallest nor the widest, but its combined height and width create the largest sheet of falling water.
Fun fact#533
You can swim at the edge of Victoria Falls
When the river is low, a natural rock lip forms Devil's Pool, where swimmers sit metres from a 100-metre drop.
Story#254
A road with no corners
We drove for two hours and turned the wheel twice. The gravel road went straight to the horizon and then continued. We passed one car and both of us waved.
Fun fact#535
Zimbabwe has stone ruins without mortar
Great Zimbabwe's walls were built from fitted granite blocks with no mortar and gave the modern country its name.
Fun fact#537
Malawi's lake has more fish species than any other
Lake Malawi contains more fish species than any other lake, with hundreds of cichlids found nowhere else.
Story#257
Devil's Pool nerves
The guide swims first to show it is safe, then holds your ankles while you look over the lip of Victoria Falls. It is entirely safe, allegedly, and my hands shook for ten minutes afterwards.
Fun fact#539
Mozambique's flag has a rifle
Mozambique is the only country whose flag features a modern assault rifle, alongside a hoe and a book.
Fun fact#541
Madagascar split off long ago
Madagascar separated from other landmasses around 88 million years ago, so roughly 90 percent of its wildlife is unique.
Story#261
Rain in the rainforest
It did not rain, it emptied. Four hours of noise so loud that conversation stopped. Then it ended in about a minute and the forest started making an entirely different set of sounds.
Fun fact#543
Baobabs store water in their trunks
A large baobab can hold well over 100,000 litres of water in its trunk to survive the dry season.
Fun fact#545
Mauritius lost the dodo in a century
The dodo went from first European sighting to extinction in under 100 years, mostly through introduced rats and pigs.
Story#264
The lemur that chose me
We were told not to feed them. One sifaka disagreed with this policy, landed on my shoulder, checked all my pockets in about six seconds and left disappointed.
Fun fact#547
Seychelles has the biggest seed
The coco de mer palm produces the largest and heaviest seed in the plant kingdom, weighing up to 25 kilograms.
Fun fact#549
Reunion has an always-active volcano
Piton de la Fournaise erupts every year or two, and roads are built to be rebuilt after lava crosses them.
Fun fact#551
Comoros exports ylang-ylang
The Comoros supply a large share of the world's ylang-ylang essence, a key note in classic French perfumes.
Story#267
Baobab road at dusk
Everyone comes for the sunset photograph. Nobody mentions that afterwards, in the dark, ox carts keep coming down the same road for another hour, and that is the better picture.
Fun fact#553
South Africa has three capitals
Pretoria is administrative, Cape Town legislative and Bloemfontein judicial, a compromise dating from 1910.
Quote#864
If you want to go fast
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Fun fact#555
Table Mountain has its own cloth
A flat cloud called the tablecloth pours over Table Mountain when southeast winds push moist air up the slope.
Fun fact#557
Cape Town's mountain is a plant hotspot
Table Mountain alone hosts more plant species than the entire United Kingdom, part of the tiny Cape Floral Kingdom.
Story#271
Vanilla in the air
The whole town smells of curing vanilla. A farmer showed us pods drying on racks and explained the two years between flower and export. Then he asked what we pay for one pod at home and laughed for a long time.
Fun fact#559
The Cradle of Humankind holds early fossils
Caves northwest of Johannesburg have produced some of the richest early hominin fossil finds anywhere.
Fun fact#561
Lesotho is entirely above 1,000 metres
Lesotho is the only country whose entire territory sits above 1,000 metres, and it gets snow most winters.
Story#275
Fishing with cormorants
An old technique, mostly gone now, demonstrated for us by a man who clearly enjoyed the audience. He said his grandfather had six birds and knew all their names.
Fun fact#563
Eswatini changed its name
Swaziland officially became Eswatini in 2018, meaning land of the Swazis, partly to avoid confusion with Switzerland.
Fun fact#565
The Kalahari is a thirst land, not a desert
The Kalahari receives enough rain to support grass and trees, so technically it is a semi-arid savanna.
Story#277
The oasis at dusk
Salt lakes, date palms and a mud fortress melting slowly in the rain that comes once a decade. We swam in a spring at sunset with four boys who had cycled from the village to show off.
Fun fact#567
Africa has over 2,000 languages
Estimates put the number of living African languages between 1,500 and 2,000, roughly a third of the world's total.
Fun fact#569
Swahili is a trade language
Swahili grew along the Indian Ocean coast blending Bantu grammar with Arabic vocabulary from centuries of trade.
Story#281
Tunis medina navigation
The rule we were given: if a street gets narrower, you are going the wrong way; if it widens, you are heading out. It worked eight times out of nine.
Fun fact#571
Africa is bigger than it looks on maps
The Mercator projection shrinks Africa. In reality the United States, China, India and most of Europe would fit inside it.
Fun fact#572
The Rift Valley lakes are alkaline
Some rift lakes are so alkaline they can burn skin, yet flamingos thrive on the algae that grow there.
Fun fact#575
Timbuktu was a university town
Sankore in Timbuktu was a centre of learning in the 15th century with thousands of students in residence.
Story#285
Berber hospitality
We knocked to ask for water and were served lunch. When we tried to pay, our host looked offended, then wrapped bread for us to take up the pass.
Fun fact#576
Saharan salt still moves by camel
Salt slabs are still cut in the desert and carried by camel caravan, though trucks now do most of the work.
Quote#933
The desert teaches
In the desert, the only thing you own is what you can carry.
Fun fact#579
African wild dogs hunt by vote
Researchers found wild dog packs decide when to hunt by sneezing, with more sneezes meaning stronger consensus.
Story#289
The taxi that collected everyone
The shared taxi left when the fourth passenger arrived. By the end there were six of us, a crate of tomatoes and a goat, and the driver charged the same as if it had been four.
Fun fact#581
Meerkats take turns on watch
Meerkat sentries rotate duty and give different alarm calls for aerial and ground predators.
Fun fact#582
Weaver birds build apartment blocks
Sociable weavers build communal nests weighing a tonne that house over a hundred birds for generations.
Fun fact#585
The Atlas Mountains hold snow
North Africa has ski resorts. Oukaimeden near Marrakech sits above 2,600 metres and opens most winters.
Story#291
Highlife on a Sunday
Music came out of every second doorway and none of it was the same song. A man selling fried plantain kept time with his tongs without appearing to notice.
Fun fact#586
Africa's largest market is in Lagos
Balogun and its surrounding markets sprawl for blocks, and navigating them without a guide is close to impossible.
Fun fact#589
Ostriches cannot fly but can outrun horses
Ostriches sprint at 70 km/h and their kick can be lethal, which is why farm handlers keep to their side.
Story#295
The carpenter's coffins
In the workshop stood a coffin shaped like a fish, one like an aeroplane and one like a cocoa pod. Each was a life summarised in wood, and the carpenter explained every choice.
Fun fact#590
Hippos kill more people than lions
Hippos are responsible for far more human deaths in Africa than big cats, especially near riverside paths at night.
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Propose your travel story
The missed ferry. The stranger who handed over a key. The meal that ran until midnight. If something happened to you on the road and you still think about it, send it - a few sentences is plenty, and we do the tidying up.