Foster kitty photos

The Lions are progressing!  Leda, pictured on the left, comes out to play laser and take treats.  (S)he continues to be vocal day and night and was even exploring upstairs this morning!  Kitty Hendrix, on the right, responds to catnip, does mild exploring downstairs and otherwise continues to be a skilled hider and champion scaredy cat.  

Animal fostering, maiden voyage

Unable to commit to long-term pet ownership, I signed Dan and I up for the next best thing: fostering.  Between being "dumped" or surrendered or crowded shelters, fostering is meant to be a transition for the animals into their eventual "forever home."

The lag between expressing interest to Chetwynd's local rescue group, On Our Way Home Animal Rescue, and receiving two kitten was merely nine days!  

Chetwynd-based and serving British Columbia's Peace region, they're committed to rescuing, rehabilitating and re-homing abandoned and abused animals to the homes they deserve.  Anti-euthanization, this dedicated group has several cats and dogs in foster care available for adoption.  

Our own two black with white long-haired cats (collectively named the Licorice Lions with individual names still to present themselves) will be ready to go a week after their spay and neuter surgeries on the 17 April.  

Only two nights in, they're still adapting to their indoor lifestyle (it's thought that they were outdoor feral cats previously) and are skilled hiders.  Preferred spaces so far: dresser drawers, a tiny space between the stairs and the wall and behind the sofa.  

We're taking baby steps with them.  The door to their basement lair is now open during the day time while one of us is home, their food is creeping slowly up the stairs to encourage interaction, we visit and chat to them adjacent to their hiding places nearly hourly when home and are initiating contact.  

I will post photos of these cute kitties in the basement when they pop out long enough to snap a non-blurry photo.  

To view available animals for adoption, to donate, inquire about fostering or other volunteer opportunities, visit their website or facebook group page.  

Liard Easter

Liard Hotsprings, often merely a stopover travelers on the Alaska Highway, is a destination of its own that beckons many into its soothing, and allegedly healing, waters.  Year round accessible and thoughtfully distanced from the highway, its natural-scaped pools with lightly graveled riverbed and exotic hardwood benches are a rustic and raw companion to their southern Radium and Banff commercial cousins.

A wooden boardwalk, linking the hotsprings and parking lot, meandering through a warm water swamp and boreal forest does more than protect the sensitive habitat from wandering footprints. It provides an uncluttered journey to disconnect from the drive you're enduring, refocus on nature's wealth while contemplating the special environment you're in.

A repeat visitor - overnight and passing through - this Easter was my first visit during winter.  Dan and I were joined by his aunt and uncle from Whitehorse for a weekend of relaxing, looking out at stunning northern Rockies scenery and even outdoor! barbecuing.

A handful of the sites in the campground near the hotsprings were occupied by hardy campers both in trailers and tenting!  Usually a keen camper, I firmly draw the line at winter camping.  Mercifully there was a simple lodge (and lodge is a generous term) across the highway to bunk down for the night.  Heading south to Muncho Lake the next night, we checked into the homey Northern Rockies Lodge.  An Easter brekkie the next morning and we bid 'til soon' to Bob and Dawna as another northern roadtrip came to its close.

Highway chockers with buffs!

These solid creatures are bigger than the Civic!

Inviting hotspring

Muncho Lake from the north

Ahh, northern Rockies

A smattering of Africa photos

Dan shows off the amazing Victoria Falls

                                       

Vic Falls actually

Sunset over the Zambezi

Kitty!

His female counterparts in Tembe

Ele group at Tembe watering hole

Rhino and ocean, yes please!

Kissing/fighting hippos outside St. Lucia

Another spectacular sunset in Namibia

Spooky Deadvlei

           

 How did I end up with two travel companions in capes?

View from Table Mountain

View of Cape Town from Cable Car carpark

 Carcharodon carcharias from the surface 

Underwater - water temp, btw, 13 degrees...

Vino tasting outside Cape Town

Stellar venue for an evening concert with Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse

Heading back to Cape Town via Chapman's Peak

Robyn was delighted when my trousers split and they were donated to the bin

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack

"And do you have a driving license?" the policeman asked my passenger Robyn when I failed to produce mine at a routine roadside checkpoint.  Robyn's was also back at our holiday flat facing the sea.  Facing a stiff 1000 rand fine (or likely lesser bribe) Robyn offered to stay with the policeman while I drove the four blocks back for mine.  We revealed we were going a mere half block up the hill, and, satisfied with the destination, he simply waved us on with a parting, "you should always carry your driving license."  Shaking our heads in disbelief at our good fortune, we simply did, what as travelers we're so accustomed to do, and carried on.

On the other side of another winter away and uncharacteristically looking forward to temporarily resettling in British Columbia's north, these past three months have not clichely "flown by."  There's been sufficient variety in scenery, animals, people, food and culture that's it's a great mystery to me it was ONLY three months.  

From an English wedding in an impossibly gorgeous (and likely haunted) hotel in the countryside to a home-cooked tajine in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains to Zanzibar's perfect beaches to participating in a Malawian dance night to kayaking alongside seals by day and is-this-real? stargazing in Namibia to OMG scuba diving in Sodwana to exploring what's likely Africa's most beautiful city, Cape Town, it has undeniably been an action-packed trip.  

So much so, apparently, that I've neglected posting.  My schedule has been chockers with fun and little sitting-in-an-air-conditioned-internet-cafe downtime to properly process and share interactions, musing, observations and photos. 

In summary, then:

South Africa is a beautiful, puzzling nation where I felt mostly safe.  While the country has made spectacular post-apartheid progress, it is far from finished.  

Namibia, wow.  I hadn't even heard of this safe, English-speaking (mostly), stunning country until I was looking into visiting Africa.  Loaded with watering holes with Africa's enchanting wildlife, outstanding concerts with their own Elemotho, climbing sand dunes for sunrise, a canyon rivaling it's Grand cousin, I struggle to find a day there that wasn't 10/10.  

Eastern Africa: For ease, convenience and safety it's best explored on an organized tour unless you have some handle of the local language(s).  

Sealy Saturday

Oceanside in Swakopmund, Namibia, Robyn and I took to the chilly seas atop a kayak to visit seals and dolphins.  Spectacular visibility awaited us at the end of Pelican Point in a sheltered bay.  A quick lesson from Leonard from Namibia Kayak Tours and we were on the glassy bay as seals young and old played in the water and on the sandbanks.  At Leonard's urging we paddle sprinted to the dorsal fins of dolphins and were rewarded as they popped up to breathe a handful of boat lengths away.  

We're approximately halfway through an overland tour of Namibia with Nomads bound for Cape Town, South Africa.  Our tourmateys have actually been a treat, our one (out of two) guides lacklustre and we've collectively been blown away by the scenery, animals and diversity of this African gem.  

Curious marine friends

Chillin on the beach

My favourite bow bitch

Namibian flora has some spectacular adaptations to its dry climate

Typical tentscapes

TIA

There's no shit shy in Africa.

"How's your bowels?" is a common greeting as meds are swapped on the advice of the coincidentally on-board Aussie nurse and pharmacist.  When not popping Cipro or "stoppers" for the travel days, any lingering reservations of pooping in public washrooms has literally disappeared down the toilet for our Commonwealth-citizened truck bound for Johannesburg.

With public washrooms a generous term, I have yet to encounter Thea's Malian "trous" or Risa's poo-bombed cement pads in Ghana but have been blessed with my fair share of filthy squat toilets where your and, more often, other's waste could not be more confronting.

While beach strolling in Essaouira, Morocco, I happened on a two-child couple engaged in the most compelling birth control: the father suspending a defecating toddler while the mother collected it from the sand in a plastic baggie.

As Dan was throwing his bag into his airport taxi - after his nth visit to the hostel's clean, private toilets - to start on his journey back to Chetwynd, I was dispensing his second course of Cipro.  Fingers crossed he lands an aisle seat for his 23-hour journey...