After I abruptly shortened my time in Maun (in Africa it's ok to be a flake!) to join A and Z on the cross country voyage (you gotta love that concept in a country the size of Texas) we had a small detour at a beautiful camp between here and there. After a detoured night of debauchery and dancing on the bar the likes of which I suspected I was no longer capable of at the advanced age of 27, (oh how we surprise ourselves… I ended up in the pool as well as dancing on the bar) we arrived at Cracker and A’s house in Sua. We stop at the internet cafe where I part with the best 13 pula I've ever spent in this country on internet of comparable or better speed that the good old US of A. I got through all 127 emails that had collected in my inbox as a result of my three week struggle with the phantom internet in Seronga. We grabbed some "sundowners" a lovely term for drinks consumed in nature, and generally in public while observing one of the phenomenal African sunsets. The concept of sundowners is a product of a place where the laws concerning public consumption are a complete and unenforceable joke. It’s another of the things that make me speculate that perhaps I am indeed in the Wild West or some other crazy last frontier.
We make our way to the salt mines, where they pump the salty liquid from deep in the Earth and flood the pans after which they harvest the salt which is left. We are lucky to have access to the closed fields because Cracker has done his PhD research there.
We cross through the ominous looking gates and I am immediately confronted with one of the more confusing of the many unusual sights I've encountered in Africa. It begins as we drive over the hill and I see the snow. I literally shake my head and squint and have to remind myself that in the heat this sight is impossible; this salty sand is just really white. And thick. We drive on, seeing herds (this word should probably be flocks, but really when you see these big birds running across the pan you would think herd as well!) of ostriches, again causing a bit of inner turmoil as I thought we would be looking at flamingoes. We crest another hill and I am amazed to observe a complete and total lack of horizon. I can see where the sand meets the water and then there is a line caused by the tide of flamingoes,(and I immediately wonder if there are several trailer parks in Blaine, MN that are missing their yard ornaments) but where the sky meets the water is a complete mystery. There is no horizon. Just the sky, and the reflection of the sky in the water, with no differentiation line as to where one ends and the other begins. I again squint, question the veracity of my hangover and the possibility that I have had a phantom hangover that must have come back without showing any signs of it's existence until now, when it decided to follow me though the looking glass to this bizarre place.
It quickly became one of the top ten most awe inspiring sights I have witnessed in my young life (Sorry, Seville at Semanta Santa. You’ve just been served). The air feels so heavy, yet not really humid; it's drier and feels as though it is sucking the moisture out of your very skin. I walk carefully through the discarded feathers that cause the whole beach to look like the street the day after a drag queen's birthday celebration, and let my feet sink into the stinky mixture of salty mud and flamingo shit. I am awestruck by the colors in the sky, and the perfection of the sun's reflection of itself in the water. The place has an opalescence about it that reminds me of the inside of a clam type shell. The flamingoes honk and grunt, and snort verbally in absolute contrast to the brilliant shades of pink and gorgeousness of their appearance. I sit on the gritty sand and watch the sun sink into not the water that reflects its beauty to itself, but the haze that causes the colors and absence of horizon. I smile and am grateful I said yes.
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