Nobody believes me when I say that the 80 days thing is a coincidence. But it is.
We leave the day after Isabel's last exam and return the day before the first full day of school. 80 days.
Actually from take off to touch down at Winnipeg International is 79 days and 20 hours, but door to door from our house... precisely 80 days.

And a bit about the backstory. In 1993 after three years in veterinary practice Lorraine and I quit our jobs and backpacked around the world for eight months, doing everything from living in a cave in Greece (a very nice cave mind you) to camel trekking across the Rajastani desert to celebrating Christmas in Hong Kong to island hopping in Thailand to volcano climbing in Indonesia to living with a family in Samoa to... well, the list does go on and on. Everyone said, "Wow, that was the trip of a lifetime!" To which we responded, "Nooo! It can't be the only time we do that! It just can't be." We swore we would do something similar again when we had kids. It's 22 years later. Isabel is 13. Alexander is 10.
It's time.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Day 40 Dust And Thorns

I mentioned the dust yesterday, but it bears mentioning again. Waterholes aside, Etosha is an extraordinarily dry place this time of year. I have never before encountered such pervasive powdery dust. It quietly invades everywhere, in every pocket, in every crevice, on every surface. The apples in the bowl in front of me look like peaches now.

I posted a photo of the surreal wintery white of much of the landscape and the dust does account for some of that, but I should also mention the thorns - the ubiquitous acacia are armed with countless bone white thorns, to the exclusion of any leaves. They are as long as a child's fingers and as sharp and tough as surgical needles. One shredded the sleeve of my shirt without me even noticing until after.

The clever among you will note that day 40 marks the halfway point of this trip. Time has however lost its usual meaning for us and feels formless and vast, so we've taken no particular note of the day.

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