Date: Sun, 31 Aug 97 20:13:31 GMT From: saharris@iafrica.com (Eric Green) To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3310$foo@default> Subject: Africa!!
Hi to all!!
This is Fernando Rivadavia writing from Eric Green's house in Cape Town, South Africa. I spent a week
in Malaysia with Bruce Pierson from New Zealand, going around and seeing CPs. Believe it or not the first
CP we saw was a Utric, a small species with white flowers. We only saw Neps on the third day!!! Yeah, we
had a bit of bad luck in the beginning, but we did end up finding several species. Maybe they were a bit
boring for Bruce, but for me it was fantastic since it was my first time seeing these plants in the wild. We
saw N.sanguinea, N.macfarlanei, N.gracilis, N.ampullaria, and N.mirabilis.
We rented a car and travelled around 1000km, criss-crossing the northern half of penninsular Malaysia.
The rainforests were beautiful, with humongous trees, interesting plants, lots of animals (monkeys, gibbons,
squirrels, and even flying squirrels), and cool glow-in-the-dark mushrooms (as well as dead leaves littering
the forest floor which were also infested with some bioluminescent fungus - amazing!!). I ate fantastically
well: nassi goreng (fried rice with vegeatbles and chicken) on most days and also took the chance to pig out
on all those fantastic tropical fruits like mangosteens, rambutans, and others I had never seen before
(fruit are especially expensive back in Japan). Too bad I didn't get a chance to try durian before I left.
I've seen this fruit in Japan, but they cost about US$100 each! Better wait until my next trip to SE Asia!
I stupidly missed my flight out of Malaysia on the 29th, but was lucky enough to get a flight on the
following day and arrived here early on the 30th. Believe it or not, only 3h after arriving at the
Johannesberg airport, I was mugged. About 10-15 guys swarmed around me like pirana in broad daylight, in
the middle of the street, while dozens looked on and offered no help not even after the robbery. And I
thought that by being Brazilian I would know how to take care of myself anywhere in the world. NOT!!
Fortunately, I came out in one piece, without a bruise. But I was separated from ALL my money, credit
cards, passport, return plane ticket, ID cards, bus ticket to Cape Town which I had just bought, brand new
US$500 camera plus accessories, GPS I bought earlier this year, S.Africa Lonely Planet Guide, millions of
tiny plastic bags to collect CP leaves for my DNA studies, home key, key to the bag full of clothes I had
left at the bus station, seeds I had brought Eric from Malaysia, case with toothbrush, shampoo, etc, and
worst of all, the irreplaceable, that which money can't buy: my diary with the detailed account of the
Malaysia trip and past life over the last 2 months. The only thing of value they did not take (other than my
life) were the +-7 films I'd taken while in Malaysia.
Luckily I had already bought the ticket to Cape Town and they issued another one for me, or else I'd be
stuck in Jo'berg with no money and no one to turn to (I had even been robbed of Eric's phone number). The
Brazilian embassy was of no help. I was blessed to meet the kindest policeman who helped me out with the
paperwork, fed me, and even gave me some pocket change so I could feed myself on the trip to CT, even
though he probably could barely spare it. On the bus I was taken under the wing of another angel, a muslim
girl who was sitting next to me and took it upon herself to feed and entertain me. No, not in that way!!
Now I'm completely dependent on Eric for a few days until I can get another credit card. And I'm
gonna have to spend a lot of my vacation time running after all the lost documents, plane ticket, etc. Most
problematic should be the re-entry visa for Japan and other Japanese documents such as the alien
registration.
Anyways, show must go on and I've still got 4 weeks in Africa to enjoy. And I intend to! The milk has
been spilt and there's no way to go back. It could have happened anywhere in the world, I just happened to
be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eric has lent me his camera and Rob Gibson left behind his Lonely
Planet Guide when he was here last month. Today I arrived in CT under cloudy weather, blocking out my first
view of this beautiful city sprawled around the majestic Table Mt.
Eric picked me up at the bus station and I spent most of the morning drooling over his fantastic CP
collection. Amazing!!! Saw D.cistiflora in flower for the first time. What an amazingly huge flower!! Nor had
I seen many of the other S.African Drosera he has. I'd also never seen so many mature, flowering
Heliamphora. Another first for me, a total knockout, was his giant and fully mature 17-year-old N.rajah!!! I
didn't even know there were any of that size in cultivation!
Eric later took me to see CPs at the Silvermine Nature Reserve and Red Hill near Simonstown. We saw
D.cuneifolia, D.glabripes, D.hilaris, D.ramentacea, D.aliciae, D.admirabilis, D.cistiflora, D.trinervia, and
D.zeyheri. Nine Drosera species in only a few hours!! Fascinating plants, and all clearly distinct taxa in the
wild. I was surprised to see how the fynbos are similar to the campo rupestre vegetation back in Brazil,
maybe a bit more bushy. At least the geology was apparently identical: sandstone highlands with lots of
seepages and streams tainted reddish-black with tannic acid plus plenty of sandy soil (often black with
ashes from previous year's fires). I told Eric that the solution to his problems in cultivating D.graminifolia
were simple. All he had to do was plant them out at Silvermine! :):):) (No flames about planting alien
species out in the wild, please, it was only a joke!!)
Best Wishes To All,
Fernando Rivadavia
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