Tearing ourselves away from our life of affluence in Simon's Town, we headed up the M4 through Cape Town to the N1 northwest out of city life and into the deep vast Great Karoo. Up and up, through Paarl, center of Afrikanerdom, through a tunnel, and out into Switzerland. The wine country could compete with the land of the clock in orderliness and scenic wonder, although it's quite a bit dryer and was built by slave labor, but who's splitting hairs.

After the irrigation efforts petered out it was just plain desert, the Great Karoo. On and on, looking for (and finally spotting) sagebrush, we drove through the expanses oohing and ahhing at geology.

Our destination, Karoo National Park, was a gem, full of gemsbok. We stayed in one of twelve guest cottages, with thatched roofs that made the insides smell nummy, like one of my grandpa's cigars before he smoked it. Looking out from the stoep, we could see the entire world. I kept expecting to see some cowboys herding cattle through the pass, but instead we saw springbok. Charlie rock-hopped extensively and found a tortoise very slowly scuttling around. Charlie, Scott, and I took a night wildlife-viewing ride and spotted all sorts of game, gamely staring back at us or skittering away. Charlie's list contains hare, kudu, eland, gemsbok, springbok, aardvark, zebra, quagga (zebra's cousin), and water mongoose. The sky was so clear that the upside-down stars were extra bright and sharp and numerous, if disorienting. Scott says that the lady at the laundromat told him that Japanese scientists went looking for the quietest place on earth and determined that it was in the Karoo. I believe it.

Charlie found a tortoise

Rising early (!) I took a walk to the bird-hide, where it was clear that birds are taking over the planet. Loud birds. Other than the birds, the desert was incredibly quiet. I could see a little bitty Scott in the way off on his jog and heard his every footstep quite clearly. Before the sun got high enough to reduce bodies to bleached bones within hours we took a walk up a botanical trail. The plants were identified, but I would have renamed them all "Plant with spikes #1, #2, etc. Plant with Thorns. Pokey plant. Thorny, pokey plant. Spikey thorny, etc. Excellent terrain, but not really designed for the sun-challenged such as myself. I kept picturing myself as a skeleton, with a little point-and-shoot camera next to it

We drove out of the National Park (seeing a couple of zebras on the way out) through Beaufort West, a plains town, then on to a yellow road, South Africa's equivalent of a blue highway. Endless dry flatness, with far-off mountains, windmills, and goats disguised as sheep. It looked like Nevada or Utah. After endless endlessness, we arrived in Aberdeen, which was previously a one-cow town, and had now degenerated to something somewhat less significant.

We met our hostess, Diane Nel, as she was leaving a funeral in the large church in the center of town. My first impression of her was that she was a fancy dressed-up lady who probably would shop at Nieman Marcus if she were from where I'm from. Man was I wrong. She insisted that we hold off on lunch because we were due to visit an artist, Carlos, and "he's quite emotional and will be upset if we're late." Off to Carlos' atelier.

We entered through the garden, which had walls painted lime green, sunny yellow, plum, and tangerine, and had plants with a similar fashion sense. In the back of Carlos' garden was his studio, where five young men were working away. Carlos decorates ostrich eggs, mostly for sale overseas, and they take your breath away when you first see them. Actually, he washes the eggs with dyes and mixtures of metallic goo, affixes fishnet hat parts, flotsam, and whatnot, then decoupages color photocopies or carved paper items onto the egg. After ten layers of wash, jetsam, decoupage, and shellac, and a good day or two of polishing, the eggs are positively three-dimensional. Zebras jump out at you, or lions, or Japanese stuff, or bugs, or chickens. They're absolutely exquisite. Ostrich eggs are about the size of a small melon/large softball, and they have dimples, so they take the dyes with beautiful unpredictability.

Then Carlos entertained us for tea, in the sun room. Tangerine, lime, lemon, blueberry (those are the colors of the walls). His partner Derrick is a psychotherapist, for whom I have no idea. Who needs therapy in Aberdeen, goats? Derrick and Carlos were bundled up in Shetland sweaters and ascots and we were sweltering. Carlos is Portuguese, in his 60s, hailing originally from Mozambique. He used to be a businessman (Diane says he's "filthy rich") and is rather, um, colorful. He boisterously scattered his biscuit crumbs as he described visitors from all corners of the planet, including one Brazilian woman who, after having been stifled by her strong Catholic upbringing, was living in Paris purging herself of past pain (and supporting herself) by vomiting paint onto canvas and declaring it art. So Tom Robbins. The interior of Carlos' and Derrick's home was painted equally garish but darker colors, full of objets from all over the world, and Carlos kept passing valuable little items into the children's pockets.

Tearing ourselves away from we weren't sure what, we piled into the vehicles to go to the Nel's ranch. Our trusty Honda Ballade was preceded and succeeded by little pickups, bakkies (pronounced bucky), as they're called here. We were told that our car might have some trouble with the road because of the rains they'd had earlier in the week. After turning off the yellow highway, we headed down a dirt track and said, "well, that's not so bad. See, that's the farm right there." Not. On and on. And on. Dust, ruts, corduroy road, vervet monkeys, goats, lots of miles of nothing. After about 15 kilometers of this we turned and went through the first of a series of gates, still not seeing the ranch. After almost an hour, we were home. Not a place you run into town for a gallon of milk.

Seig and Diane Nel are parents of Sanet, who was one of Scott's students at Lewis and Clark. She is there on a four-year tennis scholarship, and sounds like quite a strong, smart young lady. I can't imagine her coming from this remote ranch and attending college in the US, but I guess she was quite up to the task.

The Nel's ranch is much like an Australian sheep station, except they raise curly white Angora goats instead of sheep. The flat-topped mountain on one end of the endlessness (think Utah) serve as a fence, and who knows where the other end could have been. Somewhere beyond where the earth curved away.

We got a delightful treat in that we got to all pile into the back of the bakkie, along with four herding dogs, two miniature dachshunds, and the two hired men, to go see the herd. Seig probably did slow down on our account, but it was hard to believe it as we bounced over the veld and lost our hats. Saw the odd ostrich herd, delivered a lost ram to the next-door neighbor a few miles away, chased hawks, repaired a leaking water hose, saw Springboks boinging over the stones and pokey plants, and then watched as Leon and Peter and the herd dogs brought the herd over. The air smelled like sage.

The Nel's home is very comfortable and cool, and feels very much like a farmhouse. It's quite dark inside, to make up for the brightness outside, and is surrounded by gardens featuring water-wise but stunning plants. Of course there's a braai (a South African barbeque, men's territory) first thing when you walk in. On the back there's an expansive stoep (verandah) where we had hot cross buns, polony (lunch meat) and cold Castles. Dinner was a braai, heavy on the meat. Meat and beer; if you don't like them, you might think of trying another country.

We took a walk up the valley in the evening before dinner, and had a chance to talk with Diane and Seig. Diane is a prosecuting attorney in the district court, and had a lot to say about the court system, justice, language and cultural barriers in the legal system, and death threats (made on her). She's a tough lady, very determined, gracious, and generous. She grew up on a cattle farm in Namibia, went to Stellenbosh University (the elite Afrikaner university of South Africa) for undergrad and law school, and broke all three of her vows to herself by marrying an Afrikans speaker, a farmer, and a member of the National Party (now Democratic Alliance, read Republican from Texas). Seig is all of these things, but he's intelligent, thoughtful, and quite practical about his country's problems.

Seig is clearly a man who is in love with his land; he enjoyed taking us on long walkabouts and showing us the plants, wildlife, water, and his work. He's also passionate about rugby, as we found out Friday morning. Fortunately, the Cats won. Before the rugby match in the morning we took a ride in the bakkie which included a long detour walking down a river trickling through the desert. Unbelievable, a morning I'll never forget. The Nel's were incredibly hospitable, and I hope we can return their hospitality in the future.

Diane called us before I left South Africa. They had experienced heavy rains, which washed out the "road" that had challenged our Honda Ballade. The neighbor of lost-ram fame had got his bakkie stuck in the wash, and Seig, Peter, and Leon tried to tow him out. Sadly, the tow rope broke, and the tow hook went flying into Leon's leg. He was badly injured and lost a lot of blood. They couldn't drive him out until they got the neighbor's bakkie out of there, and then it was who knows how long a drive to get him into Graaff-Reinet, the nearest town. Diane wasn't sure if he would retain the use of his leg.

The theme of the trip undoubtably being "do we have to leave here?" we tore ourselves from the Nel's farm and trooped homeward. It was lovely to be home, showered, and eating vegetables. And little Biftu next door was glad to see her good buddies home again.