I hope life is treating you well. I recently got back from another 5 crazy days in the field, and now I'm trying to buckle down and write my presentation for the Post-grad seminar this Friday. Hence, I'm procrastinating and writing to you instead.

I finally remembered to ask Mike Picker about the elusive Cardouw, where he collected a Ph. gulosa and a Ph. aethiopica for me. I must have driven up and down the N7 4 times looking for it. Anyway, Mike has the energy of a 7 year old. He's so funny. I sent him a email asking where Cardouw was exactly, and he wrote me this email in response, "CU later, when I will reveal the location of Cardouw..." What a nut. It turns out the be the same spot that Rika, my reserve manager friend from the Limitberg, told me about. There is a farm called Kardouw right on the Olifants River, just outside of the Citrusdal. I went there with my newest assistant, Christina, but it was a bit too late.

I called ahead to the Cederberg Reserve where the famous Pakhuis Pass is located. I wanted to try and be legitimate about working on the reserve. To start, I had trouble getting anyone on the phone. When I finally did, the woman at Algeria (the head quarters) said there would be someone up at the Kliphuis campsite. Well, we got another night of free camping because no one materialized. I had quite a bit of fun with the axe though. I don't think I've ever used a full size axe before. Just a hatchet. The meter long handle was a bit intimidating, but I picked it up, squared off, and gave it a shot. Christina looked at me and said, "hey, you're quite good at that!" I was pretty pleased with myself and my neatly split pieces of wood. The weight of the axe makes it much easier than a hatchet. And there really wasn't that much blood. Really. (I got a splinter)

Earlier that day, we were at the grocery store in Piketberg, and the lady checker looked at what we were buying and said, " the two of you are going camping? Just the two of you?" I smiled the affirmative. It's unusual for women to travel alone. Plus, men are supposed to make the braai. So, when we hauled back our wood and I started the fire, I decided our theme would be "braai without a boy night."

Oh yeah, and you remember those orchid pollinia I told you about. We found the orchid. We were wandering around in evening and found a patch of Disa harveiana ssp longicalcarata. Probably not that special, but still pretty cool. This had to be what they were visiting. The next day we returned to measure some flowers and caught a ton of Ph. rostrata and two Ph. gulosa. They're big mothers. I even saw them visit the orchids!

When we were done there, we decided to try to get to this spot at Mitjiesrivier (pronounced mikies-rif-FUR) that Rika told us about. It's just east of the Cederberg, so we took the road to Wuppertal. Jesus. That has got to be the worst road I've ever been on. (well, maybe). Terrible washboards, and the two passes are the worst engineered death traps I've ever seen. When we made it to Wuppertal, two mule drawn carts passed us, and all I could think was, 'that's got to be the only way to take this damn road.'

We turned around then, taking it that the road would just get worse. We drove north and west back around the mountains and tried to get in from the west road through Algeria. The woman there knew Rika, and they were going to let us stay at the long house at Mitjiesrivier for free. I say going to, because we didn't get another 5 K past the office before I started having car trouble. Everytime we hit a bump, I had no power. I stopped the car and looked under the hood. I was beside myself when I saw that the carburetor was beside the engine. No joke. The stupid thing had bounced right out of the manifold! Damn washboards. So I put the carburetor back into the engine and gave it a good pounding. Then I said a little prayer. We drove very slowly back to Algeria where this lanky Afrikaans guy that couldn't speak english helped us out. He was covered with soot from head to toe having just come from a veld fire. Everything was black but the red edges of his eyelids rimming his kind, blue eyes below a mop of yellow hair. He put some thick wire around my engine to hold the carburetor on. It drove fine after that. We drove it all the way back to Cape Town.

Man, I've gotta go. I'll finish this tomorrow.

shelah