Deserts of Southern Africa

The class of 1998-1999 consisted of 17 students, 16 from SUNY-ESF and one from SUNY Cortland. The group left Kennedy International Airport in New York City on the evening of 27 December 1998, and after a VERY long flight (14.5 hours) via Johannesburg, arrived in Cape Town on the evening of 28 December. After a night in one of Cape Town's newest hotels (which did not include sleep for some of the more adventurous!), the group departed for the Karoo in three Volkswagen buses (driven by Scott Turner, Barry Lovegrove and Eileen Baldassarre) on the afternoon of 29 December. Thus began the adventure through southern Africa's deserts, a 4,700 mile loop that ventured through the inland high deserts of the Karoo, the fringes of the Kalahari, north through the arid savannas of Namibia, to well north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Etosha National Park, where the group saw African wildlife in abundance, including hyena, giraffe, elephant, rhinoceros, gemsbok, eland, kudu, springbok, warthog, zebra and many other interesting mammals, insects and birds.
After Etosha, the group turned southward again, visiting the coastal deserts of the Namib near Swakopmund, on the Namibia coast, and then back into the south temperate deserts of the succulent Karoo, filled with fantastic and bizarre succulent plants. The tour culminated with an evening dinner and awards ceremony on the beach at Langebaan, one of Africa's World Heritage sites, at the unique beachfront restaurant (sort-of), Die Strandloper. Then it was back to Cape Town, and a day of relaxation and sightseeing before boarding the plane that would take the group from Cape Town to Miami and then back to Syracuse on 17 January 1999.

A short list of the students and their independent projects is given below. Some of the students names provide links to their personal web sites, which record their personal observations and experiences. Please visit them!