Sick day update: The Fynbos.

Welp, I've succumb. Ever since we got here there has been some kind of cold/flu/plague being passed amongst the troops. Living in such close quarters, there is honestly no way of avoiding it. Regardless, I thought I had it beat. I'd gone two weeks being jammed in with sick people and hadn't felt the slightest bit bad. But just as I was patting my immune system on the back, I woke up Friday with a sore throat. I worked that day, it got worse, and I spent a very low key weekend feeling moderately run down, but not terrible. With people felled left and right, and with the limited amount of gunners we have, I decided on Monday that I could just work through. That was the day it moved into my sinuses, and Monday night the pressure was actually making my teeth and jaw ache. Tuesday my occasional dry cough turned into a deep chest hack. This morning Jamie looked at me and said, "So you're staying home, right?" There was nothing I could do but nod.

So while I sit around and expel unpleasant gobs of stuff from my body, I wanted to write a blog about something interesting (if not terribly archaeological) about this part of South Africa that I've had the opportunity to learn. The whole of the planet is classified into six floral kingdoms: Holarktis, which takes up most of North America and Europe. Neotropis, which takes up all of South America. Palaeotropis, which takes up most of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Australis, which takes up Australia and New Zealand. Antarkis, which is Antarctica. And Capensis, or the Cape Floral Region, which is only found on the southern tip of the coast of South Africa.

Known to the locals as the Fynbos, this region of the world houses over 9,000 species of plants, over 6,200 of which are only endemic to this coast of South Africa. The biodiversity here is on par with tropical rain forests or the isolated islands of the Pacific, and is almost unheard of in such a dry and arid climate.

A lot of the locals who work on the project and some of the non locals who have just been living here to work in Pinnacle Point practice a lot of foraging in their free time. We have one University of Cape Town student who's joined us later in the season and seems to be quite the expert in the Fynbos plant life. On our drive in the other day, she pointed out Fynbos rosemary, which is actually a cross between what we know as rosemary and lavender. On the hike up yesterday, she arrived up top with a handful of plants she identified as "bulbs," or small, eatable onions that she is still trying to figure out how to prepare (they are quite bitter, she informed us). Elzanne is from Stellenbosch, just a little ways outside of Cape Town, and I think her studies have something to do with the plant life of the area. So she may be a little more knowledgeable than the average joe, but she isn't the only one to point out this or that species that tastes this or that sort of way.

In fact, foraging seems to be a very popular method of passing the time on the weekends for many of the long time residents of Mossel Bay. You can acquire a permit for something like 50 Rand, or $5, from the post office to forage for mussels on the rocks, which form in giant clusters in the not so hard to reach tide pools. I am actually still playing with this idea, as clam chowder made fresh with mussels I picked off the rocks that morning sounds like an amazing, possibly once-in-a-lifetime sort of meal.

Unfortunately Elzanne informed me yesterday that Pinnacle Point is not the place to find proper Fynbos. Most of the plants that grow there are the ones with costal adaptations, and therefore have things like large, thick, waxy leaves to deal with the ocean spray, which will crystalize acidic salt on anything growing near the coast. But drive an hour in almost any direction, she told me, and you'll hit it. I'm still hoping to get the opportunity to do that.

Elzanne and the other local student we have on the project, Leesha, are in charge of this Friday's braai, which is the large weekly BBQ we do. They are planning a lot, and I am looking forward to some genuinely local Afrikaans cuisine with some maybe collected in the Fynbos herbs to go along with it. Whenever I manage to get back to site, I am due to switch off the gun and onto excavating (yay!), and this weekend is Cango Caves and Wildlife Park. Hectic, yes, but I wouldn't have it any other way (well, maybe not the whole sick and gross bit). Hope your summer is going well, dear reader, and that you are enjoying reading about mine. More to come...