WE ARE THE PRIDE OF ETOSHA TOWN – LION CITY

WEATHER: Hot and 34C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: More great viewing on our last safari drive

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The heat is starting to wear us down

BUYS OF THE DAY: My African bead bangle for 7AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Money shot referring to awesome animal photos

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Zazu’s, jackals by the dozen, vultures, ostriches, Oryx’s, dic dic’s (my favorites), elephants, rhinos, giraffes, zebras by the hundred, prides of lions and cubs, Helmut guinea fowls, kudu’s, wildebeests, springboks by the hundreds,      

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Awesome – it has a pool so everything gets an automatic 5 out of 5 stars no just for this!

An early start this morning.  After an awesome day yesterday game viewing, we try and contain the excitement and also the disappointment all at the same time, hoping to see more of what we saw yesterday, but at the back of our minds we are thinking can it get any better?

So up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and we departed at 7.30am.  We have 180km to drive today plus whatever actual game driving we do.  As we are already in Etosha National Park, we are literally travelling to the other side and staying a night in the western side.  So even though we need to travel 180km, we are still in the national park itself, so if we see animals on the ‘drive’ section then all the better for us.  First thing I noticed as we rolled through the park is just how dusty it is.  Etosha means White Plains, and I can see what they mean.  The dust is a fine white like powder, and gets onto everything.  After rolling into our second camp of the night in Etosha and setting up our tents, there is no carpet and we have set up on the ‘white’ ground.  This stuff is already in our tents and our feet are white as well.  There was also a bit of a wind when we first got there, so the dust was just flying around everywhere.  Needless to say we are all sneezing and it really makes the air so dry that our skin is just screaming out for moisture.  The last 3 days Lisa and I have been applying moisturizing cream 3-4 times a day (our favorite friend at the moment a brand called ‘Dawn’), and the air has just been that dry, and I guess it doesn’t help when we are in the sun3/4 of the day, so we are also trying to re-hydrate our skin from that as well.  But on that note I am looking quite brown, always an upside right?

Etosha has and is known for its salt pan that it has in the park.  More recently the British TV series Top Gear filmed an episode here racing a car across the plain.  We got a view point stop mid-morning and then drove further along at a point where you can actually drive on the salt pan also known as the Etosha Pan.  It was pretty cool, just a flat expanse of dried and muddy salt.  It did make for some great photos, even if it was a little whiffy on the nose.  Ben took us a little way down for the photos and then we reversed back up and were on the road again at 11am.

So after more animal spotting on our, we rolled into our second camp in Etosha National Park.  We have seen a gazillion Springboks and were lucky enough to see 2 of them jump / spring this morning.  Not a great stat out of a gazillion, but to see them do there spring was a sight to see.  The Springboks are like the Thompson Gazelles of the Serengeti.  They are everywhere and in large numbers.  Lucky they are cute and don’t tell Dave, but they may even be cuter than the Thompsons.  So after arriving into camp and after eating lunch we got some free time at the, I would have to call resort.  The camp ground was only a small section; they also had free standing chalets, a post office, a general store and a curio shop to name a few shops in the smaller complex.  I was lucky I went to the post office when we first got there to register, as it was closed when we went back after lunch.  I managed to get my Namibia stamp for my Globetrotters book and it was an awesome one with an elephant and the national parks name – score!!!!  It looks awesome. 

So you can guess where you are going to find us – yep in the pool, again!  We are now starting to rank the pools water temperature from the ones that we have been into date.  Chobe still has to take the cake on the coldest pool so far, followed closely by Rundu I think.  Okaukujo (our camp) had the warmest water to date and it was actually quite pleasant.  As mentioned previously, we would still be in there no matter what anyway – but it was nice to finally have a pool that we could swim in without freezing our little you know what’s off.

GAME DRIVE – our last official drive was at 4pm.  The morning drives are so different from the afternoon drives, and you can see why you do both.  Besides different animals roam at different times of the day, just the colours of the landscape also change so much with the sunlight etc.  This afternoon was full of yellow brush and a beautiful cloudless blue sky.  It made for some amazing photos and I got some great zebra photos of a herd of around 300 drinking from a watering hole and some great giraffes on the plain.  Once again we thanked our safari god’s, half way through the drive we stumbled onto a big male lion resting under a tree.  We were parked about 10m from where he was and we got some amazing ‘money shots’.  I am so glad I bought a camera with a massive zoom of 28 optical, as I can just about see up his nostrils with the zoom I have and they look amazing.  He was zapped from the heat, so he didn’t get up to much; he sat up a few times, but mainly just slept under the tree.  He really did look just like a cuddly cat and he had his paws crossed over at the front like a cat, well till he yawned and you saw these massive pointy teeth sticking out.  We also did see, we think, the same lion pride from yesterday, but only 10 of them today, it was super cute to see the cubs again.  GG said we have been very lucky, as you generally see lions in the park, but normally around the water holes, where we are seeing these guys roaming the park, so it is just chance we are getting to see so many.  Apparently Namibia only has 500 lions all together, private parks included and we have seen around 20 of them in the last 48 hours, yeah I think we have been quite lucky! 

So another sun sets on our last game drive.  What an amazing 2 days we have had in Etosha and an incredible way to finish 50 hours of game drive viewing in the last 7 weeks.  We have been insanely lucky and besides not seeing meerkats, we pretty much saw everything we wanted to, and more than once.  Thanks Africa, you have been awesome to us on the animal front.  Once we got back to camp, we had 40 minutes till dinner, so we went and had a look at the water hole to see what was lurking there and we were greeted by a marvelous sunset, with an elephant silhouette, a few giraffes and chervil (cat thing).  Not bad at all and 300% better than what we saw at the last camps hole.  This was also an amazing set up to view from, with chairs lining the hole, and they also had a thatched roof with bleacher style seating at the far end of the hole as well to accommodate around 100 people I would say.  As the camp ground is so massive, there were a lot of people vying for vantage points with their cameras and tri-pods and others setting up for the night and then there were us, just having a quick sqizz before dinner.  The sunset pictures were great, and as I have said all trip you can never have too many sunset photos! 

Dinner was served at 7.20pm.  Simon is quite particular on his serving times and they always have randomness to them.  6.40pm, 7.10pm, 6.55pm.  It is hilarious, but no-one is ever late.  Poor Simon hasn’t had cooks for the last 2 days, but he has managed splendidly again with another mouthwatering culinary delight!  Some of the crew was going back to the water hole to see if this one fares any better than last night’s boring hole.  Lisa and I decided it wasn’t worth it, we had seen it, what could you see at night time that we hadn’t seen already during the day and night photos just don’t work out – oh and we had a vodka and gin and tonic in hand, so we decided to wait for the full ‘we saw nothing’ report in an hour or so.  Well you could imagine our surprise when Rolf had to come back for his binoculars and the first thing he said was ‘girls get your butts to the hole-there is a lion chasing some giraffes’.  Well you should have seen Lisa and I move, we did the right thing and waited for Rolf and then we all headed back to the hole, albeit it was the long way as we got lost, but when we got back there were 2 rhinos, around 8 giraffes and we could see 2 lions.  Amazing!!  I stayed for around an hour till 9pm, and I did see the lion make another attempt at the giraffes, and to see all this right in front of you was pretty amazing, like National Geographic kind of stuff, but in real life.  After I left, elephants turned up, some more lion action and then the cubs appeared, so we think the lions were teaching the cubs how to hunt, as they weren’t really trying that hard.  But what a difference to last night!  Thanks Rolf for coming back for your binoculars, otherwise we would have been oblivious to what was happening only 100m away and missed the whole thing.  Hopefully one of the other posse would have come back for us anyways – right Sean?  Right Dave?  Right Manu?

Son into bed we climb after another massive and successful day.  Tomorrow we have to drive only 16km to get out of the national park, so we sort of like get a mini safari drive in the morning, so there maybe one last chance to see some more animals before we leave animal kingdom. 

ETOSHA NP VERSUS SERENGETI NP – TOUGH CALL

WEATHER: Min 12C – Max 38C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing lions on our first afternoon in the park

BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s a tad hot at 38C

BUYS OF THE DAY: My bottle of Smirnoff for 8AUD!!

WORD OF THE DAY: Ellie-bit

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Helmut guinea fowl, black rhino, elephants, big lizard maybe a monitor, zebras, jackals, Corey bustard, 11 lions – 8 cubs, 2 females and a male, elands, dic dic’s, springboks by the hundreds, wildebeest, kudu’s, blackface impala’s, giraffes, vultures, Oryx    

CAMP SITE RANKING:  No carpet, great showers, flushing toilets, a pool, no internet but 5 out of 5 stars

We only have 250km to travel today to get us to Etosha National Park, not counting the kilometers that we will do on the game drive this afternoon, but in the scheme of things anything less than 300km is a walk in the park.  It also helps that we all have 2 seats each, so the travel days aren’t as bad now as we can now stretch out.  I really don’t mind travel days as long as I have my IPod charged and just watch the world pass us by!

So up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and we left Roy’s camp at 7.30am.  We have such a good group where everyone is always on time, most mornings we are even leaving 5-10 minutes early which is awesome.  I can’t stand people who are late – it’s one of my pet peeves.  We only drove for 90 minutes before our shop stop for Simon.  As we have had so many shop stops, there really isn’t too much more I need to buy at the moment.  I hate to see one go to waste though, so I bought another packet of chips, which when I got back to the truck, I added them to the 4 packets I have bought on previous stops, yeah I don’t think I need any more of them.  I also bought some more credit for my phone, the text messages here to back home only seem to cost around .20c a pop, so I think that is pretty good value.  And last but not least is the top up of the bar.  Dave and I are both out of vodka, so I think this will be the last bottle that I will have to buy in Africa.  The bottle shop had like 15 brands of vodka and the Smirnoff was the second cheapest at 8AUD for a 750ml!  How cheap is that!?  Meyouki has found this drink using Amarula and Gin, so Lisa and I have also gone halves in a bottle of Amarula, to give it a crack and make our own.  To buy the A&T at the bar it is only 2.80AUD which isn’t too bad considering there are 2 nips of alcohol in it, it is a little like a baileys mix, but a little nuttier and smoother.  Lisa loves them!!!

So after our 45 minute stop we only had 2.15 hours getting us to the entrance of Etosha National Park.  While GG signed us in, Sean and I jumped out to get some photos of the gate and also my Bernstar jump.  Welcome back jump and thanks to Sean for keeping onto for me as well always asking if I want one taken.  The camp we are at tonight is pretty cool.  They have their own water hole that they keep lit at night, so after dinner we are going to go down and see what animals are lurking around the hole.  But in the meantime, we got to our camp area, pitched the tents, had lunch and we then had 2 hours free time before heading out on an afternoon game drive.  This is the last place we get to do our game drive, after this no more wild African animals, which means in turn that we are coming to the end of the trip.  I wish I could say I am over the drives, but when you are in the truck looking for the animals, the time goes so quickly, and each park if different and even though you may have seen a hundred elephants, they are always doing something different that warrants another hundred photos.  Just trying to justify my thousand elephant, 500 giraffe and 600 zebra photos – is it working?

So no need to guess where we headed after lunch.  Yep to the pool.  We are getting too accustomed to these pool gigs and I am not sure what we are going to do when we actually don’t get a pool.  They are pretty clean, it just seems like they don’t have skimmer nets, so there are a few dead bugs, normally bees and wasps that are just floating in the pool, but we just scoop them along with any leaves out, but in the big scheme of things, it is a small price to pay to be able to cool off.  The water here for the record was freezing as well, but once you are in and you sit in the sun, I stayed in there for over 1.5 hours reading my book.  My tan is cracking along at a great knots, I am now just trying to protect my poor nose that cops a flogging from the sun and is now the only place that gets sunscreen on it these days to stop me looking like Rudolph!

No special game drive cars in Etosha, we get to jet around in our massive truck.  There are a few other trucks game driving, but most of the vehicles are private cars in this park.  The national park itself is pretty flat, dusty and dusty.  There aren’t too much tall trees or shrubs at all.  They have a few water holes, some natural, some man made.  The man made ones were built because the natural ones were too far apart and animals were dying as they couldn’t reach them, so there are a few holes spread around the park and the best place to be able to see them.  So our first waterhole was the jackpot for us as we found a pride of lions.  There were 2 females, 1 male and 8 cubs.  What a find and within the first 30 minutes!  They were probably 200m away, so with the engine switched off we were able to just watch them for a while.  They weren’t too active, like us, the weather was so hot; they were just relaxing in the shade of some trees, but what a great spot.  We were right near the watering hole, so we also saw a herd of giraffes, 4 eland’s, vultures to name a few all drinking from the watering hole!  It was pretty cool to see these animals all co-habitating all together with no worries in the world, well beside the 11 lions not far from the hole, I guess they are just lucky the lions weren’t hungry!  The other major highlight, well besides seeing a black rhino which is apparently quite a find as well, was seeing an elephant at a watering hole, on his own, and another bull coming up, and there was a little bit of a tussle, backing up, trying to make friends, a few no’s and then after about 30 minutes they were friends for a few minutes and then the Mexican standoff started again.  It was amazing just to see nature at its purest, untouched and well just natural.  I think it was something that you wouldn’t see every day and it was another amazing experience we could add to the bag full we seem lucky enough to have started.  It was a great and successful afternoon game drive, which I think was due, as the last few have been a little lean on animals let alone special moments like the lions and elephants.

Once we got back to camp, Simon had worked like a dog and dinner was ready to be served.  What a champion, and even better when we were on cooking today!  Woo hoo – Arse Muffs got a night off!  So once everything was done and dusted, we had the quickest PFT from GG on record and then we headed up to the water hole to see what animals we could see at night time.  It was a pretty good set up; there were long benches under a thatched roof and 2 flood lights that lit the hole, but not too much.  There was a massive sign telling everyone for SILENCE and so we sat down and waited for the action to begin.  And we waited and waited and waited and we saw nothing!  Manu and I sat there for 30 minutes, and I was starting to get sleepy, so we said we would leave at 9pm.  So I kept checking my watch every 3 minutes and it got to 8.45pm and said to Manu let’s just go, to which she replied in her Swiss German, if we leave now and we miss some animals I will kill you!  It was so funny and she makes a strong point and needless to say I was happy to wait till 9pm after that.  We even went by my shitty watch and not by her Swiss time piece which is 5 minutes slower than mine, but how can I argue with Swiss timing!?  We found out the next day, David stayed till 10pm and not a single animal, oh no wait, we saw a bird move, but that was it for the whole time we had some-one down there.  BORING – but this is wild animals and it is just a patience game really right!  The animal’s probably just wait till no-one is at the viewing platform and then they all come out to play!  Yeah I rekon that is what they do. 

So a great game drive today, another 3 hours chalked up making it around 45 hours of driving.  I wonder how many extra kilometers that adds to our final kilometer check at the end?  That would be an interesting stat.  We were talking today about which national park was better.  Etosha or Serengeti and it was a tough call.  There are certainly more animals in the Serengeti, but we pretty saw pretty much all the animals in Etosha.  They are really different in scenery as well and if I was asked which one I thought would be better, I would have to play ‘Swiss’ and sit on the fence and tell people they would still need to go to both.  Soft, but both parks are pretty awesome.

THE SAN BUSHMAN OF NAMIBIA

WEATHER: Oven HOT 34C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Interacting with the San Bushman

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The heat I guess

BUYS OF THE DAY: My ostrich egg bracelet bought from the San Bushman for 8AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: What are the chances?

CAMP SITE RANKING: Awesome. Pool, HOT water, flushing toilets 6 out of 5 stars – Roy’s Camp

Today is one of the highlights for me to see the San Bushman.  Especially after hearing Ian speak about them in Mtopo, they really are a dying race, and I think, like the white rhino, that in the next half century there may not be any of them left and this is a sad reality and what we are going to experience is also a real life experience that not many people would get the opportunity to do.

An early start this morning, 5.30am wake up, 6.30am breakfast and on the road at 7am.  We only have 270km to travel today so not too much truck time.  We had a bitumen road for the first 2.5 hours, when we turned onto a sand road, which if we got stuck we were pre-warned that we may have to help push / dig out the truck, which after 40 minutes we made another turn onto a bumpy sandy road to get us to where we were to be met by the San Bushman guide.  Apparently we made good time on the road today (well done Ben and guys for no toilet stops) getting to the meeting point at 10.30am.  It is funny to think we have been up for 5 hours already and it’s only 10.30am.  WE all seem to be coping okay though and we are all in good spirits and the group is all getting along fine, which is great.

We were met by a young San Bushman, who will be our guide for the morning but more importantly our translator for the morning.  I knew that the San Bushman wore little clothing, but to actually see this young athletic man in an animal skin was a little, I don’t want to use the word shocking, but my western mind kicking in, was bold maybe?  I’m not sure, and then when we had to follow him, the animal skin didn’t cover his buttocks at all, it had a small piece of cloth down the middle of his bum crack.  So to paint a layman picture it was like a cow hide g bangger / thong.  We all couldn’t help but smile at each other to start with, and not in a disrespectful way, but a we didn’t expect that, but we did kind of way.  I know it makes no sense, but after following the butt cheeks for around 15 minutes, we got some decorum back and just accepted that this was their way of life, it was our ‘western’ attitudes making us act like dumb arses. Sean was talking to the young Bushman as we walked and they really are a small race, in their defence Sean is over 6ft but the bushman was lucky to come up to his shoulders.  It made for a great photo; maybe Sean should have donned an animal skin thong as well for a photo shoot?  Yeah maybe not……  Try and get that picture out of your head….. 

We had to walk to the small village where we were to meet our San Bushman and his tribe.  It was tough going as the whole area is sand, and we know how hard sand is to walk in.  Lucky it was only 1km, before we turned off and headed into the bush for a few more minutes before passing the outdoor shop that helps all sorts of handmade jewelry and handicrafts.  They were smart enough not to stop there till on the way back and we headed through some more bush to get to a small village that had 2 huts, 3 San Bushman women and 2 bushman.  The women were wearing animal skins on the lower parts of their body’s, covering their nether regions but they were nude from the waist up.  We were welcome to take photos of them all, but there was just something weird about taking pics of people half naked, and I personally didn’t want to make them feel like freaks or uncomfortable by snapping photos of them.  Most of the group felt the same way, so we tried to just take a few without over doing it.  At the end of the day, they know we are tourists and I am sure they see us more often than not, so they know what to expect but I feel there is still some form of photo etiquette that still needs to be followed right!?

The bushman showed us how they make fire and the most interesting part was that we finally got to hear the ‘click click’ language.  It is a truly fascinating language, with a click said every 4 or 5 word.  I just closed my eyes at one point just to listen to the main bushman say his thing and take in this amazing language.  The main Bushman who took us around was lucky to be 5ft.  He was a buff little guy, all muscle and no fat, also wearing an animal thong, he looked happy, had a weathered face and his skin looked as tough as nails.  At one point I asked how old he was, which the reply came back that he didn’t know.  This is the life they lead.  We walked around the bush with 2 of the woman and our bushman and translator for around 2 hours, he was showing us how and where they get their local medicines from, how they use them and what it cures, with ailments from tummy pains to tuberculosis.  He also showed us how they make traps to catch birds and other critters on the ground, and all they used was natural things from the ground, albeit he had a small piece of rope, but I guess that could have been made from a local tree.  He carried a small bag slung over his shoulder that had all his bits and pieces and he had what I would describe as an arrow bag, that carried his arrows, sticks and fire making sticks and a bow was attached to this.  That’s it – that was his life right there.  What a simple life.

We circled back to the village and when we got back there were more Bushman/ladies there to say hello.  They were all sitting on the ground on animal skins, just doing their thing.  There were females checking their hair, like monkeys do, making sure that there were no bugs, there were young children, who wore no clothes at all, and there were older women and men all just talking to each other, about us I am sure.   They were all smiling and seemed happy, with no cares in the world, and they may have some worries, but, it’s hard to explain, they just seemed at peace.  It sounds so cliché but that’s how it felt.  We were lucky when we got back that Ben had bought the truck up and lunch was being served under a massive tree that had plenty of shade, which was just as well as we were all starting to fad in the heat.  I know heat, I am from Darwin, but it was bloody HOT and I felt sorry for the English couple who seem to be really struggling with it all.

We also got a chance to finally get a look into the open air shop, where the San Bushman ladies have made jewelry from local materials.  It was a pretty cool set up, the ‘shop’ shelves were made all of branches and all the wares were just hanging off the branches.  Each piece had a name and price on, so the actual person who made the piece knows it was sold and I guess gets some cash back for it?  It was beautiful stuff, but three quarters of the goods were made of nuts and seeds, so lucky (or unlucky) that ruled out most of the shop for me, but I did manage to find a beautiful bracelet that looked like it was made from stone.  After I had paid and I was proudly showing off my new purchase I found out it was actually ostrich egg.  Hmmm I am not sure if that is any better than seeds, but it looks good and it only cost me 8AUD, so if I do lose it through a customs point somewhere it is not too much of a big deal.  There were woman also there showing us how they make one of the bracelets, and the amount of time it takes for them to cut out the bead, out a hole in it and thread it, paying only 8AUD doesn’t seem quite right with the amount of work that goes into each one.  Lisa gave the drilling a go, and it’s harder than it looks.  She did a good job though and the hole was the size of a pin.  Nice one Leese.  So the San Bushman experience was amazing and I think the main thing I take away is their click click language was just fascinating and also their way of life.  Maybe we all need to take a few leaves out of their book and re-introduce them back into our society.  They live a million miles away from our culture but are still happy without all the wang fangled things.  Something to ponder.

So after 3 hours and an awesome, and I have to say, another once in a life time experience we hit the road and headed for Roy’s Camp.  We only had to drive for an hour getting us into camp at 2.30pm.  It is nice to get in early, set up and then have some free time before cooking duties and/ or dinner.  As the weather has been so HOT, most sites the last few days have had pools, and Roy’s was no exception.  It was a great set up, the whole camp was signed and made up of old and second hand materials, it had a great ambience and the pool was no exception.  It had a bath tub waterfall into the pool, which was freezing, but we don’t care anymore how cold the water is, as we are so hot, it has come to the point where we don’t even feel the temperature of the water at all, we just strip off and jump in, and then suffer the cold consequences later.  It is funny to see the shock of the cold on people’s faces after they get in and Dave is a classic example.  It gives me a laugh every time I think of his face.  We got a few hours to chillax and after the pool, there was a green square near the camp, so we pulled out some tunes, bought some cold beers and just chatted the rest of the afternoon away.  It was amazing to just change pace and reflect on the day.  This is the life and TIA baby!!!

Low key dinner, with a night cap at the bar and into bed by 10.30pm.  We are all so tired, and it has to be the heat zapping all our energy, it really is hot during the day, but at night the temperature drops nearly 20C, so we have to make sure we are rugged up before going to bed.  It is interesting on how people handle the cold.  Manu has a sunvisor on the floor, then a Masai, then a sleeping bag.  Sean sleeps with just a Masai and the love blanket, Lisa lines her mattress with her Masai and then her sleeping bag and I just have my sleeping bag and my woolen blanket on top.  Well each to their own, as long as you stay warm and it works then we are all literally happy campers!!

   

RELAXATION IN RUNDU

WEATHER: Not as hot 30C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Short travel day and more free time

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of anything

BUYS OF THE DAY: Soap for 1AUD from Shoprite

WORD OF THE DAY: Make hay while the sun shines

CAMP SITE RANKING: Pretty amazing, awesome ;site, heaps of flushing toilets and showers, washing basins and lines, 2 bars, a pool and carpet.  Only thing missing is Wi-Fi but still gets a 5 out of 5 stars

Well we only have 220km to travel today and another spare afternoon to chill.  Wakeup 6.45am, breakfast at 7.30am and we left Rainbow Lodge at 8am.  We were warned for all of Namibia now that we have to be careful of scorpions and move our tents from where they have been all night before rolling them, as the scorpions like the warmth, and they could be found right under where we had been sleeping. Ughhhhhh.  Needless to say Lisa and I forgot to check this morning, but we will be all over it tomorrow.  If you get bitten by a scorpion you wont die, but you will be in excruciating pain for 8 hours, yeah I think we can do without that.

So back in the truck we now call home.  Ben loves his truck and I cannot think of a single thing that he cannot fix or that has gone seriously wrong with the truck for the 30+ days we have been travelling.  My window got stuck yesterday but he was in there first thing this morning and it was fixed in 5 minutes flat.  Thanks buddy. 

We only have 10 more nights in tents and 14 more nights on tour.  I don’t want to think about our good-byes just yet, as this will be the hardest one to date I think.  Not to take away from any of my other farewells, as they have all been hard with the people that I do make good friends with (you all know who you are) but I think the longer the tours, the better you get to know people and hence the harder it is to say good-bye.  I guess I am lucky as I know I will definitely see all my posse again as I am yet to travel to their countries, so they are my farewell’s and not good-byes and are certainly genuine and I am in a position to be able to ‘actually’ see them all again.  With the way I’m going after all my tours finish in April 2012 (so far) I could possibly get a good few months staying with my new ‘friends’ and only having to pay for some food, a thank-you gift and my flights.  Not to make a pest of myself, 4 maybe 5 days max at each stop I don’t think would be overkill!  What do you think?  Maybe I won’t be home in July next year the rate that I am going, but besides my god-daughters and Shelly what else do I have to go home to?  Anyway, it is a long way off so stay tuned.  I just may meet my African Prince yet, or a South American drug lord and then who knows where I will end up.  Live, Love and Grow each day is all I can hope for at this stage.

So after 2.5 hours driving we rolled into Rundu and our camp for the night.  It is pretty awesome here, big shady trees, carpet, 2 bars, one overlooking the Angolan border and the other beside the pool, plenty of showers and toilets, washing facilities and a washing line.  I hate to say after being so busy after 45 days it is hard to unwind and after we had unpacked and launched the tents, we were all looking a little lost and to each other wondering what to do with ‘free’ time.  We really had no idea on what to do.  It was quite funny, but it is always nice to have a ‘nothing’ day and recharge the batteries.  An early lunch was served and then we were given a ride into Rundu to get whatever had to be done.  We jumped onto the internet for an hour.  I have found out that I have not printed all the documents I need to be completed for the divorce (thanks Dave for pointing that out), but it looks like I may be able to lodge it online now, and then send the other stuff back.  I just need some time and a good internet connection, but I am going to get it done while I still have Sean and Dave, so maybe Cape Town will be best for this?  I’ll see how I go, but I knew it looked a little too easy!  So after purchasing some more phone credit and a supermarket stop, we were lucky enough that the truck was still around and we hitched a ride back to camp.  I do need to mention the supermarkets are awesome in this nick of the woods.  They are certainly more western than what we have been used to the last 4 weeks, and it seems a little bit of a crime not making the most of them by not buying anything when we see them.  Shoprite in Rundu was the best by far I have seen since Eldoret in Kenya.

The afternoon was spent by the pool, taking a dip in the cool water, reading and blogging.  I am now up to date, I just need some internet connection to be upload the last 4 days, but we will get that in the next few days.  It was good place to unwind and after dinner we headed to the bar that had a flat screen TV (its been awhile since we have seen one of those) and a pool table.  I don’t play pool, but I don’t mind watching people play over a few beers.  Rundu was great to relax.

GOOD-BYE TO THE WILDS OF BOTSWANA

WEATHER: Hot and 30C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Receiving an awesome text message from Cheify

BUMMER OF THE DAY: That we didn’t get more time at the camp to chill

BUYS OF THE DAY: My packet of BBQ chips to get of my last Botswana money

WORD OF THE DAY: Lets proceed….

CAMP SITE RANKING: Awesome – back to Rainbow 5 out of 5 stars, even if the Wi-Fi didn’t work this time

A lazy morning this morning with a wake up at 7.30am and breakfast at 8am.  Since I was in bed and light off by 9.30pm last night, I woke at 6am, went for a toilet stop and I did fall back to sleep again, so it was great to get nearly 10 hours sleep.  I forgot to mention that we actually ate dinner at a table last night with chairs that had backs!  What a luxury and the small things we take for granted.  I have been carrying a tube of Vegemite with me which I bought from home and I have only just started using it on the second half of this Africa trip.  So it has been sitting in my bag for the last 4 months untouched!  Now that I have cracked it, I am happy to use it, as I will be able to buy another tube in London when I head back in October.  There is just something that reminds me of home when you have Vegemite on toast – delicious.  As there are only 2 Aussies on this trip, which is pretty strange, Lisa the Kiwi is the only other person that eats the stuff, so I know at least that not 100 people will be asking to use it.  I have tried to get Ben and Simon to have some, but they tasted it a few years ago and won’t touch the stuff.

So after packing up the kitchen stuff, we were back in the mokoros for the last time to get us back to the truck and to poor Ben who had been on his own for the last 2 nights.  After this 30 minute journey we have been in the canoes for over 8 hours in 3 days.  That is massive for me and I have to say I actually enjoyed it.  I wouldn’t have been so worried about falling out if it wasn’t for the camera’s we had on board and I even left my IPod and laptop at the truck in case I fell out and lost all my electronics, imagine that!  So if I had of said I was going to be sitting in a canoe for 8 hours, no-one would believe that I would have done it!  But I did and I didn’t fall out and it was an amazing experience.  A special thanks goes to Ken who also kept us dry and put up with Lisa and my ramblings about love and life.  Poor fellow. 

So we reversed our travel of a few days before, drove for nearly 3 hours to get to the ferry (that looks like it shouldn’t float at all - wait for the pictures) the on to the Botswana border, no-man’s land to the Namibia border and then the 45 minute drive back to Rainbow Safari where we had the afternoon free to catch up on outstanding things.  People did washing, re-organization of their bags, Pam and I went to go onto the internet, but the Wi-Fi was down, so I just started to update my blog from the last 3 days in the Delta.  I also re-organized my bag and got my washing ready for the next stop.  There is something to be said about feeling that you are organized and everything is where it should be.    

It was a low key night where after dinner we had a few quite beers at the bar and were in bed by 10pm.  It was a great chance for us to meet the new couples and I have to say they are both pretty cool.  Bernard and Jill are from England.  Bernard is also known as Bern, so I have nick named him B2, not because he is older than me, but he joined the tour second and there is Sonya and Rolf from Kelowna in Canada.  After speaking with them, I now can add Kelowna to my list to visit in North America next year, and we are going to go and try and taste as many wineries we can in the Okanagan region in a 5 day period.  Sounds good to me.  I know what it is like to be a newbie, and you do just have to give them half a chance and these guys have fit right in and we are going to have a great 14 days left of tour.  Each person brings their own qualities to each trip I do, and even though no-one replaces the people I have met so far, it enhances my belief that it takes a lot of people to keep the world turning, and I continue to meet weird and wonderful people on my travels and need to accept them for who they are, no matter how weird they seem right!?

OKAVANGO-THE RIVER THAT NEVER MEETS THE OCEAN

WEATHER: Hot Hot Hot 32C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Checking into our tented camp with ensemble beds!!!

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting in the sun for a further 2 hours to get back to the truck

BUYS OF THE DAY: Botswana necklace for 9AUD

WORD OF THE DAY:

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Elephants, pumbas, baboons, cows, donkeys    

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Permanent tents with beds, great bar, flushing toilets and cold showers 5 out of 5 stars

Good morning from the wilds of Botswana.  We weren’t allowed to leave our tents last night for a toilet run unless you had a buddy to go with you and you had to do a reccy to make sure that there were no eyes looking back at you when you unzipped your tent.  Sean rekons he saw a hippo in the early hours when he popped his head out of his tent not far away, and had footprints in the sand to prove it the next morning, but we are not too sure, we think it could have been a cow – but he is adamant it was only 20m away and it was a hippo.  Lisa and I are pretty good with the local calls after bed time and we both went last night before going to bed, so I finally had my first wild wee since arriving into Africa last night.  Now there is a mile stone for you!  So knowing that we weren’t really going to have another toilet stop, I had to do my second one of the trip this morning, too much information?  Tough.  Am I seasoned wild wee’er now?  Do I like it now that I have done it?  It is an emphatic no, but when you gotta go you gotta go.  The guys were talking about their al fresco international calls, but that for me could wait till this afternoon when I had a proper toilet.  I know just call me Princess, but it’s all about the baby steps.

Wakeup was at 6.30am and after a light breakfast we left camp at 7am.  We were coming back to camp after our wild walk, so we were able to leave our tents up and we hopped back into our mokoros for the 30 minute pole to Huckleberry Island for our nature walk.  Even though we went the same way yesterday the colours with the sun in a different spot just changed the whole delta, I have taken so many photos of this place, but they all look so different and wait till you see the sunset ones I took yesterday, looking back on them this morning they are just magic!  We passed the group of hippos again, so we gave a wave as we poled past them to get to the island.  We got the usual safety drill.  If a WILD animal confronts you 1. Don’t scream 2. Don’t run – the animals think like us and they know we can’t run (umm okay..) 3. Walk single file 4. Keep 25-60cm between each person 5. There were 4 hand signals to watch out for, the stop signal, the wild animals running signal, the dangerous animal signal and the quiet signal.  The guide was hilarious using the stop signal the whole 3 hours and we only saw like 3 animals.  It was good to stretch the legs, and as I preached a few days ago, you just never know when you are going to see animals, it really is a luck game, so we were pretty unlucky that we only saw a troop of baboons, a family of pumbas and a single elephant as we walked back to the mokoros nearly 3 hours into the walk.  Throw in a few birds I suppose, but I am glad I went; we just didn’t see many animals. 

Back to base camp and a brunch that Simon had prepared for us and then it was time to pack up camp.  We then poled, with our mate Ken, the 2 hours back to the truck.  The post evaluation of peoples sunburn from yesterday was pretty high, everyone had a real red glow about them, and so heading back out into the burning sun for day 2 was an effort.  Leaving at midday, everyone was a little more careful, lubed up with sunscreen, long sleeve shirts, hats and Lisa also shrouded herself with her scarf for a portion of the way, as her legs got quite a bit of colour the day before.  So 2 hours poling back to the truck, with a stop to watch a herd of elephants on the bank.  I really can’t believe how clear the water is here.  It is amazing, you can see straight through to the bottom.  It is awesome to just run your hands through the water, albeit briefly, don’t want to go losing a hand to a hippo, but the temperature is so warm, and when we are all so hot it is almost a tragedy that we aren’t allowed to swim in it, but once again we don’t want to get taken by some wild animal, so it keeps us in check and in the mokoro.  The water lilies are all now open, they were still closed this morning when we passed them this morning, Ken made Lees and I lily necklaces, which were beautiful and there are heaps of dragonflies flying around.  I had one land on my nose and another one land right at the top of my shirt and I just watched him as he kept rubbing his eyes, it was pretty surreal and I rekon he was there for over 5 minutes, he was so beautiful, an electric blue colour.  Man I am in the Okavango Delta – pinch me please!!!

We had 20 minutes at the truck to grab a change of clothes, say hi and bye to Ben and then back in the mokoros again to take us further upstream to our camp for the last night in the Delta.  We could leave our sleeping bags, tents and mattresses at the truck, as George has upgraded us to permanent tents!  Yee ha grandma!!!  This ride was only 20 minutes, and had us pulling up at 3.30pm – how cool to not have to put a tent up this afternoon.  So after the guide showed us all the facilities, we had free time till dinner.  A few of the crew wanted to go for a swim, so they were sped boated to a ‘safer’ spot of the Okavango, where it had a sandy bottom, and they could see better if something dangerous was in the water!!  Then some of them got a chance to try poling themselves and I am happy to report that no-one fell into the drink!  Well done guys.  I was happy to be photographer and watch from the river bank.

The bar area was a dirt floor, with heaps of magazines to read and games to play.  I played a few games of chess with Sean, (which I let him win, just between you and I) to which one of the polers challenged Sean and in the first game he beat him in 3 moves (makes me feel better) and then the second game was a tussle to which Sean lost that too!  So then Filter (chess champion) challenged George to a game and GG lost as well.  Needless to say I didn’t bother to play Filter; he would have kicked my butt!!!  Instead Lees and I played a few games of Speed (which I let her win, just between you and I) till it was time for me to go and help with dinner.  I was cook tonight.  I am now in Team A, so I have had to say good-bye to the Dic Dic’s (my last team) and we are now called the Arse Muffs.  Now this isn’t as rude as you think, Manu bought some rolls in Botswana and they were literally called arse muffins on the label, so we have just taken that for Team A’s name.  Pretty cool right?  Team B is Barbara Streisand (which is the tour song and Dave’s fav song) Team C is Chooi ( Cheeta in Swahili) and Team D have rolled over the Dic Dic Dic’s name (small African deer like animal) from the last tour.  Jill, Sonya and I are happy with Team Arse Muff, being all ladies – so pleased to meet you!

Manu and I were pretty tired after dinner, so we decided to head back to the tents for an early turn in.  I was going to read for a while.  Once again we have been warned about the animals here, and for some reason Manu was already jumpy, but just as well, cause as we were walking she screamed and I freaked and we saw a black snake the size of 3 pencils right in our path, lucky we had our head torches on as we would have stepped right on him if we hadn’t.  So we are a little freaked out now, when we got to the tents, which are located right on the river, we heard a massive splash and some movement which freaked us even more, Manu was about to run back to the bar, when I told her I’d walk her back to her tent and make sure she got safely zipped up inside, luckily we were next to each other, as I may not have been as brave if it was further away.  With Manu in safe, I ran to my tent, with Manu shouting if I was in safely, not that she would have saved me should the hippo have come for me, but it was sweet all the same.  I was safe in my tent and you could still hear the animal outside splashing around and then the unmistakable ‘old man laughing’ of the hippo.  I rekon we would have been only 5m from where he was.  I am not sure how much time passed; I was still reading when we heard footsteps. Manu yelled ‘who goes there?’ to which a reply came Miyuki and then Manu yelled for to run to the tent as there was a hippo around and she had already unzipped the door so Miyuki could just dive through and it was immediately zipped up again when she was in.  It was so funny to hear, as Manu was telling her to run quick, hurry up and the urgency of the zip up and down was hilarious!  Poor Miyuki didn’t know what was happening, but did as she was told.  Big brave Manu was a mess and it was hilarious!!!  We did hear hippos all night, and it was kinda cool, as long as we were zipped up safe and sound in our tents, what harm could become of us?  How lucky are we to get a great night’s sleep in a bed and not just any bed, an ensemble – pure heaven and a great way to finish off 2 days in the Delta.

OKAVANGO DELTA AND OUR WILD BUSH CAMP

WEATHER: Hot, Hot Hot 36C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting into a Mokoro (canoe) and not falling out

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of one – is that 2 days in a row?

BUYS OF THE DAY: Didn’t buy a thing – this day is shaping up to be okay

WORD OF THE DAY: Mokoro

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Stork, ellie, hippos, cows, donkeys    

CAMP SITE RANKING: Bush camp – no facilities, oh except a camp chair converted into a toilet seat so that will give it a 1 out of 5 stars for the facilities but a 5 out of 5 for ambience

We only had 250km to travel by road today.  We then had additional travel on a ferry and then in a mokoro (canoe) to get us to our ‘wild’ bush camp tonight.  Up at 6am, 7am breakfast and a 7.30am departure.  After a fairly big night, I am glad I stuck to beers most of the night.  Besides the 3 MASSIVE vodka’s that Pam mixed for us over dinner, I stuck to the angel drink (beer) and only dappled the devils drink (vodka), so this once again was my savior and we felt all right waking up at 6am.  We really did have a lot to drink last night; it would have to be around 8 beers and 3 large vodkas, so we are quite surprised how well we feel.  High five us!!!!

It only took 40 minutes for us to get to the Namibia border and then only 30 minutes to get processed through there, through the Botswana border and out the other side.  I think that has to be the quickest crossing we have had since arriving into Africa and in the history of African border crossings!!!  We only had to drive around 15 minutes to get to the ferry that was to take us the 10 minute ride over the Okavango River to the other side. We are now in Botswana proper and it seems really sandy, we are driving on a sand road, no bitumen at all, but the sand would give the Whitsunday’s a run for its money.  The colour is awesome and it is so fine.  We are passing a lot of villages, they are small thatched huts, and fenced in with handmade fences usually a few in a compound.  The strange thing is that there doesn’t seem to be many people about.  It is hot, so I am guessing that they are staying out of the heat and get a lot of things done early in the morning and late in the afternoon when it is cooler.  There are a few people around and a few children as well and it is good to be able to get back into the swing of waving.  I have missed that the last week, and I still believe it has therapeutic values in a wave.  It is a shame that it can’t be bottled and sold somehow.

We got to our truck stop at 11.30am.  This is where Ben and the truck were going to stay for the next 2 nights while we ‘wild’ camped in the Delta.  We had overnight bags packed to take with us and after a delicious lunch we helped the guys pack the speed boat that was to take all the food and prep stuff to the camp, and we were to follow in our mokoro which are traditionally wooden canoes, but the government has banned the locals from using the trees now (looking after the environment), so these ones were made of fiberglass.  I am not a canoe / small boat person at the best of times.  I lost count the amount of times that Drew bugged me to go out on the water back home which was always a blatant flat out no, so for me to be getting into a mokoro now was a pretty big deal and to find out it was going to be for 2 hours, made me a little nervous inside.  Lisa was a rower back in the day, so I know she will have the balance to keep in the canoe, I just hope I literally don’t rock the boat and we fall out with our cameras.  That was probably my main concern, not so much the falling out, but the electronic equipment getting wet and how to get back in again would be of a little concern as well now that I think about it.  The mokoro’s are a flat bottom canoe and are about 8m long and there is what they call a poler, which is a guy that stands on the end of the boat with a pole and he is the one that steers and drives the canoe.  So there were 2 people to a canoe and we got Ken as our poler for the next 3 days.  Poor Ken!!  He spoke pretty good English, so we were going to get along with him just fine.  Before getting into the mokoro’s we were given the safety tips, which pretty was not to immerse your limbs in the river, as crocodiles or hippos could bite them off, no sudden movements as this could up end the canoe and tip out our poler and no standing in the mokoro.  Yeah well I think we would be okay on the last one!  We loaded our day bags into the front of the mokoro, Lisa got in first and then I followed to sit in the front.  They had converted the mattresses that we sleep on into chairs for the journey, so it was actually quite comfortable.  Some of the mokoros already had seats in them, but we were okay with our soft mattress seats.  So at 12.50pm, Ken pushed us off the river bank and we were on our way up the Okavango Delta.  Even though the canoe was a flat bottom, it was still quite touchy when you moved.  So then when I moved I tried to make the weight ratio balance by moving the other way, which gave us a rocking motion and a very concerned Bernie!  Lees came to the rescue and told me to distribute my weight eg: legs and arms even on each side and to just go with the motion of the canoe rather than trying to right it myself as I was just making it worse!  Funny how when I did do this it actually worked!  I was still a little twitchy, but after about 20 minutes I was starting to get the hang of it.  It wasn’t like I was doing anything though, poor Ken had the job of pushing us along, but we were heading downstream, so he has this in his favour going literally with the flow! 

The Delta is an amazing place.  Once I had got rid of my fear of falling out of the mokoro, looking around and seeing the crystal clear water passing us by, the small fish you could see swimming, the beautiful water lilies, the amazing reeds that in some places we would have to part with our arms as Ken steered us through was very ‘safari’ like.  The sun was blazing on us though, and this was probably the only complaint we had all day.  There wasn’t any shade, river or mokoro wise and not a cloud in the sky, it was a perfect day, but the sun had some bite to it and we all knew we were getting burnt.  But the serenity of our surrounds was amazing.  It was so peaceful except for the tweets of the local birds, the calls of the hippos and the cows that we passed knee deep in the water eating their lunch.  They didn’t even flinch as we passed them.  I wonder if they know how deep it is out there and if they ever get stuck?  As they say from the movie The Castle ‘ah the serenity’………

We saw an elephant also knee deep pass about 100m in front of us at one stage and we also stopped to watch a hippo, which did a great performance of giving us a massive yawn and turning for a full frontal yawn.  Now I know it’s not a yawn, it is a sign of aggression, but all trip we have wanted to see one, and I was lucky enough to get the first of the yawn (whatever) with his mouth open, but I didn’t get the frontal, but I was happy with the side shot, it is an awesome close up.  It is all about luck with a yawning (whatever) hippo and after 6 weeks, it was worth the wait.

After 2 hours in the mokoros we arrived to our wild bush camp.  Wild bush camps are exactly that, no showers and no toilets and we are in the wild.  We were a little spoilt that there was a camp chair that had been converted into a toilet seat, so it sat over a hole and when you had finished your international call you just scraped some sand into the hole and wallah you were done.  This is the only thing I hate about camping is the toilet facilities and to date I have not had to take a pee in the bush the whole trip.  I know that this will change today, as I am drinking so much water as it is so hot, so I am just going to have to suck it up, drop my pants in the bush and let it all hang out.  I think the fear is that as I am doing my business and some-one comes along, OMG, how embarrassing.  This is camping and this is TIA. 

When we arrived our tents were already set up and a fire was getting stoked, all the gear had been unpacked from the speed boat.  It is amazing how much stuff we need as a group to carry for one night, but I am pretty sure that Simon wouldn’t want to travel with nothing less than what he needs, so there was a lot of crap.  Going with that is the staff also required for us as well, with 7 mokoros and the main guide to total 8, there was quite a posse of us. 

We had some free time till 5pm when we all loaded back into our mokoros and headed out to grab ourselves some sunset shots in Botswana, on the Okavango Delta.  AWESOME.  Good ol Ken got stuck poling us (does that sound rude) and we spent just over an hour back in the Delta and we got to watch a group of hippos huffing, puffing and making the ‘hippo’ noise, which is quite distinctive and not what you would expect a hippo to make.  It sounds like a group of old men laughing to give you an idea on how it sounds. If you know Sean, ask him for his hippo rendition, it is right up there with his baboon call.  Hilarious.  The sunset was absolutely AMAZING.  The colours were amazing, the sun was an amazing, and it was an unbelievable red ball setting into the yellows, pinks and blues of the Delta.  I really can’t put words on the serenity, as all 7 mokoros were quiet, all taking in this amazing experience.  There seemed to be a pecking order in the group of mokoros and we ranked the second to last, so as we made our way back to the camp site, we had Sonya and Rolf behind us, when Ken click clicked to their guide and they passed us and we floated there for a few minutes when we asked him what was up and he had lost the bottom of his pole in the water.  It wasn’t a huge problem (apparently) as the water was that clear he could see where it was, he just had to try and get the mokoro lined up, for him to be able to re-attach his top bit of his pole.  So as the time ticked, the sun was setting, the weather was turning cooler and we were floating alone on our own, with the hippos getting active and we could hear them all around us, we were thinking of how long it would take us to be saved when Ken got the connection and we were on our way again back to camp.  Thank goodness, we were worried on what dinner we were going to miss out on, and we talked about meatballs and pasta so you can imagine our joy when we were getting spag bol for dinner. 

There was a great fire raging when we got back and all our chairs all set up around it, so after dinner, Pam bought out the marshmallows and they got roasted over the fire with Killer and the main dude telling some stories about Botswana.  The night wasn’t too cold, but to have a fire to warm up was really great and we were all in bed by 8.30pm. 

What an awesome day – we are in the Okavango Delta and it is everything I expected and more.

Oh yeah, for the record, I had to make my first domestic call in the wild just before bedtime.  Lisa was kind enough to come with me and as we found our patches to do our squat (not too close of course), we turned off our head torches and when we were done there was a feeling I had conquered my last mountain.  Peeing in the wild bush.  Too much information again I hear you say – tough but that is what I call a friendship.  Love ya Lees xx