Happy Birthday!!

The wake up to go on the game walk was 6 am! Brad and I decided to skip the walk and sleeeep innnn…. Ahhhhh. We heard the group arrive back in camp around 7:30 and decided we had better get up. On emerging from the tent everyone burst into a rousing version of Happy Birthday for our very own Brad Brad Wong.

We found out that the group that had gone out on the walk got to see some hippos frolicking about but that was about it. Steph had stayed behind from the walk and had whipped up some super delicious fruit pancakes. Yum and thank goodness! I was getting a bit tired of cereal and white bread with medium fat spread. After everyone had eaten, cleaned up, packed up and loaded the makoros we were heading back to the poling station.

The days always seem to start with very pleasant weather, by noon you head into unbearable heat and then when the sun goes down it drops back into the pleasant zone. It can even get what you might consider chilly – usually around 3 am. Crazy place.

As we pole along, it is getting warm. Sabrina and Anna are learning tswana from their poler. I’m not sure if he’s teaching them dirty words or if its their accent that is making our poler, Lee, laugh so much.

Back at the depot and the same frenzy seemed to still be operating. The boats were unloaded and the truck loaded up with all our gear. Our driver had arrived with a cooler of beer, coke and water. It’s only 10:30 am but we’re pretty sure it’s afternoon somewhere. The drive back to our campsite takes an hour and a half and now it’s too hot to put up the tents. We just unload them and leave them sitting until it cools off later in the afternoon.

Everything that was taken into the delta has to be washed and sanitized. This is to take all the dust and dirt off as well as to make sure that no one gets sick. Once that is done we, you guessed it, head to the bar and swimming pool. Lunch was the usual luncheon meat, cheese, tomato and cucumber sandwiches. I can’t take it anymore… we eat fries and samosas in the bar. Everyone (except us) is taking the delta flight. We decided that we’d hang out and relax as well as save some dough. The flight takes you in a small five seater plane to look for animals in the delta.

We drove into town with the group a bit early to hit the internet, exchange dollars and pick up supplies. We stopped at Nando’s for a yummy chicken burger but didn’t manage to get enough time to get on the internet. We figured we’d do it later when the others were on their flight.
Back on the truck and a quick drive to the airport. We went to the upper lounge to watch them take off in their wee little planes. We headed across the street to find and internet café but it was closed! Tony was gone with Shangani to get something welded and the others won’t be back from their flight for an hour. No options, we head to the bar.

.... to be continued...

Ya, but it's a dry heat...

Wake up call? You guessed it… RFE!! (Really freaking early.) We are being taken out on a large open air truck with all our tents and gear for our night in the delta. We have to take our tents, a day pack, coolers with the food, utensils, the whole nine yards. I seemed a bit frantic and frenzied getting ready this morning. I mean really… is the delta going to go somewhere without us?

It was a warm evening and the morning is nice but it is promising to be Africa hot today. Everything is stacked and ready to go by the road. We dropped some clothes at the reception for laundry. It will be ready to be picked up when we get back. The truck arrives and the loading begins. The truck has a long middle bench seat so everyone sits facing out. All the gear piles under the seats, all the people pile on and we’re off. It is an hour and a half drive to the poling station. Some of the areas we drive have large numbers of trees that look like they’ve either been hit by lightening or there’s been a large windstorm. We found out later that they’ve actually been knocked down by elephants. We heard also that there is a real concern about the amount of deforestation that they are causing.

We arrived at the poling depot and it seemed like swarms of people and activity descended on the truck. I grabbed my pack and tried to stand out of the way. The makoros are flat bottom canoes that are about 12 to 16 feet long. They are traditionally made from the sausage tree (?) but some of them are made now from fibreglass. The fibreglass ones don’t leak as much. They are used on the shallow channels in the delta by the Tswana tribe to get around. Everyone was paired with a poler and the makoros were loaded up. We put our sleep pads down in the makoro and leaned against our day packs as we reclined in the low riding canoes. They are propelled by a poler who stands in the rear and pushes the boat forward with a long pole (also 12 to 16 feet long).

Our poler is Lee. He tells us that he is the fastest poler. They have races every year in the village and he is last year’s champion. We moved at a leisurely pace through the reeds for about an hour and a half to reach our campsite. There are narrow channels through the reeds from constant travel by the makoros. The water seems to be only about 4 or 5 feet deep in most places. It is so relaxing to be floating along, the peaceful rocking of the boat and gentle swishing sounds of the water and the quiet conversation amongst the polers as they guide the boats through the water. I started to drift off to sleep more than once. Plenty of bugs found their way into the boat and, since I was in the front, I got to deal with the myriad of cobwebs. Lee tells us that he is the oldest of his family and that he has 6 sisters and 3 brothers. That is one big family to support!

It’s starting to get really hot now as we head into the afternoon. We pole past a larger and deeper pool that is the home to several hippos. There are also smaller pools dotted with beautiful water lilies in full bloom. Lee picked one and gave it to us. We arrived at our campsite around 11:30 and set up the tents. It’s way too hot during the middle of the day to do much of anything really so we have free time until 3:30. We’ve been travelling at such a frenzied pace, always on the go that we hardly know what to do with ourselves! It is also now so hot that we don’t want to do anything. I can’t find anywhere comfortable to sit and there is very little shade to be found. There is a swimming hole close by that we walked over to but it was way too hot for me to get into the tent to even try to drag on my bathing suit. I walked to the swimming hole and just stood in the water up to my knees to cool off. The thermometer on the backpack says that the tent is 50C. We decided to take our packs out of the tent and put them in the shade so that everything would not melt! The reading in the shade is a mere 35C.

To distract themselves, several people had pulled out the sleeping pads and started playing cards. The polers taught them a card game that I just couldn’t quite get but seemed like it was entertaining.

At 3:30 we had to pour ourselves into long pants, socks, and shoes and climb into the makoros to head out onto a game walk. It was a quick 10 minutes or so away from camp. Once we reached our starting point, they split us into smaller groups and we headed off into the bush. Lee is our guide for the walk as well. We have Jeneen, Claire, Kerrie, Paul and Melissa in our group. We spotted hyena tracks, elephant tracks, a fish eagle (which looks remarkably like an American Bald Eagle), and several herons. If you ask me, we aren’t seeing many animals because its still too hot to be out and about. Much of the bush seems to have been burned down to a stubble. Lee told us that people burn back the brush when it gets too high so that they can see predators coming. It grows again in the rainy season. I guess that is why there is this constant low lying haze that we’ve noticed since entering Botswana.

After an hour of walking we came across a herd of Zebra. We managed to circle around them and get very close – only 10 to 15 metres. They were watching us, we were watching them watching us watching them… etc, etc… There were some wildebeest hanging on the fringe of the herd as well but they were a bit more skittish and we couldn’t get very close to them.

The termite mounds were up to 12 feet high and you could climb up on them to get a look around. Lee said that they took about eight years to get as tall as a man. We walked some more and saw a gigantic hippo skull. It was huge! I thought about it but it wouldn’t fit into my back pack unfortunately. As we walked towards the water a Reedbuck came charging out towards us trying to make a quick get away. We spotted some more zebras as we circled back around to the waiting makoros. The sun is starting to set as the other groups joined us back from their walk. The group that Darryl and Kat were reported being chased by a Cape Buffalo. That would have been scary! The temperature is finally starting to cool off to a comfortable sort of warm.

We’re the first into the makoros and Lee takes us to the hippo pond to watch the sun set. I was starting to get a bit nervous since I know that the hippo is the biggest killer of humans in Africa (yes, ahead of lions). I was also a bit nervous because the other makoros seemed to be taking a really long time to join us. We sat about ten minutes watching the hippos come up, blow water out of their nostrils like some surfacing whale blowhole and then disappear back under the water. The others finally arrived – I found out later that they had spotted some elephants just on the banks and had poled over to take a look. We sat quietly against the reeds watching the sun set like a giant dark orange ball as the hippos surfaced and sank on the other bank. As the sun got lower and lower, the hippos started to get closer and closer. There were four or so including a mama and baby. Of course, the gamble with all the surfacing and sinking is that you can’t see them and don’t know exactly where they are when they’re under the water. The sun dipped below the haze and it started to get dark. The hippos were looming closer and closer. One of the guides said “game over” which I took to mean that we’d been playing a game of African chicken with the hippos to see who’d blink first. I was definitely ready to go! I asked Lee if he could pole faster than a hippo could swim and he said no. Good enough reason for me to think it was time to go!

We were the last to leave and just as we were making our way into the shallower water into the reeds a very big hippo surfaced and opened its mouth showing us his teeth. OK… now I’m REALLY ready to go!!! We waited for one more surfacing to try and get that perfect shot but it was really time to go.

We escaped unharmed with a good story to tell. We headed back to camp for a traditional meal of maize (think polenta) and chukal-luka sauce. Yes, that’s really what it’s called. I hadn’t realized after 3 hours of searching for wild critters that I was famished! The sauce seems to be tomato based with lots of veggies in it. Ours had lots of yellow and green string beans. It must be the spice that makes it different from say and Italian tomato sauce.

That night we roasted marshmallows over the fire… well, we roasted the ones that didn’t melt into one great big sugary blob from the heat. The night was beautiful and clear, not too hot, not too cold, and we were cozy sitting around the campfire laughing and joking.
Did I mention that there are no facilities here? We are in the middle of the bush so the toilet is a hole that has been dug in the ground a little ways away from the tents. After night falls, you have to take your tent buddy to the toilet with you to watch for wild animals while you do your business. We didn’t see any that night but there was definitely no end of activity. The delta seemed noisier at night than during the day but I was tired and nothing was going to keep me awake!

Reality TV

It cooled off overnight but it was not as cold as it has been. I couldn’t find my fleece hat in the middle of the night so I ended up wrapping my scarf around my head and tying it under my chin. At 6:30 we got the wakee wakee wakee call. We wanted to get up and go on our walk while it was still cool but we had to have breakfast, break camp and clean up first. We’re getting fairly efficient at this packing and loading thing and can get it all done in an hour now.

Robert is our guide/translator for the San (Bushmen). The San speak in clicks and pops and it is strange to listen to. It is even harder to attempt to speak! We go on our walk with an older couple, three younger women and two young men. One of the women was carrying a baby on her back tied in a sling around her shoulders.

At our first stop, they gave us each a seed that looked remarkably like a pumpkin seed. They told us to put it under our tongues and started talking in the San language. A few moments after placing it under my tongue there was a startling snap accompanied by a few shouts of surprise from the group. The seeds turned out to be pods that broke open to release their seeds when enough moisture was present. They had quite the laugh at the crazy mzungus jumping about with seeds popping open in their mouths!

There was devils claw which is a good plant to treat arthritis as well as placing around your hut to deter wild animals and warn you of their approach (you know… because of the big nasty thorns that might stick in their paws). There were roots of plants for headaches, diarrhoea, stomach issues, teeth cleaning and even birth control. In the old days each couple could only have three children to limit the tribe size and the mouths to feed. They used this plant that acted as birth control for women who had already had her three children as well as for young women in the tribe who was really too young to be bearing children and would have had a difficult pregnancy. I’m assuming from this that they were sexually active perhaps before they should really have been bearing children. They even had a root that was used to abort a baby if there were problems.

One of the trees had a bulb that was dug up and was the size of a small melon. They used the side of a split branch to grate it and show how full of moisture it was by squeezing the pulp. They used the liquid to drink and even wash their hands. The older couple that was with us were born in the bush but these days the young ones are born in hospitals. The old woman has never been to a doctor and uses no western medicine. When she is ill, she has her husband make small cuts down her shoulder and rub in ground roots and crushed carbon from the fire. In the west we would call this cutting and self mutilation, here it is for healing. I guess if you don’t have syringes, you don’t have a lot of options.

The men started a fire by rubbing sticks together… very cliché. I do have to say though that it was the fastest I’ve ever seen a fire started without matches! The two hour walk was gone in a flash and we were back on the truck and hitting the road to Maun.

Botswana has had many issues and is quite paranoid about foot and mouth disease. There are check points at various places along highways to try and stop the movement of animal products across the country. This is an interesting tactic since the goats, cows, and wild animals do not have to pass through these check points as they wander rather randomly across the countryside. Being of the two legged variety of creatures, we do have to pass through the check points and are not supposed to have any meat or dairy with us. As we approach each stop, Steph signals us in back and we hide all the contraband in a locker until we get through the stop. Suddenly I’m having flashbacks to the chicken mafia in the Himalayas when they stole our chickens. The difference is that it’s hotter here.

Oh ya… it’s now finally hot! Yes, Africa hot!

At the second checkpoint, we all had to get out of the truck and squish our feet (with shoes on) into this wooden tray with a dirty looking wet towel in it. I guess it had disinfectant in it to try and stop the whole foot and mouth thing. We were also supposed to bring any “visible” footwear that was sitting out in the truck. If the shoes were in your locker, you could leave them. Now explain to me why this makes sense. They sprayed the tires of the truck, we climbed back on and were off with our contraband safely restored to the truck freezer.

We stopped in Maun around 1:15 pm to change money. The currency here is the Pula. We did some shopping and some internetting but it was too short a stop to get any blogging in. The notebook is filling up but I am sooo behind on blogging.

We arrived at Sittatunga and set up camp. It is so hot now that the chicken pie I ate from the shop is not having a great love affair with my stomach. We set up camp and … you guessed it… headed to the bar for shade and a cider. Maybe there’s a great conspiracy that the shade is mainly located in the bar area? We had to go back to the campsite to have our briefing regarding our bush camp in the delta. We are going to be taken into the delta by dugout canoe by dugout canoe and will be camping in the delta… somewhere on some dry patch of land.

After the briefing I decided I’d had enough and jumped in the pool. Whoa! That water was pretty darn cold! I was so hot and uncomfortable that I really didn’t care and like they always say “it’s fine once you get used to it”. It felt great to get the dust of the road off and just hang out for a bit.
Brad taught a yoga class before dinner to the gang. It’s so sandy that it had to be an all standing class. We had dinner and got our bags ready for our super 5:30 am wakeup call?!? We have to be ready to be picked up by 7 am by the truck taking us into the delta to the poling station. Brad will be celebrating his 50th in the delta!!

The Border

This is getting to be a habit now… we got up at 6:30 am to pack and load the truck. We ate breakfast in the bar – tea and crepes with cinnamon and sugar. How decadent! We hit the road around 7:30. We’re driving the Trans Kalahari Highway… just the name of it is impressive. There is lots of land, bush, trees, hills and the occasional warthog.

We stopped in a small town to pick up a few supplies and buy meat for dinner. The variety of people and tribes in the towns are fascinating. There were ladies in large full length gowns with full crinolines and headpieces. The dresses are a descendent of the Victorian era but they have been adapted and adopted by this particular tribe. They are very bright and colourful but don’t look all that cool or comfortable. These ladies are in strange contrast to the semi-nude Himba tribe with their red clay and then all the people just walking around in very western dress.

We are crossing the border into Botswana today. We stopped at a rest stop just before the border to eat lunch. It was pretty nice for a rest stop. It has small cabins, clean toilets, and a laundry area. I guess they get a lot of long distance truckers that use this on their way through. The border crossing was fairly uneventful… stamp to exit one country, drive through no man’s land, stamp to enter the next country and poof… you’re in!

We drove and drove and drove until we reached the Ghanzi Trail Blazers. It was a 10 minute drive from the highway into the camp itself. I guess they want you to feel like you’re in the bush instead of by the side of the highway. There was an option to “upgrade” from your regular tent into one of the thatch huts that were permanently onsite. The huts had cement floors and some had plug points but the idea of staying in a thatch hut with a thatch door versus a nice tent with a door I could zip closed just didn’t appeal to me… cot instead of sleep pad or not.

There was also an option to pay $10US to participate in a campfire with the Bushmen where you could watch them sing and dance. This seemed a bit too contrived for my liking and I wasn’t sure if we would actually get the cultural experience we hoped for or the Disney version. Tomorrow we go for a bush walk with members of the tribe so I didn’t feel like we’d miss out on anything.

It will be yet another early morning tomorrow. I’m starting to wonder if we’re actually on vacation! Guided tours are definitely a different pace than self tours. You don’t get to set your own agenda but you get to sit around the campfire until bedtime telling stories and having a laugh with your new found friends.

Don't forget to eat

Up at 5:30... move, move, move!!!
We needed to get on the road by 6:30 am. The cooking team had to get up at 5:15 to prep lunch for us since we'll be eating en route without stopping. We managed to get organized and loaded and hit the road at 6:45. I guess its hard to get 20 people fed and loaded that early!

We stopped at a watering hole on the way out but it was quiet. At the next were two male lions lying about but they weren't doing much and we were in a hurry so off we went.

I started to feel nauseous and decided to take a nap. I hadn't had much to eat that morning since we were so rushed and I had ended up taking my malaria tablet on an empty stomach. This was not a good idea but I was OK after about an hour or so.

We stopped in a small town to pick up supplies. There seemed to be guys selling those small carved nuts popping out of the woodwork everywhere! Sabrina took a photo of a young person from the Himba tribe. They were very interesting looking. They were naked from the waist up (males and females) and their skin was stained with the red clay that caked the braids in their hair. Apparently they use tourists taking photos as one of their sources of income. Sabrina got nabbed taking the photo and had to pay him/her. As we drove out of town we saw many of the same tribe sitting on a patch of grass. They threw rocks at the truck as several on the truck snapped photos on the way by. I guess this was their method of expressing their displeasure that the photos were like stealing from them (but not their souls).

As I mentioned earlier, because we were arriving at our next stop later in the afternoon we had packed ourselves a lunch while we were eating breakfast (which is why I had been distracted and hadn’t eaten enough breakfast!) We ate lunch enroute and reached Windhoek around 1:30 or so. We made a brief, 45 minute stop in town and had a chance to internet and look around a bit. So much pressure!! How can one create and type in such a short time span when the internet crawls along slower than drunken snails!?

We loaded back aboard and headed to the hostel we’ll be staying in tonight. It’s called the Cardboard box. We’re doubling up again… we have two rooms for eight, one room for six and one room for four. We manage to swing it so that Paul and Melissa are sharing the room for four with Brad and me. Paul is not really impressed with the hostel and truthfully, it’s not really much to write home about when you are accustomed to the western hotel/motel life. He and Melissa headed out to see what they could find in a hotel room. I decided that it was warm, the bed was pretty comfy and there were hot showers so I was pretty darn happy.

So we are staying at yet another hostel/campsite with yet another swimming pool and bar. This country/continent has it going on! We spend the afternoon at the bar relaxing and contemplating life. The gang is heading out to dinner at a place called Joe’s Beer House. We are told it is the most popular beer house in Africa (that’s gotta be impressive) and is well known for its game meats.

Dinner seemed to take awhile to arrive and the natives were getting restless so someone started a game of Chinese whispers (I always knew it as broken telephone but there you go.) Michael kept changing the outcome on purpose just to mess with us. It was very entertaining! Dinner was cold when it finally arrived but we were starving so we ate it anyway. I guess being the best beer house doesn’t make you the best restaurant. Brad, Kerrie and I all ordered something different so we could sample each other’s plates. We ordered Kudu, Zebra and Gemsbok steaks. I thought the Zebra was a bit tough… it may have been a bit overdone. The Kudu was good and the Gemsbok was excellent (very tender and delicious). Darryl ordered the Bushman’s Dinner which came with a shot of something that tasted kind of like Jagermeister. The shot circled the table so we could all take a sniff/sip and try to figure out what it was. It was very strong and burned on the way down. We never did figure out what it was.

Some of the crew stayed on past dinner to party a bit. Me? I was tired! We left around 10:30 and went to bed.

Crisis on the Savannah

Up at 6am, have breakfast, get organized, load onto the truck to go on the hunt in the park for whatever we can manage to find. We have to go early since the animals tend to hide in the shade and do nothing when it warms up. The first thing we see is a vulture in its nest. Many vultures are being killed these days accidentally by farmers who put out poisoned carcasses intended for predators. The vultures are the clean up crew and are usually the first to rip open a carcass so the smaller critters can get in... a very important part of the food chain!

Then the animals really get going. We see zebra, springbok, and guinea fowl on our way to our first watering hole. The first one is pretty quiet. On the way to the second we spot a giraffe. At the second watering hole we hit paydirt! Two lions, male and female just hanging out. A mating pair just relaxing in the morning sun. There are very clear signs everywhere telling people to remain inside their vehicles yet we see one guy out his car window sitting on the door trying to get a photo. This is not the African Lion Safari... this is AFRICA!! We've been told several stories of people doing this sort of thing and not noticing the lion that comes up behind them and hauls them out of their car in front of their wife and kids.

We move on and see wildebeest, more zebra and springbok than you can shake a stick at, oryx, kudu and impala. At the third watering hole we spot elephants, ostrich, more oryx, warthogs, springbok, impala and zebra. A very successful drive! We started to head back to camp for lunch and spot a rhino by the side of the road. He ran off at fairly high speed so there was no chance for a photo.

Lunch at the camp and relaxing since its now way to hot to do anything. This must by why siestas were invented. I decided to take a shower and remove a layer of dust.

At 3:30 or so we went on another drive to see what animals might emerge as the afternoon as the temperature starts to cool off. Brad decided to stay behind and continue relaxing. We spotted a cory bustartd and lots more of the usual four legged antelope type creatures. We drove out onto the salt pan. From a distance it looks like a huge ocean with islands and shorelines. It is whiteish and completely dried up from the floods in the rainy season. We got out of the truck here and walked around. It smelled like ocean and even tasted salty. We took some silly photos of people standing on each other's hands and then piled back into the truck. On the way to our next hole we spotted dik diks (yes, that's really what they are called) and more elephants. Our last watering hole is ducks, giraffes and the usual four legged suspects.

We flew back to the camp gate and slid in just under the wire at 5:30pm. Steph had cooked up bbq sausage, lamb chops, garlic potatoes, sweet corn bread and apple crumble! Yum! My learning from the game drive... never go out on a dusty drive with freshy washed WET hair... unless you feel like showering twice.

After dinner we walked to the watering hole to see what might happen by. We had been sitting for about 1/2 an hour when something in the corner caught my eye. A herd of elephants just glided into view. They were so quiet you couldn't hear them. They just seemed like big grey ghosts. There were atleast 20 or so in the end. Once they started slurping water, that was when you could hear them. We got to watch some interesting herd dynamics on who stands where, who gets the best spot, etc. The herds are all females and babies with one male usually. I also noticed that the elephants had their own stretch routine. I couldn't believe my eyes as they did a little hamstring, quads, IT bands, adductors, etc.. (of course, they would have different names but I don't have my elephant anatomy book with me). They were even doing a little side bending. I wished Peter had been there to witness it.

After the elephants floated back into the brush we waited another 15 minutes until we heard something approaching. A mom and baby rhino came out to get a drink. The baby was bigger than the one some of the others had seen previously but still a baby. It was now 9:45 and I was getting sleepy. We have yet another early morning tomorrow and one of our longest drives (600k) as we need to hit Windhoek by luch tomorrow.

It was still nice and warm when we went to bed and I only woke up once during the night. I dreamt I was snow skiing and trying to rush to the bottom but I couldn't remember how to slalom... weird man.