Day Somethingorother, Tuesday 17th February 2009 (Cath – written on the spot)
Time has flown since our last post. We are now in Swakopmund, on the Atlantic coast of Namibia, but feel more like we’re in a hot, sandy, palm-tree-lined version of Germany, thanks to the persisting effects of colonisation. In physical appearance, the town reminds me of the Geelong city centre, but the language, a large proportion of the people, the cakes and the internet speed are very much German. More than a few things here feel not quite right, such as the fact that most of the people leisurely shopping and eating in cafes are white, while most of the people working behind counters and waiting tables are black, but there is a generally positive atmosphere, everything seems to work, and we are relaxing and enjoying it. As a special treat, we’ve even been able to upload some photos!
I’ll try to make this a brief rundown of what we’ve done since Livingstone.
Most importantly, Al still has his mullet:
(Braided for special occasions only)
We walked across the bridge from Zambia into Zimbabwe for a morning, where we got soaked at the viewpoints over Vic Falls, then had a quick wander through the normally touristy town of Victoria Falls nearby. It was mind-boggling that one of the first buildings we came across was a casino, with manicured lawn, huge fish pond, lots of slot machines and game tables, a plaque commemorating its opening in the 90s by Mugabe himself, and, unsurprisingly, not a single punter.
Meanwhile, on the footpath outside we were surrounded by people begging for money, trying to sell wood carvings and telling us about their restaurants which were open for lunch – the drop in tourism over the last year or so must have been devastating, on top of what these people are already having to deal with. It was a real shame not to be able to spend more time and money there. We didn’t see a single other white person on the streets of the town, just a few shopping at the supermarket (where the shelves were half empty, and otherwise lined with large quantities of a limited range of staple foods and toiletries).
From Vic Falls we were driven to the Botswanan border by a Zimbabwean man who was optimistic about Morgan Tsvangirai’s appointment as Prime Minister, and incredibly patient about the prospects for change in his country. As he said, they still have all the basic infrastructure and their health and education systems used to work well – they just need to be repaired and restarted, and that might just happen one day.
In Botswana, we spent an incredibly relaxing few days in the Okavango Delta, floating around on mokoros (traditional dugout canoes) and walking through long grass, successfully avoiding predators.
Gliding through the reeds in our modern fibreglass mokoro (this photo uploaded in less than 30 seconds!)
We had a go at poling mokoros ourselves, despite the crocodile and hippo infested waters. Not entirely sure why I headed straight for the reeds rather than the clear water path on the left, but it was fun.
Sunset over the ’swimming pool’
Gorgeous wet season sky!
A morning walking safari, passing a ‘candle pod acacia’ on the left – a favourite shady place for lions. ‘If we are threatened by a buffalo – run downwind and climb a tree. If we are threatened by an elephant – run downwind but don’t climb a tree. If we are threatened by a lion – don’t run, because only food runs.’ Given that there was no wind, we couldn’t see any climb-able trees, and we were not confident of winning a face-off with a lion, none of this advice was very comforting.
Al took a flight over the Delta in one of these – again, gorgeous wet season skies.
At least 70 elephants within the borders of this photo, and more just out of frame!
San rock paintings in the Tsodilo Hills, Botswana – 3000 years old
View from the Tsodilo Hills
I have finally overcome my excessive fear of hippos and simply love and healthily respect them again, after sitting in a canoe on a lagoon, watching a male and female hippo yawn, splash around and fight each other less than forty metres away. They were much more into each other (well, he was into her – I’m not sure if she felt the same way) than they were into worrying about us.
To justify my fear, the day before we headed into the Delta, we met this hippo on a Chobe River cruise – this guy was angry at having his afternoon snack time interrupted, and tried to charge the big boat we were on. I think the main reason my fear has subsided is that I am no longer likely to be near any hippos.
After the Delta was a long run of long days on the truck, crossing through the buffalo fence and veterinary control checkpoints (to separate export-quality cattle in the south from subsistence herds in the north) into Namibia. We had to get out of the truck several times and walk through a lot of old dirty-looking wet mats, apparently coated in disinfectant but looking somehow more likely to be harbouring foot-and-mouth than our thongs/jandals/flip flops/sandals were.
We visited a place called Treesleepers, where descendants of San Bushmen (who live modern lives but keep knowledge of their traditions alive) show tourists like us little snippets of their bush survival skills, like trapping, tracking, and identifying poisonous and useful plants. These are among the peoples of Southern Africa who speak with clicks – none of us could replicate the sounds our guide, George, made.
George making fire
Dung beetle party!
Etosha National Park gave us our last real chance to spot game, and despite it being wet season we did see animals – and not just any animals. There were the ubiquitous zebra and wildebeest, more giraffes than we had seen anywhere else, three male lions, a lioness eating a kill, a hyena with a pup, antelope locking horns, and (drumroll)…
A black rhino! It didn’t stick around for photos.
We also saw part of the vast Etosha salt pans, which were covered by water in a lot of places. We tried some cheesy perspective photos with the only prop we had available – Salt and Vinegar Rice Pringles, the most popular flavour on the truck.
And our campsite had a giant, modern, tiled pool, which made us feel like we were at a fancy resort, so we all went a bit silly and played overly competitive games and scared some children.
Because normal house cats just aren’t extreme enough for us these days, Al having a mullet and all, we visited some people with some pets that were more on our level.
She purred when we patted her behind the ears – so gentle (the owner was nearby with a rubber stick for distraction if necessary). There were two other ‘tame’ cheetahs, who suddenly seemed slightly wild when presented with fresh donkey meat later.
An 18 month old giraffe named Harold, who later ran, zig-zagging, after our truck with his tongue hanging out and legs flailing around.
As we drove further and further west and south, the landscape gradually flattened out and became less green.
A typical roadside souvenir stall – these women, of the Herero people, made some gorgeous dolls wearing their traditional dress.
A typical truck-getting-bogged scene (did we mention we’ve been following the rainy season since about Malawi?)
Sunrise on the Spitzkoppe rock formations – scrambling here was excellent, apart from leaving us with bruised palms and grazes. We were lucky to miss the two-metre cobra some others ran into (and then away from quite quickly).
That really wasn’t brief. We have only 8 more days of the tour to go, and then five days in Cape Town, before we move on to the next continent. Of course that is exciting, but we will be very sad to leave this one. So much more to write, but so much time we’d rather be spending outdoors!
Day 176-177, Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th February 2009 (Al & a bit of Cath)
When we entered Botswana we also encountered the ‘buffalo fence’. Like Australia’s ‘rabbit-proof fence’, this is an actual wire fence, which stretches across huge expanses of the country (I can’t be more specific than that). It was built to prevent the transmission of disease between domestic livestock and wild animals, but has caused problems for wildlife where it interrupts animal migration routes. And it is apparently in constant need of repair due to elephants ignoring it and walking straight through.
Another, related thing that has started to spice up our long drive days is the system of veterinary check points dotted along the main roads. From Botswana down (south), you’re not allowed to carry dairy, meat or other animal products from further north, to protect the commercial farming industry that starts about here (further north there is also a lot of livestock, but almost entirely subsistence farming). At the checkpoints, we all have to get out of the truck with all our shoes (the authorities quite reasonably wouldn’t believe that we only have thongs with us, so we carry our solid walking shoes with us too) and walk our shoes through a dirty-looking piece of wet carpet, which is actually soaked in a liquid all-purpose-killer chemical of some kind to prevent us carrying diseased soil through. Meanwhile the truck drives through a big trough of the same stuff.
Our destination today was the Tsodilo Hills, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, known for its ancient rock art and spiritual significance to the local Kun and San peoples. The area has been occupied by humans for at least 100,000 years. We met our guide for a hike/scramble up the rocky hills passing 3000 year old red ochre paintings of African animals. Apparently the 10,000 year old paintings have mostly been eroded. It was incredible that any of the paintings were still visible, because they were mostly on open rock faces, not in caves.
Giraffe
Fun to do some scrambling, and the views from the top were amazing also!
Giant millipede
Ancient paintings of a penguin (left) and whale (bottom), and possibly a boat in the middle. Tsodilo is now 1000km from the coast, so this probably indicates some pretty long travelling distances…
Our guide for the walk turned out to not be the best. Of course it would be difficult touring 25 people around this landscape, but he would often start talking to the people at the front whilst the rest of us were still straggling up the hill (or looking at the scenery or taking photos of scarily big insects), and he spoke quietly to the point where we gave up straining to listen to his explanations. We were getting used to living without information anyway, so we just enjoyed the landscape. Back at camp we had a refreshing cold shower (an unexpected luxury as this was supposed to be a ‘bush camp’) and drink, followed by pasta with chilli sauce and some marshmallow toasting (and red wine for some – South African bottles purchased in Maun) around the fire, which made for an enjoyable end to the day.
A Tsodilo hill in the morning
Despite the heat of the day, it was cool enough overnight to actually use our sleeping bags, plus we didn’t have to get up until 7am which felt like a bit of a luxury at this point. We drove to the Namibian border and what turned out to be a very efficient immigration service. We ate salt and vinegar Simbas and read in between veterinary check points where “Operation Daisy” would be called. Basically this meant moving all of our dairy products (freshly purchased in Botswana, so they were safe, but still contraband) from the esky into a hidden locker to avoid confiscation. At only one of the three checkpoints did someone actually get on the truck to have a snoop around. A successful operation that made the drive a little more fun.
The town of Rundu was our lunch stop where we set up next to a river. There were crocs in this river according to a news report on the death of a small girl, but kids were still playing in the water. Lis (one half of Team America) went and spoke with a group of locals that were having a midday lunch/party on a nearby table which was cool to see – we’re still not that confident yet!
Tonight was a bush camp – the added draw card being the giant boabab tree that was 10 minutes walk away. Along the walk there were heaps of little frogs (and one grumpy toad) hopping out of our path. The tree was indeed huge, must be several thousand years old, and we all climbed it for a few serious and a few not so serious group photos.
(Yes, that is a person climbing the trunk of the tree, just for scale)
A stupid, treacherous metal gate that we all had to pass carefully through scratched up my leg just before I was due to start cooking dinner. Once patched up by Cathy, Anne and I set to work on the jacket spuds – enlisting the help of “Truck Bitches” Nate and Matt to assist with the blokey half of the dinner: stoking the fire and cooking said spuds, whilst Cath helped Anne with the fillings – including some super-spicy beans (Cathy is getting a rep for her spicy cooking). Despite the lack of sour cream (apparently a must-have for this meal) it was a success. More toasted marshmallows and some camp-fire ghost stories made for a fun evening. Especially when during a tense moment in one story, I grabbed Kellee’s shoulder from behind – giving the poor girl a near-heart attack that sent her flying off her chair! Good times…
Filed under: Botswana
Day 175, Monday 9th February 2009 (Cath & Al)
I almost forgot about one of the funniest question-and-answer sessions we had on our last morning walk in the Delta. I have just found this transcription in my journal:
Andrew (guide): ‘Why is this tree called the comfort tree?’
Us: silent, as it was a very spiky tree. ‘Is it an ironic name?’
Andrew: ‘Because it is the home of tiger fish’. (Apparently it sometimes grows beside the water).
Back in the town centre of Maun after a quick lunch at camp, we shopped for upcoming cook group days, and checked our email. As we drove into the Delta on Saturday, I’d had an SMS from Mum and Dad saying ‘it’s 46 degrees today and very windy so bad bush fires. Cool change coming’. So all of us from Victoria knew there was extreme weather at home, but seeing the news on the internet today was the first time we saw how terrible it had become. Most of us had emails from family reassuring us they were alright, but there was an anxious wait until we heard that Mike was able to get in touch with his family in Kinglake, who were luckily all okay.
Then Al and some others were off to the airport for a flight over the Delta. If I went, the group would have needed to use one extra 5-seater plane, which would have increased the cost for everyone, and given that I was feeling thrifty, scared of light aircraft and happy to not be motion sick, I stayed in town. When I got back on the truck, Al was grinning from ear to ear and gave a politely restrained verdict: ‘it was a little bit fantastic’!
The sturdy, robust flying contraption
The mokoro station – you can see the road at the top leading to a beach lined with these canoes
Great views of the rivers, reedy wetlands and islands in every direction
Al says that this is probably the most amazing photo he took during our entire time away – more for the subject (70 elephants grazing in this shot) than technical prowess
Like ants floating in spilt milk – these are lots of buffalo wallowing in a water hole
An elephant also enjoying the wallowing facilities the delta has to offer
Our day finished back at camp with me, Emma and Jez cooking up a storm. We made a Thai yellow curry. In theory, yellow is the least spicy Thai curry colour, but when you’re literally making it in the dark, following the directions in a very chili-loving authentic Thai recipe book, using fresh chilis and a manufactured paste of which you underestimate the chili content, you end up with a very, very hot curry. It was so hot that even adding two litres of UHT milk didn’t cool it down enough for most people’s taste. We quickly discovered which people in the group liked really spicy food! Unfortunately there were only about four of us, but everyone else pushed on through the pain barrier like troopers. Or maybe the dogs growling in the middle of the night were not defending us from intruders, but fighting over some sneakily discarded delicious curry.
Filed under: Botswana
Day Something, Sunday 9th February 2009 (Cath and Al – on the spot)
We’ve just heard about the terrible bushfires at home, and are very relieved to also hear that our families and friends are safe. We wish we were there with you all.
Filed under: Botswana
Days 173 – 175, Saturday 7th – Monday 9th February 2009 (Cath)
I loved the Okavango Delta. For me it was the most relaxing, magical place we visited in Africa. Camping here reminded me of our nights in Wadi Rum in Jordan, in that we were just a few people in a big expanse of wilderness.
An early morning drive from Maun brought us to a mokoro station at the eastern edge of the Delta, where a team of guides and polers loaded us and our tents, food and water onto their waiting fleet of what we could pretend looked like sturdy boats if we shut our eyes.
In our fibreglass version of a mokoro
The traditional wooden dug-out mokoros around us looked better than ours, but sat perilously low in the water and had less leg room, so we weren’t complaining (the government of Botswana now gives grants to polers to buy fibreglass canoes, so that not too many trees are cut down as tourism here grows). Our poler, Sparks, was apparently always getting into trouble from his boss for poling in an erratic zig-zag fashion and nearly hitting other canoes. The best place to be was in his boat – we didn’t notice any of the (very quiet) drama, as we lay on our backs in the sun, watching the reeds glide past.
The morning sun was not yet too hot, the water was clear and dark, the reeds were crisp and smooth and left deliciously cool patches of water on our skin as they brushed against us; it was hard to imagine feeling more relaxed.
There were lilypads and flowers all along the waterways, but we were never annoyed by insects. The mokoro did turn out to be a sturdy craft after all – the pole gave it great stability. And despite my apprehension about hippos and crocodiles, I felt remarkably calm. It wasn’t that I suddenly didn’t think there would be any, or that nothing bad would happen if we came across one, but that I just couldn’t bring myself to worry. The place was so beautiful.
When I did start to worry, despite my excitement and best intentions, was the moment we headed, on foot, out of the safety of our little camp under a patch of trees and into the long grass. We were going on a walking safari to explore the rest of the island we had pitched our tents on, and our guide, Andrew, stopped us among some bushes (just past the clearing we were using for a drop toilet) to give us some tips. ‘If we are lucky to see a buffalo, run down-wind and climb a tree. If we see an elephant, run down-wind, but don’t climb a tree, because it can kill you and the tree. If we see a lion, don’t run – only food runs.’ I couldn’t even figure out which direction was down-wind when there was no discernable breeze, let alone see a tree I could climb, and didn’t like my chances of standing my ground and intimidating a lion (we didn’t even have sticks with us this time!). So I smiled and tried to enjoy the landscape through the haze of terror in my mind. We saw nothing more dangerous than birds, plants, and dry hippo dung, but I felt constantly on edge.
You might not be able to see us since we are camouflaged, but I’m looking happy here, at least partly because the sun was heading towards the horizon so I knew we must be heading back to camp soon (before the carnivores started waking up for the night)!
And the Delta didn’t stop being gorgeous after dark. As we stood looking up at the stars, we realised that at ground-level we were surrounded by hundreds of fireflies, sparkling in the bushes near the water. And yes, there was always at least one person on hippo alert.
The next morning, we were offered either a ’short’ (2 hour) or ‘long’ (4 hour) walk on another island, and somehow I mustered the guts to join Al on the latter. You only live once, and if you end up being eaten by a lion, at least that makes a good story. Especially if it happens in the world’s largest inland delta (the Okavango River empties into the Kalahari Desert here, rather than the sea – just a bit of trivia I thought I’d throw in to lighten things up a bit).
Termite mound, sun-bleached elephant skull, trees on the horizon, long grass all around – a typical Delta scene.
I was surprised to find myself really enjoying the morning walk. We walked around the island for hours without seeing anything man-made, or even any water, and I lost almost all sense of direction. We saw a small herd of wildebeest grazing beyond some trees, some zebras quickly getting out of our way, a group of baboons sitting on a huge termite mound, and a lone antelope keeping a sharp eye on us.
It reassured me to see that none of them were worried about anything more threatening than us being in the vicinity. We also continued to see a huge range of birds – the African fish eagle and lilac-breasted roller were two of the most memorable. Andrew entertained us with impossible quizzes (e.g. ‘Why is this tree called the candle-pod acacia?’ ‘Because its pods look like candles?’ ‘No, because it is the house of lions’), and facts about animal tracks, droppings (we saw a big fresh elephant deposit and scanned the horizon in vain for its owner) and plants. Did you know a certain species of acacia produces a pheromone signal when it gets nibbled on, and the pheromones drift through the air to other trees nearby, so that they start temporarily producing a bitter sap which stops the grazing animal eating too much of their foliage? Slightly more dubious was the story about a butterfly that can apparently only fly north-west! Not sure how that one would have slipped through the natural selection net. By the end of the walk (which stretched to just over 5 hours), the only reason I wanted to get back to camp was because I was sweaty and tired and felt like a swim.
The swimming hole – where apparently the only crocodiles that visit are vegetarian. But what’s that in the water?!
Oh phew, it’s just Al doing his best hippo impersonation. Swimming here was lovely and refreshing but I couldn’t help thinking how stupid I would think we were if we were tourists swimming in the Northern Territory and I was hearing about us on the news at home. You know what I mean.
Staying cool in the shade at camp, with games of cards and Yatzy (the Norwegian version of Yahtzee – basically the same as the Australian version, but slightly more competitive!)
Fun, but my mokoro had some steering problems
So, I’d conquered my fear of walking safaris (and discovered that the wet season, although a potentially disappointing time for hardcore wildlife spotters to visit, was the ideal time to come here for anyone NOT wanting to run into desperately hungry animals). Now it was time to confront my fear of sitting in a canoe in a lagoon known as ‘the hippo pool’ without a paddle.
Al in hippo-viewing position
There were two of them, and this was the greeting they gave us.
This was only 40 metres away! Luckily we were protected by a piece of floating fibreglass and a wooden pole!
Andrew the intrepid guide, taking Tom and Jono a bit closer to the action
Again, after sitting there for a while in the presence of the hippos, I became unexpectedly relaxed. It turned out they were a male and female, and once they realised their yawning hadn’t made us move and we didn’t seem to be a threat, they gave up on us and returned to more important concerns. The female had some nice quiet wallowing scheduled for herself, but the male felt like some action and wouldn’t leave her in peace, so there was a bit of a fight. It made for exciting viewing, especially since their struggle had brought them closer to our side of the lagoon, but I was relieved to see them pop up back over on their side (hippos can stay underwater for three minutes, so there was an element of suspense). The female seemed to have won, and resumed wallowing in peace.
The wet season skies were still putting on a show for us
A night of singing and dancing and shenanigans around the campfire concluded a wonderful day. A truly impressive goosebump-inducing impromptu performance by the classically trained Mike was possibly the first time Nessun Dorma has been sung in this part of Botswana (the guides were certainly surprised)!
A final early morning walk, and I was at last completely comfortable walking past the shadowy areas under candle-pod acacias, and actually slightly disappointed that the only mammals we spotted were some distant zebras. It was very sad to leave the island for the last time, but a long mokoro ride is capable of healing many wounds, and we were feeling good (albeit slightly sunburnt) when we reached the truck which would take us back to civilisation.
