Playing truant

I'm  eating scrumptious french toast for breakfast  and trying to hatch a plan to kidnap Jonas and take him back home with me...his cooking is so good, all done over a wood fire too! Six of us have decided that we won't go on safari this morning.  We want to have a catch up time, do our washing, buy coffee in the restaurant, most of all, relax!!  We truants are now sitting around the table at camp writing our diaries and feeling a bit wicked.  It is very quiet in camp as all the other campers are on safari, the birds are singing, it is not yet searingly hot,...bliss!  This trip is fantastic, all you could wish for and our guides are first class, but it is also physically demanding.  We load and unload the trucks almost daily, pitch and unpitch our tents, help with the camp chores and spend many hours on the truck so this rest morning is a real treat.  We wander up to the restaurant and have melt-in-your-mouth doughnuts and coffee then lie by the pool relaxing and writing postcards. When the rest of the group return from safari they tell us that the only new animal they saw today was an owl so we are pleased with our decision to rest.  We spend the afternoon by the pool chatting. 



 A school group arrives and the children sit beside the pool, eyeing us nervously, while their teachers have a cool drink at the bar.  I swim over to the children and talk to them a bit.  I get them to put their hands in the pool and encourage them in for a swim.  Soon a half dozen are happily splashing about in the pool in their underwear.  They are touring the game park for three days and for most of them it is the first time they have seen many of the animals.  They are delightful, so natural and lacking in guile, so refreshing. There is nothing planned until the camp flag lowering ceremony scheduled for 6pm so "the tight five (the singles)", Hils, Gary, Raewyn, Judy and myself go to The Obama Bush Bar for a drink.  It is a ramshackle, thatched roofed, open sided affair set in the bush...great fun.  The barman is playing the world cup soccer games on a loop on TV and seems to be thrilled by the games no matter how many times he has seen them.

 

  

  At 5.30 everyone heads up to the fort courtyard to see the flag lowering ceremony.  We buy drinks and sit patiently waiting and chatting until someone notices that the flag has been lowered without us realising.  We all think this is a great joke and there is a lot of talk about how many drinks we have had etc etc. The answer is, in reality, one or at most two but we are in a frivolous mood so decide to hold our own ceremony. We form up into two lines and start marching around the courtyard in a variety of silly and unique styles.  The shop keepers are all leaning out of their shops grinning at this bunch of idiots making a show of themselves.
 Ronney suggests he climbs the tower and performs a ceremony for us and we then follow him up to look at the wonderful views. 




 



Before dinner we take a short drive out into the game park to see our last sunset in Etosha...it is glorious.  Back at camp I help Jonas carry some groceries from the shop to our campsite.  He tells me that when we were marching around the square the shop keepers were impressed by what a happy group we were and how much fun we seemed to be having.   Jonas said that he felt very proud that we were his group.  He cooks us a very Namibian meal tonight, maize meal porridge and oryx stew with salad.  Ronney has warned us that we have a very long bus trip tomorrow so we are in bed by 9.



 Photos: (1) I have fun with a group of Namibian school children, (2) Waiting for the flag lowering ceremony....(3)...but he did it without us noticing....(4)....so Ronney performed his own ceremony for us.

(5) Namutoni Fort from the tower, (6) The thatched roof is the viewing shelter within the camp.  The waterhole (left) is outside the camp fence and within the game park.