Stranded in the game park

You know you're in the wilderness when a hyena spends the night whooping in, and prowling around, your camp site.  Something is walking up and down outside our tent.  It is either a hyena or a black backed jackal but we are not keen to investigate. We can also hear lions and elephants through the night, so, all in all, not much sleep for us tonight. It is another 5.30am start for breakfast and it takes us over an hour to get the site packed up and the truck loaded.  Our guides are pretty disorganised, and very casual, relying on our group to do most of the packing and loading.  We finally get away at 7.30 and shortly afterwards pass a broken down safari truck.  Three men are working on it and say they don't need our help so we sail by feeling rather smug...oh dear, pride comes before a fall! 


 A couple of kilometres down the road Ike notices problems with our truck.  Water is gushing from the radiator.  He fills a gerry can from a nearby water hole to top it up again but it still gushes out.  The men in our group are in their element and gather around to inspect the radiator which they find has a huge hole in it,  pierced, it seems, by a stick.  Several safari vehicles stop to offer help and at one point there are 10 men gathered around the engine but there is nothing they can do, the truck needs a new radiator and the nearest help is three hours away at Maun.  Ike radios for help and we settle down for a long wait.



  Initially we follow the rules of the game reserve "Never leave your vehicle", but it is stiflingly hot and there  is little room in the truck so eventually we all grab our safari chairs and move to the shade of an acacia tree.  We idle away the hours reading, doing crosswords, chatting, snoozing and taking it all in good part. Mfana even produces a delicious lunch and spreads a table cloth on the ground for a picnic of baked bread, pumpkin salad , cheese, ham and cups of tea.  One member of our group gets snitchy about  losing a day of his trip but his is a lone voice and we all tell him that it is all part of the experience of Africa. He soon settles down. 

 We actually feel very proud of ourselves and unbelievably intrepid.  Here we are sitting for a full day in a game reserve with wild animals all around, fortunately for us no animals come to find us! Every time a safari vehicle approaches we get excited but it is not until 3pm, 7 hours after we break down, that help arrives and the mechanics quickly replace the radiator.  The men of our group happily cluster around the vehicle to watch. Ike gives us the option of making camp for the night near by or pushing on to our designated camp.  We all opt to push on to give us two nights at the next camp site.  At last, at 4pm and after a final "bush toilet", we are on our way.  At the game reserve gate we fill our water tanks and a bit further on stop to collect fire wood.  Ike wants us to collect a lot of wood because it will be a few days until we can collect more.  The only place we can fit it is on the floor in front of the seats  forcing us to  spend the rest of the trip travelling with our knees up to our chins. After travelling a while Ike spots cheetahs in the distance and we race across country to view them.  We drive right up beside two of these magnificent animals resting on a small mound.  They are gorgeous with their distinctive facial markings, their muscular sinewy bodies and their plush coats.  We get within 5 metres of them and they look at us warily.  Cheetahs are not known for attacking humans but I still feel nervous when they stand up and pace around beside the open truck.

 

 

It is a very long trip to our next camp but I thoroughly enjoy looking out over the countryside as the sun sets and, as night falls and it gets dark,  looking up at the starry sky.  In the pitch black and silence  we come across a couple of suspicious looking cars with evasive drivers.  We are pretty sure they are poachers, a common problem in Africa.  We pass through a few tiny villages where the inhabitants wave at us as we pass, hoping, no doubt, that we will stop to buy drinks but we have no local currency.

Finally, after 5 and a half hours, we arrive at our next camp site.  It is hard work unloading the trucks and pitching our tents in the dark however once we are set up we are pleased we pushed on and can stay here for two nights.  Mfana produces a meal of maize pan (looks like mashed potato but is a kind of porridge) and boerwors sausages with tomato sauce, cooked barbecue style over the fire, in record time.  We chat around the fire for a while and head to bed about 11pm.

Photos: (1) Broken down in the game park, (2) Mfana and Ike get water from the swamp to fill the radiator, (3) Mfana keeps our spirits up with a delicious lunch, (4) Our day is made with our first sighting of cheetahs in the wild, (5) Magnificent animals.... (6) ...that eye us warily, (7) Mfana prepares dinner in record time