Chobe cruise and the attack of the beetles

We are up at 5.15 and have a rather strange breakfast today.  I have cornflakes with a banana I bought at the supermarket yesterday, so far so normal,  then Mfana makes a big pot of custard over the fire  which we all sit  merrily slurping before heading out on safari at 6am. After a quiet start the safari suddenly becomes exciting when, close by, several crocodiles emerge from the river to spend the day basking on the river bank.  Next a hippo  lumbers up out of the river to graze beside us. 


 We find three lions sleeping under a bush and watch them for a while although they largely ignore us. As we drive past them we see that they have killed a zebra and pulled it in under the bush behind them.  Ike says that the lions would have been watching us carefully as they would have been very keen to protect their kill.  He says that it was more dangerous than we realised to be watching them in that situation. We drive through a bleak and desolate looking landscape for a while.  It is how I imagine the world would look after a nuclear war - dead bare trees and hundreds of tall, bright red termite hills everywhere.  We get back to camp by 8.40am and after coffee and biscuits have  free time to wash clothes, shower and relax. Mfana prepares an early  lunch of fresh bread, tuna  and salads  because we are going on a cruise on the famous Chobe River this afternoon and will need to leave camp at 12pm. Well that's the plan, BUT, and this is something we have become familiar with since forward planning is not something our Botswana guides are good at,  Ike realises we are almost out of fuel for the truck!  We had been in town yesterday where there are several service stations and he didn't think to get fuel then, now we are miles from anywhere and don't have enough fuel to get back to town!  He rings through to Kasane, an hour and a half away, and asks a truck to bring fuel to us so we settle in for a long wait.  

There is nothing for it but to relax and smile and go with the flow.  Actually Ike has a very relaxed attitude to life altogether.  Last night I asked him what the plans were for today and he said to me "We don't think about tomorrow, only today"...well that is now very obvious!  It is 40 degrees in our tent even hotter outside and the thought of a cruise on  cool water is attractive but as time ticks on we start to think we may miss the cruise altogether.  At 12.40pm Raewyn suggests to Ike that we at least start out and meet the truck on its way to us thereby saving some time and maybe still making the cruise.  We head off at a hair raising speed.  I am sitting in the back seat and get thrown around as Ike speeds and swerves around corners.  My heart is in my mouth and I start to wonder how my sons would feel if I was killed and didn't return home.  We meet the rescue truck about 40 minutes from camp, re-fuel and then speed into Kasane, arriving only 5 minutes late. Fortunately for us,  we are the only passengers booked for  the boat so it has waited for us.  The cruise landing is within a very glamorous resort perched on the edge of the river.  Walking  through the lobby we feel out of place and grubby so when we spot the swimming pool  we cannot resist the temptation to sit on the edge of it and dangle our feet in....ahhh...bliss!  I surreptitiously try to get as much ingrained dirt off my feet as possible.  Gary and Murray go the whole hog and dive into the pool in their shorts. We feel sorry for the hotel"s paying guests, pretty sure they are not impressed by this disreputable, dirty mob descending on them and polluting their pool but we are so happy to be refreshed that we are beyond caring.

 



 We board our craft, a low to the water aluminium boat with seats in rows which the guide drives from the back.  It is the perfect boat for viewing the wild life giving us an eye level view of hippos and elephants.  The Chobe River is rich with wild life and we have some stunning encounters with crocodiles, coming within feet of them basking on sand banks and huge monitor lizards perched on trees above us. 







 We also enjoy spotting and identifying the widely varied bird life along the river banks. The Chobe River is the natural boundary between Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia and at one point during the cruise we pass into Namibian waters. There is a lush green island in the river which is a dry season haven for many animals which swim there and stay there for  four months, living an idyllic life safe from predators.  Some elephants cross the river in front of us and we enjoy watching the behavioural dynamics of the herd when a large bull elephant arrives at a water hole forcing the rest of the herd to back off and give him right of way.  He swishes his feet backwards and forwards splashing water in all directions clearly enjoying himself and relishing having the water hole to himself. This cruise makes us feel at one with the animals and is a real highlight, of the trip.

 

 

Afterwards we re-trace our route back to camp arriving at dusk.  Mfana hasn't yet lit the camp fire when we sit down for a pre dinner glass of wine.  At first I just  feel something crawling through my hair and reach up to remove it.  Then I find that my head is alive with  little dark beetles. Soon my whole body is covered in them, they are inside my shirt, down inside my pants, inside my under wear.  It is ghastly, like something out of a horror movie and I start jumping around and swatting at them. Some of the others have beetles crawling on them but I seem to be by far the worst affected.  Mfana lights the camp fire and, to my great relief, the beetles miraculously disappear, driven away by the smoke. Oh dear, it is just not my night, I sit down to dinner and then have a massive allergic reaction to the smoke from the fire.  My eyes stream and sting and I can barely open them.  They are extremely painful.  Ike tells me that a lot of people have a bad reaction to the Kalahari Apple Tree timber they are burning, the same tree that Mfana is allergic to.  Fortunately Judy, aka camp mother, has some eye drops in her medical kit and kindly puts them in my eyes for me.  I go to bed early just so that I can lie down and shut my eyes.  It has been quite a dramatic, and dare I say, unpleasant, end to my last day of wilderness camping!

Photos: (1) Lions guarding their kill, (2) Mfana finds a shady spot to sleep, (3) Aaah! Bliss!! we soak our feet in the pool at a luxury resort, (4) One of the many crocodiles we saw, (5) A close encounter of the scary kind, (6)  African Kingfisher, (7) Hippos at eye level, Chobe, (8) Elephants crosses the river in front of our boat