Sent to the naughty tent



 I must be getting used to this wilderness lark..... Ike tells me that there were jackals and hyenas wandering around our camp and howling last night but I didn't hear them...just slept blissfully through it all.  He also thinks that the lions were within 100 metres of our tents so I'm  rather pleased I didn't hear them.  In the light of day we see that this is a lovely camp site in a big clearing under large shady acacia trees. There are other campers in the vicinity,  but they are at least 100 metres away.  We set out on safari early  and almost immediately come upon a large lion sleeping contentedly under a tree.  We can see he has had a good meal, his stomach is distended.  We watch him for a while and then move on.  The scenery here is quite different from Namibia,  it is greener and more gentle and because we are right beside the river Khwai  the bird life is prolific and varied.  We spot a number of vultures hanging around in the top of the trees.  Ike says they would have fed on the remains of the lion's kill.  A honey badger sprints across the road in front of our truck.  They are very small but very violent.  Men are particularly scared of them because they have a habit of attacking a man's manhood.  Ronney, our guide in Namibia was terrified of them, having been chased by one once.  We come to a waterhole where a large troop of baboons is grooming and courting.  The baboon is another on the list of the Ugly 5 of Africa and I think they deserve that spot however they do entertain us for quite some time with their antics.  Next a herd of 25 elephants of all ages arrives at the water hole with a tiny adorable baby.  Still not sure how to use it's trunk it slaps and slurps at the water.  It gets into the water hole but can't get out  slipping and sliding in the mud until the older females nudge it gently and ease it out.  Three large males get into a competitive tussle, challenging and threatening each other. Eventually two realise this is a fight they won't win and wander off leaving the most dominant male with the herd, and very proud of himself too.  This is an amazing thing to see from such a close vantage point.

 

Back at camp late in the morning I enjoy a chat with Mfana.  He tells me that his grandmother taught him to cook, something he enjoyed very much, so he took a chef's course.  His ambition is to become a senior safari guide which should enable him to save enough to become a farmer, a common ambition in Africa.  He is 29, has a girlfriend and two children but needs to save for a bride price before they can marry. He told me it was normal to have children before you marry in Botswana, and, I suspect, in  all of Africa, because every man wants to be sure his future wife can bear children. While we are chatting the tempting smell of his fresh baked bread rolls wafts through the camp from the cast iron pot in the fire.  After lunch we watch fascinated as Mfana repairs a plastic Jerry can which has sprung a leak.  He gets a used plastic water bottle and melts it on the end of a stick in the fire.  He plugs the hole with a small twig and then seals the stick into the hole with the melted plastic.  The ingenuity of repairing things and wasting nothing in Africa both amazes and inspires us.  While Mfana is repairing the can Ike has gone to the river to get water so we can wash some clothes. We get about an ice cream container of water each but it's better than nothing.  The owner of Lewis Safari Company, the company we are travelling with, arrives with food supplies and makes some repairs to the trailer.  He also brings a couple of bottles of Amarula for us to share to thank us for our patience during our long wait in the game reserve yesterday.




 We are as excited as children at a birthday party when Ike tells us he is going to get water and rig up a shower for us.  It will be our first shower in three days and we will be allowed only 50 seconds each under the big canvas bucket suspended from a tree and surrounded by canvas screens.  Raewyn hits on the idea of drawing cards to see who goes first.  This is done with a lot of laughter and good humour.  I suggest we line up naked to save time but nobody else thinks that's a good idea.  I tip some of my drinking water on my head and lather up before going under the shower to make the most of my shower time.  It is only 50 seconds but it is bliss! We all feel like new people and relax for a while before going on safari again.  Ike bushwhacks the Land Rover through the trees and it is pretty scary as branches come in the sides from all directions.  We cruise around for a while stopping to watch a blood red sun sink below the horizon. 
 

 Ike is a complex character.  he doesn't keep us informed of what  our programme will be and has a superior air about him but his knowledge of the animals and his stories are wonderful and I have learnt so much from him.  

  As darkness falls he removes the windscreen from the truck and we cruise around for an hour or so searching the bush with a spotlight looking for animals.  We have limited success seeing only some  elephants so eventually stop by a large pond where we sit in complete darkness listening to the sounds of the bush...frogs, insects, crickets. I love this, It is so peaceful and calming.  We sit there for so long some of our group think Ike has gone to sleep but I don't mind, I am enjoying it. On our way back to camp we pass a large hippo on the pond bank calmly munching weeds.  Mfana has prepared us a welcome meal of rice, chicken, honeyed carrots and custard apple pie.  After dinner we sit around the camp fire chatting until Ike tells us all to be quiet because we could be disturbing the other campers near by and suggests we go to bed.    We are a bit upset by this because the nearest campers are a long way away and it is only 9pm!  
 

 Feeling chastened we trundle off to bed at 9.30 and Hils and I chat for a while, gossip more like,  and  laugh  a lot, feeling  like naughty children sent to bed. We note that Ike and Mfana proceed to have a loud and long conversation around the camp fire for an hour or two. We think Ike just wanted a break from us.








Photos: (1) Jackal, they are regular camp visitors, (2) Mfana baking bread, (3) Toilet tent to the left, shower tent to the right.  Note the shower bucket in the tree (photo Raewyn Empson), (4) Wildebeest, or Gnu,
(5) Dusk at the water hole, (6) Elephants in the twilight

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

Blue balls and elephant dung

Ike had warned us that he was "stingy" with his time in the morning and that we were to be up breakfasted and ready to safari at 6.30am.  Hils and I wait until we hear movement in the camp before stumbling out of our tent in the dark at 5.30am. After a light breakfast of weetbix and coffee we are off on our first Botswana safari.  

We drive around for quite a while before spotting our first animal, a tsessebe, the fastest of the antelopes.  Later we find two large male lions sleeping in the grass.  We get within 2 metres of them but they have full stomachs and are more interested in sleeping than they are in us.  Ike tells us that because guns are forbidden in the game reserves the animals have not learned to fear humans.  He said, however, that if you get out of the vehicle animals would attack because walking in an upright position is seen as challenging to them.



 Further on we see the blue ball monkey, so named  for obvious reasons!  I ask Ike if they have blue balls because they are cold and he laughs and laughs.  Ike has a dazzling smile and an infectious laugh.  We take every opportunity to get him laughing just because we enjoy listening to him. We head back to camp with the usual ducking and diving.  Because the land rover has open sides, and the park tracks are narrow, trees crash through the sides as we drive along.  Many of the trees are acacias with vicious, long thorns, so we have to lean left and right to avoid them.  We all take turns at shouting "left" or "right" to warn each other and it is always accompanied by much hilarity.

 

We arrive back at camp to find Mfana has prepared a delicious lunch of his own fresh baked bread, sausages and a feta and beetroot salad.  My team is on kitchen duty so we do the dishes and then relax before setting off for a cruise on the Okavango Delta.

 It takes an hour to reach the boat which cruises at a slow relaxing pace through the various narrow fingers of the delta.  As we set out we pass luxury lodges lining the river banks and ruefully discuss the fact that they probably have flush toilets and showers.  Our guide, Punch, takes us in close to  the roosting area of some maribou storks, a hideous bird with a bald neck and a pendulous droopy gizzard, and further along to where the attractive yellow billed stork is nesting.  We spot a crocodile right beside the boat but it dives into the water and disappears as we get nearer. 

 

Punch pulls the boat in amongst some reeds where we have afternoon tea while watching an elephant resting under a tree.  I travel on the top deck for the journey back and feel relaxed and sleepy as the scenery slips by.  Ike safaris us back to camp giving us thrills and spills aplenty.  We ford some deep crocodile infested streams and cross the infamous number 3 bridge, which appears to be just piles of sticks balanced on top of each other. It wobbles and shakes and bends alarmingly as we cross.



 

We come across a family of 20 to 30 monkeys climbing

and dangling from a tree and another tree covered in the gorgeous red carmine bee eater bird, making it look like a decorated Christmas tree.  We stop to watch a pride of 6 lions.  Ike knows this pride and says there are usually 12 in the group.  They are about 30 metres away and we have seen many much closer so I entertain myself by watching the other safari vehicles watching the lions.  One couple, the woman in white slacks and dangling gold earrings, with only their guide for company, sit elegantly sipping wine, as they watch the lions. White slacks, for goodness sake!!!....It is clear they are not camping! 

 

Ike stops further on and picks up some elephant dung to hand around the truck.  He tells us to sniff it.  I am reluctant, at first,  but when I do I find it is sweet smelling, like fresh grass.  Ike explains that elephants have a very poor digestive system and that their food passes straight through them therefore they must eat for 18  hours a day to gain adequate sustenance.  We make a stop at a water hole glowing pinkly in the sunset and watch hippos bobbing up and down and yawning.  

 

A glass of wine and a meal of beef stew, couscous and broccoli followed by bananas baked with chocolate is most welcome. Lanterns glow softly around the campsite as Ike tells us more stories from the jungle.  I am enchanted and cannot quite believe I am sitting here in Botswana in the wilderness.  We go to sleep to the soothing sounds of a thousand frogs.


  

Photos: (1) Ike at the wheel of the Land Rover, (2) The startling blue testicles of the "blue balls" monkey,

(3) Mfana slices his fresh bread baked in the camp fire, (4) Our boat for the cruise on the Okavango Delta,

(5) The Maribou Stork, one of the "Ugly 5" of Africa, (6) Yellow Billed Stork, (7) Luxury lodge on the Okavango Delta, (8) We crossed this precarious bridge made of sticks, (9) I watch the watchers on safari, (10) Ike keeps us enthralled with his tales of the African bush.  Who knows what is lurking over his shoulder!!?

Into the wilderness

Boy, Hils and I are proud of ourselves! Up at 5 and our tent down in record time!.  After an excellent breakfast we help pack the truck and then say our fond farewells to Ronney and Jonas. They have a long 12 hour journey ahead of them to get back to Windhoek. Ronney tells us that we have covered 3447 kilometres so far.  That's a lot of driving and he is tired so we are all hoping that they will make it back home safely. 



We spend the next two hours sitting around camp waiting for Ike and Mfana, our new guides, to arrive.  They finally turn up at around 10.30 and we load our luggage onto our new truck.  It is an open sided land rover with 4 rows of bench seats, each row slightly higher than the one in front for easy safari viewing and a large trailer for the camp equipment. Mfana, he tells us Mfana means friend, is the cook and a very pleasant young man.   We had expected the truck to be ready to go but it isn't so we head into Maun to get fuel. 



  It seems to take forever to get organised however we are entertained by the colourful life around us.  Goats roam freely through the streets of town and there are numerous tiny shacks offering hair cuts, jewellery, cell phone cards, drinks etc.  Lots of people are milling around, some in their tribal dress.  Eventually we leave town and make our way over very bumpy sand roads to the Moreti Game Reserve. 

 

We get tossed around a lot more in this truck but I love the experience of the open truck.  It feels like being in the outdoors and I can really smell the sweet scent of Africa.  We make a short stop inside the Moreti Gate for lunch, where we are entertained by a southern yellow billed hornbill repeatedly attacking it's reflection in a window, and then push on because Ike is keen to arrive at our camp site before dark.

 

A safari guide coming from the opposite direction stops to tell us he has spotted a lion not far away so we go to have a look.  Sure enough a large male lion is lying right beside the road, only feet from our vehicle.  We are all nervous - there is nothing between us and the lion- but he is unfazed, just looks us in the eye, stretches, yawns and rolls over.  It is thrilling! 

 

It's still a long way to our camp site and our group starts singing "Show me the way to go home" amid much laughter.  We are a happy lot! We arrive at our "camp" at 6.30.  "Camp" is a bit of an exaggeration, it is just a dusty clearing in the middle of the game park with no facilities of any kind.  Putting up our tents is a bit of a mission.  These are different tents and it is dark but with a bit of grunting, sighing and bad language we get there in the end.  Ike digs a long drop toilet and places lanterns around the site.  Before long it looks like home and we enjoy an  atmospheric meal around the camp fire.  Jonas is a hard act to follow but Mfana holds his own and serves us stir fried chicken with chocolate cake for desert. I have been thinking specially of my late husband, John, all day. It is our wedding anniversary and at dinner I propose a toast to him.  I think he would be proud of me for being so intrepid. After dinner we linger around the camp fire as Ike tells us stories and facts about the different animals in the game park.  The men in our group are in awe of the male lion, and rather envious too, when Ike tells us that the male lion mates with the female every 20 minutes for the 7 days she is in season.  This camp is a whole new experience for us, it is unbelievably romantic and exciting.  There is the nervous thrill of knowing that wild animals are just beyond the light of the camp fire and we are not protected from them by fences.  Our guides do not carry guns, they are forbidden in game reserves, so we are dependent on their advice and following their instructions for our safety. Hils and I go to bed about 10 and chat for a while before nervously venturing out to go to the toilet. We both take a sleeping pill tonight...we think it might be best not to know if we are eaten in the night!!

 

 Photos: Loading up our new truck in Botswana, (2) Tiny shops in Maun, (3) Entry to Moremi Game Reserve, Chobe, (4) Yellow billed hornbill, (5) This lion looked me right in the eye.  Note how close he is to the truck, (6) We bought plenty of fruit to give to children.  They were always delighted.





 

Farewell Namibia. Hello Botswana!

I'm feeling a bit grumpy this morning.  We are up early but still the last to get our tent down.  There seems to be a competition amongst the group to be the first to get their tent down and packed.  If we are told to be packed by 6 you can guarantee some are packed up by 5.  I hadn't realised it was a competition!  Ok...that's my rant, I feel better now.  Anyway, we are ALL packed and on the road by 8 and after about an hour pass through the Namibian border control.  So it's farewell, Namibia, we have loved you, you are spectacular! 

After a kilometre or so we come to the Botswana border control.   We enter the tiny office and are almost overwhelmed by our reception. It is a noisy and boisterous uproar as the staff, with beaming smiles, shout welcomes and greet us all by name. The best welcome I have ever had to any country. We leave the office and travel for several hours through fairly non-descript scenery noticing, however, that the villages appear more affluent  and the landscape is greener than Namibia.  There is an air of confidence about the place and the people.

 



   We stop for lunch under the shade of a large tree by a service station.  Two Herera women are walking along the road opposite us and Gary suggests we invite them to lunch.  They happily take up the invitation and since Ronney is Herera too he enjoys chatting to them. We continue on our journey, at one point having to get off the truck and walk to make the load lighter for a dicey bridge. We stop in the service town of Maun so that some of our group can go to the bank.



 Judy and I want to buy a farewell card for the group to sign for Ronney and Jonas so we race around town trying to find one. What a mission!! We run from shop to shop, up stairs and down, through dusty, dirty, alleyways and a local market where people eye us suspiciously, past a woman squatting and urinating in the gutter and finally find a shop which sells cards. After all our efforts, though, we cannot use Namibian or US currency so we have to leave the card we have chosen and find our way back to the truck. By this stage we are quite stressed and worried we have kept everyone waiting but we get back to find some are still queueing at the bank.  Just as we are leaving town Trevor realises he has left his passport at the bank and the bank has now closed.  Fortunately a security guard manages to retrieve the passport for him.  We arrive at Sitatunga camp late in the afternoon.  By the time we pitch our tents and set camp it is dark so we have showers and then Hils, Gary, Judy and I head to the bar.  The bar is decked out in New Zealand and All Black flags, pictures and memorabilia and we discover that the camp manager is a proud New Zealander. We get chatting to a number of young travellers who are on a seven week trip around Africa...and we thought 4 weeks was a long time! They are travelling in one of the large overland trucks and the idea of the trip seems to be to get drunk every night and sleep every day.  I guess they will boast of their trip through Africa when they get home but, in truth, they will have seen very little.  Their tour leader comes into the bar.  He is a grubby, barefoot, tattooed european, another embarassing example of a european guide in Africa.



We are all feeling a bit sad tonight.  It is our last night with Ronney and Jonas and they have been exemplary.  We could not have asked for more and we have all felt a great rapport with both of them.  Our new guide for the Botswanan part of the trip comes to the camp to give us a briefing.  Ike is an articulate, intelligent and very handsome man but we do not warm to him immediately.  Jonas cooks us a special meal tonight, well more special than normal, of lamb, corn, and potatoes with chocolate ice cream to follow. After dinner we farewell Ronney and Jonas.  Judy makes a speech on our behalf, Ronney and Jonas reply,  then we  sing "Now is the Hour' and link hands to sing "Auld Lang Syne".  Ronney is quite choked up and tearful.  There is no use expecting any sleep tonight....the young overlanders party noisily into the early hours.

    

Photos: (1) I try some Kudu horns for size, (2) A pretty half-hearted attempt at bio-security, Botswana border, (3) Sharing our lunch with a Herera woman, (4) We get out of the truck and walk across a dicey bridge to lighten the load, (5) Our last meal with Ronney and Jonas, Sitatunga Camp, Botswana,
(6) Ronney looks bemused as Hilary and I farewell him, (7) Farewell our friends!



Hippos, crocs and a Kovango village

With the  hippos grunting and snorting in the river beside us, the wind rocking and blowing the trees overhead and large fat seed pods raining down on us through the night we had little sleep but are rewarded with a leisurely morning.  We are being taken for a ride on the river in mokoro, traditional African dug out canoes, this morning. 



 

  



While we are waiting for our guides we see cape buffalo on the opposite bank.  Cause for great celebration...we have now seen "The Big Five".  The big five are the five animals considered to be the most dangerous and difficult to hunt; elephant, rhinoceros, cape buffalo, lion and leopard. The cape buffalo is considered to be the most dangerous of the big five, killing more hunters than any of the others. It is a goal for anyone on safari in Africa  to see the big five and not everyone does,  so we feel very fortunate.  It is usually the elusive leopard  people miss seeing and we have already seen two. We climb in our mokoro, two to a boat, with a local oarsman.  The boat is small and wobbly and it is a bit nerve wracking with hippos surfacing all about and the river also home to large numbers of crocodies. I decide to place all my faith in the oarsman, he doesn't want to die any more than I do!  We go close to the buffalo, magnificent animals with fine, curving horns, and drift amongst some beautiful water lilies, spotting several species of birds including a massive kingfisher. We travel a long way down river and pull up on a sandy beach where the hippos rest at night.  I am very pleased they are all out in the river for the day. Lucas, our guide, takes us for a walk and gives us an informative talk on the medicinal and other uses of the various trees.  One tree, colloquially the sausage tree, is used for the treatment of skin cancer.  He tells us it is most effective and international drug companies have shown interest in it.  We spot our first crocodile basking on a sand bank...fortunately he is some distance away. The journey back up the river is hard work for the oarsmen paddling against the current.  Lucas keeps us entertained  with riddles and jokes.  I find the trip back very soporific and have to fight to stay awake, my fears of hippos and crocs forgotten for the moment. 

Jonas has been busy while we were away and has whipped up potato pancakes and golden syrup for lunch, delish! A few of us spend some time writing our diaries in the open sided, restaurant overhanging the river.  The camp dog is dozing quietly beside me when he suddenly starts barking at something  below us in the river.  I rush to have a look and spot a young crocodile right below the deck. Later in the afternoon we board a flat bottomed boat to travel up river to visit a village.  Our guide, Christopher, is a tall, slender, elegant Namibian with a head of dangling plaits. He is an enthusiastic bird watcher and, like all the African guides we have met, an ardent conservationist. It is a leisurely one hour cruise to the village, once again dodging hippo along the way. We pass local fishermen,children playing on the river banks and washing strewn along the bushes to dry.



 To reach the village we walk across a dusty paddock littered with bits of broken glass, rusty tins, wire, plastic, cardboard, and small children running around barefoot playing amongst it all.  This is certainly not your usual "tourist" village prettified for commercial purposes. We walk into a compound where two young women are threading beads to sell at the market.  Several small children are running about and a naked baby about a year old grabs the beads and stuffs them in his mouth.  I am worried he will choke but his mother manages to extricate them. One of the young women has a very thick cataract over one eye and I feel  sad that the simple surgery to rectify it has not been available to her. We go to the village child care centre where three young women are minding a number of the village children.  One deliciously chubby and wide eyed baby boy is only 4 weeks old.  A toddler, around 18 months old , seems most distressed grizzling and whining the whole time. One of the women is cooking maize meal porridge for the children over an open fire.  Chickens are hopping around and pecking at the food and amongst and over the children, there seems to be so much potential for illness and injury.

 

 

                                               

 Everyone we speak to is friendly  modest, polite and most welcoming.  The third compound we visit is large and immaculately clean.  Two women are dancing to music on the radio.  This is not for our benefit, they stop as soon as they see us.  One of the women is very tall and tells us that her husband is in the Namibian army and away from home most of the time.  His job has made them wealthy, comparatively speaking, in the village.  Their house is built from concrete block and at least three times the size of the other houses  She is very proud of her new front door, so proud that it has been installed with the plastic wrapping still in place. She tells us that years ago she had worked for an English doctor and writes his name in the sand in the hope that we may know him.   Her friend is a tiny smiley, neat woman, from what is known as the bush men tribe.  She  also proudly shows us  her home. 

 

The whole time we are in the village we see only one man and he appears to be drunk.  All the other men are either away working or tending livestock or fishing.   The people are desperately poor and many of the children have infections and scabies.  We see one little girl aged about four lying in her brother's arms.  She appears to be very ill.  Her brother is only about six himself but is so tender towards her. 

 



 We pick our way back across the paddock  to the boat passing a dog which is in a ghastly condition, possibly with cancer.  It is a horrible sight.  We cruise back down the river as the sun sets and turns the water pink,  hippos surfacing all around.  It is a serene and magical journey back to camp but our minds are full of what we have seen in the village. The visit has been sobering and humbling. It is worth noting here that life expectancy in Namibia is only 51 for women and 49 for men.  With a population of only two and a quarter million there are 200,000 infected with AIDS, the highest rate of infection in Africa.  17% of children have lost at least one parent to AIDS. The government is working very hard to educate the population and turn the AIDS statistics around but it will take some time before real progress is made. We  are pleased, at least,  that our visit to the village was not only educational for us but financially beneficial to the villagers.  After dinner Hils, Gary and I go up to the bar but don't feel like drinking so just sit chatting and soaking up the ambiance.  The gardens are tropical and softly lit lanterns are placed here and there amongst small groups chatting, their conversation punctuated by the grunts of hippos.






 



















Photos: Our group ready for the mokoro trip, (2) I look a bit uncertain.  Well there are hippos and crocs in the river!, (3) My oarsman, (4) Goats in the litter strewn paddock next to the village, (5) The village day care centre.  The baby is only 4 weeks old, (6) Adorable Kovango baby, (7) Tall village woman, around 5 foot.  Note the plastic wrapping still on her door, (8) Her tiny friend about 4foot 6, from the bush man tribe, (9) The women prepare meat to dry as biltong.  The little boy on the right is nursing his sick sister,
(10) Village children, (11) Off to collect water from the river, (12) Kovango Village

Caprivi Strip, Okavango and interesting toilets

Well that was a miracle!!  Hils and I were not the last to get our tent down this morning!   People chatting in the next tent woke us at 4am so no excuses today. We are all packed up and on the truck by 7am.  Apparently we will be on the road for about 10 hours. After leaving the game park we hit tar seal for the first time in ages.  The roads are incredibly long and dead straight with regular tidy, smartly painted,  picnic areas along the way. First stop is Tsumeb a small service town with a modern shopping centre and a large well stocked supermarket. We stock up on supplies for our next few days. There are many affluent looking shoppers in the mall  but also a number of poor, grubby children hanging about.  A persistent and toothless woman beggar follows us with her small son in tow.  Raewyn gives the boy an apple and is rewarded with the most dazzling smile.  He is a beautiful child but we all have fears for what his future will be.  We pass through the attractive town of Grootfontein and then on towards Rundu, travelling 100s of kilometres on relentlessly straight roads. To relieve the boredom we all whoop with excitement whenever there is the slightest curve in the road and pass sweets and biscuits around the truck. We stop to lunch at a pretty picnic area shaded by a tree.  I go for a walk and get a couple of vicious prickles in my sandal...very painful.  There are many, well maintained schools along the way, however it is not unusual for children to walk 10 kilometres each way to school.  Namibians are proud of the fact that all children are required to attend school. 







The area we are passing through belongs to the Kovango tribe and we note the difference in the design of their houses.  Ronney explains that the Kovango are inclined to covet what their neighbours have so their houses are built without windows and surrounded by sticks so no one can see in. The Kovango use oxen to pull their carts, instead of the donkeys used in Demara country.  On the outskirts of Rundu we see a lot of litter.  It is the first time we have seen any in Namibia, and we also see a large number of squatters in make shift shelters.  Rundu is a depressing dusty hell hole with a plethora of bars, even the guide book says there is nothing to recommend it, so we stop, only briefly, for fuel. We continue towards our next camp at Ngepi, driving part of the way along the Caprivi Strip which belongs to Namibia and cuts between Botswana, Angola and Zambia.  In 1890 Germany did a deal with the United Kingdom to relinquish its interest in Zanzibar in return for the Caprivi Strip which would then give Germany access to the Zambezi River, a vital trade route.  The strip is a curious finger of land wedged between the three other countries. Finally, after ten hours on the road we arrive at our camp at Ngepi.  As the sun is setting we bounce and shake down a long sandy track to reach the camp entrance.  Approaching the camp gate we are  deliberately cut off by a driver in one of the large overland trucks which travel through Africa. He races to claim the best camp site and starts to unload his truck right across the entrance to the camp site we will  have to use, setting up cooking tables and blocking our access.  We can't get our truck in and he refuses to move so we have to carry our tents, luggage and all the camp equipment a long way to our site.  It is hot, tiring work and we are all weary from our long day on the road. We are not happy. The driver of the truck is English and his behaviour confirms something we have noticed.  The Europeans who drive trucks in Africa are often loud, boorish, rude and rough and could learn a lot about diplomacy, public relations and just plain good manners from the African safari leaders.  I feel quite embarrassed to be European. 





Ngepi camp sits on the banks of the Okavango River and is really unusual, funky would be a good way to describe it.  It appears to have been designed by hippies with a great sense of humour.    All the toilets and showers are walled but roofless.  Each has a theme, for example the Garden of Eden toilet is set in a pretty garden and the toilet is on a plinth, like a throne.  One toilet block has "Mens" one side and "Ladies" the other but when you go in you find two toilets side by side with no wall between.  The ladies has a pink fluffy cover on it and the mens has the toilet seat padlocked up.  I don't have the nerve to use these toilets! I use the Garden of Eden toilet and something catches my eye ...a big rat is peering at me from the foliage...eeek!  It runs away when I shout at it but I soon see it peeping at me again. The river is home to a large number of hippos and crocodiles.  Apparently hippos kill more people in Africa every year than any other animal.  I hope they don't come into camp tonight!  We have been told not to go to the far end of the camp because we would be in danger.  We are all very tired at dinner time but  Jonas still manages to cook us a great meal of steak and garlic bread.  We are in bed by 10pm and I really enjoy listening to the sounds of the frogs and the bush and the occasional grunting hippo as I drift off to sleep.



 





Photos: (1) Kovango House, (2) Kovango bullock cart, (3) Kovango village, (4) The Garden of Eden toilet at Ngepi Camp, (5) My filthy feet, it was a constant battle to stay clean! (6) Locals on the river,

(7) Hippo in the Okavango River by our camp