From Chobe, we all climbed into the truck to cross the Namibian border to spend two nights in the Ngepi camp which got us a little closer to the Okavango Delta region of Botswana. The camp itself was pretty decent aside from the huge spiders trying to get into our tent and creepy hidey spiders hanging out in the bamboo siding of every building and toilet. The coolest part of the camp were the bathrooms, all totally open to the sky and with creative themes, such as the “Toilet of Eden” which was set on a pedestal nestled in a rather large garden with walls and a free standing sink. Laura had her first truly African shower experience at Ngepi as well – half way into her freezing cold shower the camp she managed to exhaust the camp's water supply just after soaping up. So it was about fifteen minutes before I ambled along and heard her pathetic little whimpers and got them to turn on the generators. There was some self-medicating involving whisky and ginger soda that evening to deal with the post traumatic stress.
Ngepi camp was our first chance to really get the “the animals here will kill you” speech. Basically, the rule for getting out of the tent to pee at night is to poke your head out of the tent and shine your light around to see if you can see any eyes shining back at you. Green eyes are herbivores and that means you can probably go pee if you’re careful. Yellow or red eyes mean it eats meat and you’re going to have to hold it for as long as it takes for the red eyes to be replaced by green eyes, which isn’t going to be anytime soon.
Ngepi was fenced in so it wasn’t like lions and hyenas were going to come snuffling at the tent door, but there were plenty of hippos in the area. Those who aren’t familiar (most of you should be because I couldn’t stop talking about it before we left on our trip) should know that hippos kill more people than any other animal in Africa each year. Yes, the friendly fat hippo that looks like it’s too blubbery to be a danger. They’re territorial and aggressively mean. As our guide put it, “if you manage to get yourself between a hippo and the water or a hippo and its baby, you’re dead.” They’ll bite you in half and leave the pieces for the crocs to munch on. Knowing this, it’s a little unnerving to get out of your tent at night when the water is only about 20 feet away, even if the eyes staring back at you are green. Its especially unnerving when you hear the hippos calling to each other in the middle of the night sounding like Jabba the Hut laughing. I may be a weenie but I found them freaking menacing.
After hanging out at Ngepi we pushed back into Botswana and entered the Okavango Delta region. This area is particularly special because its where all of the rain that falls in Angola eventually ends up. Instead of pooling into a permanent lake, the water spills out onto the flatish lands of Botswana every year after the rainy season to create a marshy land teeming with life. The grass grows high and animals flock to the beautifully clear and clean water. When we arrived at the delta (after many Civilization IV pangs from seeing all of the grass huts in Botswana) we jumped into our mokoros (that’s the type of canoe you see in our pictures) and were delivered to our “wild camp” which ended up being more of a “not-quite-wild-luxury-camp” on one of the islands in the delta. Even with the camp basically enclosed by fences (wild camp means there are no fences between you and imminent danger) there were still plenty of animals in the area. A guide took us around the island to see the hippo poo splatters, elephant leavings, porcupine quills, termite mounds, and plenty of edible vegetation (not particularly appetizing with the hippo poo splattered all over it).
The camp itself was nice despite the wasps making their homes in the toilet and shower rooms. We even had tents already up for us that had actual beds and room enough to actually stand up straight. But, just in case I forgot, the hippos were happy to remind me where I was in the middle of the night. Stepping out of the tent to a chorus of about 10 hippos laughing their Jabba laugh from what seemed about 20 feet away basically made me fall right back in the tent on my ass grunting a couple of choice four letter words to make sure Laura’s confidence was in the right place.
The next morning we all climbed into the mokoros at sunrise for another ride. This time we went farther into the delta for a game walk on one of the bigger islands. The mokoro ride was pretty nice if you take away the thousands of spiders falling into the boat and the millions of small insects trying to fly in your mouth, eyes, and nose. Sure, there was the odd tiny frog flopping in the canoe to make you feel better, but all Laura and I could do was be happy we weren’t in the front of the mokoro line breaking the path. Considering every piece of grass had a spider web across it, poor Cinzia and Jacko had more stowaways than anyone else.
Once we got to the island, we had a pretty uneventful game walk, truth be told. We saw a couple of warthogs, a couple of elephants, a family of zebra, and troops of baboons. The strangest bit happened after we ran into another group that had seen lions running around on the island. Our guides decided to “stalk” the lions to get a glimpse. At first, we were all pretty pumped at the prospect of seeing some lions but after we started walking into the area where they were sighted only to find ourselves in the middle of grass taller than us with guides only carrying fruit as a weapon, the idea seemed less than great. Sure, the baboons in the trees weren’t freaking out which meant we probably weren’t anywhere near the lions, but it was still unnerving. Of course, crazy lady once again regaled us with her bountiful knowledge and said, “Don’t be silly! They won’t attack you! Jeez guys… just shoo them away.”
In any case, we didn’t get eaten by lions and on the return trip our poler took us into a hippo pool on purpose which made us really sweaty and uncomfortable, but eventually we made it back to camp where we had the chance to learn to drive the mokoros. I didn’t manage to fall in, but my foul mouthed curses let everyone back at camp know that I wasn’t exactly an expert. In my defense, I wasn’t wearing my glasses for fear of losing them so I was flying blind. That night we were treated to a local singing and dancing group. They were… interesting even though the drummers had no rhythm that we could see and one of the dancers was perhaps the smelliest person that I’ve ever come in contact with (and I’ve gone to GenCon). Holy schnikies! There had to be something wrong chemically with that guy. Several people almost threw up. You think we are being mean, but you weren’t there.
The next day we took off towards the Makgadikgadi Pans, which are basically huge salt flats, to Planet Baobob Camp which as you might have guessed, has some beautiful baobob trees. Unfortunately Laura took ill along the way having eaten or drank something that turned out to be bad bad bad. So we upgraded from our tent to one of the ensuite huts and skipped activities so that she could feel better. Let’s just say that after two days together in a hut with no dividing walls there are no secrets left between us. After we finally started her on antibiotics things cleared up pretty quick so that she was ready for action as we headed to South Africa’s Kruger National Park on our detour around Zimbabwe.
South Africa is an interesting place. On one hand, you see the immediate step up in civilization in terms of things like grocery stores, agriculture and populated towns once you cross the border from the surrounding countries. But then you stop in a campsite near the border and witness a drunken knife fight break out outside the local bar (which also happened to be in the campsite). Sure, no one actually got stabbed, but it escalated to the point where several people had to step in and remove the long metal wire that had also been broght into the fight for a reach advantage. Then, the next day you roll into a town to go food shopping only to have your truck broken into in full daylight right in front of a row of witnesses who “didn’t see anything.” Thankfully only a couple of bags were taken along with a bundle of Zim money worth less than a penny. Welcome to South Africa!
In any case, once we got to Kruger, things looked up. The park was very nice and we saw all kinds of beautiful animals including two different sightings of wild dogs, which are pretty rare. We were also treated to the usual suspects along with our first sighting of rhinos, but who cares about any of those things when you have the chance to see the most beautiful color aqua blue that exists in nature. The fact that it happens to be attached to a monkey’s scrotum just makes it so much more…. magically ridiculous. None of us really knew what we were in for as we frantically shouted “show us your nuts!” at the large male vervet monkey sitting on the side of the road. Knowing full well the magificence of his genitals, the monkey displayed them proudly to a chorus of giddy laughter, shocked exclaimations, and no small bit of wonder. I mean, just LOOK AT THEM! The pictures don’t even do the color justice.
After that, nothing was special anymore, so we left the park with the plan to head to Swaziland the next day. The drive to Swazi was a little dreary and grey though through lovely, dramatic hillscapes. We were all a bit down knowing that we might never see such beautiful blue balls again and at the prospect of camping in the rain. Thankfully we were able to stay in dorms rather than tents and the next morning we were presented with a gorgeous day. We were staying at Mliliwane NP, which is one of the only game parks in Africa that allows unguided game walks. What’s particularly charming about the place is that warthogs and several species of antelope wander around in the premises. I was about two feet from a warthog that looked like it wanted to go rooting through our luggage and was plenty close to another impressive antelope who we discovered licking the grill of the barbeque from the night before…sausage, can you blame it?
In any case, we took a nice hike up to a great viewpoint with a bunch of our new truck buddies. The walk back down was considerably more interesting. Unbeknownst to us, the campground we were staying in decided to let toddlers draw their trail maps. They turned out to be rather inacurate, to say the least. Thankfully, we had GI James, soldier extraordinaire from ye olde merry England to break many a path, become a human bridge for the ladies (not even a joke, he actually stood in a ravine and the ladies walk across his outstretched hands), and find us a way home. All of this after pulling a Buffalo Bill at the top of the mountain much to our dismayed hilarity. If you don’t know what that is, chances are you don’t want to know.
Swaziland turned out to be a terrific stop before we finally moved on into Mozambique for some beach time fun. But we’ll get to that in the next volume to come sometime in the next couple of weeks though it may not happen until we get back into SF. We'll be heading up into Maine tomorrow and basically be on the move for the next couple of weeks. We'll also have the trip awards and our video extravaganza along with our last comments from the US travels and final deep thoughts (deeper and deeper, way down) to wow you with. Aren't you lucky!
Much love to all,
Dan & Laura
1 comment:
I remember we had the same rules at our Okavanga campsite. However, after sharing a box of South African wine, I couldn't hold it any loner. I braved the great outdoors in the middle of the night only to hear the snorts of a hippo getting closer and closer. I had to cut my wee in half and run back into the tent!
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