The girls look for 'real Africa'

Catching a local bus is certainly an experience in Namibia. Not because there's anything wrong with them as such - they are actually quite clean and comfortable, but there's just a little bit too much waiting involved. There's no timetable to start with, so you just have to go and wait by the 'bus station' (there isn't an official one of course, so finding the right spot in the first place involves a lot of asking around). Once the bus gets there (and of course there are no signs to indicate where the buses are heading to), the price is fully negotiable and there's an added bonus that the bus doesn't leave until it's full. The driver also functions as a wannabe DJ (they certainly seem to be able to afford very powerful speakers), and the ticket inspector made sure we got into the mood by offering us a drink from his beer. If any passengers wanted to stop at a post office for example on the way, it was no problem, because we were not in a hurry.

We got to Walvis Bay (a quiet and relatively non-touristy town on the coast) at eight at night, after the bus driver had dropped us to our B&B (well almost, they couldn't quite find it, but it was close). We were greeted by a very friendly lady who we christened Helga. It was hard to guess her age, but it was probably something between 50 and 80 (could be something to do with the fact that she smoked like a chimney). She instatly took us under her wing, and from then on we didn't only have a nice private room to stay in, but also a personal organiser, driver, and a cook. We'd only need to mention something we're planning to do, and off she went to organise it for us. Before we had time to unpack, she'd already booked us for a sandboarding trip for the following morning.

And sandboarding we went. Sandboarding is exactly what it says on the package: like snowboarding but instead of a ski slope you come down a dune, using a snowboard. It was only the three of us and our instructor/ski lift Wayne, who taught us the basics and then drove us up the dunes with his quadbike. I've got some interesting previous experiences of snowboarding when I could't move for several days afterwards, so I was a little bit nervous. However, I can wholeheartedly recommend sandboarding as it's not only much easier than snowboarding but it also hurts much less to fall. I think we all got the bug now, and from now on will spend all our holidays in places like Sahara.

In the evening we went to a fantastic seafood restaurant called The Raft. I'd been fantasising about seafood and fish for a long time (I haven't been by the sea since... beginning of March maybe?) and it was worth the wait. I had mussels in a creamy cheese and leek sauce for a starter, and a fish called king clip for my main. Yummy!

The next morning we woke up for the devastating news about the departure of Michael Jackson, and shed a few tears until it was time to leave for our boat cruise. The idea was to go to see some whales and dolphins, but the package included food and drink (which we kept moaning about - we were obviously funding the Germans on the same boat who didn't hesitate to make most of the all inclusive beer until the captain came round with some coffee liquer. After some seal-hugging (a seal hopped onboard and I'm not making this up but we all got to have a go at hugging it - it was really cute!) and dolphin spotting (no whales around that days apart from the white-skinned German type) it was time for a picnic. I'm now an oyster-convert, they were delicious, especially when flushed down with a glass, two, or three of sparkling wine.

Back onshore, Helga met us with our bags and the transport service she'd organised for us to take us our next destination: Swakopmund, another sea-side resort just half an hour away up the road. We were slightly tipsy by then, and very grateful for our personal organiser so we didn't have to do much thinking by ourselves.

"More German than Germany" - that's how LP describes Swakopmund. Our authentic African holiday was feeling less and less authentic by the minute, so we made a pledge to get to know some locals and discover the real Swakopmund beyond the German Disneyland. After the booze cruise in the morning and another bottle of bubbly enjoyed on the beach, it was surprisingly easy. We certainly got to see the other side of Swakop (including a night club which had probably never been visited by white people before) and made some friends for life.

The following day we mainly rested.

Livingstone - Namibia all night long (and Eeva goes safari)

I didn't really know what to expect from the Vic falls. I got dropped off at the entrance (free minibus from the hostel) and teamed up with Heather from Canada, paid up the $10 park fee and in we went. You can hear the falls from quite far away, and the air starts getting more and more moist as you approach them. Then all of the sudden you can see them right in front of you: magnificent, thundering, too big to see where they start and where they end. Just lots of water, lots of spray, so high, so close - one slip and you're gone, they don't believe in safety fences around here! You get completely soaked as you cross the footbridge, but luckily I was prepared and had a raincoat with me. We watched people doing bungee jumps from the bridge that separates Zambia from Zimbabwe, I decided not to go for it (note: been there, done that already... not my cup of tea). After a few hours of wandering around we left and did some souvenir shopping in the markets - or trading more like. My made-in-china umbrella bought in Botswana for pennies turned out to be a very desirable item and I swapped it for a lovely ebony hippo carving, my hairband paid for a cool necklace, and they also wanted my flipflops and t-shirt but even though I was tempted, I decided I had to draw the line there.

Last night in Jolly boys, we went out for a great Indian meal and when we got back I spotted a table tennis table in the corner. I'm a closet table tennis fanatic so I spent the rest of the night playing like there was no tomorrow.

I left Livingstone and Zambia behind on Wednesday. On the bus to Namibia I met Kaisa and Minna from Finland and after 13-hours, several border and passport checks, stops and packets of crisps later we got off in Tsumeb, Namibia. We had to double check we hadn't actually arrived in the middle of Germany - it's surprisingly hard to tell! This place is as far from Africa as Finland is from North Korea. After realising that Tsumeb was a place we couldn't get out of fast enough, we decided to organise our own safari to the Etosha national park. It took us pretty much the whole of Thursday to get sorted, but by the end of the day, we had all the gear: sleeping mats, tents, a mountain of tinned food and of course our very own safari vehicle: a silver Hyundai Atos, about the size of a small beetle.

On Friday morning we hit the road. The 100km journey took us about half an hour, thanks to the amazing, empty roads they have here. I don't think we came across any other cars on the way there! The next three days we spent driving around the huge national park and camped on each of the campsites there. Every morning we'd get up, have a cheese and tomato toastie heated on the campfire, moved on to the restaurant to have a cup of coffee (finally, travel companions who understand the importance of a good cup of coffee!) and plan our route for the day.
The rest of the day went smoothly driving around the dusty roads from one waterhole to another, spotting various animals. There are so many zebras in Etosha that it got to the stage where every time we saw some we would cry: Not another zebra!! My biggest wish to start with was to see a rhino, and my wish came true on the first day already. We parked by a waterhole and were just about to leave when there we saw something coming towards us. We stopped the car and saw the rhino, who obviously had taken a liking to our car. To him it must have seemed like a lovely, shiny female. We were told to move by the people in a safari car next to us to avoid any closer encounters with the rhino, which we duly did – we didn't want to risk having to explain the strange damage at the back of our car.

Some of the highlights of our safaris included taking a pee next to a sleeping lion (“But it's obviously sleeping! It's not going to mind if we get out of the car...”), getting excited about spotting birds (even I had an enthusiastic birdspotter inside me waiting to be released) and breaking the national park rules one after the other (such as feeding animals: surely birds and gerbils don't count?).

We got back to Tsumeb on Monday afternoon, ready to leave the “one of the loveliest towns in Namibia” (accoriding to LP). Again we couldn't wait to get out fast enough. Little did we know that destiny had other plans for us: Kaisa caught a stomach bug which meat that we had to spend another day in town. While she stayed in the hostel hugging the toilet for the course of Tuesday, me and Minna took in the sights of Tsumeb. The local museum had a very interesting collection of stamps.

Finally on Wednesday morning Kaisa managed to keep her breakfast in, so we packed our bags and run out. The plan is to jump on a local bus and head to the coast. Let's see where we end up.

the Zambian encounter

Enjoyed the cruise and my last night in Bots very much. Saw lots of elephants - one even right in the campside where I was staying! There are so many elephants in Kasane, and you see them everywhere, unlike in the delta. After the cruise I had a drink at the lodge bar, met some lovely Motswanas and made a few new best friends. It was a great finish off for my three months in the country.

In the morning I packed up and donated my huge mattress to a cleaning lady who seemed delighted - really - then headed to the road. I jumped in a taxi who took me to the border ferry and cried a little because I didn't really want to go. The plan was to wait on the Botswana side until I'd secured a lift to Livingstone as I'd heard a few warnings about the Zambian side - apparently it was a place where you didn't really want to hang out for too long if it could be avoided. I waited for about an half an hour, got hassled a bit but nothing too bad, then hopped on the ferry as I spotted a white guy who I suspected to be a tourist on his way to Livingstone. That was Attie, and he turned out to be one of the most amazing people I've ever met. He wasn't a tourist, he'd been born in Malawi as son of a missionary and dedicated his life to humanitarian aid. He was living in Zambia where he delivered medicine to the local clinic, built orphanages and generally did good all around. As we got to the other side (some waiting around as the bus in front of us got stuck and couldn't get off the ferry for about an hour...) he had to wait for the paperwork to clear for the medicines in the trucks, so I waited as well and made friends with the touts trying to sell me souvenirs. As soon as we established the fact that I wasn't going to buy any, they turned out to be really friendly and lovely people. Attie also introduced me to Cecilia, a local woman who'd taken in 48 orphans. I nearly cried again, it was genuinely touching to meet someone like her, she had nothing herself but she still looked after all these children. After an hour, or maybe two it turned out that the paperwork was going to take at least another few hours, so Attie decided to take me to Livingstone anyway and then come back himself - 150km round-trip. On top of this he refused to take any for the lift AND bought me a coffee once we got to Livingstone. So by the time I got to my hostel I was feeling quite emotional and just amazed by the goodness of these people. Makes you believe in humanity again.

Jolly Boys is the name of the hostel where I headed, quickly settled in, and met some great people straight away. I even had dinner cooked for me (so yesterday was all take, take, take...)! The dorms were full so out came my little tent again and I managed to borrow a mattress from someone else. I had a quick glance at the activities book and as soon as I saw an offer for a 'lion encounter + elephant back safari' I was sold and signed up. I was too excited to sleep properly and was up at 5.45am just thinking about the day ahead.

Couple of hours later, I was walking with lions. The lion encounter is a lion rehabilitation program, where they breed lions to release the cubs into the wild (www.lionencounter.org) I got to pet them too, and had the biggest grin ever on my face on the pictures. It was just unbelievable! Loved it. I had a few hours to kill in between the lions and the elephants I just chilled out by the pool at Jolly Boys.

Then it was time for the elephants. After living amongst them for three months, seeing hundreds of them and learning so much about them, I still hadn't actually ever touched an elephant - well you wouldn't mess with the wild ones. These eles were rescued as babies so they were tame and it was a different story. We went for a ride for an hour around the national park, then spent about half an hour feeding and petting them. There were two babies too - the cutest things ever!

I'm still trying to take in the experiences of the last few days so you have to excuse me the flat and boring descriptions. Sometimes words fail me like now - I don't know of any words that would make justice to the amazing time I've had so far in Zambia. But it's been good. Great. Wonderful. Nah, I just can't explain it. But I can't stop smiling, that's now happy I am right now. I could say that life can't get much better than this, but I'm going to see the Victoria Falls tomorrow so I suspect that life is just about to get even better.

New horizons

On Monday morning we left. It was lovely and sunny, as it always is here in Bostawana this time of the year. A few hours later, after we’d crossed the river already, it started to rain, and it didn’t stop raining for there days. It never rains in here in June - this is the middle of the dry season. We got to Maun just after it got dark in the pouring rain, went out for a pizza and had an early night. The following morning after we’d done some running around we headed towards Sowa town in the eastern Botswana, where Anna and Graham have their house. It was still pissing with rain. We never made it to Sowa, but had to seek refuge on the way as the rain and darkness got too much. We found a cozy safari lodge near Nata where we stayed the night, and continued our journey in the morning. In Sowa I spent the whole day trying to cash my traveler’s cheques. In the evening we had dinner and a small birthday celebration, for it was my birthday the following day and also our last night together.

On Thursday morning we went to see the Sowa salt pans, a home for thousands and thousands of flamingoes and also the place where Graham did his PhD – on flamingoes, of course. A miracle happened: the sun came out. The flamingoes were out too, it felt like the seaside and smelled like the seaside, in the middle of a desert. Magical place.

It was time for me to go and say goodbye to Anna and Graham, who were heading in the other direction. I was due to jump on a bus to Kasane, but Graham managed to find me a lift with some guy he knew. I got to Kasane, got dropped off at Thebe camp site feeling extremely tired and not in the best of spirits. The place was horrible, but it was the only place I could stay for an affordable price as I didn’t have my own camping equipment (I’d tried to buy some in Maun but couldn’t find anything and Thebe had promised to hire a tent for me). The campsite had flooded recently, so my tent was placed in a lovely spot between the main road and the temporary bar, with the view of the office. The whole place just felt hostile, nothing like the other lodges and campsites I’d been to so far. Miserable, I went to bed at 6.30pm, trying to forget it was my birthday. I read Anna Karenina for a couple of hours (great travel book, it just lasts and lasts…), then tried to go to sleep, but it was around then that the party started going in the nearby bar. They closed just before midnight, when I finally managed to fall asleep.

Wake-up was at 5.20am, as I’d decided to do an early morning game drive that was organized by the campsite. It was excellent – we got to Chobe National Park just as the sun was rising and most of the animals were active. In the space of three hours I saw lions (very close – one crossed the road just in front of the car, and we also witnessed lions mating in the grass…), elephants (my first time seeing a baby elephant in the daylight), giraffes, buffaloes, warthogs, impala to name a few. After the game drive I headed to Kasane town and when I got back to the campsite in the afternoon I spoke to the reception staff about moving my tent somewhere else where I could actually get some sleep and perhaps even a nice view. They said no. I had a moment of clarity – I wasn’t going to stay in this shithole for another night especially as it was my last days in Botswana, so I packed my bags and walked off, even though I’d already paid for two nights there. I jumped on a taxi, and asked him to drop me off in town. I’d seen a small tent for sale in one of the shops earlier that day, so I bought that and a mattress (no camping mattresses around, so I had to buy a big one...), and with my big rucksack, small rucksack, handbag, tent, and a full-size mattress walked into the most beautiful safari lodge in town (Chobe Safari Lodge) and asked to camp there. They were friendly, the place was lovely, I felt so much happier!
I was looking for a spot for my tent by the river when I spotted an Intrepid Travel bus. That’s the company I nearly booked a tour with to travel from Livingstone to Cape Town, until I decided to do it on my own. The guide was setting up the camp as his group were out on a boat cruise and we started chatting. He invited me to camp with them and also to join them for a dinner, which I gladly accepted. It was a nice evening, and I didn’t have a doubt in my mind that I’d made the right choice to leave Thebe.

They were off to Livingstone this morning and offered me a free ride, which I was very tempted to take, but then decided to stay another night here in Kasane and just relax. I also wanted to do the boat cruise on the Chobe river. So that’s my plan for today – they have a swimming pool at the lodge so after I’m finished here at the Internet café I shall park myself next to the pool, and maybe try getting some colour on my pitifully white legs (which have remained untanned due to me wearing long trousers most of time, while my arms and face are an impressive golden brown colour) while reading a bit more of my book. The cruise is later on in the afternoon, and tomorrow morning I’ll say goodbye to Botswana and try to get across the border.

The turmoil over the last few days was making me quite stressed out: I was feeling sad about leaving the camp, anxious about the accommodation in Kasane etc so I didn’t even feel exited about the impending journey ahead of me. However, I’m now full of optimism, excitement and curiosity, ready to embrace the adventure waiting for me. It was good to spend the night with the Intrepid group and notice that I’d made the right choice of going solo rather than joining a tour – I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed the strict schedule they were bound to. I can finally fully relate to the words I read a while ago and scribbled down in my notebook:

There is nothing more beautiful than a moment before a voyage, the moment when tomorrow’s horizon comes to visit us, to announce its promises. (Milan Kundera)

Snapshots of my last weeks in the camp

THE FLIGHT

I did a flight over the delta. Anna booked a pilot to come up over one weekend so she could check out where the elephants were hanging out during the day. It was a great mystery to us, as elephant sightings during the day were extremely rare, yet the roads were covered in footprints every morning. Elephants can walk tens of kilometers every day, so we were curious to see how far they were coming from. Hal the pilot flew over from Maun with his wife in a little two-seater plane, and after Anna had done all her flying I got to have a go. They had discovered an elephant paradise deep into the bush, completely inaccessible by road, where hundreds and hundred of elephants gathered around the waterholes and mophane forests. My flight lasted almost half an hour, but it felt like five minutes. It was quite amazing – just the experience of being in a tiny plane alone, not to mention seeing all the elephant from the air.

SCHOOL TALKS

We did another two school talks. The first one was in Gudigwa, a remote Bushman village, and the other one in Seronga, the “capital” of the panhandle area. I was keen to film one of the talks, and after being refused permission last time despite being all organized and applying in writing beforehand, I tried a different tactic this time, the opportunistic approach. When we turned up in Gudigwa Primary School, I just asked the teacher in charge and it was ‘no problem’. Much better! In Seronga I had my own group again to do the activities with, and this time I did a more convincing job of acting as the elephant expert.

THE TAPAS

One Sunday I was in a mood for some serious cooking, so I decided to cook tapas using whatever ingredients we had. Our supplies were running low as Graham had tried to go to the supermarket earlier that week, but wasn’t able to cross the river as the ferry was broken (250km round trip just to find out that the ferry is broken…). This was my tapas menu – put together from tinned stuff & leftovers mainly…

- Spanish omelette with tomato, roasted pepper & caramelized onion sauce
- Feta cheese wrapped in chargrilled courgettes drizzled with olive oil
- Garlic mushrooms in herb butter
- Butter beans in tomato sauce

THE GUNOTSOGA CHOIR

I wanted to record some local music to include in my film, so with the help of Nature I got together a few local girls to sing for me in exchange for cash. I set up a recording studio in our camp, but no singers turned up at the time agreed. I blamed the agent (Nature), who’d set up the session to clash with church service. So a few days later, I set up a mobile recording studio in the village, gathered everyone up and off we went. The choir consisted of three women and Nature (who insisted on joining them) and it was actually quite nice. I asked them to sing traditional songs from Botswana, and the second song they did sounded particularly nice, both me and Anna agreed. Afterwards, we asked what that song was about. “It’s about syphilis, AIDS and gonorrhea”, Nature helpfully translated. Great. I might have to think twice about using that one.

THIRTY BULLS

This is the time when the elephants have started to come in large numbers. The waterholes in the bush have started to dry up so they’ll have to utilize the river more and more. We were counting footprints one morning on the road to Gudigwa, and the relatively short stretch had already taken us hours, there were so many footprints everywhere. All of a sudden we saw elephants in front of us crossing the road. They kept coming, and we counted thirty bulls altogether. Anna said she’s never seen such a big bachelor herd together. We drove up to where they’d crossed, and saw them bathing on a puddle of floodwater just by the road. In silence we watched them bathing for about ten minutes, until I spoke just a bit too loud and the herd fled in a flash. It’s quite amazing how shy the elephants are in this area – as if a group of thirty bulls had anything to fear!

THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING

I’ve lost a few things in the past three months: a pair of underpants, a belt, a Swiss army knife and now my boots as well. The first three items I suspect I’ve dropped behind when we’ve been camping off-site, but my boots were a subject of a cold-blooded criminal act. It was the last week in the camp, I’d left them on the back of the car which Graham took to Shakawe (when he finally managed to do the supermarket run). On his way back he gave lifts to people, as we always do here, and as a thank you for a free lift someone walked off with my boots (and didn’t even leave his old shoes for me in exchange!). Shame really, but luckily we only had a few days left in the camp at that point so I didn’t desperately need them anymore. It was more the principle than anything else – Anna and Graham ARE the public transport for this area, as the actual bus (unreliable but still the only way for people to get around) broke down a few months ago. They’d never charge people and always pick up passengers on the way, but might think about it twice now. 99% of the people here are completely honest, but you just need the one to ruin it for everyone else. So to make a point, we reported the incident to the local police, after having Nature on the case first to track down the names of the people Graham gave lifts to - No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency-style (I’d lend him the book previously and I think he’s getting quite into the detective work now, Anna had better watch out so she won’t lose her translator). It remains to be seen whether this crime will be solved.

JOHN THE HEALER

Not really related just for the last few weeks in the camp, but I’ve been meaning to write about John our security guard for a long time. I guess the boots incident reminded me again – for I could’ve actually asked John to tell me who it was that took them, if we hadn’t already got the names of the suspects from Nature. You see, John knows these things. He’s not just a traditional healer, but also a clairvoyant, and a famous and an expensive one. Being our security guard is just one of his jobs, he also runs a hospital and a clairvoyance service from our camp (quite understandable, as he’s got not only one but two wives, who go off on furniture shopping sprees in Shakawe and leave poor John to pay off the bills). He has people coming all the way from Namibia to see him, as he is reputed to be one of the best. For the last two months he’s had a few long-term patients living in his camp, one of whom is being healed for ‘madness’, we learned one day. So our camp population has grown slowly from just four of us to about ten at its best.

GOODBYE TSA HA

Sunday was the last day in camp. Not just for me, but also Anna and Graham were leaving for two months, so we had to pack up most of the things. All finished in the afternoon, I took a chair and sat down at the quiet end of the camp by the water, determined to memorise the smell, the sounds, the view. I don’t know of a more beautiful place on this planet than Tsa Ha as it is now, completely unspoiled. It will all be different soon, as they’ve already started building a lodge across the water in Ndovu. I was very lucky to live there for three months, and as I’m writing this now I get tears in my eyes as I miss it so much already.

I made two lists.

Things I will NOT miss from the delta (to be read when I’m feeling particularly nostalgic and desperate to go back): The insect bites. The ants. Smoke from the fire. Not having a computer to write on. Having to remember taking the malaria pills every night. Waking up in the middle of the night and needing to go to the toilet. The cows raiding the camp and pooing everywhere. Cold mornings.

Things I WILL miss from the delta (to be read when someone asks me what I liked best about living there): The sound of the frogs at nighttime. The birds in the morning. The grunts of the hippoes in the afternoon. The distant growls and trumpeting of the elephants as they’re crossing the water and talking to each other. The view from the shower. Sundowners on the lagoon. The water lilies. Cooking on fire. Having the sun shining - every morning. Falling asleep within seconds every night without a fail. Having someone to do my laundry! Sliding through the reeds in a mokoro. The boat journey across the lagoon in the morning. The sound of the hippoes munching the grass. The moments when everything stands still, when it’s completely quiet.

Frustrations

I've been working on my patience for three months now and I thought I was doing quite well on that department. However today I was at the bank for three hours waiting to have a couple of travellers cheques processed, and nearly lost my will to live. They were still at it when the bank closed at 3.30pm, and I had a lock-in there for 45 mins after hours. Note to self: Forget about traveller's cheques when travelling in Botswana. Life's too short for that.

So we're having a monsoon in the middle of the dry season and thing's are getting rather miserable here. It hasn't stopped raining for two days and it's wet wet wet. I'm starting my solo travel adventure tomorrow and the plan is camp in Kasane for a few nights, which might not be that much fun if the rain doesn't stop soon.

I'm not in great spirits at the moment. I missed valuable time online because of all teh time I wasted at the stupid bank, so I'm not able to update this blog properly. I have so much to say, and I can't do it right now.

Full moon this weekend

I've been very quiet recently - but only because of the usual difficulties in getting to a computer & internet. My time in the bush is nearly over - we'll be heading to Maun on Monday and after that I shall start making my way out towards the Victoria falls in Zambia.

Before that, I'm planning to make the most of the beautiful Okavango which I shall be missing very much. Tonight we're camping on our usual "away from home" camping spot, an old field overlooking a lagoon. It's oh so quiet here.

Lots of love from Botswana, I'm hoping to update this blog as soon as I can (should be next week).

And by the way, I'm coming back on the 13th of July.

xxx