Saturday 21st March

What looked like scary, unknown darkness in the night, turned out to be a beautiful Okavango island in the daylight. I woke up for the sound of birds singing, the sun flooding in from the net on my door. I could see the water from my tent, and couldn’t wait to go out to explore.

Our camp is a work of a genius. If I was awarding stars for luxury, I think this camp would deserve five of them. There’s a kitchen tent with a gas hob, fridge and all the cooking equipment you could ever ask for. We have a covered outdoors dining room with views of the hippo lagoon and the night sky as well after the sun has set. Next to the kitchen tent there’s a store tent where all dry food is and other stuff is stored, and last but not least the kitchen complex includes a central fireplace where hot water can be heated, food cooked, or just the general camping atmosphere soaked in. We have a luxury shower room where hot showers can be enjoyed (provided you heat up the water first) while watching the hippos splashing in the water. Alternative views include termites munching away the shower room’s reed wall, or if the shower is taken after the sunset, the starry night sky above and the fireflies bouncing around. But wait, it gets better! The toilet. Not just any old hole on the ground, but we have a proper, white ceramic toilet seat and hand washing facilities. Unfortunately there is no view from the toilet, which is why the camp only gets five starts instead of six. Finally, each resident has got their own en-suite bedrooms with a porch, i.e. the tent. The en-suite facilities are just outside the porch, anywhere you like. If you dare leaving the tent at night, that is. We also have an office being built at the moment.

In the camp lives Anna, Graham, me and John, who is an elderly local man looking after the camp i.e. in case we get any unwanted visitors such as lions trying to coming in. He also is our housekeeper and collects water (we can drink water straight from the lagoon), looks after the fire etc. Lastly, he is a traditional African healer, in case we have any health problems.

On the first night I made dinner of lentil & carrot bolognese with baby courgettes, served with potatoes baked on fire. We ate and listened to the sounds of the night. That includes the hippos, who come out of the water at night to eat (luckily they are vegetarians so that’s one less thing to worry about – although that’s not to say that they can’t be dangerous if you manage to piss them off) in our little island, the frogs, the occasional lion in the distance – and the elephants. There are an estimated 9000 elephants in this area, and on the last two nights they’ve been moving nearby, making their presence heard: blowing their trumpets, crossing the river (an elephant swimming is not a quiet act!). We’ve also heard a hyena. At the moment it’s the new moon so there’s no light at nighttime at all – the millions of stars above are an amazing sight but not enough to provide light. So you can hear a lot of things around, and see nothing. After dark you need to move with a large torch only and preferably in pairs, checking out the bushes for pairs of eyes. Luckily I haven’t seen any yet!

On my second, third and fourth night I slept a bit better each time. Still wearing earplugs though, and I don’t know whether I can lose them at all. At the moment it feels louder for me than in London. On the third night I was brave enough to brush my teeth and use the en-suite facilities outside my tent, but I’m yet to have the courage to venture out in the middle of the night. So I’m trying not to drink too much liquid just before bed! I’m convinced I’ll bump into a hippo, as they do move right outside the tents. You can hear them thumping around and munching away, and you can almost feel the ground vibrating from their footsteps. As you can imagine they are not the most discreet animals – I’ve no idea how much they weigh but their footsteps are enough to leave big dents on the ground.