Day 129: A Long Way from Anywhere

Date: Monday 4th August 2008
Staying: Bushcamp, Okavango Delta, Botswana
Song of the Day: Wild, Wild Life - Talking Heads

Today was always bound to be a highlight of the trip, as we ventured into the Okavango Delta. We set off early for the bumpy ride to the edge of the Delta. The Delta is only about 25 years old, but rises and falls with the wet and dry seasons.

We were having a night away from the truck, so equipped with tents, day bags, water jerry cans, bedding, food, and so on, we were met by a fleet of mokoros. A mokoro is a dug out canoe, which holds two people and most of your belongings. At the back is a local poler who propels and steers the boat by means of a long pole that they use to push against the floor of the Delta, which is only a couple of metres at its deepest point. Cam and I relaxed back in the mokoro and our poler pushed us off (think of a gondola in Venice).

Being taken through the Delta with nothing but water and reeds brushing past has to be one of the most relaxing things you can do. During the two-hour float, almost everyone in our tour fell asleep.

Our site for the night was right next to the edge of the Delta. After putting up our tents and having lunch, we went on a game walk. Our guide was Cisco, and he took six of us out to walk around looking for wildlife, without the aid of map or compass. We spotted an elephant first off, then red deer. After dinner, our guides and polers sang traditional songs by the light of the fire, underneath the southern sky. It's nice to see the Southern Cross again.

Day 128: Tokoloshe

Date: Sunday 3rd August 2008
Staying: Sedia Campsite, Maun, Botswana
Song of the Day: Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secure - Arctic Monkeys

Getting across Africa by yourself is not very easy. The people that do these television programmes have support crews and money behind them, as well as networks to bail them out. For the everyday person, none of this possible; hence we do tours. Our tour was in a bright yellow truck by the name of Tokoloshe.

Tokoloshe can best be described as an army truck with a bus cab on the back. The inside of the truck has a fridge and chilly bins for storing food. Under each of the 28 seats is a locker for each individual, you have to provide your own lock. Storage is underneath, and it is a bit of a climb up into cab which is quite high off the road. Our driver was Issac, an ex-army officer from Kenya, and our tour leader was Lou, from Foxton (for those that don't know, about 30 minutes drive from where I grew up). Our group was quite diverse. There were 8 Kiwis, 2 Dutch, 1 Scot, 1 Italian/English, 1 South African, 1 from the Isle of Mann and the rest were poms. Our Tour leaders brother was on the trip, and it turned out he went to the same high school as me.

Our drive was to Maun, the entry point to the Okavango delta. Wildlife was plentiful on the side of the roads, including Elephants, warthogs, Girrafe and so on. We even got to see some dust devils at a distance. Other than this, it was a fairly relaxed day, getting on and off the truck to swab our shoes at the multiple foot and mouth checkpoints.

My job on the truck is Fireboy, so it is my job, along with 3 others, to start the fire for the cook groups along with setting up tables and chair etc. This meant that while most others were running off having drinks, we had to stay behind and work. We also have to get up 30 minutes earlier than anyone else in the mornings, not good when your leaving at 5.

Day 127: Our First Game Drive

Date: Saturday 2nd August 2008

Staying: Thebe Camping, Kasane, Botswana

Song of the Day: Home on the Range

Today was the first official day of our tour - pretty unbelievable considering what we've already seen. It was an early start - tents packed up by 7.30am, on the road by 8.30am. Early starts are needed in Africa as 'African Time' can mean that things take quite a while.

After an hour or so in the truck we reached the Zambia/Botswana border, queued to get stamped out of the country, crossed the river by ferry, then queued to be stamped into Botswana. We reached our destinate of Kasane at about noon, changed money, then went to Spar for some groceries. My 'truck group' is on dinner tomorrow night so we spent 45 minutes in the supermarket figuring out how to cater for 30 people.

At the campsite we put our tents up, had a quick cold drink at the bar, then went off for a game drive in Chobe National Park. Sometimes the optionals seem expensive, but the US$40 we paid was worth every cent. We saw kudu, giraffes, hippo, elephants and a lion, and each sighting was more impressive than the last. The hippo were crowded together in a couple of groups next to the river. We saw them later lurking just above the surface of the water. We saw at least a dozen giraffes and were treated to the rare spectacle of a giraffe drinking, an extremely vulnerable pose in which the giraffe spreads its front legs as far apart as possible then leans down to the water.

There were hoards of elephants, apparently with there being 4000 of them in the 56 miles of the Zambesi river. We saw some babies also, hiding behind their mothers legs. At only three weeks they hadn't yet mastered their trunks, so their attempts to imitate the adults weren't proving very successful.

The highlight however had to be the lioness. We saw her sitting behind a few bushes, a freshly killed antelope on the other side. On our first pass she was lazing. On our way back however, three other vehicles were pulled up, as the lioness decided that it was dinner time. As she fed, pulling and tearing at the meat, she occasionally put her head up to keep an eye on her onlookers. Everytime she raised her head, 20 cameras went snap! After about 15 minutes she decided all this attention was a bit much, so she retired back behind her bush. We all drove back to the campsite thoroughly satisfied, watching the beautiful colours of the Botswana sunset.

Day 126: Rain From a Clear Blue Sky

Date: Friday 1st August 2008

Staying: Grubby's Grotto, Livingstone, Zambia

Song of the day: Storms in Africa - Enya

Victoria Falls is considered the 8th wonder of the natural world and we can see why. Today we joined up with a Dutch couple who would be on our trip (Joanne and Matt, anglesised from Joanneke and Matthijs) to go and have a look at the falls properly.

The Falls are on the Zambesi river, which is the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, and situated about 9km's outside Livingstone, although you can see the spray for many miles around. The entry is crowded with stalls of many kinds that Laurie looked at and purchased things for me to carry for next few weeks. Once in the falls, the only sounds were those of the water crashing through its 108m fall. The falls are more than twice the height and almost twice the width of Niagra Falls. The spray is incredible and causes torrential downpours from clear blue skys, we got soaked. Luckily it was heading towards 40 degrees celcius so we dried in minutes. It is not possible to describe the falls in words, it is breath taking. I'll post a couple of photos at the top so you can see.

The night adventures were about to kick off as well. This was the birthday of one of the guys leaving the trip (from Whitby in Wellington), so to celebrate, everyone signed up for a Sunset 'Booze' Cruise on the Zambesi. The idea being we pay a fee and then all drinks are free on the boat. Bad idea!!! The trip was excellent, with Hippos, Crocodiles and Elephants swimming, but most people missed this as we managed to drink the boat dry. Along with locking people in the loos and an icing fight (from the birthday cake), events on the boat were as much fun.

After the cruise (3 hours long btw) we went to do some traditional African drumming. This truely was a debarcle. I don't think it is actually possible to get 40 very drunk people to follow instructions, let alone drum in time. What ensued involved improvised drum roles at every moment, drumming with various parts of the body and a few rugby tackles thrown in. All in al, it was a champion evening.

Day 125: Big Cats

Date: Thursday 31st July
Staying: Grubby's Grotto, Livingstone, Zambia
Song of the Day: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

One of the interesting things about our tour is that there are loads of optional extas. When we arrived at the campsite we were told about them by our tour-mates, so Cam and I signed up for the lion walk which had really good reviews.

When we arrived for the walk, we were all given a stick and told some basic instructions. If we had the chance to pet the lions, we shouold position the stick so that one end was in front of the lion's head. If he (or she) started getting a bit too interested in us, we should rustle the grass in front to get their attention. If it looked like they might pounce (!!!) we should point the stick at them and say "No!" as they were trained to respond to this instruction.

It was amazing. We came across the three lions lazing under a tree, and each took turns at walking behind them, crouching down and giving them a firm pat on the flank. I got two turns, and Cam, after some initial hesitation, had three pats. The lions were so chilled out that Cam got to not only hold a lion paw, but to put his fingers in between the pad and the toes to feel where the lions sweat (the only placed in fact that they sweat from). When the handlers thought that the lions had lazed enough they roused them and we "walked" with the lions (being very careful to leave our backs unexposed). The whole experience was amazing, and I was surprised not to feel intimidated by the power of the animals. At the end of the walk we had a much needed drink and watched the video that one of the men made so we could relive our experiences all over again.

Day 124: Arrivals, Border Crossings and Much Needed Sleep

Date: Wednesday 30th July 2008
Staying: Grubby's Grotto, Livingstone, Zambia
Song of the Day: Nikita - Elton John

After many movies (but not nearly enough sleep) we arrived at Victoria Falls, tired, but none the worse for wear. After paying US$30 eacdh for a visa, we were admitted into Zimbabwe and were met by our taxi driver. Phillip, a native Zimbabwean had a somewhat ratty taxi with no speedometer and the odometer clearly cut. He was a very chipper chap however, and answered our (somewhat sleepy) questions about his country. After escorting us through exit procedures for Zimbabwe, he took us to our Zambian driver, who had a somewhat more stately car with aircon. He escorted us through Zambian immigration (US$50 each) and on th "Grubby's Grotto", our campsite. There, we met up with our tour group, and despite our exhaustion we dragged ourselves to town for currency and food before returning for beer and bed.

Day 123: Departure

Date: Tuesday 29th July 2008
Song of the day: Elevation - U2
Staying: On the BA Plane to Jo'burg

The Big One finally arrived today: our final day in London and our flight to Africa. It was a stressful day as we packed, tried to think of the final things we had to do, and tried not to think about how much we were going to miss London, and particularly all our friends there. I came to a stand-still by about 10.30am, unable to figure out what to do next. Fortunately Cam stepped up to the plate and figured out our last minute tasks. We had a very sad farewell with Mel, who we'll both miss very much.

At the airport we had our final English meal (at Giraffe, yum!), then boarded our very full but on-time flight to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.