gonna take some time to do the things we never had.....

This afternoon at work, there was quite a commotion outside the main reception.  About sixty of my colleagues were leaving to go on a sponsored walk up Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, our company's charity partner.  It's a great charity, and the event has been in the pipeline for more than a year.  Between the sixty of them, they have so far raised in excess of £300, 000 to help the charity to support people with cancer and their families.  This is clearly a very good thing.  Yes, we get a bit of positive brand association and some good publicity, but that is a lot of money and is clearly not to be sniffed at.

And yet....

I was about to interview someone, so I wasn't able to join the throng and wish the guys I know who are taking part a bon voyage, but as I stood there looking at them all standing in their matching Team Kilimanjaro fleeces, I'm afraid that I had mixed feelings about the whole affair.

In September of 2011, we were lucky enough to spend a couple of weeks travelling through Kenya and Tanzania.  We got onto a truck in Nairobi and worked our way down to Zanzibar from there, via the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.  We stayed mostly in tents, and the whole thing was a wonderful experience.

When we arrived in Nairobi airport though, something really struck me: it was full of white people wearing corporate branded t-shirts trumpeting their trip up Kilimanjaro.  There were hundreds of them.  It seems that it's quite the thing to do.  Kilimanjaro is high enough a mountain to be challenging, whilst also being something you can go up in your walking boots.  It's also exotic enough to be interesting, but also pretty accessible via a major international airport.  It's an achievable goal.

We met our friend Jane on our previous trip to Africa in 2010, and after she left us at Victoria Falls, she was making her way up to Tanzania to climb the mountain.  She had fun, but it was a lot tougher than she thought, and she really struggled with altitude sickness on the last couple of days.  She only knows that she made it to the top because she's seen the photos.  Apparently she was babbling (to be honest, I'm not sure how they spotted that was different to normal).  I'm sure it's fun, but it's never really appealed to me, to be honest.  Africa is a wonderful continent and there are so many other things to do and to see.

On our trip to Tanzania, we actually camped at the foot of the mountain. We didn't climb, and actually we didn't even see the damn thing because it was completely wreathed in clouds.  It might not even be there for all I know, and you certainly can't see it from the Serengeti, whatever Toto might tell you.....

What we did do, however, was to spend a few hours at an orphanage at the base of the mountain supported by Intrepid, the company running our tour.

We'd taken pens and pencils and exercise books to give to the kids and we were shown around the whole operation.  Best of all, we played a game of football out the back with the kids themselves.  They were all wearing various European football shirts, with the star player wearing a Watford strip, and of course, they handed our arses to us on a plate.  It was humbling and interesting to see how the orphanage operated and what a great job they did with such little resources.  Embarrassed by our relative riches, we were more than happy to leave them with a donation and the idea that, should I ever win the lottery, then spending my time helping out in a place like this would surely be a much more worthwhile way to spend my life.

On the way back through Nairobi airport to Europe, we saw even more white people in their corporate branded "Climb Kili" t-shirts.  When we'd gone on the short walk up the side of the mountain facing Kilimanjaro to get that non-existent view and to camp, our guides told us that the people who climb Kili generally fly into Nairobi, get private transport to the mountain, climb the mountain, come down and then get private transport back to the airport and fly home again.  Their contribution to the local economy is almost non-existent and they have no time at all to look at the culture around them.  To be honest, that mountain may as well be in England.  That makes me sad.

I'm not trying to claim any worthier-than-thou points here, and I know that the money raised by these guys will be put to really good use by Macmillan (although, who paid for those team fleeces? Did that come out of the sponsorship?).  I also sincerely hope that they all have the time of their lives.  Hell, I sponsored a couple of them.....  I just hope that they take the time to look around them and see the wonderful, vibrant country that will be right under their noses and leave a mark other than their footprints on the mountain and the rubbish they leave behind.

I'm not just wild, I'm trained, domesticated....

My cat seems to like wildlife programmes.

She was intrigued by the baby polar bears as they left their den on the TV yesterday, but not enough to do more than lift her head up on my lap and perk up her ears.  She seems to find David Attenborough's "Africa" in High Definition today altogether more interesting.

She really liked the lions - she wasn't scared at all and got as close to the screen as she could.  When she was listening to them, it's almost as though she could somehow understand that they were cats.  By the time the mountain gorillas were on, she was chatting away at the screen and reaching up to try and touch the screen.  Perhaps she was wondering where the lions went.  Cute, but on an HD plasma screen, probably not to be encouraged.....

She's been absolutely gripped by it.

Worth the price of the licence fee on its own.

There you go, internet.  A cat post.  Enjoy.

this time for Africa....

It was two years ago this week that we came back from our trip to southern Africa: 21 days or so spent travelling in the back of a truck across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia; camping and in the company of around 20 strangers.

Best. Trip. Ever.

2010 was a great year for us and we were lucky to spend a hefty amount of time travelling our way around interesting places like Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Cambodia and Vietnam.  We saw a lot of really amazing things and had a blast... but I think the most fun we had was in the back of an old truck called "Denver" on that trip to Africa.

 We had rules.  The most important of which, of course, was that WE ARE THE PARTY!

We definitely were.

It was a brilliant journey and it's given me a passion for Africa that our trip to Kenya and Tanzania last year has only intensified.   I'd been to Morocco before, but this was my first trip into Africa-proper and I was spellbound from start to finish.  It's an amazing place and I can't wait to go back.

We saw leopard, lions, elephant, hyena, lots of pronking springbok, zebra, rhino, giraffes and a whole heap of other beautiful African wildlife - I stroked a lion for heaven's sake - I saw incredible landscapes and I even jumped out of a plane...but it was definitely the people that made the trip so special.

I've spent a bit of time this week remembering some of the great friends we made in Africa.  Gums in New York; Grooves in Vienna; Dark Horse in Bern; Spike in Switzerland or teaching somewhere in the USA; Silverfox and Tigger in Calgary (and their new arrival!); Screamer and Bullitt in Montreal; Baby Max in Quebec; Waffles in Belgium; Timon and Dangerous Dani and Meters and Bones and Sparks in Germany; Swampy and Snappy in Toronto; Sarge and HRH in Washington; DJ Tash in Melbourne and Chuck Norris and Elbie somewhere in Africa.

Disco and Iceman salute you!

Let's do it all again soon.

hurry boy, it's waiting there for you....

Of all the trips that we did last year, I think my favourite by some distance was the overland journey from Cape Town to Victoria Falls.  The alchemy on that trip just seemed to be perfect: the beautiful scenery in Namibia, the way the animals all seemed to pose for us and the fact that everyone in our little group seemed to get on like a house on fire.  Even long, gruelling truck journeys of 10 hours on dirt roads became fun as we took turns on the iPod and sang along "Sweet Caroline".  It was a perfect trip.

Trying to recapture that magic was always going to be dangerous, but something about Africa, and in particular seeing Africa in this way, got under our skins and we were determined to go back.  We tried to book an overland trip to East Africa in August last year, but ended up going to South East Asia instead.  Returning to work cramped out style somewhat, but although I would ideally like to have taken a month long trip that took in the Gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda, a two week trip into Kenya and Tanzania seemed like a good way of getting my Africa fix.

The itinerary looks simple:

Day 1 - Nairobi
Day 2 - Arusha
Day 3 - Karatu
Days 4-5 - Serengeti National Park
Day 6 - Ngorongoro Crater
Day 7 - Marangu
Days 8-9 - Usambara Mountains
Day 10 - Dar es Salaam
Days 11-13 - Zanzibar
Day 14 - Dar es Salaam

What that doesn't tell you is how much time we got to spend in the truck (11 long hours from the Usamara Mountains to Dar....).  It doesn't talk about the burst tyre on the first morning; the snake farm at Arusha; the community farm and village we visited at Marangu; the fact that we camped without fences in the Serengeti and had hyena and lion wandering about the campsite; the fact it poured with rain when we played "Africa" in the Serengeti, and stopped when we played "Good Day Sunshine"; how I realised how lucky we were with our leopard in Etosha last year....

It doesn't tell you about the dust in the Ngorongoro crater; the orphanage and the schools we visited and dropped off crayons, exercise books and pens; the Basil Fawlty character who ran the hotel in the Usambara Mountains or the noisy Dutch who woke everyone up; the ridiculous ferry in Dar; the chaos of the ferry terminal to Zanzibar; the angry Swedish man who told us all to "you shut up!" as he tried to complain unreasonably in a restaurant in Stone Town as we tried to place our orders; Ali T, the spice guide who had clearly learned his English from cockneys; the beach volleyball and diving in (mostly - thanks Pete) crystal clear waters in Zanzibar.....

Yeah.  It was a pretty good trip.

Our group was pretty mixed: Australians, Kiwis, Canadians, Americans, Irish, a couple from Singapore.... there were a few in their 20s, but most we in their 30s and a few in their 40s.

We were a happy bunch, on the whole.  On our trip in Southern Africa, our group was brilliant, and I felt so sorry for the people who joined us halfway through in Windhoek for the second leg.  I don't think we exactly made them feel welcome.

 Imagine my dismay when we went to our introductory meeting to find that half of our group had spent the last 2 weeks travelling (with the same guide) to see the gorillas, and the other half had spent the last week together travelling the Masai Mara and around Kenya.  On this trip, it seemed, I was Cupcake.

I needn't have worried.  Everyone was very welcoming.  Chopping onions and washing dishes with people breaks down barriers pretty quickly.

I would say that 2 weeks is just about long enough to really start to get to know people.  By the time we got to Zanzibar, I think we were starting to make some good friends, and I was sad that we didn't have longer.... although it was also in Zanzibar that it became clear that some people find travelling together for 4 weeks too long to maintain a facade of politeness, and some cracks began to show.

It was a good group though, even if we didn't have a Jane.... every group should have a Jane.

I can't wait to go back to Africa.  Next year.  For longer.

Incidentally, Toto were lying: Kilimanjaro does not rise like Olympus above the Serengeti.  This much I now know.

it's business time.....

 

So, after 2 weeks travelling around Kenya and Tanzania in a truck and sleeping in a tent, we're back to the mundanities of our normal lives.  On Saturday morning, I woke up next to the Indian Ocean in Zanzibar.  When I next woke up in a bed, after 30-odd hours of travelling, it was to get up and go to work on Monday morning.

Hey ho.

Waiting for our transfer to Heathrow in Nairobi airport on Saturday evening, I looked around at all the white people wearing very corporate looking t-shirts trumpeting about how they had climbed Kilimanjaro, and I realised how lucky we had been in our choice of trip.  No disrespect, but there are so many of those guys that they must almost climb the mountain holding hands.  I'm not claiming that we went all that far off the beaten track, and indeed, we went to have a look at Kilimanjaro from the  foothills (and the mountain was entirely veiled in cloud throughout... so I couldn't honestly tell you that it even exists), but as well as spending time in the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater gawping at the wildlife, we also went to visit schools and played football with some kids from an orphanage.  We lost.  Obviously. 4-1.  One of the kids was wearing a Watford shirt, weirdly (haven't they suffered enough?).  But anyway.....

It was a great trip... as with our last trip to Africa, made by a happy combination of what we saw, our guide and the group we were travelling with.  I'll bore you with more details and photos later in the week, in the meantime I'll content myself by saying that we saw lions enjoying what one of our guides splendidly called "comfortable time".... which lasted about 10 seconds, and didn't seem all that comfortable for the lioness.  After his labours, the poor old boy was clearly exhausted and flopped flat out onto the ground, clearly satisfied with a job well done..... well, who can blame him?

I can't wait to go back... perhaps next year to go to Uganda and Rwanda to see the gorillas and to Kenya to have a look at the Masai Mara.

LOVE Africa.

Hakuna Matata!

Day 18 Chobe River

Approximate Distance: 420 km
Estimated Travel Time: 6 hrs

Another day, another opportunity to see some game.  This time we head to Kasane, alongside the Chobe river.  The Chobe National Park itself has some of the biggest concentrations of game of anwhere in Africa, but because we've already done so many game drives on this trip, we're actually going to be taking a sunset cruise down the river.  There's method in this madness, as the river is of course where much of the park's wildlife goes to drink as the sun sets.  In addition, the park is particularly famed for its large numbers of elephant, its crocodiles and its bee-eater birds, all of which can be found down by the water.  Pretty soon after arrival at our campsite, after a short stop to pick up some more beer in Kasane, we head back out in the truck to meet up with our boat.

Well, perhaps boat is pushing it a little... this is basically a floating platform.  The Chobe river is wide, particularly at this time of the year, but it's also pretty sluggish as it makes its way towards the Zambesi and the sudden violence of the Victoria Falls, a few miles downstream from here.  Mind you, as the water is infested with crocodiles, I don't fancy falling in much.  Our campsite is partly underwater, and we've already been warned to be very, very careful of crocs as we walk about the place.... they have a nasty habit of grabbing you and then drowning you before eating you once you've softened up a little.  I've avoided becoming anything's dinner thus far on the trip, and it would be a shame to start now.

It's a short chug from the dock into the National Park itself, passing increasingly plush looking safari lodges as we go.  There's a fork in the river around a large island.  It's deserted of everything but birds at this time of year, but when the waters are lower, apparently this is teeming with life as the grazing animals like water buffalo swim across to take advantage of the lush greenery.  Already, the other side of the river is bustling with wildlife for us to look at.

The park is best known for its spectacular elephant population: with over 120,000 it has the highest elephant concentration of Africa. Apparently, most of them are probably part of the largest continuous surviving elephant population on Earth. Botswana is something of a conservation success story, and the elephant population here seems to have solidly built up since 1990, from a few thousand to their current numbers. The elephants living here are Kalahari elephants, the largest in size of all known elephant species. Yet they are characterized by rather brittle ivory and short tusks.We quickly see whole herds of elephant, often with young calves are drinking from the river.  I think I could watch elephants forever without getting bored.  They're amazing.... especially after I learned that an adult bull elephant can drink something like 200 litres of water in 4 minutes.  Actually, it's amazing there's any water in this river at all.

I also get my first glimpse of crocodiles.  These are only medium-sized, we're told, as apparently they get as big as 6m around here.  That sounds like an exaggeration to me, but even if they 'only' reach 4m, that's still a pretty damn big crocodile.  The medium-sized ones here look plenty big enough to take me out, that's for sure.  All they seem to do is sit on the edge of the river and sunbathe, but even then they have a malevolent look about them.  These things are prehistoric.  Literally.  Like sharks, they are largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaur because they are so well adapted for what they do.  That's quite a thought.  As we drift on by, one of them casually opens his mouth and shows us his teeth..... he has lots of teeth.  The baboon we see at the water's edge don't seem to mind the elephant, but there are none of the around the crocodiles.  I don't blame them at all.

We also get to see hippo.  We saw a hippo from a distance in the Okavango Delta, but here we get the chance to see them a lot closer.  Before the start of the boat trip, the guide warned us -- as guides always do -- that he couldn't guarantee that we would see anything as the animals don't perform on command for tourists.  Well, he was prepared to make one exception for us: he guaranteed us that we would see hippo.  It quickly becomes apparent why.  There are hippo everywhere.  In fact, in Chobe it appears that hippo are the new springbok.... they're pretty much everywhere you look.  Actually, truth be told, you don't really get to see much of a hippo when they're in the water.  They're big enough, but really you only get to see their butts and the tops of their heads as they spend as much time as they can in the water to keep their sensitive skin away from the sun.  At first glance, they don't seem to do much either except expel air from either end of their bodies and make a succession of loud grunting noises.  I suppose they don't want to expend too much energy.  They're vegetarians, and I shudder to think how much they must have to eat to keep their massive bulk moving.  No wonder they keep as still and as cool as they can.  Lucky for us, there are some babies here though, and they have such worries.  All they want to do is to play.  They chase each other and they have play fights and they generally put on a show for us.  It's enchanting... as my face clearly shows.

.....no?  Well, take it from me: I was enchanted.

It's a fantastic cruise.  To top it all off, on the drive back to the campsite, we see a herd of elephant crossing the road in the town centre.  Our driver follows them down a lane, and we get to see them silently disappearing down to the river and along the bank.  It's a magical moment.

Day 19-20 Livingstone, Zambia

Approximate Distance: 100 km
Estimated Travel Time: 3 hrs

We get up early in the morning to try to beat the rush at the ferry to cross the Zambezi River.  The Zambezi is the border between four countries: Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe.  We will use the ferry to leave Botswana for Zambia and to continue on to Livingstone. Apparently you can spend hours and hours here, and it's all pretty chaotic.  On the way in, we drive past an enormous queue of lorries waiting for their turn to cross, and the area around the ferry is alive with the people who have to cross this river every day of their lives to go to work.  It's not exactly what you would call a slick operation, but after a short delay, we make it across safely enough and brave Zambian border control.  African borders have been nowhere near as difficult as I thought they might be, but there's usually a few forms that we have to fill in before we get a new stamp in our passports.  In Zambia, they ask that we pay them fifty US dollars in cash.  In return, they don't even ask us to fill out anything and we can quickly get on our way.  It seems that money and a bolshy guide go a long way to combat the red tape of most African bureaucracy

From the border, it's a short ride into Livingstone, home of the mighty Victoria Falls.  As the falls form a natural border with Zimbabwe, the town is awash with migrants from the economic disaster just across the river.  There are people here who will try and get you to buy a one trillion dollar note from them as a curiosity item so they can feed their families.  We're told that all the traders here will happily barter for items that we might consider rubbish or useless.  One guy on our trip part-exchanges an empty coke can for some nick-nacks in a shop, and items like dirty socks and t-shirts and knackered old trainers are highly prized items (although I'm not quite naive enough to believe that DJ Tash's old Nike Air trainers are going to an orphan as the guy she's bartering with is keen to try and tell her....)

We're here to end our trip with a bang, taking part in a few activities to get the blood pumping before we go home.  This, apparently, is an adrenaline capital, and some of the activities on offer here are things like bungee jumping, gorge swings, rafting and all that kind of jazz.

Oh, and the falls of course.

We go straight to the Falls as soon as we arrive.  They're awesome.

The Victoria Falls waterfalls occur in a country that is perfectly flat. From its source on the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Zambezi River meanders for 1300 km across the wooded plateau of Zambia, eroding for itself a shallow valley on its mild descent to the site of the falls. The river eventually found a weak spot on the lower lip of the surface over which it passed, and forced a passage which was steadily deepened into an exit gorge.  During the last half million years the river has scoured out eight of these cracks across its bed. The Victoria falls occur where the river is 1688m wide, presents the spectacle of an average maximum of 550 million liters of water a minute tumbling over the lip of the trench in five main falls, the Devil’s Cataract, Main falls, Horseshoe Falls, Rainbow falls and the Eastern Cataract. The highest of these is Rainbow falls, on an average 108 m high. A peak flood sees 750 million liters of water in one minute hurtling over the falls.As I've mentioned, the water is pretty high at the moment, so there's quite a lot of water flying about.  The locals call the Falls Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders, and it's not hard to see why.  You can see the falls from miles away as a pillar of "smoke" rises straight up into the cloudless sky.  Close up, it's even more impressive.  It's also pretty wet.

 [photo courtesy of Tash]

Actually, it's so wet that we almost can't see anything.  Almost.  It's totally worth the $20 park fee though, and I'm astonished when some South African guys at the gates ask me if it's worth the money.  It's Victoria Falls!  It's one of the natural wonders of the world.  How can you be in Livingstone and even contemplate not going to see them?  By the time we get back to the truck, we're all absolutely soaked to the skin.  It's awesome.  It's not just the falls around here though.... there are also marauding packs of baboon who will threaten and rob anyone who goes too close to them, as Jess demonstrates below.

 [photo courtesy of Jess]

I saw a guy stupid enough to pull out and start eating an apple in front of a baboon, and it's on him almost immediately.  It's all he can do to throw the thing away before he gets into real trouble.  Baby Max at one point finds himself surrounded by a troop who demand he hand them over everything he is carrying, and then proceed to try and open his camcorder case (they can't) and drink his anti-bacterial handwash.  Mmmm.  Tasty.  All filmed by an amused Max on his camcorder..... You don't mess with a baboon.

Next up: booze cruise.

They prefer to call it a sunset cruise, but you pay $40 (or something) and then get as much booze as you can drink and as much food as you can eat.  It doesn't take a genius to work out what happens next.  This is basically the start of the long farewell, and no one on the truck wants to miss out. We quickly take control of the bar, because that's the kind of classy people that we are, and Elbie cracks out a few bottles of fizz.... and no glasses.

It's a fun evening, with a beautiful sunset on the Zambezi not going entirely unnoticed amidst the carnage.  I definitely don't get my money's worth in terms of booze, sticking to a couple of bottles of beer, but I do get to be endlessly entertained by my companions..... whether it's C. drinking far more than she usually would simply because fizz is her weakness, DJ Tash getting all friendly and chatty with everyone as she got drunker or all of the "Titanic" impersonations on the prow of the ship.  Pretty much everyone is three sheets to the wind by the time we get back to the campsite at about 6pm.  We head to the disco, where an enthusiastic game of whisky slap is kicked off.  Not familiar with it?  It's a game where you pair up, take a shot of whisky and your partner slaps you full in the face.  Sounds good, huh?  All the rage in New York, Jane tells us......

,

  [photo courtesy of Tash]

I actually end up going to bed at about 8pm as I'm not really much of a dancer and I'm not really in the mood, but I think everyone is basically done by about 10pm.  We've had so many early morning starts that our ability to sit up late has basically been broken.  Besides, most of us have a pretty full day of activities planned for the next day.

I'm going lion walking, for a start.....

It's all part of a rehabilitation programme.  They think that lion populations in Africa have plummeted something like 90% in the last thirty years.  This is simply a result of human expansion into their domains, but it's such an iconic animal for Africa and for many of the cultures here that this can't be allowed to continue and these beautiful animals need help if they are to survive.  The programme operating here takes lions born in captivity and puts them through a four step programme.  Step one sees the young lions being educated in the bush by being taken for walks with humans standing in as the senior members of their pride.  Step two sees the human contact being slowly withdrawn and the lions being put into a safe environment that's not less than 500 acres and is safe and full of game.  Here they are able to fine tune their hunting skills and to start to live as "wild" lions.  Step three sees these lions forming prides, breeding and having cubs.  These cubs are effectively wild, and step four sees the introduction of these second generation lions, usually as part of a full pride, back into the African wilderness.

The programme hasn't been going for long in Zambia, and they've only got as far as step two, but this approach seems to have worked elsewhere in Africa and they're hopeful it will work here too.  The walk we will be doing is part of step one, and after a safety briefing about how to behave around them lions, we're introduced to three beautiful ten month old lions, two sisters and their brother.  In lots of ways, they're very much like their domestic cousins.  We're not allowed to have anything that dangles off us.... well, if you've ever played with a cat, then you'll know why not.  For the same reason, we're only to approach them from behind, and we are given a stick.... not to hit the lions with, but to use as a way of distracting them.  They may only be playing, but a whack from a playful lion could do some pretty serious damage and you have to give them respect.  We're told to keep an eye on them at all times, to be aware where they are, and if they look like they are stalking us (what our guide calls their "naughty look"), then we are to point the stick at them and to tell them "NO" in a firm voice.  I've seen plenty of lions on this trip, but nothing prepares me for my first close-up glimpse of these beautiful creatures.  They're magnificent.  They have huge paws, golden eyes and are simply stunning.  They're also clearly quite lazy -- just like a cat -- and are a little reluctant to go for a walk just because we want to walk with them.  They want to laze around and to play with each other, and frankly I'd be happy to watch them, but the guides get them moving and we set off into the bush.

We stop a couple of times so that we can stroke them.  We approach them carefully from behind, distract them with a stick if they look like turning round... and we pet them.  Their fur is slightly rougher than you'd expect, but nothing can explain the feeling I get when I touch these magnificent animals, especially when they start to play with the stick in my hand in almost exactly the same way as my cat plays the same game in my garden at home.  It's a magical, magical morning.

There's a video too.... do watch it so you can see these beautiful animals for yourself.  It wasn't an especially cheap morning, but it was worth every penny.  This is how the charity funds its work, and I'm more than happy to have contributed.

Lots of other people are busy throwing themselves off gorges and other adrenaline-y type activities, but I'm done.  We head back to the campsite, treat ourselves to a massage in the spa next door and generally relax and get ready for our last dinner with the guys we've spent so much time with over the last three weeks.  It's actually quite emotional.

C. and Jane have been working hard on an awards ceremony, and nobody in the team leaves without getting a personalised prize that sums up the impression that they've made on the party.  C. gets the David Attenborough award for her ability to spot and identify a bird at 100m and I get the Perrier Award for keeping everyone (well, Jane...) amused by reciting old and obscure comedy sketches on command.   The biggest awards of the night are reserved for our guide, Elbie, and our driver, Barry.  If we are the party, then these guys have been the life and soul of the party, and it's the least we can do to hand them over a couple of bottles of booze with their awards and their tips.

It's been an incredible tour and I'm so sorry to be leaving these guys.

Day 21 Depart Livingstone, Zambia

The long goodbye continues as we pack up our tents the next morning and get ready for our lunchtime flight out Livingstone airport.  It's actually quite emotional as people start to pack their stuff up and get ready to leave.  Many of us are flying home, some are staying in Livingstone, and several people are heading back to South Africa.  DJ Tash and Gums, those happy occupants of tent number 509, are teaming up together to catch a bus up to Malawi..... although as they are collectively known as Team Fu*k Up, I imagine that's going to turn out to be quite a ride.

We say our goodbyes and head to the airport to start our long journey home.  The parting is softened by the fact that we get to spend most of the day hanging around with Sina, the very aptly-nicknamed Dark Horse, who has flights at nearly the same times as us and has the same long layover in Johannesburg.  She's cool and lovely and it's been a pleasure spending time with her and with the rest of the gang over the last three weeks.

We've seen a lot of overland trucks as we've travelled through Africa.  I'm fairly sure that the companies that operate them are all pretty similar and that there are good trucks and bad trucks in every company.  What I think has marked our trip out is that we've had the happy good fortune to have two brilliant guys leading our trip in Barry and Elbie, and we've also found ourselves in the middle of a group of people who seem to be able to get along without cliques and who genuinely seem to enjoy each other's company.  I'm going to miss them.... so much so, that I break the rule of a lifetime and actually sign up to Facebook when I get home so that I can more easily stay in touch with them.

What an amazing trip.
What a beautiful, amazing, vibrant place Africa is.

 [photo courtesy of Jess]

We liked Africa so much, we made a t-shirt to commemorate the trip.  The map of all 5,250km of our route is pretty cool, but the front is even better: a tribute to both Jane's leopard and to Barry our driver and his pipe.

On the arm?  The catchphrase of the trip: WE ARE THE PARTY!
(Another tribute to Barry a.k.a. Chuck Norris is the Zambian copper bracelets that many of us buy at Victoria Falls.... Barry has been impressing us all tour with his bangle that opens beer bottles, and this is where we can get them.  A beer opening bracelet.  Does it get any better than that?  Barry, you're a legend and I salute you.....)

How can I possibly end the story of this incredible trip?  Why, with a picture of a statue of Nelson Mandela made entirely of beads that I saw in Johannesburg airport of course.... 

Africa... you were awesome.  I will be back.

shining like a national guitar.....

Day 14 Maun

Approximate Distance: 280 km
Estimated Travel Time: 4 hrs

Our next stop was Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta.  We have one night here before we head off to spend the next two nights bush camping out in the delta itself.  The Okavango Delta is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties water gathered on the mountains in places like far-away Angola into a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert.  Where most deltas empty into the sea, the 11 cubic kilometers of water that irrigate the 5,000 km² of the Okavango delta are lost to evaporation and transpiration, with the rest draining into Lake Ngami.  Not a drop reaches the sea.  It is, in fact, the world's largest inland delta.

When we enter the delta tomorrow, we'll be going in on boats, but the sheer scale of the place is best appreciated from the air.  After we put our tents up, we head back to Maun airport and take a scenic flight above the delta.  It's apparently the size of Switzerland, but from the air it looks quite a lot like the mould you get on the top of an abandoned cup of coffee.

It's vast, and it keeps unfolding beneath us for the duration of the hour long flight as the sun sets.  From up here we can see herds of water buffalo (the last one of the Big Five that we haven't yet seen on this trip), elephant, hippo and even a large herd of sweeping pronking springbok (pronking is the word used to describe the distinctive, four-legs-in-the-air, jumping that various gazelle do, and during the course of the trip has also become an amusing substitute for the f-word).  The pilot throws in some aerobatics in an attempt to make us feel queasy, but we're all pretty dazed already by the sheer scale of the delta.  It's huge.  Back at the airport, we muck about on the runway as we walk back towards the terminal, pretending that we're in Top Gun, and in the terminal itself, I see a discarded sign amusingly advertising a spot of zebra hunting in my postcode in the UK.  I've not seen any game around West Bridgford myself, but there might be some hanging around Holme Pierrepont, I reckon......

Back at the campsite that evening, we're briefed on what to expect in the Delta.  Basically, we're going to travel for about an hour on a speedboat and will then be poled for another couple of hours into the delta on mokoro, the traditional boats of the region.  We will be completely out in the wild and will not have access to comforts like showers and flushing toilets.  There will also be no fences between us and any animals around the place, which will include lion, hyena, hippo, snakes and elephants.  It is emphasised to us in no uncertain terms that we are under no circumstances to visit latrines on our own, especially after dark, as we could easily be taken by lion, who have been known to investigate the campsite from time to time.  Their eyes reflect back golden in torchlight, apparently.....If we meet a lion, we are told not to run under any circumstances, as this will trigger the predator's pursuit instincts.  Instead, we are told to stand tall.  Apparently the lion will recognise from our height and the fact that our shoulders are broader than our hips, that we are predators and not prey.  Hmmm.  I'm not sure that I'd rely on that particular nugget.  Don't lion hunt giraffe and elephant?  We are also told to stay out of the water unless specifically told otherwise..... the water is stained a deep brown colour from all the tannins, and we will not be able to see any approaching crocodiles or hippo.  That said, the guide also says that we should take every opportunity we do have to swim when told it is safe.  Hmmm.  We'll see.  Sounds like an interesting couple of days ahead.

Day 15-16 Okavango Delta

Accommodation: Basic bush camping

After starting before the sun rises most mornings on this trip, we actually have a reasonably civilised start to the day today.  We're able to get up, shower and breakfast after dawn and still have plenty of time to pack everything up for the next couple of days.  As well as a small bag with a change of clothes, we're also packing up the tents, the chairs, the food, some booze, the mattresses and some 10 litres of water per person.... which is apparently what we're going to need for the next 48 hours.  It's quite a lot of stuff.  We load up the speedboats and we're on our way into the delta.

After an hour on the boats, we stop at a busy little village just outside the buffalo fence that marks the edge of the delta proper, and we transfer into the mokoro.  Traditionally these are hollowed out trees that are flat-bottomed and poled through the shallow water.  Actually, nowadays, many of these are made out of fibreglass, but they're still powered the old-fashioned way..... by hand.  Naturally, we don't have to do anything; we introduce ourselves to our poler, who is marvellously called Life, make ourselves as comfortable as possible and settle down for a two-hour ride to our campsite.

There's lots to see - plenty of eagles, kingfishers, darts, storks and other birds, as well as the shifting scenery as we pole through the reeds deeper into the delta.

It's a very restful way to travel.  Apparently it's considered a compliment to the poler if you fall asleep, and as the heat of the day rises, sat on our mattresses, it's hard not to nod off, even with the undoubted attraction of a brown bag lunch sitting within easy reach.

 [photo courtesy of Jess]

...it is pretty comfortable though.

After a very pleasant couple of hours, we arrive at the campsite that's going to be our base for the next couple of nights.  Up until now, we've been staying in fairly nice campsites with showers and the like.  Things are a bit different here.... for starters, the toilet is a freshly-dug hole in the ground behind an old termite mound.  If the toilet paper is still hanging on a branch around the corner, then it's empty, if not, then you have to wait.  It's a simple system, but it works well enough.  Besides, anyone who has used a latrine like this will tell you that it's actually a pretty clean system.  In fact, it's cleaner than some of the toilets we've seen along the way in Africa so far.  The campsite itself is perhaps more compact than we're used to, with all our tents gathered together and surrounded by the tents of the guides and polers, who are to act as a first line of defence against any wildlife that may choose to wander through the site.

 [photo courtesy of Grooves....]

It's actually pretty comfortable (even if most of that water we were told we needed to bring with us has been accidentally left on the speedboats.... I guess we'll have to manage with rather less than 5 litres a day, eh?).  Our schedule for the next couple of days is naturally entirely dependent upon the animals, who are most active at dawn and at dusk.  The plan is to go on walking safaris out in the bush at those times, and then to spend the long hours in the middle of the day chilling out at the campsite.  Water levels in the delta are high - they've received more than twice the usual volume of rainfall this year, which everyone hopes is not the result of climate change and a sign of things to come - and so game is actually pretty dispersed.  As in the Game Parks, the chances of seeing wildlife are much higher when water is scarce and the animals are forced to congregate around waterholes..... so all this water means that the chances are that we won't see all that much whilst we're here, but because we were so lucky in Etosha and have had a good look at the delta from above, I can't help but feel that the pressure is off.  I'm just looking forward to getting out and have a good look around, knowing that I could walk into a lion..... the thought alone is exciting enough. 

To kill the time before our first walk, we kick off a game of movie title charades that will become an obsession over the next day or so, and head off for a swim at a nearby "safe" area.  I've promised my practice nurse back home that I wouldn't swim in Africa, but all of this goes right out of the window when I jump into the cool waters of the crocodile, hippo and who-knows-what-else infested waters of the Okavango Delta..... although I do keep my sandals on throughout.   It's pretty hot out here, so it's a good way to cool off and to have a bit of fun, mucking about in mokoro and splashing about in the water.... although it's noticeable that Bones, the doctor in the party, elects not to get into the water.  Ah, I'm sure it's fine.  I make a mental note not to google the various micro-organisms that might be living in this water when I get home....

On our return to the camp, we break up into groups of about six and head out on our first walk.  Our guide is Vincent, and he takes us out for about an hour's walk behind the campsite as the sun goes down.  It's pretty exciting as he briefs us on the dos and don'ts of a walking safari and we get out into the bush.  Basically, watch him and don't run unless he runs.  OK.  Easier said than done, I think, but ok, let's give it a go..... We walk slowly through the savannah, straining our eyes and our ears for sight or sounds of anything.  We actually don't see much: some zebra, a warthog and some baboons, but it's still an incredible experience.

After a night of more campfire charades, in which I am told that my team is being unreasonable by picking obscure films like "The Shawshank Redemption" (eh? Wait until you get a load of "Titus Andronicus", suckers....), we get up with the dawn to go out on a longer, four hour walk.   In terms of actual animals seen, we don't see very much again this morning.... some impala, baboons, monkeys, warthogs and the like... but we do have the thrill of following fresh buffalo tracks before Vincent decides that we're not in the best terrain for bumping into what is the most dangerous of the Big Five and takes us off the trail.  We also hear a lion.  I'm not sure how close it actually is, but it sounds as though it is close.  Now, part of me would dearly love to see a lion on foot, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the larger part of me was not all that disappointed that we didn't run into it.  Quite how close the lion were is revealed a little later on when we find the freshly picked clean skull of last night's kill, some 200m away from our campsite.....

We walk for several hours, but in spite of Vincent's best efforts, the high water levels mean that the game is simply too well dispersed for us to see much.  He takes us back via what I assume is an old stand-by for days like these: a set of elephant bones.  Apparently a pair of lion can pull down a bull elephant, a feat that becomes all the more impressive when you see quite how big their bones are.  The ankle bone alone must weigh about 15-20kg, and the skull is huge.

I'm guessing that these particular bones have been here for a while, but who's complaining when it means you get to mess around with some massive bones?  Not me, that's for sure.

Perhaps in an ideal world, we would have seen some more wildlife -- some of the other groups see elephant, and it's not outrageous to think that we might have seen both lion and water buffalo around here.  I'm philosophical though: you get what you get and there's precious little point moaning about it.  I do feel a bit bad for the guys who joined the group in Windhoek and thus didn't get to see all those animals we saw in Etosha, but I still think this was well-worth doing.  It turns out that walking safaris are brilliant, even when you don't see all that much.  It's a unique environment and it's brilliant that we can spend a few days soaking it up.  And playing charades.

On our last evening in the delta, we go out poling to look for some hippo as the sun sets.  We stop on the fringes of a large, deep water pool, and we spend a happy half hour listening to a hippo grumbling and groaning as he wallows in the water in front of us.  We only really see his nostrils when he surfaces for air, but he makes an impressive amount of noises anyway... mostly farty noises, it has to be said.  Besides, we also have another peerless African sunset to admire. 


Back at the camp, the guides and polers have clearly been around us long enough to start feeling more comfortable around us.  Where last night they were keeping their distance a little, tonight they are sitting with us around the fire, joining in (as best as they can) with our game of charades, and then finally treating us to some fantastic singing and some crazy dancing, including "the frog" as pictured below.  It's great fun, sadly spoiled a little when they ask us to sing some songs for them, and the best we can come up with is "The Birdie Song" (which they love) and "YMCA" which they find a bit baffling (who doesn't?).

Another fantastic couple of days in Africa then, and the next morning we are poled back towards civilization..... and then nearly killed in a speedboat when our driver decides it's a good idea to let DJ Tash drive and she nearly runs us into a tree.

Somehow we survive.....

 ...only to see our bread being stolen by a particularly brazen monkey as we were setting up our lunch.  He then proceeded to eat the whole lot whilst sitting in the tree above our heads.  Cheeky little....oh.

Day 17 Gweta

Approximate Distance: 240 km
Estimated Travel Time: 4 hrs

Today's a pretty easy day.  A relatively short drive along a road with elephant and giraffe on either side, followed by an early arrival at a campsite where we will be setting up our tents underneath ancient Baobab trees.  We're on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans here, an immense area devoid of anything but salt and shimmering horizon. As the largest expanse of 'nothingness' on earth, the pans have area the size of Switzerland (is everything the size of Switzerland in Africa or what?), and are clearly visible from outer-space.  Crucially for us though, there's a good set of showers, a really nice pool and a fantastic bar.   We spend the next few hours relaxing, washing off the grime of the delta and generally relaxing before the next stage of our journey.  I drink a few amarulas and learn how to do "the springbok" shot correctly (it's amarula with creme de menthe and there's a whole ritual involved....).

It feels a little like we're on the home stretch now, but we've still got the Chobe river to see, the Zambesi to cross and then Zambia and the mighty Victoria Falls before we head for home.  We're not done just yet......