Botswana to Zambia....

Getting on the internet is a nightmare, my apologies that this is so slow to update.

14/5/10

Botswana...done 3 days in the Okovango Delta, then a 600 km drive up to Chobe Game Park. Botswana is how I always imagined Africa to be. There are no fences around the game parks, the animals just wander wherever they want. You drive through towns with herds of elephants grazing on the outskirts, warthogs hang out outside supermarkets and on the hotel lawn, and mongooses scutter around the campsites. Our campsite was on the banks of the Chobe River, and after spending 15 minutes standing at the water’s edge taking photos of the hippos there, we got warned that there was an aggressive mother and calf, and a croc hanging out, all 10m from our tent.

For our sunrise game drive in Chobe we split into 2 groups and went in the tub like viewing vehicles. We all had high hopes for lions, hippos and elephants. If there’s wildlife wandering on the main roads then the game park should be heaving. In the first few minutes of entering the park we saw fish eagles, maribu stalks (one of the ugly five, huge great carnivorous birds), a ‘thunder’ of hippos (probably the coolest name for a group of animals ever come up with), and lots of impalas. Then we had a rush of trucks and cars coming towards us. Lions had been spotted in another area. We followed back the way we came towards the gate. It was easy to see the area where the lions were hiding, the 15-20 cars bunched together were a slight give away. We were at the back of the group that had clustered so tightly they had blocked the road and we couldn’t see anything. Our guide started to maneuver out of the way when a lioness and her 5 cubs walked out behind our truck. We went from being in the worst spot to being in one of the best, much to the dismay of all the trucks parked in front of us. There was a lot of shouting and telling us to move, but in their haste to see before they’d wedged in so tightly that there was nowhere for us to go. We got to watch the cubs as they tentatively wobbled across the road. The other half of our tour group didn’t get to see and they were pretty disappointed with the whole drive. No cats, no elephants, no giraffes. Apparently their guide kept stopping for 15 minutes a time to show them the same kind of bird which we’ve all seen many times before.

The evening river cruise was much better for all. There are 60,000 elephants in Chobe and that morning we’d not seen any of them. From the boat, with cold beers and another great African sunset, we got to see huge herds of elephants drink, swim and play at the river edge. As well as big bulls, teenagers and mums, there were also some really small babies. Baby elephants and baby lions in one day, a successful safari day.

Have now just made the border crossing from Botswana to Zambia. The two countries meet for a stretch of about 100 metres, and then only on 2 sides of the huge and fast flowing Zambeezi River which is full of hippos and crocs. To cross the river you get on a ferry that is big enough to hold only two trucks. It takes about 20 minutes for the ferry to make it to the other side and about 20 minutes to unload and then load before returning. With 2 ferries running and crossing midriver they must only make about 24 crossings a day. There were about 100 cargo trucks parked in a queue waiting to get on the ferry. Thankfully for some reason we went straight to the front but we still had to fight to get on. Not sure how much must have been paid to jump the queue, and I did feel guilty about it, but some of the trucks had been waiting two weeks. That definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
Botswana is supposedly the least corrupt of all African countries. It was a British protectorate until 1966. In 1967 the second largest diamond strain in the world was found. The GDP went from $200 a year to fifth in the world within two years. The government then invested a lot of this wealth into the country. Not sure it went to the schools though, as we saw a group of school kids waiting for the ferry to take them on a daily journey to a better school in Zambia.

Overnight on an island

12/05/10

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Guma Lagoon is a tranquil resort that sits on the edge of a permanent lake in the delta. With swimming pool, horse riding, and a huge wooden dining deck to the water’s edge, it was one of the posher places we’ve camped. We even got to eat at a table for a change. We stayed there for one night before being taken in tub like speed boats 10km further into the delta where we would meet the mokoros. Mokoros are traditional canoes made from hollowed out tree trunks. These are then ‘driven’ by a skilled poler who stands at the back and punts with an 8 ft pole. 

 
 We were taken, kitchen and all, in the mokoros three hours deeper into the delta. We went through narrow channels cut into the tall elegant papyrus grass, lily pad gardens and spiky plants that covered us in bugs. It’s a really peaceful and relaxing way to travel, but at the back of your mind you’re always aware that you’re surrounded by hippos, elephants and crocs in a boat that sits only 10 centimetres out of the water. On the way to the camp we stopped at an island with elephants. We were warned not to talk, to tread lightly, and to stay in a close group behind the guide. The guide and mokoro men were clearly very nervous. It was a little daunting standing 30 metres away from such large animals. You have no chance of making it into and away on wobbly mokoros if they charge.

Arriving at the chosen island to camp on we found it was actually an elephant’s toilet. The size of the deposits means it doesn’t take many elephants to make a whole heap of mess, literally. This didn’t seem to bother those in charge and we tried to set up tents between the mounds. Nick then spotted 3 bull elephants about 20m away from us in the bush. Having watched the mokoro men around the elephants earlier we expected to be told that we’d need to move islands, but we were just told not to wander. With camp set up and lunch finished we found that unlike usual we had some time to kill. The long driving days take their toll and we all were happy with the chance to rest. It soon became clear that nobody was going to get to snooze due to the extreme racket coming from the Botswanan or ‘Swanan’ side of the camp. It is considered rude in Botswana to speak quietly when in a group as it means that you are speaking badly of someone. As a result we had 15 men sitting in a circle shouting at each other. This detracted somewhat from the relaxation qualities of being out in the bush and away from civilization. To make it worse, they all seemed to have so much to say to each other, they hadn’t stopped talking all day.

Going out in the mokoros for sunset was about the only time that the men stopped talking. Instead they looked around nervously and were reduced to hissing, clicking, whistling and pointing fearfully into bushes. They seemed scared of their own shadows and constantly looked over their shoulders. Their fear convinced us of death by hippo at any minute. We kept hearing them grunt but we never saw them. There were quite a few elephants feeding and wading between islands, and one bull elephant mock charged us when we startled him. A mock charge involves head shaking, ear flapping, and a bit of noise. This doesn’t sound that scary, but when you’re confined to a tiny hand powered wooden boat it’s reasonably terrifying. All the elephants were good to see, but it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of a hippo or croc, after all in the nature programs the delta’s full of them, our expectations had been high. Later that night there was a hippo heard grunting behind the tents, but that really wasn’t the encounter any of us were wanting.

Left Guma this morning and made it back to the truck to find it had been fixed. So fixed in fact that John had managed to get a speeding ticket. We now rattle along at a far more respectable 75 km an hour. That was of course after we eventually managed to get going having freed ourselves from yet again getting stuck in the sand.

Also… seem to have survived the brush with the dodgy hot dog.

Sticky days

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11/05/10

Have been away from the bus for 3 days on the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. Nice to have time away but was grateful to return to comfy seats. Also relief to be back to tarmac roads, until the next sand patch that is. We have had days of getting stuck. First we got stuck driving into the campsite after a 14 hour day. Got a tree between the wheels that our driver John had to saw out. John looks a little like Clint Eastwood and has a slow, strong accented way of speaking. His knowledge about people, places, history and geology so far have been amazing. He has seen everything so many times but doesn’t seem to get bored with it. He is completely unfazed by anything. Even after a tough 14 hour day, and then having to hack a tree out from under the bus, he calmly climbed on the bus and proceeded to tell us all about the scenery we missed while driving in the dark. He is never too stressed or busy to give us advice and he never stops fixing the bus. In fact, as I type, he is under the stationary bus now, trying to wedge the compressor, that has sheared off its bolts, back onto the engine with a stick. Apparently this is our best hope to get us the 100 km to our next destination. John is never happier than getting some quiet time and finding some space to go off alone with his binoculars and bird book.

The following morning in our trials of getting stuck, we packed up to leave camp early so we could get a head start and proceeded to get stuck when trying to turn the bus around in sand. Would have been relatively simple to solve if the sand tracks hadn’t got caught on the underside of the truck and bent like a sheet of aluminium when the bus drove over them. We got out the sand, demolishing the rock border of the path on the way, but then had to spend a long time getting the heavy tracks flat enough to attach back on the bus. We then drove all day, bus seeming to get slower and slower, motoring at 55km per hour, into Botswana and down the side of the Okavango Delta. We stopped in a small village and transferred luggage, tents, kitchen and food for three days from our truck to an even more tank like one. The 45 minute drive on to Guma Lagoon Resort needed to be done in 4x4, but one that has wheels 4 ft tall. We left John with our bus with the aim of getting the engine fixed, while we rattled and bumped off, gears grinding and with diesel fumes pumping into the open sided truck.

As we followed the sand track through the village it quickly became clear why we need a 4x4, and one so big. We were to spend most of the 45 minute journey driving through water. Our confidence in the vehicle was shaky from the off, and when we entered the first big stretch of water we ground to a halt and the back left wheel sunk 3 ft into the sticky mud. It took them a surprisingly quick 20 minutes to free it (the slightly inadvisable African technique of winching it up on a jack and then driving off the jack), before we waded out and got back on it. We set of with great trepidation. Not quite sure how, as the water sometimes made it 4 ft up the truck, but we made it to the resort without further incident.