esc.ape parameters

Birthdays and Bushboks

There was nothing unusual about the beginning of the 12th of July. It was another day on our trip. People didn’t even remember until after breakfast that it was my birthday, but that was alright I didn’t want a stink to be made of that fact at all!

The vervets ran around on the tree branches above our campsite, trying to get our attention. You could play with them as you do with dogs and they would copy your movements from above. Strange little creatures. (Evil little creatures…)

The Land Rover rolled to a start and we headed out of camp for the day, seeing four Bushbok on the way out. One of them was likely the same I had seen the day before on my run.

We had to cross into Namibia in order to go to the parks for the day. The border crossings were mostly uneventful. I was hoping that one of the borders would notice that my birthday was the same as the date, since both were on each form I filled out, but no luck (or they don’t celebrate birthdays that much!).

We stopped in the same market we had been to already 3 times in Namibia. Here is where I had difficulties with Aaron, when I just made a joke about getting hugs in exchange for lending him money. I would spend a few hours brooding on that, as well. Too much time to brood while on game drives…

Our first park was Mahungu Park. This was the name I could not remember for the life of me on the test, which was unfortunate. I even drew a map of its location… We were looking for baobabs and water buffalo, but when we saw a solitary Roan antelope everyone got their panties in a wad (sorry for the vulgarity but that was how I saw it at the time) over completing a check on their imaginary list of checks.

We got out for a walk, which I thought would be to look for shit and birds but luckily it was not a “walkypoo” again.

This was the park with the giant baobabs. Baobabs can be 1000 or more years old. They are not frost resistant and do not occur further south than this. They are considered sacred in that many believe their ancestors live in the Baobabs. This is due to the bats at night who roost in such trees, sounding like people talking.

Driving up the sand, er, packed sand in two lines that I can’t quite call a road, it was just where cars had driven as opposed to not driven… the baobabs started getting larger. Just when I thought we had gotten to the largest and that was what we were getting out to see, we kept walking past it to another baobab. Originally I had envisioned getting a photo hugging the tree but this thing was massive! The most I could do was hug maybe 1/20th of the tree, which I don’t think came out too good on photo.

One side of this giant baobab had a lot of graffiti carvings and some rivets that were perfect hand and foot holds to climb. The furthest anyone made it up was a branch maybe 12 feet up. That was John, aka “Clipspringer”/”Clippy”. I was sort of afraid to climb it, but the first ledge was maybe 5 feet up and not too tough. I made it up and was proud of myself for the accomplishment. I wouldn’t be a caver if I couldn’t make it that far up freeclimbing a giant baobab! And this thing was massive – 24 people holding hands would barely be enough to cover its circumference!

We continued to see Roan antelope in the park.

Stopped for lunch where there was conveniently a large log to sit on. We made our sandwiches on the roof of the Rover. I sat on the log and took in the scenery while munching on a sandwich containing sweet-chili sauce that I have come to adore very much.

Despite the second park being the home to the former “Buffalo Military Base” there were no buffalo in sight. We saw a nile monitor which scurried away, it was as long as I am tall for sure! And we spotted a crocodile, sunning itself a hundred meters out on a river bank. Our only sighting of a crocodile, but I am sure they were around, it was probably just too cold for them most of the days.

There was a herd of zebras, maybe 16 at a water hole, who spooked when we started the car, and I was hoping I could get my shot of them galloping, but unfortunately had the wrong shutter speed! I upped the speed and tried it on a colorful bird (lilac breasted roller) but unfortunately it was too slow! I was a little frustrated that my last chance at the shot didn’t turn out as expected, but so goes life in Africa – you cannot set up your photos. In fact, people were surprised I did not use auto settings like they were all the time – there is no time to mess with exposure and shutter speed when the animals are there for a split second and you are driving (I did use the “sports” setting for most shots later on in the trip).

I tried to solve things with Aaron and reach some sort of compromise, but was met only with opposition. I sucked it up and decided to continue on with my day – even if someone next to you is not in a particularly good mood it doesn’t have to mar your day.

We stopped at Choppies again where the others were trying to find a cake for me or some sort of cake mix – they had no such luck. No cakes at Choppies. I bought a tub of chocolate mint ice cream, which I was worried would melt.

When we got back we had the second and final test of our class. I had prepared well, I thought, and knew just as much as the others in the review session. But for some reason I drew a blank on the test! It was all about reciting names of animals (what are the two otters in Namibia/Botswana?) and especially on the birds, even though I must have mentioned at least a dozen, I struggled. I spent much longer than the others attempting to answer all of the questions to the best of my ability, super stressed out as I really wanted to prove my intelligence to myself on my birthday… The others were already nearly finished with dinner by the time I handed in my paper. They then began to talk about the test questions which only further added to my stress- apparently I had forgotten to answer one I definitely had a long answer prepared for! How horrible to take a test on your birthday and not do well on it :/ But that is life, that is part of growing up – doing things you don’t want to do, that stress you out, even on your birthday.

Aaron helped me make mac and cheese with supplies had gotten at Choppies. The others had already eaten their hamburgers. The cheese we used was the only non-sliced cheese we could find at Choppies – Mozzarella. So needless to say, it didn’t quite make a sauce and was not nearly as good as our 4th of July version! We did not have time to make the last box of tofu, either. But at least the mac and cheese aka noodles with cheese turned out better than just solely eating the veggies Jon had cooked, and it was enjoyable.

Jon had made a raisin bread in lieu of any cake, which was sweet and well baked. I got out the ice cream and managed to portion out just enough bowls for everyone before sitting down. By that time my ice cream was a bit melty, but it was delicious, the first time I’d had any since Swakopmund (other than ice cream bars). I was glad we did not have the dishes that night, unlike the original schedule before the women at Umvuvu had served us dinner and changed the schedule by cleaning the dishes for us!

It was too late to go to the bar, even though we did walk there as a group to see if it was open – no such luck. Oh well, so goes life! Instead, we six sat around the campfire drinking cheap red wine from a box (Overmeer) and telling all sorts of jokes and stories. It was a good time and among us we finished off a 5 liter box. I went to bed a little tipsy, admittedly, but if I didn’t on my 21st I would not be doing something right!

I lay in bed and thought of my adventures, how this entire trip I had been turning 21. In most cultures it is just another year, but for some reason it is “adulthood” to Americans. This arbitrary age meant nothing except to me another year and another chance to grow. I had grown on the trip, and I would very much miss the adventure. But there are many more years of that to come.

Little Miss Sunshine: Africa

I was tired on the 11th. I wasn’t super slow, just trying to take my time and not leave anything behind, for once. By the time I made it down to the water the first “shipment” had already left on the motorboat, leaving the Professor, Anqi and I. Aaron was off somewhere and we figured we had time before the boat returned – but it was a lot quicker than our 2 hour mokoro ride! So I ran off to fetch Aaron, luckily finding him at the bathroom.

Mark piloted the motorboat for us, speaking very little. Thus I know very little about him except that he is a white guy in Africa who runs a lodge and has bi-racial children. He must be an interesting character and I wish I had gotten to speak to him. He runs a rustic lodge in the Okavango, afterall!

Rina was catching a ride with us and given how she identified with Aaron she sat in the back with Aaron and I. The back row was a tad squished but it was alright. The conversations were well worth the while. I picked up a lot of interesting information on Jerusalem the conflicts in the middle east and why compromise is so hard to come by over holy lands. It is much more complicated than we are taught in (high) school; not just a strip of land two countries are fighting over. I was even more amazed to hear Rina not say that the holy lands belonged to Israel, but instead to recognize that many people live in holy cities like Jerusalem and it is nearly impossible to change this without relocating vasts amounts of people – and that this was not right. I have not heard much of the conflict, but my impression from many of the Jewish students I talked to when I was younger was nothing of the sort from their points of view! And here we were talking to a former member of the Israeli army. It was really enlightening.

Aaron had to stop to take a leak and Jon turned off the Land Rover. That was when our troubles began. It wouldn’t start again… Jon got out to work on the vehicle. We were stopped with some huts visible in the distance and a group of children at the far end of the driveway, obviously watching. In the time we spent waiting for Jon to find a solution, the children made it down the driveway to the car. They stared at us and did not ask for anything, which is unusual, as most Botswanan children seemed to run after the car when we waved asking for “Sweets! Give me your sweets!”. These children did nothing of the sort, even the one with the Bob Marley blanket draped around their shoulders (haha, my jokes are too funny). The oldest was maybe 10 and the youngest 4 or 5. Rina spoke to them. “Dumela!” and asked them how they were doing. They went to her window, all 5 of them. I then realized that I did have something to give them – I still had silly bands leftover in my bag. I found 5 shapes (teddy bear, dinosaur, cow, duck, sheriff’s badge) and handed them the bracelets, one by one. I was worried that the youngest one would eat it, as I had been told not to give village children silly bands for this reason – but I pointed at my wrists, still adorned with silly bands, and they understood perfectly, putting them on their wrists as well. They smiled, their formerly sad faces lit with joy.

The children walked away towards the village. Some women were approaching, most likely their mothers or sisters, with water jugs on their heads. The children ran out to greet them, taking the silly bands off and showing them excitedly. This has to be the second-most heart warming experience of my life, the first being when I worked for the Obama campaign, so I just wanted to share this anecdote. I wish I had more detail.

Some time passed and Jon told us to get out for a bit. I was using the push and as I got back I saw everyone pushing the vehicle. It seemed the starter was screwed, and that was how we were to get around. It worked though, the car was running. We loaded back up into the vehicle and the children were at the far end of the driveway. I waved to them and they waved back, not chasing after the car, but their smiles detectable from 60 meters out, bright as day.

The clouds in the sky were dark. Cumulostratus for the most part. These were rain clouds, and nothing but. I was waiting for the rain to fall, our first rainfall in a month – but it never really did.

Rina taught me another word I hadn’t known in Botswanan when more kids we waved at chased after the vehicle, yelling things like “Sweets!” and… Laqura. Apparently Laqura means “rich white person” but literally means “white thing spat out by the sea.” Which interestingly enough refers precisely to how the white man came to Africa…

We pulled up to a long line at the Ferry crossing. This was where we would have to part ways with Rina, who with her backpacking pack set off to find a ride to her next destination. She found that ride, and so it was goodbye for us. We managed to get some Israeli drum and bass music from her (Niskerone) before she left onto my laptop and her email address for future contact (got to send her some sustainability course information!).

There was a little vendor at the ferry line selling bread and bon-bons. Seeing as to how it was already past noon (we didn’t have fresh lunch food left, we would have to wait until the other side of the ferry) I figured what the hell, I don’t have any pulas but maybe they will take American dollars… Sure enough, I handed them a dollar and got 4 thick slices of sweet-tasting bread. It seemed to have crunchy bits in it, like sand, but was tasty nonetheless. I gave some to the others – Aaron, the Professor, Anqi. Aaron was munching on a bit when he realized “there are ants in this bread. So un-kosher…” I hadn’t even realized. I didn’t see any personally, but I suppose that had been all the crunchy bits… Immediately the remaining half-slice was unappetizing to me.

There was a car accident as one car got off of the ferry two quickly, mangling their front bumper as the ferry moved. The entire area watched the proceedings as the ferry distanced itself for a bit.

We heard music and I turned around to see a group of late-teens to young adults, school bags on the ground, with a boombox. Much to my chagrin they began dancing to the upbeat music, in an impromptu but almost organized fashion. One person would choose a move and then a few would follow. They seemed to be really enjoying themselves and I really wanted to go join them. But part of me thought it wouldn’t be right… and everyone else was saying not to. I mean, I didn’t know them and I would just be some strange white chick who probably smells like an antelope, wearing cargo shorts and a stained polyester tank top. But their spirit was enlightening and I danced from my seat. The other members of my car played cards. Aaron watched as well and the dancers were our entertainment for the better part of the hour.

Even as we crossed the river we could still hear the music above the roar of the engines and see the kids dancing to the festive beats. This is how you keep your spirit and the spirit of others alive, truly. The music faded into the roar of the engine and we could no longer see the kids as we reached the other side. How Jon got the truck up the steep embankment on the other side without a working starter is beyond me (it was still running though, so I suppose that is why). Then at the top of the hill he turned it off and it was our turn to push again. Aaron said it was just like Little Miss Sunshine: Africa. Sort of, I suppose. Sort of.

Two rain drops fell in that hour, but that was all the rain we would feel during our stay. The dark clouds were just temptresses.

I kept my eyes peeled for the paradise bus stop on the way but missed it entirely – just when I knew it would show up soon, I had my camera ready, for all of 20 minutes. And then the road became dusty and I closed my window and turned off the camera. Not a minute later John, seated in front of me, called out the sign, knowing I wanted a photo. Darn! Missed it by a minute. Oh well. The irony of the sign will just stay in my mind forever.

We stopped at Choppies, the Botswanan grocery store, for groceries, particularly for lunch items! Choppies is a bit more regular of a store in that it has aisles and some frozen goods, a bakery and an entire section of fresh fruits and veggies. Of course, I mainly went for the chocolate… But you know me!

Our campsite for the night was off of yet another mile long dirt road. I did not know the name of it, but there was a sign with two arrows, one pointing to “Drotsky’s” and another to “Camping” both by the same hand, so I will refer to it as Drotsky’s.

Drotsky’s was a back-up plan, no other sites were available. We were warned that there was a rampant vervet monkey problem, to keep our bags in the tents. Knowing my run-in with the jackals at Etosha I took the advice seriously despite not seeing the vervets (at first).

It was a pleasant campsite by the river with palm trees and a building not far away that had the best shower yet (an L-shaped bathroom with real walls and roof and light). I am not usually a fan of that, but I needed a real shower! The Land-Rover was parked on a decline so we wouldn’t have to push start it for the dozenth time. It was really neat to camp on the river and the environment was serene.

We had a few hours and I was curious to check the place out and itching to run… The dirt paths were much easier to run than sand. I first ran along the one that seemed to be a pedestrian path, not the driveway. It wound up not long after turning into a stone path for a little until it reached a restaurant/bar that overlooked the river with a metal platform next to it. A few people were drinking there already. I already had visions of drinking there the next night after the test…

I continued my run, expecting to not run into anything just as on my last run.
The first animals I encountered were three donkeys including a foal, all who moved out of the way quickly and seemed to not be very human-oriented. I got nearly close enough to pet them but knew that wasn’t going to happen! I continued down the dirt road we came in on until I saw a hut with people maybe 50 meters away. I figured I had been running long enough at that point and the sun was starting to set, so I turned around and ran back. Towards the end of my run in a more shady region I saw a large object spring into the road.

It looked like a small kudu. (I would later find out that it was a Bushbok, which unfortunately for the test I didn’t know was related to Elands, a large antelope). I was no more than 15 feet from the bushbok, who stopped and stared at me. I stared back, not wanting to move closer and scare it off. For a few seconds we looked each other in the eyes, then the bushboks’ ears twitched and it sprang off into the trees with grace, disappearing into the trees.

That was my closest animal encounter and the one I find the coolest of the trip, just because of the rawness of it, how unexpected it was, how close it was…

I walked back to the bar after my run to get some pictures of the sunset on the water. Not that I don’t already have enough sunset photos, but it was still stunning. No one else walked with me, but it was worth it.

My shower was wonderful. The water stream was heavy and I didn’t have to juggle which parts of me were warm at any given time. I had a full bathroom to myself for 15 minutes, something I will also not regret for a long time. I felt legitimately clean after that. My last shower as a 20 year old was complete and I was ready to face the fact that I had a test the next day and I had to review for it.

I had a good dinner, wrote myself a happy birthday letter, slept warmly without waking up a single time and was happy to wake up to the sound of… wait, Vervets? The next morning.

Traditional Treatment

Waking up early in Africa seems to be the norm.

This time we were hiking on the island. We had to pack everything first, which I felt a bit rushed on, but at least we weren’t going far initially!

In order to cross a muddy/watery part, which in Belize we would’ve just walked right through (well I would’ve) one of the polers had his boat and paddle ready to take us 3 at a time across – the poler having to get out and push at points. I didn’t feel this was right. On the way in I got in the boat with Kirill and Gareth, arguably the heaviest guys on the trip. Nothing broke which was a good sign.

At first I was not too impressed – more wildebeest, maybe 150 meters out. A grey Heron, a duck, baboons…
We kept following Chapman, keeping our order, shortest to tallest (well, as I mentioned…). Chapman’s trenchcoat gave him some sort of official air and he would stop every now and then and point, as if we were some sort of army division conducting a stealth mission.

Eventually one of these stealth points was not just a bird – it was a group of elephants. It was neat when they were maybe 200 meters from us, and I thought that was as close as we would get. But then Chapman started walking through the Reed grass, doing a loop to get near them without invading their territory. We approached slowly. There were no fences, just us and these elephants eventually 50 meters from us. Not zoo elephants, 3 wild bulls who certainly noticed us but continued to use their trunks on the trees, grabbing the most edible foliage and flapping their ears on occasion. It was awe-inspiring and a true sight to behold, very different from being in the protection of the land-rover.

We took the mokoro back across the 10 feet of mud, and this time the two heaviest guys were with a 3rd heavy guy. It broke the poler’s paddle! These poor polers truly did not have it easy with us.

I rode back to the mainland with Kirill again. I passed the camera up to him to get a few photos with our poler in the background. I wasn’t nearly as cramped this time. The ride was uneventful. Hardly any birds. It was very scenic and relaxing, though. How many people get to ride in mokoros on the Okavango River? It makes all your troubles float away in a very literal sense.

I tipped the poler $20 US for myself, and apparently Aaron gave his tip to the poler who took him back (Kirill tipped the poler whom he had most of the rides). I thought our poler wasn’t going to get enough for his work so I gave him another $20 as well for Aaron. (Later I learned most of the polers had gotten only $20 total from both passengers!). Supposedly that would be our last time seeing them.

Since we had some free time, most of the others went to nap. I took my tripod and set up some photos with the hippo statue, which worked brilliantly. The owner of the lodge, Mark has kids who aren’t older than maybe 5 and were playing nearby (and staring at me like “what is she doing with that hippo statue?” as I attempted to ride the hippo!)

After lunch (sandwiches and such) Anqi and I both wanted to try our hands at poling a mokoro. The others wanted to as well, but never showed up. We got to the water and all the mokoros had set off, except one. My poler remained, about to leave. I wasn’t going to ask him to spare some time for us as he seemed rushed, but Anqi asked if we could get a few photos and he fell for it. I am glad now that we tipped him!

He showed us the basic strokes. In order to pole you have to push off the bottom of the river – in front of the boat to go forward and behind the boat to go backwards. To turn, you push away from you on the opposite side of your turn (what you are turning away from). You have to stand at the back of the boat in order to direct it, not the center, not the front – the narrow back. It is surprisingly pretty stable though. I am certainly not the most balanced person and I did not feel as if I would fall in!

Neither Anqi nor I made it more than a few feet, with the poler sitting in the middle ready to steady the boat in case we tipped it (he had thrown his possessions to shore so that if we did it would not be an issue). Neither of us fell in and we both completed our journey of several feet successfully. Later, when describing this to the boys they said they were glad they had not partaken, for they would only have wanted to do this if it had been to go out a bit or around the island.

I spent my early afternoon typing away, to catch up on this blog. We were told to come to the area in front of the bar when we heard drumming which was then changed to “at 4 or 5 o’clock” so we all figured we had time when we heard the drumming, until the Professor showed up at the bar saying it was time (it wasn’t even 2). So we all conglomerated and sat in a row like a group of people waiting for a performance. I really didn’t like that, so I did not bring a chair. Afterall, our “entertainers” were sitting on the ground! If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. This probably just made the situation more awkward, however as I was the only one of the audience on the ground… one of the staff then asked if I wanted a chair and I said I was fine. Whoops :S

At first it was maybe just a half-dozen women and an older man leading the dancing and singing. I really do think they had still been rehearsing when we arrived! The group was using Coca-Cola cans and clanging them together for a rhythm as they sang. I was really glad to have seen Stomp in London followed by them as they certainly would be a force to be reckoned with given the same “instruments” as Stomp!

The old man was really into the music. He would get down on the ground and shake his beer cans (full of beads) with his toes.

The women would dance, mostly using their hips. They had a bead skirt that was mostly draped over the backside which the purpose of the dance was obviously to move artfully. The dance was about using the skirt as the instrument, not about showing off ones’ “style” as I am accustomed to seeing! The first female dancer was a girl who was probably 12, wearing a pink hoodie. She obviously had practiced first and was quite good at it. The other women followed, some not choosing to wear the skirt. Two drummers played tall drums, standing, strapped around their chests, to keep the beat. The singing was almost like a sort of (pleasant) wailing, it was not words so much as a use of the voice as an instrument as well.

At about 4, when we were supposed to show up (hah) another male dancer arrived in a red and white striped polo top. He put feathers on his shoulders like 2 cuffs and the old man gave him the beer can shakers. This guy was even more intense than the old man – he got right in the faces of the Professor, almost seemed like he was well… no other way to put it than “crotch diving” Aaron (probably because they both had dreadlocks) and then he flirted a bit with Anqi too, probably aware that she was the one the group had chosen as their “cute girl”. I was the one sitting on the ground towards the end so I didn’t get any interaction with him, I truly think I am the only one, other than maybe Kirill. If I had been a bit further off the ground like the others this may have not been the case.
At the end of this we were allowed to go dance with them, which Anqi was extremely ecstatic for. She pulled Gareth in for a bit as well. I wanted to but was waiting for the opportunity.

One of the staff was really good at reading people and had the skirt, the same that the women had worn to dance, ready, motioning at me. I was taking off my jacket and ready to jump in when Anqi saw and immediately wanted to try the skirt out. I wasn’t about to interfere with her obvious enthusiasm, so I took one of the beer-cans-on-a-stick-with-beads-inside instead. Kirill also danced, and I really didn’t know what I was doing but I had seen the old man do some steps that were like one of the few dances I know (I know how to dance to drum and bass, hardstyle and jumpstyle… I spent years practicing and any other dance is beyond me!) so I did that which was fine, I had a good time with it, only someone commented that I didn’t use my hands enough. What is this, youtube?
After this dance was concluded the professor congratulated Gareth, Kirill and Anqi for dancing, giving them high-fives. I guess I didn’t really dance, huh? I was a bit frustrated and a tiny tad jealous of Anqi, but I went back to typing and let it dissipate. I couldn’t change the social dynamics of the group at that point, I could only do more of what I had been doing and continue on my own path. I am my own person and I know what I did and what I do well.

Apparently the professor had meant for us to go on a hike around the island right then. Neither Kirill nor I realized this, and I am pretty sure the others were all late to it except Aaron, who only knew because he had been sitting next to the professor. In any case, I missed a hike, typing and reflecting. Do we not get any time to relax on this trip except one hour naps before lunch once per week? I never got to use one of the Umvuvu hammocks, something that if I had been there on my own I would’ve definitely enjoyed.
I spoke to Rina and she believed that the dancer had an “affinity for the guys” as well, despite the cultures’ taboos; but that mostly it was just a part of the act. That made me feel a bit better and I stopped fuming over that part and me having sat on the ground…

Dinner was to be at 7pm, and I knew that much at least (no clock but when I get the time from others and know I have X hours left, it helps). It was time to wash away the grime. It was getting chilly already as the sun had set as I walked to the most open air shower I used on the trip – no roof! The dressing room was nice. I found a way to fix my headlamp to the post so I could see what I was doing. The showerhead let out a small stream of water like a beach shower. It was nice and warm after a minute, but there was no way to keep my entire body in there at one time. So either my legs or my arms would be freezing while the rest of me was warm! Even worse was when the cold breeze would blow through and the un-showered portion was subject to it, wet and bare. I was the last one to shower after camping, even after Kiril, again.

I took a quick shower and put on my clothing as fast as possible. That thin poly-pro from REI really does a good job of warming you up, and I was glad to have it, even if I didn’t wash it once this trip!

Our dinner was to be a traditional dinner, cooked by the same women who danced and served by some of them as well. There were candles on our table and the menu was read by the same staff member who is excellent at reading people. Apparently there was stomach, a stew, mealy-pop and a few other items. Very little of it was vegetarian so Aaron had some TVP-stew cooking on the stove. The mealy-pop and a bean dish were surprisingly edible (particularly with the added TVP!) but the others were not having such a good time stomaching the stomach! Our dessert was sour milk and a soupy porridge. I added a lot of sugar and the first few spoonfuls were palatable at least. To think this is what most people there eat traditionally, every night – and usually not in the amounts or variety we have… I will never complain about potatoes and our “Instant Oats” again!

I was glad I had nutragrain bars in my tent.

I found that night that I already knew the dirt paths by heart: which to take as shortcuts, which to take to avoid people. No longer was I at risk of accidentally turning into the water trying to get to my campsite, and if a hippo had been hiding I would’ve been able to dart off much easier. Or stand my ground, of course.

It was a colder night that night, if you haven’t already figured that. I was up with the guys talking around the fire pit, I think I scared them off to sleep. Oh, wonderful African nights and close-minded children of doctors (sometimes I really do value my entirely public school education). I still wish I had brought those warm fleece pants.

On Island Time

Our one night of rest was cut short by an early wake up for the mokoro rides to our campsite. I was definitely a tad grumpy on little sleep and not at all feeling like leaving a real bed. I had my bag already packed but then learned that we didn’t need to bring our sleeping bags everywhere! So I had to reapportion my items to the jackal-raped daypack as well. It looked like I was bringing the most camping, but in all regards I was not – everyone else just had loose items (sleeping bags and pads) and I had a pack that fit all of mine. To me it was practical – they would not be wet and were all in one. To them it seemed like I was overpacking. But for this I brought just the right amount for my own comfort and I got no complaints.

Aaron had hurt his back unloading the day before and it was definitely out. We all tried to help him with his bags. He was not talking to me even more, which I understood due to his injury and stayed as helpful as I could, trying to be a good friend.

Since Aaron had hurt his back, he needed to be in a mokoro with seats. Only mine didn’t have plastic seats, but I was totally fine with that as I prefer the wild ride to the tame one. I noticed that morning that our poler’s mokoro had a pirate skull and cross bones on it and I instantly drew more of an affinity towards it, regardless of the lack of seats. At heart I always like to believe I am a pirate, an when the epic pirate vs ninja battle rages I know which side I will swear allegiance to! Anyhow, Kirill switched with Aaron and I let him take the front given his giant stature so he could stretch out his legs a bit. This cramped me, especially since I had my two bags at my feet, but I didn’t mind.

We didn’t see much wildlife on our 2 hour ride. A bird or two, perhaps. The reeds parted as we pushed through, the polers relaxed and smooth in their motions as the wind blew against us (cold, from the east, according to the local guide). Sometimes the reeds would whack us in the face or deposit spiders in the boat. Overall it was relaxing, albeit chilly.

The amount of vegetation was surprising given that birds were responsible for nearly all of it: depositing seeds in the delta.

We pulled up to a sand island with a round clearing not far from where we left the boats. It was by far not an “established” campsite, but it had been used by the Umvuvu lodge guides for some time it seemed. Both the guides (along with Rina) and our group set up tents, the guides across the way by a little from us, with their own fire pit. The latrine was a hole in the ground with a camp seat (equally with a hole in it) over the hole. There was a shovel (that was used to dig that hole) before the bend in the bush to mark the latrine. A roll of toilet paper was on a twig above the shovel If these two were missing, that was the sign that it was occupied!
I just used the actual bush on my own accord to begin with, not preferring to deal with the toilet pit.

After a rather early lunch, which Aaron and I heated up soy leftovers for some sloppy joe sandwiches, we were to take a hike. I thought it would be on the island, but apparently we were loading back into the mokoros. The polers had to cart our butts to the hike site as well. There was a hippo on the way and we were allowed to stand up to see it, maybe 100 meters from it. It turned its head towards us, obviously not wanting to come into the cold water to defend its territory; not more than a tad annoyed at us. I was surprised that the boat was stable enough for us to stand, certainly not an option in a regular canoe!

As we continued towards the hike site the reeds grew thicker. The mokoros seemed to be in some sort of race with one another, the polers jockeying for position and always interchanging with one another. They did not follow the same paths and it felt more like we were “reed whacking” than anything else – both the boat whacking reeds and the reeds whacking back! The reeds were many in number and above the polers’ heads in spots. They were not a mass of yellow-green as viewed from the distance but instead varying shades of green and grey from lime to dark green and greys and beiges. They varied in diameter and thickness. I reached out and touched a few on occasion to feel their surfaces, some waxy and some quite rough. Lily pads floated on the surface of the water, some with beautiful flowers.

When we got out at the island we were to hike on, Chapman, our guide told us we were to stay in line in order of height – shortest to tallest. For some reason I ended up right behind Anqi in the front even though I am pretty certain some of the guys are the same height as me or nearly so they were further back! Whatever, I was not going to fret about it. Aaron had found a walking stick to help his back out. The order helps so that the tallest can act as spotters, seeing animals from a distance, and the shortest don’t miss anything being blocked by the taller people.

Chapman lectured on termites, which apparently change sex underground. Much of what he said was later corrected by Jon, apparently it was not all correct so I will not site it here. But what was interesting is that there are 40,000 termites to a mound. The mound comes before any trees that seem to be growing out of it. Those trees are the product of birds dropping a seed on the mound with feces.

When they said we would not be able to get close to game on foot, they were not kidding. We came to truly appreciate the game drives we had done in the past month given how the closest we could get to anything except baboons was maybe 200 meters – and that was a herd of Wildebeest who stopped and stared at us before running off. From a distance we saw several antelope, warthogs, baboons and birds which I should’ve paid attention to – I would’ve done much better on the second test!

On the way back Aaron sat with me again, as the others had already sat in the boats with plastic chairs. I tried to get someone to trade with him, but it just ended up that way (not because they werent’ willing, just a combination of factors.) The ride back was mostly silent as Aaron was understandably still in pain, although I did attempt to video the reed-whacking a bit.

I was exhausted and took a nap in my tent when I reached the campsite. The four amigos were playing cards. Not twenty minutes later the professor stood outside my tent saying we were leaving for a sunset mokoro ride

Aaron thought better this time and grabbed a plastic seat (the seats were interchangeable, it seemed) for the ride. I spent it observing the plant life in the delta, amazed at the individuality of the lily pads and the reeds. Each lily pad had unique tears and stains in it. Their lifelines floated in the water, blood red and maroon as if they were the arteries of the delta. One small lily had almost a hundred bugs crawling on it. The place was teaming with life.

The sunset from the mokoro was beautiful. Although it was not the stunning African red, there is something about sunlight reflecting off of water that sends a feeling of tranquility through your mind and body. This was just like that, as we sat out in little boats in the Okavango Delta watching the sun disappear into the mouth of the horizon.

For the veggie dinner Aaron cooked soy again. At first it was too watery so it had to be put back over the fire again to cook off. Jon was cooking pasta so we were going to mix the two and got first dibs on the pasta as well. It was a very good dinner.

Aaron helped a lot with dishes but understandably his back hurt and I offered to take care of the pots. I didn’t realize it would be a long ordeal due to lack of water and the size of the pots! It seemed like I spent forever cleaning. When I ran out of water Jon had more brought from the Delta, which then had to be heated. So I sat around the campfire with the guys. In the distance Rina and the guides were singing hymns that were Christian-based, although Rina apparently was teaching them a Jewish one as well.

I spoke to Rina a bit while I was cleaning and learned she wanted to study sustainability and was working on finding a university either in the US or Israel that had a course she felt applicable to her interests (not purely science). Given my friends with similar interests we had a discussion about this and I learned that she had done WWOOFing in South Africa recently (organic farming exchange). It kept the cleaning interesting.

I had the realization sitting around the fire that I would miss these nights, these campfires under the African sky – the southern hemisphere view of the milky way. The southern cross. The camaraderie. Jon and his one liners – “You know they say the Irish invented the toilet seat – the Brits came along and put a hole in it”, and camping in the middle of the wilderness, hippos and lions at our back door. I missed it already and I hadn’t even left yet.

Maybe it was my formerly yellow but now mostly grey with dirt/dust fleece, or my blackened feet – but I felt exceptionally dirty that night. It was ok, we were camping – its all a part of the fun. But as I lay down to sleep I couldn’t help but dream of a shower to wash away some of the grime!

Dumela!

We left Mashi River Camp on the 8th at 8:10 am headed towards Botswana. My clothes from the day before were once more wet, and I was worried they would mildew as I packed them away – but it seemed alright, they were only damp, and it is very dry here regardless.

We said goodbye to Lisa (we all got hugs from her and Anqi and I took pictures with her) and Dan. I will truly miss Lisa, as her work makes me realize that is what I want. I am not much of one for identifying animals – but stake outs, watching them, collecting data – the real field work, that I am into. I will do any science with field work. If I could just choose one! I hope to see Lisa again someday, maybe volunteer for her project. She is truly inspirational.

We stopped at a store we had been in on the way in – one which had a few aisles of food, but still seemed sparse (one type of cheese: Gouda. No peppers. No candy bars!). Jon told us that he actually had bought us the TVP (textured vegetable protein) at stores like that before. Pessimistic, we looked – and despite the few products in the store, there it was – I had missed it so many times before. Soya was the brand name. Meat substitute, soy product. Right there on the box. It came in many flavors, all mince. Apparently it is cheaper than meat so the locals eat it sometimes to replace meat. Who would’ve known? Even in Africa there is soy to be had.

On the way to Botswana we crossed through a small portion of Bwabwata Park. I wasn’t expecting to see much given our recent game drives and how it seemed like Gareth and John were checking animals off of an imaginary list. But we did see a small herd of zebras (about 5 of them, one foal), which I was happy about after going almost a week without seeing any.

Not far up the road we saw the two types of antelope we had missed thus far: Roan on one side, Sable on the other. We had read about them in Notes on Nature so they were of particular interest to us.

We first had to get our passports stamped in Namibia, that we were leaving the country – filling out the same form as at the airport. We were the only visitors in the building and it was quick. No questions, just a stamp.

We saw the Botswana signs not long after and had our passports ready, not knowing what to expect. Jon had hidden the cheese well (of concern to me since I had bought some!) and veggies, in case they did an inspection – supposedly no dairy or vegetables would be allowed through due to disease (hoof and mouth and etc). I was expecting a warehouse look and a long line like at the Guatemalan border, but we were the only visitors in the small building, which reminded me somewhat of a small-town jail. We filled out an immigration form and brought our passports to the counter. The woman at the counter was surprisingly friendly, asking how we were doing today and if it was our first time in Botswana. That was it – then have a nice day, stamp! Much easier than Jon had prepared us for (they will ask if you have other shoes, tell them no, those are your only pair or they will go through our luggage, one by one! They didn’t ask, at all- didn’t even look at our food at either border), and it was smooth sailing on through Botswana.

So there I was in another country, in Africa, about to spend one more week camping in the great wilderness. What was in store for me next, I did not know. The itinerary had completely been scratched and modified. I was just going to go with the flow.

Jon told us that Dumela in Botswanan (Tsetswanan) means “g’day!”

In order to cross into the Okavango Region, we first had to cross the Okavango to the “crappiest road so far” (according to the Professor).

Botswana, at least the Okavango region, is a remote place. The first portion of our drive there were some houses next to huts, all very small, one story and usually in communities of maybe a dozen of same cookie-cutter type nestled between villages of huts. Each had a giant green water barrel in the back. But mostly the houses we saw were huts, with a very round architecture to them. Women carried things on their head on the way to their houses, but a higher proportion of them seemed to be wearing modern hoodies or tshirts in addition to more traditional (but brightly patterned) skirts and head scarfs.

When Jon said we were crossing a Ferry, he really meant it! We arrived at a line of about a dozen cars backed up at a river waiting for a small ferry to take them, 2 or 3 at a time across the Okavango. On the side of the road there was a large pond in which a few young boys were fishing from canoes. One of them was really good and seemed to be catching quite a few fish, much to the chagrin of the others. Their excited yells filled the air with joy. I took photos from the car and they pointed at the fish for us, proud of their catch.

Seeing as to how it takes 20 minutes per round trip on the ferry (mostly loading and unloading of the cars, even if the Ferry was metal instead of mostly wood like in Belize), we decided to have lunch right there at the crossing. At the head of the crossing there were a few street vendors (and prostitutes, apparently) with some food items. But we had our own, so we put our sandwich supplies on the hood of the Land Rover as per usual and made our sandwiches (cheese, tomato, mustard and hot sauce for me). The line moved up and Jon had to move the Land Rover, but told us it was fine, leave the food and the open jars of mayonnaise and mustard on the hood. It was quite a site to see him rolling forward, all of our sandwich supplied open on the hood!

The ferry was a blue, metal barge about 30ft by 20ft. There were two men in these towers at the head of it directing its movements. Once on the ferry we were required to get out, so we all jumped out, standing on the metal deck and looking across the river. It took maybe 10 minutes to reach the other side. Anqi and I wondered why there wasn’t a bridge – the answer was lack of infrastructure. On the return trip Jon said that if there was a bridge he wouldn’t want to come here. It is part of the adventure, he says – the crappy road and the ferry. It keeps some people from coming here by making in inaccessible; it is part of what makes it wild.

There was a bus stop not long after the fairy that was just a painted wooden sign – “Paradise Bus Stop.” I found this truly amusing and was rather frustrated that neither on the way there or the way back I could get a shot of the darn thing!

We were chasing the sun to the Umvuvu lodge where we would be camping. Apparently we would be poled across and if we arrived after sunset they would not take us. The sun was already in the last 1/10th of the sky and we still had a way to go on a road filled with potholes.

I used my little solar panel that day to charge my ipod and was glad to see it worked fantastically here, even mounted to a side window. 2 hours and my ipod was charged!

We passed several lodges and what seemed to be a small town with a few liquor shops and a small store before turning on another dirt road I knew, by that point, must be one of those long African campsite “driveways” (the average length of which I have figured out is around 1 mile) with a wooden sign proclaiming Umvuvu Lodge and another next to it advertising Paintball, Donkey Rides and Camping. It seemed a little out of place and kind of humorous.

At the end of the road was the Okavango River and 4 mokoros (essentially a canoe) plus a motorboat. The sun was just beginning to set and we had to move fast, leaving non-essentials in the vehicle (for me that was nothing except the inverter). Aaron jumped up to the top and threw the bags down quickly, which later led to him having put his back out. I had packed my bag cover separate from my backpacking bag to make it easier for roof packing and lighter to deal with. Our luggage went in the motorboat and we took our backpacks into the mokoros, 2 per boat. I sat in the front, Aaron in the back. Our young poler (the youngest of the lot, probably our age) was wearing a striped hoodie. I forget his name, which is a regret of mine. The motorboat set out and disappeared into the distance long before us. The polers set off at a slow and steady pace through the reed garden of the Okavango. It was a relaxing and mostly silent ride into the setting sun, the polers standing in the back of the boat. At first I was worried we would tip, given how I have tipped in a much wider canoe before, but these polers knew what they were doing.

The reeds smacked us in the face and brushed the sleeves of our jackets, the cool breeze blowing through our layers. I considered taking the life-vest off for a second to put on my fleece, but I was too busy trying to get a few photos of the surroundings.

As we learned in a lecture that night, the Okavango is an inland delta, one of the few in the world. It is 9000 square miles. The main park, Marami, was founded by Chief Marami, the first governor to ask for assistance to protect a wetland, making it the first park in Africa established by indigenous people. We were not in Marami Park, just a wildlife management area, of which there are maybe 40 around the delta.

The Okavango is part of the Kalahari Basin, which means it is actually part of the Kalahari Desert. In fact it is often referred to as the “Jewel of the Kalahari”. Rain here averages 650-850mm per year. Plants in the Okavango are due to birds depositing seeds, and the islands are formed by termite mounds pushing sand above the water. Up to 70% of the water in the delta evaporates. The water drains into channels from the delta, flowing into the Makati-Kati and Butteti Pans. Photosynthesis productivity is high here. Surprisingly the soil quality is poor – it is sandy. Many plants are therefore nitrogen-fixing. Grass is also poor, meaning game has to move continuously from island to island. Elephants and buffalo are common here, and the largest population of water buffalo occurs in the Okavango Delta. Many animal groups here have different behavior – such as lions who swim and hunt water buffalo. They have adapted to the water environment. Despite the environment, there is only one small water snake and there are very few turtles and fish.

Most of the camps/lodges in the delta are for photographic safaris. Ours’ is rustic, others are luxury ($450-$650 US per night per person). There are 45-50 lodges like this. Most of them are tented (even the luxury ones) as no permanent structures are allowed here, and a maximum of 24 beds can be had at one lodge. This provides for low volume, high income tourism.

We came upon the sandy, shady bank of Umvuvu marked by a hippo statue large enough to sit on. The boats pulled up onto the sand and the boaters held them steady as we walked to the front. I initially forgot to take my life vest off. There was a mostly open-air bar with a thatched roof and 3 hammocks nestled in among trees. Past that there was literally a maze of paths to the campsites, which already had tents. We had to wind our way past several other tents and take a few turns to make it to ours’. Anqi and I were both pleasantly surprised when the tents were spacious enough to hold two beds!

Our dinner location wasn’t far from our tent – another thatched pavilion with a sink, a few tables and chairs. The toilets were a tad hard to find, though. They were even further into the labyrinth and had pole-fences (like the villages here do) creating walls around each side, adorned with signs “male” and “female” with a row of wash basins/sinks between for laundry. There were two sinks in the bath area with mirrors and towels, and two toilets. They were green and we were told not to flush any paper down them (instead deposit it in a trashcan to the side) which is a hard habit to break and I noticed that I was not the only one who messed up a few times!

The showers had a dressing area and like the toilets at Mashi River Camp they had a rope to use as a “door” signal.

I made my way to the bar and typed a bit until my laptop powered down. For some reason it is not holding charge these days…
The bar had a pile of books and a few national geographic issues, a couch, some bar stools and decorations. It was quaint and rustic, but still nice in a very “Africa” way.
A woman in her mid-twenties came to the bar as well and I learned that her name was Rina. Aaron spoke to her a bit – she was traveling from Israel, had finished conscription in the Israeli army and was now making her way through Africa.

I left the bar when it was dark to head back for dinner and turned the wrong way! I was about to head into the water. A staff woman came running out and asked where I was trying to go and began to walk with me to show me how to get back to the campsite. Needless to say I was more careful after that.

I was excited for dinner as we had picked up the boxes of “Soya” at the store earlier that day. Aaron made a stew out of one of them- adding curry powder and a few veggies. It was an exciting addition to have soy again.

We figured out the charging at the power strips at the bar and everyone jockeyed to charge their camera batteries and in my case also laptop, although it didn’t seem to be working. It charged long enough for me to catch up a little, although I was almost a week behind on the blog at that point.

The lights turned off at the bar and it was just me with my headlamp. I could hear a hippo at the water, maybe 30 meters from the bar. That was alright until I heard it shuffling around and I knew I needed to get back. I left the bar and began walking towards the bathrooms. The shuffling was really close and I could hear the hippo sounds. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye behind me on the path and I jumped, turning around ready to let out a ferocious sound to scare the hippo… I even surprised myself in that I was prepared to stand my ground! But it was just a bush in the breeze. The hippo was not to be seen.

With my heart pounding and a rush of adrenaline I made it to the bathroom, laughing a bit, where Anqi was also using a sink. I lit the area with my headlamp, but the open space behind us, although walled, gave the eerie feeling that there were creatures watching us, able to easily walk in at any moment. At Mashi River there had been no barrier between us and the animals, but here we were on an island in the delta, our only barrier a flimsy wooden fence. This combined with navigating a maze of dirt paths that were easy to get lost on added to a labyrinthian feeling. Where, we all wondered, was the minotaur hiding? The candles on little posts on the main path had all gone out by the time I headed back to my tent from the toilets. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit spooked as I walked swiftly back to the tent, to the comfort of a real bed for the first night since Swakopmund. (Anqi and I got yelled at by Jon as we were talking too loud in the tent, again, in our attempt to pack things that night – we were told we were going to be camping the next night and to only bring with you what you need. I misunderstood and thought we had to bring our sleeping bags/etc with us everywhere. So I readied my backpacking pack before doing some situps and finally collapsing into a quilted bed – which was still cold.)

Steak-Outs and Shit

The next morning I remember waking up a tad chilly and just in a generally bad mood. It took me a while to get from the sleeping bag to dressed and out of the tent, adding in a contact fail (one of them had a tear in it I wasn’t aware of as I kept trying to put it in). When I finally got out for breakfast, there were no chairs left. Nutragrain bars in my tent were breakfast for me, but at least I still had the few that Aaron had given me. When I went to put on my newly cleaned laundry (I had nothing to wear left!) I found to my dismay that none of it was completely dry! I had to put it on, shivering as my body heat dried the clothes, gradually. At least they were polyester, not terribly cold when wet. When I went to the bathroom, there was no TP left, so I had to ingeniously use cardboard from the empty roll which I instinctively threw into the toilet, then having to fish it out, realizing that it would not flush… No more gross details, you get the drift: it was one of -those- days.

We loaded up and headed for a game drive in Mudumu Park, a 1000 square kilometer park in the southern Caprivi. It averages 500-700 mm of rain per year and is a lot wetter than any of the parks we have been to thus far, with the Kwando River cutting through it. Although it has many of the same species we have seen so far, we were hoping to see a few new ones – hippos, water buffalo and new birds as well, maybe even crocodiles.

On the way we stopped to check the hippo carcass. Dan was right in front of us and showed us where there were hyena tracks nearby. Someone was noticing the hippo, maybe the bait would work tonight…

Our first sighting was indeed a (live) hippo. It was far away and so large we all mistook it for a rock at first, even when it reared its head it was hard to distinguish as a hippo! It was far more rotund than I had thought hippos to be – the size of a boulder with squat legs and a head that was equally large in proportion to its body. We could not make out the details from the distance we were from it, but nevertheless we could tell it was massive! No wonder they are such a dangerous animal.

We drove to a clearing area where we all got out with two plastic trash bags. Lisa had told us to collect predator poo which she and the local man we had met (the landowner) would identify. Jon called it a “walkypoo”, and rightly so. We were walking around looking for poo to identify, there was nothing glorious about it. More particularly, predator poo, which isn’t like cow pies, rather shaped into distinct semi-sausages in most cases – not like kudu pellets, either.
We did find some, one that we believed to be leopard and another we could not identify. It was placed in the trash bags and GPS coordinates taken. My sharpies came in handy for labeling the bags.

We had lunch at the same location and I managed to spill some of Texas Pete on the hood of the Land Rover, but this just blended in with all the tomato stains and such, as we had been using the hood for lunch for quite some time.

Of all the things we saw I think only one stands out in particular – a kudu not far off the road with 3 birds sitting on its neck – Oxpeckers, we were told. These birds actually eat ticks and therefore are symbiotic. It was a perfect picture of harmony between two species.

The Professor was excited when we spotted a Leopard Tortoise – a young female, 12-15 years old (they live to be 120). It was really interesting because she made deep breathing sounds, which was necessary as she had to exhale to stick her arms completely in her shell and be protected. I had never heard that before!

We were to take a river safari when we returned, so I decided to wait until after for my much-needed shower. I took a nap in the hammock not far from the bathroom that I suppose no one else had seen, trying to meditate a bit and rest. It wasn’t long, however, before we were called in to get ready for the safari, Dan was here. I was almost late to the boat (which was parked near the hammock) in grabbing what I thought would be enough layers (I know it can be cold on a motor boat!).

Aaron and I were the last ones on the boat, so we sat in the back, in the sun. At first it was a good temperature, but as it was late afternoon and the sun was going to set, the temperature was only going to get cooler. Dan truly is a riverman, piloting his boat while straddling the wheel. He knows the ins and outs of the Mashi River.

He told us once more that this is an elephant corridor, and pointed out the reed damage that was due to elephants. People in the area he said were going hungry due to elephant damage to crops.

We spotted an Open Bill Stork, which has an adaptation for eating snails.

The area was much drier 7 years ago.

A hippo was sighted, close to the boat on land. It looked at us and ran into the water, disappearing beneath the surface. I had my short lens on and did not have time to change to my telephoto, even though I tried. I was worried for a bit that I had missed my one opportunity to see a hippo – and then, Dan said there were two just around the bend. I had my camera on and ready, and when we rounded the corner I managed a great shot of the one taking a lunge with its head above the water before diving under. He was maybe 50 feet from the boat and “showing off” according to Dan. No one else caught the photo.

We spotted some antelope in the distance, running through the water. I forget if they were Red Letchewes or ReedBok, but they are adapted for the swamp by having longer hind legs and a downhill profile, enabling them to spring through the water (not straight up like Springbok).

We reached the Horsehoe Bend, which is locally called “Rudu” or “place that is dangerous to reach.” People are not allowed to go through the bend, so we went around it.

The find of the night was a dead kudu carcass, its entire back end chomped off, but its stripes still clearly visible. Its belly was bloated (had been dead for at least a day). Dan and Jon were poking it with a long stick Could’ve been a leopard kill, or possibly crocodile

The rare Wattled Crae was spotted and we all stopped to take photos as there were three of them.

The Tsesesebe antelope stood in the distance, behind a tree. According to Dan they are the fastest antelope.

The sun began to set and we all focused on getting sun photos. I was shivering enough that my legs were visibly shaking (even with my fleece top spread over them), and all I could think about was how the heck I was going to manage the shower I was about to take. After 10 minutes of this I decided to check in my bag and was lucky: my pant bottoms were still in there to zip on. After that I felt much better and took much more in-focus photos of the sunset. Dan sped through the water, the motorboat tilting up. Aaron moved up to the front so as to not slide off the back, and I just scooted up a bit. I have never been in a motorboat before, I don’t think, so it was an entirely new experience – the wake behind us and the roar of the motor (doesn’t that scare animals away?).

Needless to say, other than being cold the river safari has to have been one of my favorites of the trip. Getting so close to hippos was priceless, and seeing things in the water instead of the side of the road was a really neat change in scenery.

When we headed back I proclaimed that it was my turn for a shower, that I had dibs when someone asked what the shower line up was. Afterall, everyone had showered the day before, even Kirill, and I hadn’t for 4 days! Luckily this was heard, and I took my towel and supplies to the actual shower (not the bush shower, I really needed to get clean). I pulled the rope across the entry, signifying it was in use (there is one at the bathroom too, a bush-door I suppose) and turned the knob on the hot water, stepping under the nozzle. The water immediately came out steaming and I jumped out, yelping. I guess a donkey really heats things up, huh?

After situating the temperature I finally got to take my shower, the alternation between cold air and the hot water a bit of a juggle – the shower stream wasn’t large enough for all of me to be in the water at once, but at least a good portion could be. I managed to even clean my feet, which had taken on a dusky-brown color on the sides and toes thanks to a mixture of dust and dirt when I wore sandals. Refreshed and warm I quickly dried off and hopped immediately into long johns. I have never taken a shower outside when it was cold before, but I was glad that it was relatively painless, and I was even happier to be clean again, it was a truly refreshing feeling.

Anqi showered right after me, I suppose she felt dirty from the motorboat and the walk-about (I wasn’t too happy with how little physical activity we had done in the past few days).

It was time for a Hyena stake-out, or I should say steak-out with Lisa.

After dinner we set out in the Land Rover, told to bring sleeping bags to stay warm and to stay quiet, no moving if possible and no lights other than red. Lisa, Dan, and Lisa’s help (Freddie, a student from Windhoek volunteering over his winter break) plus the land owner (it is community land but a man from the family to whom it belongs, in case the authorities drop in and see Lisa’s dart gun and think we are poachers) were ahead of us in Lisa’s truck. In the truck bed they had a huge slab of hippo ribs. When I say huge I mean bigger than I am, for sure! With Freddie’s help and all of us standing around, watching, Lisa hung the hippo ribs from the tree. She already had a camera set up to watch the tree which was triggered by movement to take photos and save them to a card (it takes infrared ones at night). We triggered it a lot, especially as she was showing us how it worked and we were standing right in front of it!

With the bloody hippo ribs hung, Lisa showed us how her gun worked. She took out a large rifle and a syringe, loading the syringe with a tranquilizer that is part ketamine and part something else I did not catch the name of. This is then placed in a cartridge. We all stood by watching her do this, Lisa with her gun, clearly a strong woman! (I really admire Lisa!)

With that set, we headed back to our respective vehicles, trying to get comfortable as the engine was turned off and everything became dark. It quickly became chilly in the car, and the only noises we made were the occasional shuffling, and some snores from those asleep. Lisa flashed her red spotlight on the ribs every 30 minutes. At first I was comfortable, until it got even colder! At last Lisa decided it was enough for the night, and told us she would come back to watch it later and would let us know if there was anything more. With that, we headed back to camp – sad to have not seen a hyena!

After talking to Aaron for a bit I headed back to the dinner table where the group and Freddie were playing cards. I sat around for a bit and then joined in. After a while they got tired of their favorite game (Revolution) and we unanimously decided it was time to play Ring of Fire/Circle of Death/King’s Cup. This is when things all became full circle for me, not to make a pun out of it, but we played the same game in Belize at Lower Dover. And this is also when we learned that Freddie’s last name can be abbreviated (by his choosing, he said to call him that) to “Shit”. Freddie truly is THE SHIT, we learned – and we would likely even see him the last night in Windhoek, as his winter break was nearly over. Freddie understood our American jokes, down to the last that’s what she said, and we were as glad to have his company as he was ours’.

Since drinks were consumed with the playing of the game, we all went to bed warm that night. I wore only long underwear but was satisfyingly the warmest I have been to date on the trip (outside of the beds we were graciously able to sleep in at Jon’s place).
It was a good ending to a bad day, full of much too much shit.

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In the morning Anqi and I awoke not just to the sound of Jon’s voice, but before that to the sound of a close hippo’s deep hwah hwah hwah hwah and a roar of what was probably a few lions… A little scared to get out of the tent at first, neither of us missed breakfast, although I do remember cramming oatmeal down as I rushed to get it done and start dishes (since neither Anqi nor I had exactly jumped out of the tent in the morning).

We were headed to see part of Bwabwata Park, on the northern border of Botswana (that it shares with Angola). The sandy road in the park was loose enough that the Land Rover had trouble at spots. We kept trucking down the road, even when we saw a sign that said Angolan border, 200 meters. After we had gone over 200 meters I figured we were in Angola, but it wasn’t until we saw an official sign proclaiming Angola and a military camp behind it that we knew we were there.

Their flag was flying high and immediately as we pulled up the officers saw John and I with our big cameras and told us “No Pictures!” We put them away, not wanting to cause an international incident but a little frustrated. Anqi, with her small snapshot, managed to sneak in a photo of the camp which I was oh so frustrated at. No picture of Angola, but the scenario will stay ripe in my mind. We did cross the border for a matter of minutes, so I will proclaim that I did set foot inside Angola.
We turned around with some apologies from Jon to the militia and headed back out. After we were well-past the “Angolan border: 200 meters” sign, Aaron got out to piss in the woods only to get yelled at by an angry Angolan! We set off again until we found and interesting tsetse fly trap to look at, which had one tsetse fly in it which Jon held in his hand as we looked at the little insect that carries African Sleeping Sickness. The traps are at least effective, somewhat.

In the park we saw a baboon troop, some warthogs running in the distance, and Red Letchwe on the river bank. We then headed out.

I had some bad revelations that afternoon involving boys, but I will keep that out of the blog. It greatly effected me for the rest of the day and continues to effect me on the trip, but this is also part of growing up.

When we got back I badly needed to go for a run, it is just a mental thing for me now, to sort out thoughts – as is meditation to some people. It gets all the garbage out of my head. I was worried about the lions but apparently the Professor had just run the road in the day before, so I inquired. Dan said there wouldn’t be any lions this time of day, they do not hunt in the afternoon. I was safe to go. I plugged the Avril Lavigne into my ears and ran out my frustration into soft sand that gave a bit too much when I sunk my feet in, giving my quads a good workout. The landscape was relatively static, similar trees and scrubby vegetation. I didn’t see a single animal on my run out, although I was looking for those lions… or a leopard. Or snakes, just in case, so I could run away from them. It wasn’t until I reached the main road some 20 minutes later that I finally saw animals – a herd of cows crossing the road. At least something alive.
I stopped maybe 5 times in my run, but that was fine by me, I hadn’t run for a while and I hadn’t had much to drink in the past day. Not a climate I was used to, either.

After the run I took a quick shower again, utilizing the shower while it was available (I was pretty sweaty from the run, it was a good idea) except this time it was in the sun, so no cold air to worry about. The shower was even more refreshing, like hitting a restart button on a computer. That combined with a nap in the hammock (after taking some stains out of my laundry) added to a general feeling of tranquility despite earlier revelations. It hadn’t been a bad day so far.

Lisa came by earlier. She brought the memory card from the camera and we had a look – all it had captured was a bunch of photos of our underwear (thanks to the infrared!). We looked rather silly, and it included one of Dan smiling cheesily for the camera, aware it was taking his photo as he looked at the Hyena tracks (I think he and Jon planned to pretend they were pissing in front of it so that Lisa would have a laugh when she checked the photos, but they didn’t end up doing it).

I heard all sorts of stories around the fire about pet cheetahs and warthogs… Apparently one pet Cheetah was released into the wild and was used to watching TV, so it found someones house and just sat outside for a while watching TV through their window, days even, before finally making a kill (cattle or something). It was eventually poached. Lisa told of a warthog she had named “Piggy” who was huge, and mongooses used to come up to and stick their hands up her nose, making Piggy grunt in pleasure, exactly like Timon and Pumba!

The plan was to have dinner and then do another “steak-out” but only for a short time, after that we would head back and Lisa would notify us if she saw one in the 2 hours after that, so we could wake up and see the darted hyena, given our early start the next morning.

Lisa spoke a bit more about the collars the hyenas wear, bringing in a prototype. I was particularly interested in this given the complaints she and the lion researchers she knows has of them. They cost $20,000 Namibian (the same as running a TV for a year in Namibia). The issue with cell phone based collars are that hyenas are short and close to the ground – bad for already limited cell coverage, the phones are set to upload data at a certain time, not when they have a certain number of bars – and even then sometimes only get some data uploaded, there is no kill-switch if an animal is killed or lost to stop transmitting data, and the roaming and service fees are enormous per month per collar! The collar was a lot bulkier than I had envisioned, there was a heavy box on it that contained instruments for speed, wind and temperature, and had a camouflage pattern to them. I asked more about this and learned that it truly was something they needed redesigned to transmit better and work better in the field, in Africa. Maybe there is something I can do?

Lisa has also been looking for a student to analyze Hyena scat to see what Hyenas eat. She is willing to send the scat anywhere that is reputable. It sounds like a really neat (but messy) thesis project for someone. I am not doing biology though!

On the way to the hippo ribs we spotted a duiker. Or Gareth did. I never did see it, so I still cannot verify that unicorns (the females I think have only one horn, thus they are technically unicorns) exist.

We began the second steak-out, but this one was much warmer. Lisa had hung the meat laced with dormicant so the Hyena would just drop immobilized in a matter of minutes. In 30 minutes we saw nothing, and headed back, once more disappointed to camp. This, said Lisa, is the way of the science. Sometimes you catch them, sometimes you don’t. This also, I now have come to realize, is the way the world works. It is not luck, but simply chance. Be in the right place at the right time.

Capricious Caprivi

Last night Anqi told me that while she was showering, she had a visitor. Gareth walked in on her! I knew something of the sort would happen and find it rather amusing in some regards. Apparently she had gone back to the camp to get her shower things, the guys knew she was showering but thought she was still at camp (they blame Kirill who said she was). It could’ve been a ploy, but I do believe it was an honest mistake!

Jon could not find the key to the Land Rover. The one I had given him the previous night. Uggh, I thought, this could be my fault now… Luckily, after a second look in the trailer they found it next to the fridge. Problem solved. We were told no more charging things on the battery. Fine.

We loaded the Land Rover up fast, well-practiced at the art of it by that point. Breakfast was quick, Aaron and I had dishes for the morning and went into the jungle-house to clean them. The house was interesting in that the windows were screened and there was fabric for the doors. I do not know how to place the house, we weren’t technically in the jungle but that is the best I can think of.

My tooth hurt more and I was starting to seriously worry that it was an infection, but I did not take cipro yet – as I know (well, after having to take it for a week back in May) that has some hefty negative side effects, none of which I was prepared for while camping!

Before we left I asked the owner about his solar panel, next to the bar area. It was small, barely larger than mine. He said just to run the TV costs them $20,000 Namibian (I am assuming per year, which is almost $3000/year) so it is logical, it only runs a little bathroom light and an insect light in the bar which do not take much wattage. But obviously cost-effective.

A little jack-russell mix had accosted us the whole time at the campsite, sitting with us at dinner and apparently escorting Anqi to the toilet once. He was sad to see us go and we all said goodbye to the little energetic thing by the name of Tonto. I picked him up and held him for a bit.

We were set out for another long car ride, this time deep into the Caprivi. The scenery became greener, with the exception of a large expanse of forest that had a recent cold-fire (controlled, I believe). It reminded me somewhat of Belize (as in, the non-tropical portions of Belize, that reminded me almost of parts of Georgia). Villages with fences and huts made of the local trees. Women carried water on their heads in jugs. Some children were on their way home from school, and racing little toy cars by the roadside. A group of young girls carried their schoolbags on their heads, as if practicing for the art of balance that their mothers likely have to have to carry water jugs. The irony in the fact that they are going to school, yet that is what they have to look forward to was quite perplexing. The girls seemed to be enjoying the role-playing, though, their pink bags and smiles only indicative of a good time.

We passed by several bicyclists as well. Including a group of young boys with a bicycle. There was even a bicycle repair shop on the side of the road, which I kick myself for missing the picture of!

We stopped twice, once for lunch in the forest with the burnt ground. More tomato and cheese sandwiches. Gareth and Jon had a sweet chili sauce from Rundu still, and it was quite delicious!

There were elephant crossing signs on the side of the road, warning drivers not to exceed 80 km/hour. We battled each other for a chance to get a shot of the signs, a tad hard to catch when you are going 80 km/hour down the road!

At mid-day we arrived at Mashi River Camp. A sign at the beginning of a dirt road proclaimed this is where we were, Mashi being the local name for the Kavango River.
We continued down a dirt road that winded its way back through a sparsely populated forest. When we arrived at some round cement huts with thatched roofs, I knew we had reached our campsite. We set up our tents in sand, Anqi and I choosing a sand platform (made for a tent) on the opposite side of the thatched dining area (a square hut for that purpose), the rest of our group camping on the opposite side.

We were greeted shortly by Dan. By shortly, I also am referring to Dan. Dan is a man of somewhat diminutive stature, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in gusto and jokes, as we would soon learn. He warned us that the campsite was through an elephant corridor, and that both elephants and hippos can get close to the tents at night. If that happens, he said, stay in the tent and stay calm. If you have to piss in the night, stay close to the tent… and “watch it if you get drunk!” Running the long road in was “fine…better, I saw lions there this morning!” He certainly was a chipper character, your typical hardened Afrikaaner (although I think British? Not quite sure) with a good sense of humor and a passion for the outdoors; the wildlife.

Anqi immediately was ready for another shower, so when Dan said he had two options – the bush shower and the camp shower, Anqi wanted to try the novel bush shower, posing there for a photo before ultimately trying it. Dan heated up a bucket of water which was hoisted up to the bush shower, a shower nozel at the top controlling the flow of water.

Everyone else was lined up for showers and I decided that I had to do laundry (using a metal pail as has been done for decades. I was the machine…). In the time before dinner I managed to do all of my laundry, but I was the only one not to shower! I went longer than Kirill, whom they joked about stinking as he had not showered since Etosha and at that point was a tad frustrated, as everyone was telling me to shower after dinner, but it was already getting a tad chilly and given how I have had problems adapting to the cold this trip I didn’t think that was a smart idea.

At first I was a bit frustrated that we had to have another lecture so soon, I was clearly busy trying to do my chores… But I warmed up immediately when I met Lisa, our lecturer. Lisa is studying the spotted hyenas of the Caprivi region. She is a very bubbly, energetic character who is strong-willed and stubborn (she must be to catch the hyenas!). She has a lock of red hair usually pulled into a ponytail and wore only a pullover over her shirt on a night that was a bit chilly! Her black dog, a bit larger than a lab, followed her and she put a blanket down by our fire for him as she gave us the talk. I sat next to the dog, whose name I think is Blitzsom? Or Bilksom? But I will refer to him as Blitz for the sake of easiness, and pet the dog, a tad distracted at first, glad to see a dog (even though we had just seen Tonto).

Lisa told us that her project was called the “Caprivi Carnivore Project” (begun 2008), and was the first Caprivi carnivore research done, as predators are difficult to study and the Caprivi is an often forgotten-about region. Lisa has mostly funded her own projects through the sale of her house, knowing that funding is hard to come by for such projects. Spotted hyenas are perceived to play a large human-wildlife conflict role. As much as 60% of cattle kills are attributed to hyenas in the region, and there are very few clans of hyenas occupying the Caprivi (estimated 5-8 hyenas per 100 square kilometers). Lisa set out to observe the behavior of these clans, particularly their movement, size, and density – proof that the hyena is not the ugly, evil creature that Disney and others would have us believe!

In fact, she says that PR is half the battle with hyenas. The public in general is uninterested, thinking that the hyena is an evil creature. Not much interest pours in, and not much funding, either!

Hyenas are truly interesting (and according to Lisa “beautiful”) creatures with a strict social structure relying on the females. The tiniest female is more important than the highest ranking male of a clan (immediately hyenas went from uninteresting to one of my favorite animals when I heard this). Their social order is so strict that taking one out damages a clan structure immensely, almost eradicating the clan. Hyenas provide ecosystem services by eating almost anything, including that which is decaying. They are, however, due to public opinion currently on the trophy hunting list. Lisa aims to have them removed from this list.

She has a camera set up at the den and tracks hyenas with collars, which currently are GSM based but she is working on changing them over to satellite due to coverage and data issues. Hyenas are hard to catch, they are intelligent and avoid cars even when bait is hung nearby.

We sat around the fire for a bit and made smores. Freddie, Lisa’s student volunteer from Windhoek, sat with us, and Lisa sat at a table with Dan, the Professor and Jon, laughing about old stories. Somehow Anqi, Gareth and Jon had found marshmallows in the supermarket and bought biscuits and chocolate as well. This we made into smores, roasting the marshmallows on sticks, which were plentiful in the area.

In the next campsite, which held the showers and bathrooms (ours’ weren’t wired for water yet) was a group of film makers with a guide none other than our guide through Mondesa – Manik! What a small world it is in Namibia. Jon said he had hosted the film makers for a while a month or so back, too.

The smores were delicious and we all talked to Freddie, who was 20 like most of us, and had dreadlocks like Aaron. Freddie decided to stay the night, excited to be near students. Jon had an extra sleeping bag for him and John lent him his spare thermarest. He would be camping outside (by his own choice – not that any of the guys were open-minded enough to offer room in their tents which could have easily fit another person), but luckily it was not getting any colder. Lisa said she would pick him up in the morning.

As I went to the bathroom I heard the distinct call of a hippo, and close! I was a little scared but knew it was probably closer to the river, which we were camped maybe 20 feet from… At night we continued to hear the calls of hippos, and their respective answers, sometimes closer than we would have liked. But we weren’t drunk yet, so according to Dan we would be fine!

Happy 4th of July from Africa

On the 4th of July we were Caprivi bound. The caprivi is a strip of land belonging to Namibia that lies between Angola (to the north) and Botswana (to the south). The land is drastically different in landscape, people and management issues than the rest of Namibia.

The first interesting sight of the day was snake tracks near our campsite that were of a thick diameter, meaning it had to be a larger snake like a mamba… We are in black mamba territory now and are venturing deeper into it, so we all have to keep a look out. Most of the group, especially the Professor, would be excited to see one. I certainly am hoping not to.

On our way out of Etosha we passed “Dik Dik Drive”. We all sighed, as dik-dik was the one small antelope other than Duiker (the unicorn) we had not seen as of yet, and given their small size were not too optimistic that we would. They were on the list with Cheetahs and Leopards of things we had not managed to see in Etosha…

After turning off of Dik-Dik drive we saw some movement on the left side of the vehicle. It was a dik-dik! The tiny antelope was barely as big as my cat (who is not that big of a cat, at least not when I left) Pixel. Maybe not exactly palm-sized, but certainly small enough to fit in a large purse (with its head sticking out). This full-grown antelope was amazingly endearing and cute. Much to our chagrin we saw two more just up the road and managed to take our fill of photos.

My tooth had begun to hurt that morning – it was in the back and I assumed it was my wisdom tooth, the same one that had acted up in the fall and gave me an infection (I took penicillin, was tired, and soon after caused the knee injury which will continue to haunt me throughout my life). I was certainly worried, but took Tylenol to mask it and continued to eat on the right side of my mouth. I suppose Cipro would help if it was an infection, but I had no tooth-pain gel, and that certainly would not be obtainable until we reached Windhoek again. I also had managed to get another tiny splinter on the bottom of the same (right) foot. But I wasn’t concerned, it was small enough to come out on its own. I still haven’t checked the bottom of my foot and as I am writing this nearly a week has gone by, no pain.

The scenery began to change. The scrub lessened and the grass became greener. There were more trees and the horizon was not visible far into the distance. It was as if we had been in Arizona and were suddenly hitting Tennessee, with only northern Texas in between…

Anqi had amusingly fallen asleep sitting up and was swaying with the car, every now and then lightly hitting her head on the side or alternately almost landing it on Kirill’s shoulder. This amused me for sometime and Gareth snuck in a video as payback for all the photos Anqi took of him sleeping. She eventually woke up and righted herself.

As we continued driving I really began to notice the stark contrast not just between the pseudo-developed world we had come from and the undeveloped one we were heading into, but also right before my eyes between development and the undeveloped: village shacks juxtaposed with a small store (which was also shack-like, but made of more permanent walls) with a sign on it proclaiming they carried “MTC” (the cell phone giant of the region). It seemed so ironic. On our way to Rundu (where we were to hit a supermarket) there were more of these signs, even billboards with ads about internet service through MTC, sometimes with a backdrop of completely open land and meters from houses that were in no way permanent structures; people carrying jugs on their heads as they walked barefoot to their homes.

Throughout the day we waved at the locals walking past us. The adults were somewhat receptive, teenagers (older ones) would usually glare at us, but many children would wave enthusiastically before we even had the chance, chasing after us and yelling, some asking for “sweets”. It was endearing.

Before Rundu we stopped for lunch at a small stop with some cookies and a picnic table (for 5, so we grabbed some chairs out of the trailer). Of course, we bought cookies – unaware what Rundu would hold for us. The bathroom had no toilet paper and I was glad to be carrying a receipt which makes a great substitute when you are in a rush… :S

Rundu was a sudden development in the middle of seemingly nowhere. There were rows of thatched houses and wood fences followed by open spaces and then, stores. Now, these weren’t like Wal-Marts or skyscrapers. They reminded me more of Belize than of anywhere else, painted with garish colors as if they had been styled after a scene from a late 80s movie. But it certainly was as close to a city as we had seen since Swakopmund. People walked around in jeans and fashionable t-shirts. These were not the same people living in the thatched houses merely a kilometer away, or at least they didn’t seem to be (but where then do they live?). There was one store proclaiming it carried today’s fashion, with manikins (all white ones) wearing neon colors and sweat pants, the same that I have seen friends where to decade parties. A red, yellow and green building was labeled “Coca Cola” (I guess in Africa they are Rastafarian, ja mon?). We stopped at a two-story (the largest structure) building proclaimed as the Rundu mall. It looked vaguely like the shopping mall under the hotel I stayed at in Belize – the shops were the same size and carried similar items in terms of clothing (actually somewhat like what you would find in the US, just not by our name brands), technology and etc. The shock was the supermarket.

The Rundu supermarket was larger than Pick-and-Pay and had quite a few varieties. It was no Kroger or Publix but there was a bakery with cookies and pastries, a dairy section (nothing but full milk) and frozen foods. There was even broccoli! Aaron and I decided that for the 4th it would be awesome to have a little mini-rave, but were not very optimistic about finding glowsticks. Just in case, we headed to the party aisle, looking around and pretty much decided that we wouldn’t find any – and then there they were, the same ones that you find in US dollar stores. At least a dozen glowsticks! We bought a few, excited for what the night would hold.

We had dinner plans to make the night a celebration – our idea was to make mac and cheese with veggies for everyone. So we bought four boxes of easy to make macaroni and another bag of noodles plus several things of cheese and some milk. Then we added broccoli and peppers and I bought an “apple crumble” cake (as close as there is to apple pie).

The checkout lines were long, but unlike in most supermarkets in Namibia there were real scanners and almost a dozen checkout lines to choose from. It was exciting in a way, to have the option again. No cabot cheese or soy (now I know we just weren’t looking in the right place for the latter) but we were still all ecstatic to have a chance to buy food (I bought a LOT of chocolate).

The bathrooms in the mall were hard to find. I finally found the womens’ bathroom, and a woman sat outside collecting the $2 Namibian fee. She handed me a wad of toilet paper and I went inside to find neither stall door locking. When I flushed the woman came inside and I shortly found out why – there was no working sink, only a red bucket of water sitting where a sink would be, which the woman tried to communicate to me that I needed to rinse my hands in. I did that and thanked her. The mens’ bathroom was upstairs from the womens’, and Aaron said it was similar.

My cash supply was dwindling so I stood in line for the ATM. When it finally got to my turn, I at first typed in 3500 – I clicked back and did not confirm this and retyped 350, being sure of the figure this time. The machine spat out 2000 Namibian at me. I could tell because I could hear bill after bill being collected in the machine and stacked up to be handed to me in a neat stack over an inch thick. I was heart-broken. I hadn’t done the math, but I knew it was at least several hundred US… out of my last paycheck… now in my hand as Namibian and almost completely useless for the rest of the trip. Re-exchanging it would be difficult given how little free-time we had and that we were arriving back in Windhoek after banks closed. I said goodbye to my paycheck (the others who do not work/weren’t drawing out their own money probably not aware of why it was such a big deal to me) and stuffed the wad into my wallet, which would barely close. I certainly would not be short on cash for the rest of the trip at least :/

We stopped for ice before leaving Rundu. There was a street vendor right by the ice with music playing and a few teens dancing to the music – the song they were playing, I learned later, was “Kill the White Man”…

Jon and the Professor had never been to our campsite for the night. We went the wrong way on a road for a while, and eventually Jon stopped at one of the local stores (with MTC on the outside and likely a trading post set-up inside, but who knows) and asked for directions. We continued, on the right track.

Our camp for the night was beside a rustic house powered by what looked like a small solar panel. There was a Afrikaaner (formerly British, I believe) family running the place. We were essentially camping in their backyard. The soil was sand and shaded by a few trees. There was a river flowing maybe 100 meters from our tents on the other side of which was Angola. The Angolan border was that close. We joked about throwing rocks across to Angola, but none of us could make it that far.

There was an extension to the jungle-house which was a covered bar area. We put our table and chairs there. Next to the bar was the bathroom, shower, and sink – the outside of this was shielded from view, but once inside the three were each in a stall, none of which had doors. Upon my first bathroom use I encountered one of the family members showering and looked the other way, continuing to the toilet. It does not bother me one bit, I am a caver afterall, and cavers are notorious for our naked boat rides (haha) and hot tubs. But it did tell me that the family must be pretty open-minded!

I asked Jon and got permission to charge my laptop off of the car battery for a little. We charged Aaron’s I-pod, too. After 30 minutes I returned the keys to Jon, who was obviously distraught about something in the trailer – I later learned our fridge broke.

Aaron and I began preparing the meal. We boiled water for the pasta and added in all 4 packets of macaroni plus the large bag. Each packeted meal contained so little macaroni, I was surprised. An “African serving” I suppose – which is much less than the American equivalent! We grated a block of cheddar and half a block of gouda in addition to the sauce packets, and added milk and margarine and water. Despite the cheddar and the packets the sauce mainly came out tasting like gouda, which we added last.

We also chopped veggies – broccoli and peppers – stirfrying them in the wok. Aaron added some soy sauce and seasoning to the wok. He did most of the cooking, and Anqi and Gareth helped with cheese grating (most of them ate the cheese shreds though! Might be why it didn’t taste as cheddar-y as it should have!) and slicing. Aaron was particular about how the peppers were sliced – I usually like to slice them horizontally to get the little curly shapes, but he wanted a longitudinal slice for it to be thinner and cook better. I obliged, stirring the noodles and the veggies a few times.

The dinner came out fantastic. The mac and cheese was nothing like Kraft. But it was a luxury we had not had for a while, and we were all happy to have (even if we had to add a little pepper to give it flavor). Jon cooked meat for the rest of the crew in addition, so Aaron and I took the lion’s share of the veggies – which were cooked perfectly. It was a good fourth of July dinner, followed with a lot of laughs. No fireworks, but we enjoyed the food and the company equally. The apple pie was an additional treat which we somehow managed to stuff in to top it all off. No American flags being waved, but we didn’t need patriotism in Africa. We didn’t even need an excuse to celebrate. No rave that night, we were camped too close to the house. Aaron and I saved the glowsticks for another day.

It was not cold that night, as we were further north (towards the equator) and for the first time I was able to sleep in long underwear. Maybe that was because I had a shot. I am not sure! But I did sleep well that night as did we all. I thought about my friends who were probably just getting out of Ellison’s (cave) after going the 500 some-odd feet into Fantastic, but was glad I was in Africa even if I had missed out on their cave trip (there will be another there sometime, I am sure!).

The Canine Criminals

I awoke the next morning to a crime scene. My bag was dragged maybe 5 meters from my tent and ripped, so that the strap was no longer usable and the side had to be duck-taped (it was ripped). I tied the strap back on. The jackals had stolen my cookies, and had sliced right through the bag to take them! I was a little upset, this is my carry-on bag that I use for everything back home – mountain biking, school, day hikes… It has been to Greenland and Belize, carrying my camelback and notebooks, and many other things besides.

Soon I found that was not the only thing they had taken – they raped my himba doll as well! I thought it was lost, and gave up on the doll I had carted around already for a few days in a plastic bag. However I did find it, lying in the next campsite, its loin cloth ripped off and a few things of hair missing. The poor thing had been raped by the jackals. Needless to say, there was no way I could leave it now that it had that kind of story behind it, even if it stank enough of goat lard for jackals to think it was food!

I managed to have everything ready in time and get breakfast, despite the setback with the crime of the jackals… and I was crossing my fingers, quite happy when 8:00 am rolled around and I managed to run to the curio shop, which was open! I bought an Etosha postcard (with a map on it!) for my parents to send out at the next post box, a colorful giraffe, and a variety of little souvenirs from people. Even if they sell them in Windhoek, to me it means something to get one from Etosha.

We loaded up, took one last look at the water hole and said goodbye to Ojavuejo, ready to venture across Etosha to the far east of the park.

We had a brief lecture on anthrax in the car, learning that it is prevalent in Etosha, and greatly effects animals that occur in large populations like zebras, jackals… and small populations such as cheetahs (but not most predators).

Our first part of the drive was vaguely similar to the last few days – zebras – a lot of them, springbok. And then we saw a steenbok (a small antelope, but not the smallest we would see). That was just the beginning of our sightings, as we pulled up to a row of safari cars – looking at lions! There were two male lions, one on each side of the road. They were a little far at that point and it was hard to jostle in line for a position, so we pulled ahead and waited. Most of the cars left, and we headed back, waiting. One of the lions vocalized (it does that to establish territory – if it hears a roar back it knows that area is taken by a pride already) and after a few minutes walked up and right towards our car – pausing for a few seconds right behind our vehicle before continuing on to the spot where the other young male was lying. Both had looked like females from a distance as their manes were just beginning to develop.

By that point we were already satisfied for the day, and the day had just begun. We continued to see large groups of zebras (up to 150 of them together at once!) and even two skirmishing (likely alpha mares). There was a female lion with a few cubs lying not far from one of the large groups, not seeming to be in any hurry but definitely strategically positioned!

We began to walk past the Etosha Pan, which is an interesting occurrence – aside from it being huge. It is 40km wide. Etosha means “great white place” and is 80,000 years old, formed by a massive glacier. The Kuneni River floods it on occasion. The east side, Fisher’s Pan, is flooded by smaller rivers. It is mostly porous, limestone produces artesian wells. The San people used to live in the park, in the pan itself. It stretched out to our right, a large white plain like someone had taken an eraser and filled in a lake with white. That may give you the wrong impression, as that was just at the beginning – the pan is not dry, it began to have water the further east we drove – reflecting the cloudless sky. In fact, it is a few feet deep and saline. Shrimp live in it.

I hurt my knee by hitting it against the seat in the car, the same always injured knee. So when we took a stop at the Halali Campsite (in between Ojavuejo and where we were headed) it was a tad difficult for me, considering we had a short, rooty hike to the water hole. After Ojavuejo, the campsite and water hole were not too impressive. It was nice to see our first impala, though. We had lunch at the campsite which was slightly more rustic than our previous nights, but had running water and showers and still a few tourists (no shops or post office though). My knee gradually started feeling better but I kept it wrapped with a jacket.

We drove so close to zebras we could almost pet them, and they were unperturbed. We passed an elephant in the bushes, maybe a few meters from the car. It was eating a tree, and continued to ignore us as we sat in the car, so close to the giant creature. It was a “shy” elephant. A beautiful bird flew above us – a lilac-breasted roller (?) hovering beside the car for a few moments. Maybe 50 meters from us an elephant stood drinking water from a small water hole, spraying the water in its mouth with its trunk.

The next close encounter was a giraffe, maybe 5 meters from the car, standing above and behind a tree which it was eating, barely taking a few seconds to take note of us before continuing to munch on the forage. We were all astounded, and then we saw a larger group of maybe 8 giraffes down the road, just as close, doing the same thing – their heads poking out above the tree-tops.

We could tell that the landscape was changing and we were nearing the end of the park. There was a visible fence, and then we saw a white castle tower. A castle in Etosha? It was a little odd. But it was none other than Numatoni, a former German fort, and our campsite for the night. Something about the campsite reminded me of camping in Florida. It had the basics, showers and water and such – but was flat and small. No bungalows or crazy partiers, not as populated with tourists.

I was slow unpacking, maybe because my knee was still wrapped and a bit off – so by the time I was done only the professor and Jon were at the campsite, the rest had gone to see Numatoni. I was a bit frustrated that they had left me behind, but didn’t waste much time dwelling on it and set out on foot with my camera. I was surprised to find that the entire pedestrian path to the fort (not too far, maybe 200 meters) was covered with boardwalks which intertwined with one another, one going to the water hole and a few going to the “rooms”/bungalows, made of the same wood and looking almost more rustic than camping.

The fort was exactly like a castle, the perimeter dotted with palm trees and a tower at each of the four corners. There were two shops and a restaurant within its walls, and one could walk up the stairs to the top wall of the fort and see the surrounding landscape from there. I did just that, the sun beginning to set and casting a glowing light on the tall grasses (as in 2 to 3 meter high grasses they were no joke).

Somehow my fleece pants had gotten wet and I was a bit worried about this given how cold it has been at night, especially with the wind, and given that they are the only fleece pants I brought with me (my bad, I should’ve brought my thick REI sweatpants. Next time I spend a winter in Africa camping…). However with Aaron’s help I managed to find a way to stuff towels in the pant legs and hang them up to dry by the fire.

We had potatoes and squash for dinner again, which I was not particularly excited for (Aaron and I being unable to eat meat, that was our option…), but given the previous nights’ tofu, willing to go along with. I worked on my data during dinner, excited to see the results of the zebra observations in comparison with those from 2002. It turns out my hypothesis was correct in that the zebras exhibited more locomotion in the wild, but I was incorrect in that they did not exhibit more “social interaction” other than the surprisingly vocalizing a great deal more in the wild (something that was unexpected and grouped with “other” in the Zoo Atlanta study, as it was exhibited so infrequently). I cannot wait to write up the results further and conclude the group-size study as well. It may not be publishable, but it is still interesting! Twelve-year old me would be proud.

Before dinner at least a dozen mosquitoes bit me. Seeing as to how this happened at the desert elephant (EHRA) camp as well and I decided not to take Malarone then, I decided that it was a now-or-get-malaria sort of deal, especially since we were headed to Botswana and needed to start the medication 2 days before encountering potential malaria… The Malarone definitely made me drowsy and I was a tad worried that this would continue throughout the trip, and given that it was daily that would not be too fun to deal with while camping!

I took a walk to the water hole at Numatoni. As I stepped onto the first plank I heard a little squeak that sounded like baby birds beneath it. It was not the board itself, there really was something nesting under the plank… It was dark out and the stars were visible. I walked past a pool and an area I hoped contained a hot tub… but didn’t. The boardwalk was like a maze, and although I made it to the water hole, which barely even had birds at it, I found myself disoriented on the way back. No map and compass with me! Boardwalk turned into boardwalk (granted there wasn’t too much boardwalk so I wasn’t afraid of legitimately getting lost) and I eventually made my way to camp.

My pants were dry by the time I went to sleep. I was warm and hardly woke up at all that night, granted I was wearing many layers. I have never gone to bed so early on consecutive days in my recent history. Maybe when I was 5.

Eggstatic in Etosha

My first priority was to get dressed and get my things together. I was exhausted so my mental processes were not working too fast, weeks of sleeping a little less than usual had stacked up. By the time I made it to breakfast there was no instant oatmeal to be found, and it was time for Aaron and I to do dishes (our turn). I was more than frustrated that I had to do everyone elses’ dishes with no chance to eat my own breakfast, but it was no ones’ fault but my own. We were in a rush to get out for an early morning drive, the only chance to see some animals. I grabbed a trail mix bar as we once more loaded up into the Land Rover. At least this time we didn’t have to pack (not in my favor, as when we have to pack the car we have more time!).

Jon checked the information desk, and found out where lions and a cheetah had been sighted. We headed in that direction, the spot easy to find as there were half a dozen tourist cars lined up to see a pride in the bushes, maybe 150 meters away. There were several adults and a few cubs, too far to get a good picture of. We were all hopeful that we would see the cheetah as well, but no such luck. The rest of our drive consisted of a few herds of zebras (all which I had to count as another part of my study), 3 Oryx (with a baby) and 1 giraffe.

When we headed back I immediately headed to the water hole with my camera and book. I heard that we would have egg sandwiches for lunch and was really excited for it, but figured I could fit a data set in before lunch… I did not expect there to be several hundred zebras at the water hole! From 11:29 until 12:21 I collected data, gradually realizing that I had to use Xs instead of recording the number of each behavior. I witnessed an elephant come upon a group of elephants, and one from the group was territorial, so they had a little skirmish involving some trumpeting and pushing and a lot of dust, that resulted in peaceful agreement a few minutes later. I am not sure the pictures do it justice. Perhaps it was worth missing lunch for… Aaron came by with sunscreen thankfully, as I had entirely forgotten, wrapped up in my only chance to get data. He also brought a bag of snack bars. No one had saved anything from lunch for me…

I headed back when all 200+ zebras faded into the horizon, hoping that somehow there was still lunch available. I contemplated it for a long time, assuming I would not be allowed to use the gas to cook eggs. My assumption was wrong – Aaron asked Jon and I cooked 3 scrambled eggs with cheese for myself, putting it on some bread and adding ketchup. Most everyone else was taking a nap (which I greatly needed but didn’t do). I left my plate for just a second and a starling came by and grabbed a large chunk of egg. In trying to shoo the birds I accidentally spilled some ketchup and had to find a cloth to then wipe up the mess. It was alright though, I had some food and no one was upset about the stain (I don’t think they noticed).

Hoping the shop was open in town, I went to see if I could buy a postcard and colorful giraffe. It was a short walk (maybe 5 minutes) but much to my dismay they were closed all day! I inquired at the information desk, learning that the shop wouldn’t open until 8am the next day… I left, downtrodden, knowing we would probably leave earlier than that on Sunday as we would be driving clear across the park…

I headed back to the water hole. Aaron stopped by for a bit. There were zebras again, so I began another set of data (2:45pm) using my camera to keep track of time (rather difficult!). I continued taking data until 4:05 pm, when I was fetched as we were going on another drive. I really wanted my last 15 minutes of data, but settled with 205 being adequate.

Our drives through Etosha were neat in that we saw the most wildlife we have ever seen on game drives thus far. This drive we only saw zebras (much to my chagrin) and mongooses, other than 2 wildebeest and a rhino in the distance at the very beginning.

We had to return before the sunset to the “town” of Ojavuejo. Aaron and I walked into town – his plan was to get liquor and mine to see what there was in the shop next to the curio shop (this shop was called the “tourist shop”. I was kind of hoping the curio shop would somehow be open…). It was mostly just food, with some postcards. I grabbed some new cookies that I was excited to try with a gelatinous fruit center, and nibbled on them on the walk back to the camp. I also purchased a six pack of cookies (not beer!) for the group. I kind’ve wished I was there with family or friends, with time to relax and enjoy … and maybe eat at the restaurant… :S But I will stop complaining, as this was the night that Aaron said he would try to cook the second half of the tofu box.

I wish I had known we could use the pan to stir-fry the night before – the tofu slivers came out excellent, and it was really nice to have some tofu again! I was full for the first time in a while, definitely satiated.

We played a few rounds of the card game revolution, which the other four are hooked on, and I won a round, which was nice for a change. We all enjoyed the dessert of cookies, as well (but I really do miss warm chocolate chip cookies…).

Since it was our last night at Ojavuejo, we all had plans to stay up as late as possible to see all of the night action there. The boys (except for Aaron) had caffeinated beverages and brought their sleeping bags out there in hope to see something like a leopard. I brought mine out as well, but did not have as lofty of a goal and put a little more priority on sleep…

There were four giraffes at the water hole, two were smaller (perhaps younger). Rhinos returned to the water hole. I was glad to have stayed awake when we saw 2 young male lions approach (driving the giraffes away, of course). They roared, establishing that this was their territory, and drank from the hole as if it was theirs’ for the taking; they are the kings of the desert (no jungle here!). The lions left after 5 minutes and a large bull elephant drank from the water hole, the giraffes felt as if it was safe enough to return. Lion roars could be heard in the distance… which drowned out the music, which was finally calming down (one of the German groups at a fancy bungalow maybe 200 meters from the water hole were having a party with music, and had been the night before as well).

I tried to take a few night shots but found it hard to correct the white balance, and the fact that the water hole was lit made it difficult to do a time lapse photo of the stars. Luckily I thought of doing it before bed- as I had left my shutter release and Aaron had left a water bottle by a bench at the water hole. In searching for the shutter release I headed back to the water hole, where the 3 guys were still awake. The lions had returned briefly, they said.

I was warm for the first time that night. I left my bookbag (with the fruity cookies) outside the tent, forgetting entirely that at Etosha there are jackals, and unaware of how much they enjoy cookies…

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