Gingersnaptraveller may be cooling her heels in Ottawa, but having returned to her homeland hijinx were bound to ensue. Check out my cameo appearance at The Red Shoe Diaries proving once again the those who blog together, stay together!!
Stay thirsty my friends,
E
Xoxoxox
Travelling Solo is an odd thing. The mix of experiences can alternately bowl you over with wonder or knock you out with dispassionate nonchalance.
I have travelled though countries that don’t respect women only to be brought into the heart of a stranger’s family and I have travelled to open-minded, free spirited lands only to be left sitting alone in a crowd of strangers.
Currently I am in a traveller’s paradise, a surf and party heaven complete with staff that provide any and all legal and illegal stimulants.
There are beach babes and surf dudes, young and old, French, German, Swiss, lots of Australians and the “odd” Kiwi thrown in for variety and as hook-ups for the Brazilians and Czechs passing through.
The nightly parties have ranged from Masked Hero to Bad Fashion Taste party. All slightly challenging for your average backpacker who travels with approximately 7 pieces of clothing for an extended period of time. Aside from slinging your sarong over your shoulders, braiding your hair a la dread-lock style, lighting a joint and declaring yourself Super-Hippie, these theme parties become not just challenging but down right depressing.
“In reality, the theme parities are not for the guests at the backpackers but for the clearly bored staff that endure a never-ending rotation of late-teen, early 20-something travellers looking for the next adrenaline rush. They paste on their smiles, give the same check-in tour-de-force: “And this is our bar, this is TK, he will hook you up with a tight cocktail anytime”.
So what to do if you are not an early 20s beach babe or a surfer dude, if your body fat percentage in completely proportionate to your age in such a situation? Well, you swing and miss a lot of the time. The beach is good for a walk, surf lessons fill your mornings, kill your afternoons with recovery and devastate your evenings when you succumb to exhaustion. So how do you not miss the pitch?
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Well, weirdly I do it by rolling a mean joint and I have little to no shame about sitting at the bar and talking to any and all who wander past!
I do drink, which is helpful at the bar, I don’t smoke weed myself. Tried it, would love it if it worked for me. I mean really, it is cheaper than booze and cigarettes back in Canada (okay, the illegal part is an issue that will linger in the back of one’s mind, but hey, don’t we all have something that niggles?).
But after learning to roll my own cigarettes in the UK many years ago it turns out that the skill of not just rolling, but being able to roll in a filter, is something the even veterans potheads cant seem to master.
So, I roll joints for the useless newbie traveller and the too-stoned-to-have-manual-dexterity types. I confess, while I can sit at the bar and chat as people come up and order, I can’t do the head-first entry into the newest arrivals by virtue of my latest bungy jump tale or the “Awesome 2 day pay to volunteer experience I have while not EVEN having access to a shower” hardship yarn….so rolling joints is where I hit it out of the park.
I guess some people knit or fashion necklaces out of thread and seashells, but I just had two people come up and chat to me because I was doing none of the above. They saw me writing this blog post alone at a table with a glass of wine in hand and chuckling to myself as I peck away at my keyboard.
So, Travelling Solo 101, do just what you want. When it works perfectly you find a community of friends and soulmates like I did at the Cardboard Box in Windhoek, Namibia. When it doesn’t, do what you feel like doing.
Oh, and smile a lot and having a lighter on the table in front of you (even if you don’t smoke), it helps. You may swing and miss a bit but when you connect it is a home run!!
p.s. A week of surf lessons has had me holding off on re-henna-ing my hair and for the first time on this trip I was reminded of the ‘age gap’ between me and the rest of the guests here (which is about 15 to 20 years). I don’t mind because after 10 minutes of conversation my gray roots aren’t the only thing that reveals a few telling differences. I will re-henna, not to fit in, but to look as young as I feel (Which is not so young to jump off a perfectly good bridge, for the record)!!
The cutest transients at any hostel!!
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One way to ensure that you know if someone is trying to fiddle your “passport”!!
But at the end of the day, how can you complain when this is your view at sunrise?
Hello Sports Fans!!
So as I haven’t posted in a while I thought I would tantalize you with a placeholder post until I finish the edits on my journeys through South Africa’s Garden Coast.
“Coming soon….Walking with Cheetahs, Surfs Up and a Walk through Wilderness and Natures Valley!!”
A bientot mes amies!!
Emma
1.) Toilets in Hostels are Hell on Earth – While the thought and actual doing of peeing as you hang off the bumper of your Land Rover seems undignified at first and getting out a shovel to wander into the bush for something more involved is scary at best, trust me, both are better than taking a wander into a hostel bathroom after 8 am !
2.) Roof Tents are Heaven on Earth – The uniquely African (in my experience) on-the-top of the car-roof tent is both practical and a rare moment of luxury in a long haul trip. Easy to pitch and cleverly positioned, you know, on the roof, the roof tent affords the overland traveller a Double or Queen size kingdom to relax in and observe the whole around you. It is easily bug-less with a few sprays of Doom, has clever pockets to hold your wine glass/coffee/mug/water/flashlight and other life necessities. There are great screen windows to watch the Hyena/Jackal/Elephant/Giraffe/thunder storm that passes through your campsite and I was lucky enough to have one that included lovely pillows, a duvet and someone who was willing to distract the local villagers at 6 am so I could pee hanging off the bumper in relative privacy first thing in the morning!
3.) The Best Seasoning is Hunger – Nothing tasted better than a meal at the end of a long day in the African sun. I ate steak and something most every night. A carnivore from way back, even I expected to tire of the same old meal every night, but when spiced with Braai salt, exhaustion and excitement, that steak was wonderful, filling and a treat. The corn/millie, Braai broodjes or potatoes and onion in foil were tasty and a triumph of inginuity over circumstance. Nic and I ate like Kings and snacked like princes as we travelled.
4.) Being Clean is Overrated – Days without showers can be dealt with by the odd dip in questionably green pools at lodges and campsites. Although nothing will beat the swim and clean in the Oxbow in Liuawa Plains. Clean clothes are a luxury and after the second week travelling with a (then) stranger, a distant memory. The dream at points is worth spending 3 boring (but yummy food-filled) days in a capital city with no Elephants in order to do laundry and/or dry cleaning according to that crazy bill. After a few filthy days in the bush you do end up wondering why you surrendered to civilization for so long.
5.) It Takes all Types – Travellers are a weird and mixd bunch. Some running from something, some running to something and some running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Smart, really dumb and everything in between. Somehow travelling gives you a patience and openness to remember that it takes all types. But there is a profound curiosity that lies in so many of us. To meet others that have taken the leap to follow that passion is inspiring and at times truly terrifying (because there are some weird and scary people out there). After all, some of the wildest things in Africa walk (nay stagger) on two legs not four!
6.) Being Humbled is Important – There raw reality of travelling overland in African means that many of us who take food, water and shelter for granted are reminded not only that we are amongst the weakest of the mammals but that those of us who can afford to travel like this are amongst the richest of our species. Life is hard in Africa for almost everyone. Life is hard for the people, the animals and the environment. If you get to come to Africa and feel the generousity and vitality of this place, then be humbled by that reality. Make your life count, be generous and vital in your spirit, respectful and frugal with your wealth and demands on those around you.
7.) The Kindness of Strangers – This is important but not at the expense of your plans. I have been extremely lucky to have been the recipient of the kindness offered by those I have met during my travels. But often, it is easy to be bowled over by the opinions, preconceived notions and alarmist prognostications of well-meaning people. I have been waylaid and delayed, suffered friends ill-met and been mildly ill-treated, but at every turn I had the power to “just say no” and re-finding this voice has helped me move on and continue to have the journey I had hoped and planned to have. There are lots of people out there who are ready to tell you what you can’t do. It often comes from their own insecurities and fears. The best you can do is to move forward in your own way while respecting their world and that their motivation comes from the best place they have. On the other hand, those that take you in, are genuinely interested in you and you in them will lift your heart and set you free again.
8.) Trust your Gut – It will sound silly, but in the decades of Oprah’s presence on TV and in popular culture, there was one thing she said that stuck in my head. Trust your gut. Call it a sixth sense, call it woman’s (or men’s) intuition or just the animal instinct we humans tend to ignore, but trusting my gut on this trip has saved my ass on more than one occasion. It has kept me up and in the tent when unwanted visitors came into my campsite, it has kept me back from joining new friends for a night out that ended poorly and it has led me to explore and experience things I never could have imagined when planning this trip. Trust your gut, it is usually right.
9.) You Can’t do it All – How did I ever think that 5 months in Southern Afica was enough to also see Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi all of South Africa. Like any good travelling experience, I will leave here needing to come back. I have chosen to stay longer in some places which will demand that others are scratchd off the list. From Cape Town to Caprivi, Liuwa Plains to South Luanga, Lake Kariba to Livingstone, Chobe to Moremi, Maun to Windhoek and now Garden Coast back to Jo’burg, I have no regrets and only a desire to come back, see and experience more. So in my family’s rich tradition of wandering, this trip is a roaring success. Only to be added to in my next trip.
10.) It Really is the Journey, not the Destination – Days pass, thousands of kilometers are covered, landscapes change, each change brings a new adventure, a new ecosystem, every day has a Bush Baby in your tree at night or a giraffe at the edge of your campsite at sunrise. Friends are well met, hard to leave and pests are sidestepped or left behind. Mornings mean beauty at 5:45 am and thrills and chills at 2:00 am as the African residents come to you in the same relentless manner you chased them all day. Where you end the trip is not what matters, it is all the glory that lies in between.
As I pulled out of the Intercape bus terminal in Windhoek I was moved to tears. The next steps are always the hardest and this next move in my trip is beyond bittersweet. By turn of circumstance I found myself n Windhoek unexpectantly and by even stranger turn of fate I stayed longer than I could have ever imagined.
34 days in a Cardboard Box have brought me happiness, calm, new friends, new expriences, more than a few front seat passes to interpersonal drama. I ad a night in the desert to see the full moon rise and 38 degree heat cooled by a crisp dip in the pool followed by a (okay a few) beers/wines/gin and tonics.
I arrived at the Cardboad Box a little shaken by my 10 week Land Rover trip through Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Not sure what to do next, I hunkered down by the bar and slept a lot for the first few days. But the Box does not allow the space for one to feel sorry for themselves for very long. They can’t. The Box is just too overflowing with extroverts, oddballs, nosy parkers and straight up good people.
The Staff were the first to step into my mind haze. All there knowing my name and being nice, next the bar staff wanting to actually talk to me, and introduce me to the other guests. Next thing I knew I had met the racuous and motely crew of local Wind-hookers (my personal name for that rag tag group of patrons) and they decided that I fit in just right (which is a dubious honour) and opened their hearts and homes to me.
I can’t and shouldn’t chronicle every day, evening, afternoon, late night and early morning escapades, but suffice it to say that I did venture out to explore the city. I went to the National Art Gallery and the National History Museum, I shopped in the downtown core and drank at the famed Joe’s Beer House. And when I was done, I came back to the Cardboard Box to rejoin my friends.
After my fist post about the Box, you should know that I went on to be befriended by a fantastic British woman, doing her PHD in Theology, the Owner Chad who needs his large stature to carry around that huge and generous heart of his. The motley crew of locals expanded to include a lovelorn architect, a produce manager who struggles with the “difficult” problem of having too many people who love him and whom he loves and was witness to a string of dramas ranging from traveller on traveller theft (off the Box premises), a man gone mad on Christmas Day, a romance sparked and snuffed at light speed and a primer on how not to behave in a dorm room (including plastic bags at dawn and awkward amourous encounters amongst your 6 other roommates).
But in the end, I as blessed by the kindness of strangers who will both drive you out of their way to where you are going and drive you around the bend!
By no means did I expect to spend so long in Windhoek, I didn’t expect to be so deeply touched by the people I met. By no means as this part of the plan, but by all means, if you ever have the chance to spend a little time in Windhoek, Namibia, you cannot go wrong with Chad, Mona Lisa, the staff and of course Hagler and Kuiseb the 3 and 4 legged canine residents of the Cardboard Box.
As for the rotating menagerie of locals and travellers, I can only hope you are as lucky as I to meet such a wealth of characters and move on to your next adventure richer for the experience.
With so much love I almost burst,
xxxx
Emma
Hello my Chickens, did you miss me?
Well I never really went away, just went dark.
I know, I know, you thought I had forsaken you.
(With apologies to Train):
Maybe I went down in an airplane, got fried getting suntanned, fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand, met a shark under water, was caught in a mudslide, eaten by a lion, dried up in the desert, drowned in a hot tub!
Not so much! Since we last talked I have left Windhoek, took a 22 hour bus trip to Cape Town, been stranded in a gilded cage in the suburb of Muizenburg, explored the Southern suburbs and braved the Metro Train into Cape Town and survived.
I have a rental car, have driven around the Cape Peninsula, camped in gale force winds and had a scary looking but harmless Mole Snake slither past my on-the-ground-cross-legged-sitting-self not 3 feet away *hastily stands up* *zips tent firmly shut*!! Saw friends from a long lost but warmly cherished life and was sent off with love, a full belly and a sense of direction.
I am now in the Whale-watching captial of South Africa (at least until about a month ago ;-( ) Hermanus and I am staring down the last few weeks of my African adventure.
I can’t believe how time has flown, but I have been working on a few posts to catch you up. My photo posting capabilities are slightly compromised, so bear with me while I sort that out. For now you can imagine the dulcite tones of my voice talking to you and the iphone contributions that can be easily uploaded for your viewing pleasure.
Sorry I left you alone for so long, I am alive and kicking so watch out kids…..She’s baaaaccckk!
With much love and more cheekiness than ever, your intrepid Gingersnaptraveller, Emma
So I haven’t updated the blog as promised, but for those who wanted to know what happened next, well, not much. I am still here in my Cardboard Box in Windhoek, Namibia. But I have finally gotten through on the phone with the Manager of the backpacker’s in Johannesburg who confirmed that the second piece of luggage that I left there on September 30 is STILL there in the storage room and it isn’t a problem to leave it there as long as I like.
So, as I have declined a delightful offer to head back to Maun, Botswana, I guess I am staying here in Windhoek until my South African Visa expires.
I am becoming a familiar fixture here at the Box, kind of like that last bit of packing tape that stubbonly holds on and picks up dust bunnies.
I am battling through my slight case of writer’s block to give you this update, so there you go.
More soon I promise!
Love you all, xoxoxo Emma
Since ending my epic African bush journey I have been staying here in Windhoek, Namibia at the Cardboard Box Backpacker’s Hostel. A strange twist of circumstances is conspiring to keep me here.
I could say that the comfort of a bed and a guaranteed hot shower every day was to blame, or the reliable and FREE wifi contributed, but it is truly a combination of lethargy and the fact that South Africa’s generous visa system for Commonwealth citizens has put me in a tough spot.
When I arrived in Johannesburg on September 30 I was granted a 90 day, multiple entry visa. It is the multiple entry part that is giving me a problem. My plan when I arrived here in Windhoek was to hop a bus to Cape Town within a day or two to continue with my journey. I would rent a car in Cape Town and slowly make my way along the Garden Route, South Africa’s beautiful coastal route and camp, relax and celebrate the holidays until my eventual departure date mid-February. My travels may have taken me into Mozambique and Malawi. Really, everything is on the table.
But because my visa is multiple entry and because I didn’t apply for an extension within 30 days of the visa expiring, I am stuck between staying out of South Africa (SA) until the visa expires on the 29th or going into SA and having to leave while I am mid-Garden Route.
I am still here in my Cardboard Box contemplating what to do, but in the meantime, you gotta hear about the weird goings-on of a modern “Youth Hostel”.
When I first travelled long-term like this was at age 18 and it was 1993. I had no cell phone, no credit or debit cards and as I have written, there was no GPS to tell you where you were. Also, Youth Hostels were for Youths. I remember staying in a hostel in Northern France and a full blown adult stayed in my room (a MAN to boot) and I was scared and apprehensive about why an adult would choose to stay at a youth hostel. I barely got a wink of sleep.
“Now as I sit here in the bar/poolside area of the Cardboard Box hostel I don’t see anyone under the age of 25. Most of us are over 30 and some hitting into those 40 and 50-year cohorts.
I don’t know what that says about the youth of today, but I like what it says about those of us who travelled once as kids and kept that flame alive inside our souls.”
I have been treated so well here. By the hosts and the guests. The Cardboard Box is a unique backpacker’s in my experience. While there are your requisite Germans, Dutch, a smattering of transient Americans desperate to see an entire country or region in days and more than expected numbers or French or Swiss travellers that have kicked my brain back into la langue de Moilliere but truly, I have never been to a Backpacker’s that has become the regular haunt for so many locals.
I have met 29 year-old a local lift installer who is hitting on me with the persistence that only young men have, an aging Belgian transplant who runs a chain of exclusive fly-in lodges and a slightly grumpy Pakistani native who has heart of gold and many others. They all come to the Cardboard Box to end their day with a sundowner or to celebrate their daughter’s third place finish in the South African youth gymnastics competition or even to conduct a business deal or two.
I have been invited to join them as they Braai on a Sunday night, been entrusted with a 5 litre box of wine that somehow the management allows them to use as supplement to their purchases from the bar (it stays under my bed during the day and coms out later in the evening when conviviality is welcomed and profit margins are no longer the top priority).
I asked genuinely about where could buy Henna to dye my hair one night and was presented with a bag the next night filled with a variety of brown and red hennas for my use and money was no more welcome as thanks than when was invited for a Kudu and Pork Sausage Braai. I have been invited for dinner, to a 80th birthday party and the bartender even brought his bride back to the Box after their ceremony for a few celebratory drinks.
They have a chalkboard clock above the bar that has as its centre the following “I am definitely leaving tomorrow.” But many like me have fallen under the spell of living in a Cardboard Box. We wake up, have the coffee and pancakes that come with your 95 Namibian Dollars a night/less than $10 US or Canadian (for a place in the dorm, cheaper if you are camping and only slightly more expensive for a private room). We may take a dip in the pool. We check in with the world online, check out by watch a movie. I broke out the other day and did a little grocery shopping and wandered the main drag here in Windhoek, but mostly people stay here within the 4 comforting walls of the Cardboard Box.
We talk amongst each other, with the end-of-work-day Windhoek crowd joining us to have a little dinner, drink wine and talk about everything and nothing.
Some are a bit much. I had an earnest South African try to convince me that the world would be saved if we all just sat and meditated together, he tried to tell me things about Afghanistan, a country that holds a very special place in my heart, that were worse than ill-informed, they were insulting and I quickly put an end to that conversation.
Sadly, he didn’t get the hint and re-approached me the following morning to re-ignite the conversation before I had enjoyed that first, free Cardboard Box coffee and my pancakes lay untouched. A very bad idea for those who know me. With his tail between his legs, he slunk away quietly as I put that conversation to an end in a much less polite way than I had the day before.
But on balance, I have loved every new conversation and as I ask myself once again “What comes next?” I am loving living in my Cardboard Box for another day.
There are no Elephants, Lions, Hippos or Hyenas where I sleep but then sometimes the wildest things walk on two legs!
So the journey continues my petals, I hope life is treating you well and the holiday spirit is warming your heart.
Much love from Windhoek xoxoxoxo Emma
After hopping in Nic’s Land Rover in Cape Town on October 1, a mere 24 hours after I met him, our epic southern Africa tour has come to an end.
It truly is bittersweet. As I sit here in the Backpacker’s in Windhoek as he whips down the tar road back to Cape Town I can think of so many experiences I have yet to share with you from our time together. Mostly great, some trying and all exquisitely real and raw. Which is all you can really ask from a trip like this.
Over the next days and weeks I will endeavor to fill in the blanks a bit about our time in Etosha National Park, Namibia, the weird and wacky musical moments we experienced and a few observational posts about African road hazards as well as things that may appear in your campsite and how to survive on the road for 10 weeks, or at least how to try!
But the page is turning a little. My journey continues in a new chapter as does Nic’s. I hope he comments on the retrospective blog posts and enjoys the current ones.
Merci mon ami – Bonne chance!
Emma
Click here for a gallery photos from our journey from Kazungula through Chobe National Park
We arrived in Botswana from Zambia via the Kazungulu Ferry on a Wednesday and faced the usual odd African tradition of requirements for 3rd Party Insurance and Road Tolls with no way to acquire the Botswana Pula we needed to pay the fees without using the awful illegal money traders on the Zambian side of the Zambezi.
The difference between countries was shocking and immediate. As we pulled onto the Bots side, the ferry shore landing was paved to the river’s edge, a remarkable difference from the muddy chaotic Zambian side. There were signs, and I mean road signs, signs for the immigration and customs office, signs everywhere! A distinct change from the Zambian “Guess where you are now, cause we’ll never tell” approach to signage.
But there was no way to get the money we needed to pay at the border post. Luckily the trusting Bots Border Agent directed us to the Bureau de Change just a mile or so up the road and trusted us to come back.
We did come back, eventually. Rather than waste out precious US currency, we decided to drive the 10 miles into the border town of Kasane to find the Barclays ATM to withdraw cash. Along the way the heavens opened and of course we had to take refuge in the swank Chobe Marina Lodge for a beer and a pizza as the rains passed.
While there we decided to stay in town that night and head out to Chobe the next morning. We tried in vain to avoid returning to the border by finding the Customs and Immigration office in town, but alas they didn’t have the proper forms for registering our vehicle so next on our list was food, liquids and accommodation – in that order!
We stopped at the Spar grocery and picked up our basics – wine, meat, coke, water, cigarettes, in that order and toddled along to the Water Lily Inn as recommended by my less than trusty Lonely Planet (soooo out of date).
There was no room at the inn and a month before Christmas I wondered if we too would be spending the night in a manger somewhere. Fear not dear readers, we found delightful refuge in the Old House Lodge down the road. Previously just a restaurant housed in a completely different location, I can attest that the Old House Lodge has beautiful rooms, a delightful gift shop that enticed a few dollars from my wallet and a great bar and restaurant.
A delightful addition to the scenery were the family of Warthogs, big Mama and her 3 little ones that roamed through the gardens nibbling on the grass, kneeling down to ensure each blade was trimmed to a perfect grassy green pelt for the guests. It was amazing to see them up close and fearless, they were clearly wild as once finished with the upkeep of the Old House Inn they ambled out the front gate and off to their next green pasture.
Luke and Danny who run the place with their family are friendly and extremely generous with their expertise in the region. I settled in at the bar while Nichol went back to pay the car permit at the border for the car.
Once Nichol returned we indulged a small amount of internet surfing which was disrupted by the rain or poor wifi signal so G&Ts and smooth red wine were the order of the evening. I spent some time chatting with a few ex pats at the bar but with an early morning on the horizon it was early to bed.
Well, for me anyways, Nic stayed up late and began fooling around with this blog, its set up and trying to optimize how the photos are presented. The Carousel photo feature you now see was his doing that night.
So happy and feeling just a little productive we hopped in the car and headed off to Chobe National Park, Botswana.
Chobe is truly one of the premier National Parks in Southern Africa. Known for its Elephants and often regarded as a high end tourist destination for the rich and famous, I can tell you that Chobe is accessible to anyone with decent car (not even a 4×4) just good tires and relatively high clearance and a tent – depending on the time of year of course.
I write this after the end of day 2 in Chobe and forgive me f I am a bit harsh. We made mistakes, but it seems Chobe is making some too.
Because we started in Kasane, the first in-Park Camp, Ihaha is a mere 15 kms in. It sees like far too short a distance to consider as the stopping point on our first day.
The Siddidu entrance to Chobe National Park is 4 kms from Kasane, and then you drive through the portion with Ihaha. The Park staff at the gates are fairly useless and little advice on the best approach to visiting the park or where to stay and why explains our short but wonderful experience in the Northern part of the park.
While short, the off-track trail along the Chobe River is beautiful and filled with a stunning variety of wildlife. We saw Crocs and Waterbuck, Silverback Jackals basking in the midday sun paying us no attention as we drove by, Buffalo and Zebra graze together on the riverbanks, herds of cows wander both the Namibian and Botswana side of the river and sneaky Likkewaan (long lizard thing) slither along through the newly sprouted grass along the riverbank in search of duck eggs. We saw all these and Elephants in the distance and 3 lionesses and a young male Lion pacing on a ridge overlooking the riverfront.
We stopped in at Ihaha only to use the toilets but their campsites were beautifully positioned along the waterfront and we would only realize later the missed opportunity we had as we pushed on past towards our chosen destination of the Savuti Camp in the south.
As you drive through to the southern portion of Chobe, you exit and reenter the Park and pass through villages and drive on a tar road which comes to an abrupt end as soon as the villages end. A sandy but passable road brings you south and eventually into the Savuti Campsite.
Formerly run by the government, the camps within the park are now Privately run. You must still have a reservation at one of the camps before you can buy your park permits to enter the park in the first place. Our reception was not especially welcoming and the signage is a bit confusing but once arrived we read the very long list of things you are not allowed to do and got settled in.
Up until now, most of our campsites have been unfenced, open to any Elephant, Hippo, Croc or Impala that wanted to join us for dinner (as long as we weren’t on the menu, thank you very much). This you know if you have been following the blog.
No camp has been especially alarmist about this and aside from a few signs saying that wildlife is present and to be sensible, we have not felt unsafe.
Chobe’s rules were strongly worded enough that we really took them seriously, no walking to the toilets at night (like I was gong to do that anyways), no food left outside (we clean up pretty thoroughly but have been now to leave a full plastic bucket of soapy water with our dinner plates out overnight) and an ablution block (toilets and showers) that is like the designer from Alcatraz Island was brought in to reverse engineer a WW1 bunker. This damned thing has 10 ft high walls to keep the elephants out, steel spring mounted doors and inside the ground is landscaped to form hill up to the top of the 10 ft high walls to allow those things (lions etc I presume) that can jump in to get out (people too maybe). There are also small escape ramps for snakes and other creepy crawlies to get out.
Again, like fuck would you catch me dead going out there after dark. I will happily hang on to the front bumper of the Land Rover and squat and hover like my Mama taught me in US Truck Stop toilets!!
Anyways, we had dinner, lit a massive fire as we couldn’t ignore the tree damage and Elephant poop in our campsite (IN our campsite)!!
We had a quiet night with no animal visitors as far as we could tell and in the morning packed up all the food like stuff and left the in-theory-non-edibles like the camp chairs, iron cooking pot, table, extra tent poles etc and headed off for a 4×4 adventure.
We may have driven it like we stole it in soft sand in Namibia and traversed the Liuwa Plains, but Nichol was feeling he hadn’t pushed the Land Rover anywhere near its limits. So today was going to be a venture into the marshes and come hell or muddy water, he was going 4×4-ing! So we took the never-used road east into the pans started our adventure, you know what Disney told us – Hakuna Matata Baby!!
** Quick note for my parent’s sake, we did tell our camp manager where we were going and when to expect us back and that we would spend the night in the car if there was any problem. There wasn’t any problem, so read on with a sigh of relief.
Our first ten minutes out of the camp was marked by the harsh reality of the circle of life and of course of death. We saw two dead Elephants by the side of the road. It is the end of the dry season and with the rains coming so late this year it is to be expected that some wildlife is not going to make it into next season.
Yes, they smelled and god those things are big.
We drove on looking for the herds of Elephants we had been told would be moving deeper into the forest looking for something to eat and looking to ride out the no-doubt difficult terrain of this now-unused road.
Nichol was hoping for lots of water and lots of mud. He was also wondering how much the tusks on those elephants might fetch him but personally I think the stench of a rotting Elephant carcass was enough to convince anyone to earn the money the old fashioned way.
As we drove on we saw lots of evidence of Elephants, the poop but more than that, the utter devastation to the woodlands. For long stretches of the road, the trees were no more than 6 feet high and the cracked and dead trees at times seemed to outnumber the live ones. So much poop, but none of the Elephants that Chobe is famous for.
Then we started to see them. But not the way you will ever see advertised in a tourist brochure.
One after another, we saw dead Elephants. Big ones that were old and huge, baby ones that seemed too small for this, some by water holes, some between trees and some in the middle of the road forcing us into the bush to drive around them.
If it wasn’t so sad it would have been comical, every kilometer we saw one after another. 11 dead Elephants and those were the ones visible from the road. We still hadn’t seen a live one yet. I dubbed this part of the the drive the Valley of Death. Some had gone to die in the famed Elephant Graveyards where bones of other Elephants were bleached and scattered, but too many were lying where their last gasps brought them.
I was despairing that there were any live Elephants left in Chobe National Park when we came around a corner to everyone’s surprise drove past two live Elephants by the side of the road. A mother and her baby skittered off into the bush and we slowly drove forward to see if they were alone or in a larger group.
Thank God, we had found some alive and as we rounded the next corner we saw the larger group of 15 or so near a waterhole off to the lefthand side of the road, gathered under a large tree, butts in for scratching, heads out for watching.
We watched and marvelled as always at these great mammals and then rolled on again.
Sadly, there were another 6 dead Elephants we would see on the drive but 10 more live ones too. At 25 live to 17 dead, the elephants weren’t batting 500 as they would say and clearly the rains couldn’t come soon enough.
For Nichol too. The road was sandy but doable even in high gear, we did test out the diff-lock as we entered what seemed to be a simple puddle. When the front left tire started to sink treacherously into a now-hidden Elephant hole Nic decided against testing how deep it was and whether it would swallow our front end whole and changed from 4 wheel low into diff-lock to provide extra traction to the now half sunk front left tire and slowly but surely the Land Rover backed up out of a potentially hazardous situation.
The rest of the puddles were shallow and sandy, no marshes and no mud. We were several hours into our drive when it became clear that the roads were not going to lead us to the campsite before sunset and no further 4×4 challenge was presenting itself.
We turned around and came home the way we came, a disappointment all around but knowing the road and the puddles made the ride back faster, giving us some time to explore the trails around our campsite before 5 pm, which was the magic witching hour we had told Willy the Manager was when we expected to send out a search team if we weren’t back!
Aside from a funny train of 4 Tortoises walking along the road, our whole day was pretty much Elephants and dead things and abandoned but good roads, sigh.
Sadly we saw more dead Elephants in the pans (now dry waterholes) around our camp and even 3 live ones, but ratio still wasn’t good and despite the fun pushing the Landy through the dips and valleys of dry Elephant holes testing its strength and stamina, our return to camp left us with questions about why so many many Elephants were dying.
There is no question that a late rainy season can explain some of the deaths, but if we saw so many so close to, or even on the road, how many are further in the bush? A late Spring will reveal many starving deer felled by a cruel winter in Canada’s forests, but this seemed extreme.
Apparently not just to us, in discussions with some of the Camp Staff we were told that samples of the dead Elephants are being sent for analysis to see if maybe a disease like Anthrax is to blame.
But we also wondered if the thousands of Elephants that live in the park may just have reached a number far outstripping (literally) what the forests can bear. The trees are now permanently disfigured and stunned, the overgrazing has left large tracts of dead fields and the question has to be asked of conservationists if enough is enough already and some sort of population control needs to be considered. Surely dead, starving Elephants is not the goal of protection and conservation.
“Oh, and we learnt that the deep-throated noise that moved around our camp last night was not an elephant or a Hyena, no – it was was a Bullfrog! So aside from the tortoise train, we had had little to laugh about on day 2 in Chobe National Park.”
Day 3 in Chobe was redemtive ndeed. Laziness set in to both Nic and I and aside from waking up late, we sat and drank coffee for several hours, fighting off the growing need to pack up and move on.
To persuade us to sit and relax was a menagerie of Chobe’s smaller inhabitants. As we sat in the shade we were entertained by a bevy of little tree squirrels, a posse of mongooses (or is it mongeese?) and several African Hornbills and other birds.
The squirrels were bold and played around our feet looking for crumbs and ready to nibble on our toes if we weren’t looking out. The mongeese came one by one until we had about 10 of them running around under the car (doing a chassis inspection for snakes or other creepy crawlies) and then fighting and playing under and in the elephant proof water tap. They climbed into the tires, rolled around in the leaves and generally delighted us for far too long. The older large African Hornbill spent at least an hour trying to fly up and attack his refllection in the aluminum table hunging off the Land Rover, tried grabbing the dish cloth off the table and when none of these worked would attack the electric cord of the external flourescant light.
But the time came and we had to do last night’s dishes, pack up and get on the road. After checking our communal wallet we realized that we didn’t have enough cash for 2 nights in Moremi as well as the park fees, so today we drive straight to Maun on the South end of the Okavanga Delta to restock, refuel and withdrawe more money.
So, until we can post the drive from Chobe to Maun chronicles, I leave you with this: In life there is good and bad, life and death. I for one will be trying to treasure the good, live the life and remember to take the time to watch the little things around me (especially if they are Mongeese!) Love you all…. Emma
