Today is our last day of the holiday break before heading back into the lab. We had a relaxing and adventurous two weeks. So we did head to Maun the first morning of our holiday. I have already found myself thinking that I will never get irritated riding the public transportation in the states ever again. Every time we have to ride in a combi or a bus like vehicle, they sardine you in so tight - over crowding you, it gets very uncomfortable, irritating, and rather unsafe. At least in the states when the buses get full, they are simply full. Here they will try and succeed cramming 5 people to 3 seats in a minivan...grrrrr (body odor and nasty dried - rotten smelling fish doesn't help either). So we were crammed into a short bus at the crack of dawn. Of course I always over pack, hell, we were going to be on the road for a week or more... So, I couldn't find a place for my backpack, since all the luggage areas were already over stuffed. I held my backpack on my lap, scrunched in a tiny little spot with Mishell next to me. She had very little room since there was like 4 people crammed next to her... This wasn't the worst of it..
We were heading on a 300 kilometer journey to the halfway point of our destination. We were heading to Nata, a tiny little town - village actually. The road to Nata was the WORST road I have ever ever traveled on. About 100 km of the 300 km road was entirely chewed up, pot holes, rutted, and flat out dangerous since everyone swerves around all the mini craters as they travel in both directions. It all started when the driver carrying his 30 passengers, traveling at least 100 km/h starts swerving here and there avoiding random potholes. That was scary enough, then we slowed way down for a swervy slow bumpy ass ride, the road, funny enough is the "National Road". I think the Botswana government needs to allocate some funds to hire some knowledgeable engineers to fix this death trap. Ha... Like that will ever happen. When we were preparing for this trip, I over heard someone say the people are dying on that road... That was a little nerve wracking to hear, now I know why. We even passed a couple of 18 wheelers that looked like they had clipped each other as they traveled passed one another and end up as two crumpled torched piles of metal all over both sides of the road... Not surprising. Three hours later we ended up in Nata... We were so happy to get out of the sardine can and little nervous of what was next, since we still had a transfer and another 300 km to go. Amazingly enough, the next bus was a greyhound size bus. It was full of people, but way more comfy and relaxing. Staring out the window for most of the 600 km was not to exciting. Most of the terrain is scrub savannah. We did see a couple giraffe and elephant, but Africans don’t really even notice things like that. Everything is very green and there are a lot of pans full of water, so no animals and really dense vegetation. You can’t see to far cause the terrain so flat... Oh, on a side note. For the last three months of riding the combi into Kasane and even our trip, we have only seem one white person ever. He was on the bus to Nata. It is a little weird to never see any locals (whites) ever ride the public transportation. We sure don’t have a problem with it, in fact we are rather grateful that the combi are around, rather cheap too.
We finally made it to Maun, our destination. This small city was hustling with people... damn. I kept forgetting that Christmas was only days away. Since, Maun is the only real hub for provisions for 100’s of km in any direction, everyone was there for the holiday or buying stuff. We briefly wandered, but were tired and hungry, so we found the combi platform for our ride to the Audi Camp. One of my first real observations of the area, Donkeys are everywhere... We got to the Audi Camp and it was a really nice camping style lodge. Not as fancy as those riverside lodges along the Chobe river, but we don’t want or need or can afford something like that. We checked into our really nice modest bedded tent. It had electricity with a lamp and even a fan. The best part the two twin beds were damn comfy. The bed in our cottage is killing us slowly. We had a nice lunch, the menu was very nice, veggie stuff too. Had some drinks, played some games, and lounged by the pool... All this when I hear that there is like 6 plus inches of snow in the Pacific Northwest..... tee hee...
The following days, we spent investigating the city of Maun and arranging a Mokoro trip in the Delta. A Mokoro is a traditionally hollowed out canoe. They are about 12 feet long and shallow. They use the Sausage Tree to make the Mokoro. In the city of Maun, wow, what a mad house. There was almost too much going on and too many people. There are little beat up concessions everywhere selling grains, vegetables, and stuff to the local Africans, but mostly just a lot of clothes, shoes, and useless stuff, all the same... Very western culture influenced. The people stopping to stare at us, impeding our way, and crowding to get to and fro was enough that we could handle, so we mostly stayed at the Audi Camp. One thing for sure, there must be a quick turn around of businesses in places like this. We were excited to check out the restaurants that are advertised in the travel guides. None which existed anymore. Even the guide mentions that for such the size and tourist destination that Maun is, there is a big lacking of places to eat... How true, we ended up eating at a South African Fast Food Chain mostly when we were in the city. They had food that Mishell and I could both eat and the seasoned fries were plentiful and rather tasty. Just no Indian Curry Restaurants and other places we were salivating for.... damn.
After a couple days, Christmas was finally here and the day we had scheduled our Mokoro trip. Again, we had a long adventure ahead of us. We had a two and a half hour trip into the Okavango Delta in a open air Safari Jeep. There was a young couple from France and a dude from England that had joined us. The weather was perfect, luckily, since it rained cats and dogs the day before. The drive into the delta was long and well, bumpy, going deep into the middle of no where. Gotta remember that we are in Africa.. It was wild to see little villages here and there. They really live off the land, no electricity, running water, anything like that. Just their little mud and thatch round huts. As we were trucking along, not seeing too much wildlife. We suddenly came across a Secretary Bird stomping on a snake and carrying it away. That was rad, of course no photo-op. Mishell and I were jazzed about that and talking about it, then around a bend a minute later, we drove up on a bunch of Zebra and Giraffe.... Wow, that was so amazing to see and ripping out our cameras, we got some rather good pictures. Finally after a couple of bladder bursting hours we finally get to the beginning of our Mokoro trip. Seeing the half sunk beat up old wooden canoes was a little scary. Both knowing that there are hippo and crocs out there and people do get killed by these creatures on a regular basis... No Shit. After applying yet another layer of sun block and some cool photo-ops - our “Polers” arrived. Three men with their own Mokoros and with really long wooden poles, they use the poles propel the mokoros. These guys put some fresh reeds in the bottom of the canoe and showed us where and how to sit, being careful not to tip the easily tipable mokoro. Off we went on in our mokoros. Our poler, Peter, reassured us that there are no hippo around here during the day, but did show us trails through the tall reeds where hippo and elephant travel to get to the lush vegetation. There are no crocs around either, since the narrow canal routes through the reeds are too narrow for the crocs to do what they do best.... This mokoro ride is more for a quiet relaxing scenic adventure, then a wildlife viewing gig. There was a fair amount of birdlife around though. After about a half hour ride in the mokoro, we all set off for a hour long nature hike to a hippo pond. We were of course warned about the possibility of coming across things that could kill and eat us. Single file with guides to the front and back of us, led us on our way. We didn’t see any creatures, but it was rather special to see hippo, elephant, lion, giraffe, impala, hyena, and other spoors all over the place. Comforting that our guides where looking at them and saying from last night. We made it to the hippo pond and was able to see a group of hippo in the water from a safe distance. Being the middle of the hot day, they were completely submerged. We got some decent shots of them and even seen a few crocs swimming around. Well, saw their eyes and nostrils anyway. I still have yet to see some monstrous crocs up close. On our way back we witnessed a few ostriches running away, then stopped and ate our packed lunch provided by the Audi Camp. We all shared a lot of our food with the polers/guides and gave them a package of dried fruit we had bought for them, it was Christmas after-all. We headed back on the mokoro to the waiting jeep to take us back to the Audi camp. It was a beautiful relaxing trip in the delta. We could only imagine taking a chartered plane deep into the delta and camping out deep in the swamps... That would be exciting and rather expensive. Our journey was perfect and we got to take a traditional mokoro into the world’s largest inland delta. Once we got back to the Audi camp, we splurged and had a nice dinner, opened a horrible bottle of wine we purchased in Maun and I made a fire at our camp site.... Not a bad Christmas in Africa.
Now with the way things normally happen in Africa, we had to -of course- experience that in Maun as well... We were going to attempt to rent a car to go to D’kar, where the San people dwell. It was another 6 hour round trip adventure we wanted to do on our own. Of course that was a hectic head ache attempt to get nothing accomplished. We were told to call on a certain day to see if there would be a car available. But, we were told to call on a day that the rental car business would be closed to a women who would not be in the office cause the office would be closed... Oh but we are suppose to call.... So we made arrangements to stay a few days longer at Audi camp to hopefully make this trip to D’kar. Well the day arrived when we were instructed to call. Was there any answer, No... cause the business is closed... Arrg the African Way.... So we didn’t make it to D’kar. We really wanted to check that place out for the people, ethnic goods, and just that way of life... Full on tribal. I really wanted to hear a group of the San people talk, they are the people who speak with all the clicks, snaps, and pops in their language. We also wanted to inquire on a trip up to the Tsodilo Hills. There is an area several hours north of the Delta that has rock drawing on the hillsides. There are a few thousand drawings, believed to be from ancestors of the San people from 30,000 years ago. That would be an amazing thing to see. Of course, the journey there is difficult and expensive. needing a chartered plane and a hired 4x4 to get to the hills... So we had no such luck.
A couple days after our mokoro trip, Mishell booked us a couple hours on a horse back trail ride. We had some fun riding around on the horses through the country side. Me, being a novice rider, hell, I haven’t been on a horse since the early 90’s was a little nervous, but I was given a horse named “Sandman”, who was big and gentle. He took me for a ride, more than me taking him for a ride. All he wanted to do was go at his own pace and eat everything. Trying to get him to keep up was a pain, but I had a blast. We even had to cross a river a couple times, deep enough that the horse’s swam a short distance. That was exciting and a little scary too... Yeah, we got soaked..... I am glad there was no need for any sudden running from any meat eating creatures...
We spent a couple more days lounging by the pool and decided to head back to Kuzungula. The trip back was just as exciting as the trip there, the best part was on the leg from Nata back to Kuzungula, there was no room for us on the crammed little bus. So, we had to stand.. Close to three hours of very uncomfortable positions, trying to hang on to anything cause of the bumpy, swervy road..... oh joy
The second week of our holiday, we spent around our cottage. We were wanting to avoid it cause of the notion of boredom. But, we needed to quiet serenity of our cottage.
One thing that we have started a new passion for, hobby, and something of a special souvenir for ourselves, we are getting into making plaster molds of animal spoors. We discussed the idea and while shopping in Kasane, decided to look for items needed for the mold making. Afraid of the African way, we were pleasantly surprised to find plaster of paris rather easily and in small quantities. We got everything we needed and have even been able to make our first casting. The reason we are rather excited about this is cause just right outside the compound of our cottage, we have come across hippo, serval, giant porcupine, impala, warthog, elephant, mongoose, hyena, several bird spoor, and so many other tracks... We can’t make them all (too damn big), but how special to make a couple of the smaller spoor castings to bring home..... Life in Africa
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