After a coffee, a rock hard stale bisquit, and a bowl of cereal, we broke camp while the fire was still smoldering from the previous night. On our way out at 6:30am, we recognized a guy we had seen two nights earlier at 3rd Bridge camp. We stopped by his site to see if we could buy some spare fuel from him. He didn’t have enough to sell us any but he did ask why our truck was rattling. After getting two pair of shrugged shoulders, he offered to look under our hood. Turns out he is a licensed auto mechanic and he immediately said it sounded like an air conditioning problem. The bearings were shot on the housing of the a/c compressor so he got under the car and simply cut the a/c belt off. Problem solved. She was runnin’ smooth again but we wondered how long before the next problem surfaced. We knew we were living by the hair on our chiny-chin-chin with the truck.
We left Moremi Game Reserve and headed for Chobe National Park, a 6 hour drive, give or take 4 hours, depending on breakdowns and road conditions. Gabriels’ mood improved dramatically and he began to sing Swiss folk songs again. One in a while he’d throw in an American tune from the 70’s. I was diggin’ the Elton John & Fleetwood Mac. But when Barry Manilow came out, I began to worry. We were driving on the edge of a vast savannah and then found an interior track which led us right to the middle of the plain. Stopped and killed the motor. A large herd of Blue Wildebeest were getting their morning leg stretch in by chasing and playing with one another. It was stunning to watch. They were having so much fun, one pretending to be predator, the other prey. They are much faster than they look, as are most animals I suppose. Over short distances, obese hippo’s and rhino can outrun human Olympic sprinters. A herd of Burchell’s Zebra and Red Lechwe looked on.
We drove off heading northeast and three hours into the journey we were stopped by a huge puddle (small lake) which had flooded the road. It spanned thirty yards but we didn’t know how deep it was. On the other side of this puddle, an older couple with their vehicle had also stopped and were debating how to cross. We asked if they had seen any alternate routes from their side. They yelled back, “We no speak the English.”
“Which language do you speak?”
“Deutsch.”
“Haben sie eine andere strasse gesehen?” I yelled. My temporary pride of using what little German I remember from high school was quickly shattered by Gabriel’s fluency. He spoke to the German couple for 10 minutes and we all decided that unless someone built a quick boat, we weren’t crossing this bathtub. The German tested the depth and was waist deep within a few paces. Some of the more hardcore off-road vehicles come equipped with exhaust pipes which are routed up the side of the windshield to allow for deep water driving. Ours wasn’t one of them. So we carved our own road, skirting the puddle and eventually connecting with the main track again. But we weren’t sure if it was right track and soon we were lost again. Out came the GPS and a few more choice Italian words. Without a quality map and GPS unit, you are risking a high likelihood of becoming completely stranded.
The oppressive heat of the midday sun was baking the vehicle and everything in it and we soon found ourselves driving in deep sand tracks. First gear in 4-Low doing 10 mph. The wheels were struggling for traction and the truck was working hard. Aside from the Germans, we hadn’t seen another vehicle all day. While Gabriel was giving a horrible rendition of “At the Copacabana”, I looked at the dashboard and noticed the temperature gauge was redlining. We had overheated. We stopped, cussed, opened the hood, and steam poured from the engine giving us an unsolicited facial. We had forgotten to remove the radiator grill screen so the engine wasn’t getting enough air intake to keep it cool. This was episode #4 of the Nissan Nightmares. We had to wait it out for an hour until the engine cooled. The sand was so hot we could feel the heat coming up through our shoes and their was no shade to hide under. We decided to enjoy lunch so we rifled through the bed of the truck. Gabriel ate rotten cheese with sour milk and I had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich on moldy bread.
Within an hour we were driving again and approaching our next campsite, Savuti. This park is notorious for both elephants & lions. In 1999, elephants raided the campsite and trampled the restroom facilities. Two tourists died. The wildlife dept put up a new 12 foot high brick retaining wall so the Ellies (local pachyderm slang) are forced to look for new places to shower. The lions of Savuti have also been immortalized in wildlife documentaries filmed by National Geo rockstar conservationists Derek & Beverly Joubert. This extraordinary couple has spent 20 years in the African bush (mostly Botswana) following and documenting the lives of wildlife. They’ve lived the life I dream of and keep me infinitely inspired. “Eternal Enemies” documents the perennial battles of lions and hyenas and “Lions of Darkness” captures the rarely witnessed predation of elephant by lion prides. Over the years, lions in Savuti have developed a taste for elephant and this park is notorious for these brutal scenes. At first, it was just baby elephants. Eventually, the pride became more bold and took down a 3 ton 10 year old sub-adult. Their thick skin, weight, power, and lack of a vulnerable target organ make Ellies an extremely difficult prey species. For this particular pride currently residing in Savuti, it took 21 lionesses and 5 males to bring down the beast. Over the course of just one month, according to Limbo the local game scout, this same pride killed 20 elephants.
Just a half an hour before we reached Savuti, we overheated again. This time, the truck chose an unfortunate location to stall. We were 30 yards from a huge bull elephant with tusks the size of intercontinental ballistic missiles. He immediately told us how he felt about our intrusion with a piercing wail. There wasn’t much we could do other than stay in the vehicle and pray this Nissan was made of more steel than aluminum. He charged but he stopped short ten yards. He moved away and then another mock charge. Once he realized we posed no threat to him, he wandered off. Elephants will normally just bluff charge with a flapping ear display and loud trunk bellowing. These are always more bark than bite and you can usually hold your ground. Its when they are silent, pin their ears back, and raise their trunk that they are coming for the real deal and you better git yer giddy up on.
Once again, we limped into camp, pitched the tent and started our pasta dinner. It was the first night working with dry wood so we decided to overcompensate and made a Grizzly Adams size raging inferno. We parked the vehicle close to the tent in case we needed to make a quick dash to safety in the event of a 3am pride visit. Gabriel and I discussed heading back to Maun the following day since we were now dangerously low on petrol. We went to bed to the sweet sounds of jackals howling.
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