This morning I took the ‘ol jalopy in for my 40,000 mile tune-up. It's in fine condition, not much maintenance needed. The body is fine, the engine could use a little cardio-vascular conditioning, the axles need some grease, but otherwise...FEELIN’ SPORTY AT FORTY!!.
I’ve been anticipating this day with pure dread for a long time. I can only say that somehow the anxiety of the moment is numbed by being in a place so epic as the heart of the Okavango Delta in Mother Africa. The relevance of being in a geographical place like the Delta is an appropriate metaphor. We are born blind & helpless, floating in the womb’s ocean. We emerge and immediately begin searching for our own private journey. Many paths lie before us. We try taking one but it leads nowhere. We circle back and try another until we find our bliss. Ultimately, we are absorbed back into the soil, not unlike how the water of the Delta, after traveling huge distances from the source of the Okavango river, through the panhandle, across the floodplains, past ancient fossil beds & salt pans until eventually reaching the desert, getting absorbed into the sands of the Kalahari.
I met up with Ursula for breakfast at 7:30am. She’s the local girl who Id met a few weeks back on my previous trip here. For some company, I decided to invite her along. She seemed cool and we became friends quickly. We walked to the little airport in Maun and picked up two tickets (compliments of Ivan) to fly into the Delta on a private chartered plane. It was another buzz & shake ride on a 4 seater 1969 Cessna propeller job. After a 40 minute ride on this golf cart with wings, we attempted a landing on a gravel airstrip but had to pull up. A herd of elephants were strolling across the runway. We circled around and brought it down onto this private airstrip owned by the lodge. There was a large Land Rover waiting there to pick us up. The driver offered us cold drinks and we set off for the camp. After a 40 minute drive through a spectacular floodplain, we arrived at a jetty. A different guy was waiting there with a boat. We boarded and began gunning it through a stunning maize of channels with flowering water lilies and fifteen foot high walls of reed & papyrus on either side. Finally, we arrived at the Little Vumbura, a $500/nite per person joint (of which we paid the pilot discount of $50/nite). They greeted us with cocktails (they call them “Sundowners”) and freshly moistened lemon scented towels. It was such a welcome pleasure to be treated to a brief respite of luxury while roughing it in Africa.
Then they showed us to our “tent”, which was built on a raised platform, had a wooden door, ceiling fan, imported furniture, indoor & outdoor shower, flush toilet, His & Her terrycloth bathrobes, fresh cut flowers & chocolates on the pillow, and a hand written personalized welcome note. We also had a tiled veranda with a table & chairs overlooking the “Hippo Highway” on the savannah. The outdoor shower was a 3 walled unit made of reeds which was exposed to any curious hippo voyeurs. Each tent site was hand picked for optimum view and seclusion and there are only 6 tents with a maximum of 12 guests. This open-air camp was built in an ancient grove of huge Jackleberry trees on an island, forming a natural canopy above the resort. They incorporated the tree trunks into the bar and furniture! They had a beautiful lounge with designer furniture, a full bar, a deck overlooking the papyrus marsh, and a pool! This description may seem ordinary but keep in mind this is all in the middle of a remote wilderness. Everything they have must be flown in and larger items like furniture must be trucked in on a road which is only accessible 6 months of the year due to annual flooding (17 hour truck journey)!! This is accommodation at its most difficult but the tranquil luxury it affords is unimaginable. Inside the room was an airhorn, in case of a wildlife emergency in the middle of the night. This was a full-on five star bush resort.
Ursula had told the resort managers of my birthday and they had secretly prepared a special table on the pool deck, apart from the other wealthy tourists. Candelabras, chillin’ champagne, palm fans, and flowers decorated the table. The pool was surrounded by a sea of candles, reflecting the shadows of the reeds onto the water surface. We decided to pretend we were colonial British royalty on safari in the mid 19th century. We put on our heavy affected English accents, lifted our pinky fingers while sipping from the flutes and discussed how remarkably resourceful these lovely Africans were. All good fantasies must come to an end so we left our Kingdom and rejoined the other commoners who were huddled around a fire. One by one, glass after glass, Johnnie Walker Black was spilling down my gullet. These rich bastards were making sure my balance was properly impaired. Lions roared in the distance. I stumbled back to my tent just after midnight and crashed fully clothed. 3am I woke up to drain some of the Johnnie. In my stupor, I failed to remember that we had a modern indoor toilet in our tent. So, like a bush rookie, I walked outside barefooted to pee. Midway through my stream of Scotch, I felt an intense sting under my foot. I looked down and, in the moonlight, could see a scorpion scurrying away.
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