This is a second attempt of the continuation of our stay at Ngepi. I managed to save the wrong story working off notepad and so will have another go.
The last thing I wrote was "how is the water in your village?" This is a common question asked because water is so important to people in this region. Robert answered "cold" which Mark said was a good answer because it indicated that there was water. The questions continue on asking about family, extended family, crops, animals etc. Got to the park and the wait began. Fortunately for us there were several interesting birds for us to watch. At about 3:00 when we were must about to give up and find a ride back, three cars drove up with people that were actually staying in Ngepi. Robert asked if we could pay their admission if one of the cars would take us in. One of the couples agreed and off we went. We saw more large herds of sable antelope. Suipposedly this park has one of the largest herds of sable in Africa. We saw more elephants that we had seen on the previous time. At the giant baobab we were rewarded by viewing a wattled crane which is endangered in Africa. It was a nice day and they gave us a ride back to the camp and we bought them all a round at the bar.
Another outing we went on was an early morning bird walk with one of the young guys that is working there. His father is friends with the owner of Ngepi and so he is out visiting/working. He is quite the birder (has 500+ on his lifelist) It was an interesting walk with birds, plant life, the river, the delta information all included. We saw 5 birds we had not seen and confirmation on several others.
Before I go into our last big adventure, I want to tell about the owners of Ngepi, Mark and Margie. They arrived while we were staying there. They are about our age and share many of the same points of view on many things so we had some wonderful conversations in the evening. Besides Ngepi camp, they are starting a helicopter safari business and run a lodge on an island off Mozambique. Mark is in the businesss of contructing runways for many of the camps throughout Botswana and Namibia, I believe. Both have been married previously and their wedding was at the Ngepi camp. It was quite a celebration--supposed to be 25 people and ended up 300+. The entire village, headman, etc. attended and they had to follow all sorts of protocol..They were also married in a ceremony in Maun, another village in Botswana where Mark's contruction business is. This ceremony included gifts that are traditional for a young person from tribes in the that area to receive to begin their life.
Our last big adventure was going on a promotional trip Mark is working on to Bwabwata Park which was called Buffalo Camp where the South African military was stationed during the war with Angola. An overlandgroup from the Netherlands was going on this trip also. They were loaded into makoros and Robert and I kayaked. We went about 2 km down the river and then got out and loaded up on the safari vehicle. Saw many animals, the skull of an elephant which according to Margie--an elephant has about 6 sets of teeth and when all are worn down, they die because they cannot eat anymore.We saw a huge hippo out of the water with cattle/hippo egrets on his back and ox/hippo peckers moving across his side. We were also rewarded with two wattled cranes doing a mating dance. We went to the gravesite of the black African soldier who died in the conflict. They did not have tombstones with names, just numbers. Mark was training his guides to be sure and mention the futility of war, costs, for what purpose etc. We also saw a deserted village that had been the place the black African soldiers had lived during to conflict and now is not being used. After a couple of hours it was time to make our way home. The group from the Netherlands was a little fragmented and the safari guide had mentioned to Mark that things were not going very well. Well Robert took care of that. We were let off the truck and walked down the same path that we watched the elephants, kudu and other animals come down during the day. I of couse kept looking over my shoulder to make sure none were sneaking up on us. Got to the bottom and now we must make our way acroos the swamp/wetlands between us and the river. Robert goes to find a place and is suddenly up in water to his waist. The group didn't know whether to laugh or not until they saw that Robert was not upset. This began to break the ice. At some point we all had to walk through mud/water at least up to our calves. Robert of course continued to ham it up and had the group laughing. We got back to Ngepi and Margie and I had decided we needed to make up a drink called the Buffalo Wallow. Mark was filming the entire episode and asked me what would the Buffalo Wallow dance look like and as I was showing him I accidently let loose with one! Mark said he would probably not blackmail me for that. That evening at the bar, the group from the Netherlands wanted to buy "Swamp Man" a shooter, another shooter. Shooters are two to three liquers(that doen's look right) mixed together. One of the more famous is the Springbok shooter complete with dance. People line up across the bar and are told Springbok do not have hands but horns and so you put your hands up as horns and then one person is the caller. Springboks, look to your left, do you see any lions? No, ok move forward. Springboks, look to your right,do you see any jackals? No, ok move forward. This can go through many stages but finally, ok, springboks move to the waterhole which is where the shots are. Now you must drink with no hands. Robert taught this to the group from the Netherlands and later the safari guy thanked Mark and Robert for doing more to bond this group than anything else.
We made arrangements to leave Ngepi camp at 4:40 in the morning so we could get to the Shell station and get the first minibus to Katima Mulilo. Bassie the driver for Ngepi said he would be there at 4:40 and he was!!!!!
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