Bearish Bumbles

A corridor that runs along the top of Namibia, over Botswana to Zambia is bound to have a fair amount of political tension. This is where parts of the Angolan war happened. AK47s are still in evidence in the border posts and the entrance to what is now a game reserve.

It's an odd feeling to be driving on a main road that runs through a game reserve. The speed limit is low, (thankfully - we'll miss the animals otherwise), and the road well paved. It feels cooler here, and the end of our Nambian tour is approaching (one more night camping, and one morning in the box and we are in Livingstone, Zambia). We are hopingfor a leopard today, but nothing materializes.

The scenery is much greener - has a more forested feel to it than we had in the main part of Namibia. We had to leave Botswana at 4:30 this morning to deal with the 13k of sand and get to the border for an easy crossing. We aren't awake. No coffee. No sleep and no respite in the box. It's definitely the way to see the country though. Sunsets and sunrises are spectacular, and getting to the Caprivi Strip early means that we get more chances to see wildlife. And once again, it is there almost as soon as we get through the gates. On a main road! We don't see as much as in Etosha, have lunch on the side of the road, but drive into our campsite at around 2pm.

We set up camp and establish that there are showers (apparently hot!) and set off in search of hippos and leopards and elephants and things. There is a great plain that I spend ages staring at through binoculars, thinking that I see a lion on the prowl. It turns out to be a tree trunk.

We do get to see Hippos though - something that we missed in Botswana - you'd think that there'd be a large number of encounters with them in the Delta, but the Mokoro polers do take time to avoid them... they are the most dangerous animal in Africa apparently. We get to see them wallowing around and just generally being hippos. We don't get to see the wide gape that they all seem to do for the cameras, but that's fine.

The morning sees us up and running early again, but there are a few more miles before we get to Zambia. This part of Namibia doesn't inspire the amazement or awe that the rest of the country does, but that might just be 12 days in a box. Next stop? Livingstone, I presume!

Botswana is covered in Kalahari sand. 80% of the country is sand. The Okavango delta is Kalahari sand with a difference. It's covered in water. The sand becomes swamp where the Okavango fades into the ground. There are islands where elephant and crocodiles roam, where leopards wander and where fantastic birdlife roosts. It is also the slow moving, sluggish pace of hippos. There's no rush here, unless you count papyrus. There is just time to soak in the cool and bask in the heat.

Guma lagoon is 13km along a sand ... thing. I'd call it a road, but ruts and no verges and only a vague indication of direction established by an inner sense of rightness doesn't count as a road. The lagoon is a vast gulp of water in a parched and thirsting landscape. The green assaults you as much as the heat from the Namibian desert overwhelms the senses. A wooden deck in front of a bar hangs tantalising over crocodile and snake infested water. Midges and mosquitoes and insects of all vampiric varieties are fended off with DEET and "mozzie rep". But the tranquility is everything. It holds us in its palm and tells us that despite the danger, here all is right. Our eyes drink in the sight of the water even as our skin pulls the moisture right out of the air.

Even as we run up a bar tab, the helter-skelter pace of the previous days starts to slow to a more manageable crawl. This is a welcome respite and sure, we might be sleeping in tents, getting up early to go over to an island, having lukewarm showers, but this is our haven of sanity. It is easy to imagine Rudyard Kipling writing about the "great grey green greasy Limpopo" looking out over water such as this. The Everglades and the fens are just pale imitations of what truly lazy water can be.

The next morning is a late morning - 7:30 start. But we are up and awake already, watching sunrises that pull in images of New Zealand to overlay on this most african canvas. A boat comes to pick us up at a rickety jetty and takes us across to Mokoro Island. This is an island in the delta that the Mokoro polers use as a base of operations. They store their boats and their poles there, because from the lodge to the polable delta there is very little shallow water. The lazy pace of the dugouts (fibreglass replicas now) doesn't begin to hint at the effort that must be applied to punt 200kgs of tourist and bags through hippo-created channels. We don't get to see any hippos, but the delta is very rich in birdlife. Thimba is our guide and takes us on a couple of nature trails over the next 2 days and we get to learn a lot about the wildlife from spoor, footprints and direct contact.

Thimba is a walking National Geographic issue. He uses phrases such as "this forest collosus" as part of his speech. He delivers this with Jesse Jackson's intonation and gravitas. At each branch or interesting piece of vegetation, a different evangelist for the environment is channeled through this normally shy and meek man. Without him we would have a very bland and insipid experience, with him we investigate Vervet Monkey trails and clean our teeth with tree roots. A quick aside here, I have wanted to clean my teeth with this root ever since Emma told me that she used to do the same in Ethiopia. I finally feel I am getting closer to what makes her tick. She has seen my childhood homes, driven past my school, and relived moments that I rarely admit even to myself. There are whole gaps in her history that I want to fill in. Cleaning my teeth with a tree root is a moment that connects the childhood me with the childhood her. I feel a little more whole.

There are elephants on the island. They eat the leaves and rub the trunks of the trees all around, devastating the vegetation. We see them when we get to our camp site (just a place out in the open near the shore of a small island in the delta - this is proper camping, except that one of our guides has brought a loo seat for us just in case!) The prospect of elephants wandering through the camp is worrying, a little. Hippos frighten us more - what if we happen to be camping in their territory? Hippos are fiercely territorial and will attack anything that is seen as a threat. Norm sees a snake that night, possibly a boomslang (according to the guide) or a black mamba (Norm and a photograph in a book). All I know is that I'm glad I didn't see it, and that when we woke up, none of us was flattened by elephant paws.

Again we are in the Mokoro. This is the way to travel. We sit back, relax, look at bee-catchers, lotus flowers, hippo footprints underwater (they like sandy bottoms, and the currents are softened by the vast seas of reeds). The sun warms us, hiding its onslaught in the cool of the water. The sunburn only kicks in later... I could come back here, learn to fish and show tourists the baobab trees and antelope running madly away from some predator. The Okavango draws you in, and in true swamp fashion, has a hard time letting you go. It is a slow pull into its grip, but it is relentless and woe betide you if you struggle. You might escape by quietly moving on, but it will stay with you anyway.

A blitz run up to Etosha started at 8:00am. The land in Namibia doesn't seem to change much on the north south routes, or rather not as much as on the east west routes. Tarmac, with some villages and towns, until we arrived later at Etosha. We'd already had lunch on the side of the road, and stopped off at another craft fair. But today was all about Etosha - get there, get there early, get there safe, but get there.

And we did. It's a little disconcerting to have driven nearly 400km and not seen any animals to then see elephants right inside the gate. Not 3km inside the park, we had to stop and watch a herd of elephants just hanging out. And it's not like they are herded up and penned inside the park - nope, these elephants just happen to hang out so that Tourists can come and take photos of them... We think that perhaps we are on a schedule, and elephant guides tell other elephants about the distinctive markings of the brit, the traveller, the yank, the yuppie and the gaudy. They probably have different names - the Whingeing Pom, the Showy Birkenstock, the Overit, the whiny brat etc...

Etosha National Park is full of animals. African spotted cats (how Martin even saw that I'll never know) the Corrie Bustard, Giraffe, Rhino, warthogs, jackals, hyaena, lions, leopards, elephants, wildebeest ... the list goes on. Etosha is massive, and the game can live here quite happily (until it gets eaten by some predator or other). The size of the park is important, because it allows the animals to interact quite normally, rather than having to compete dramatically for food etc. Etosha is unique in this respect - there is enough space here for several naturally occuring territories, rather than having too little space for whatever species, thereby promoting higher levels of predation.

The night was spent in camp inside the park, looking out at animals at a watering hole. We can't go on about the amazing nature (in both senses of the word) of this place enough. Apart from the new human arrivals at the watering hole, there is an awe-struck silence. The Moon rising over the black mirror of the water. The reflections of the drinking animals. The variety of species (some of whice are, or are becoming, endangered). The only people that were noisy were the kids, and even then it was in a subdued and gob-smacked manner.

Taking photographs here requires a tripod. The watering hole is lit by low-level light. Enough for us to see them, but not for them to see us. It's a strong moonlight effect, and we had rhinos right up to the fence who could smell us, but couldn't see us. It is easy to see why people become wildlife photographers in Africa. It's the Ansell Adams principle - it's hard not to take good photographs when the subject matter is this amazing.

Days 6 and 7 involved more game drives, ending up in Bushmanland. There is so much experience in these game drives that jotting it down here is more damaging than enlightening. Suffice to say that Namibia takes on a whole new dimension - not only is it starkness and desert and sea and dunes but also wild grasses, veldt, savannah (cider as well as geography), wildlife, stars, warmth (people and temperature) and a richness of colours and emotions that is hard to beat.

The only part so far that has been less than ideal is Bushmanland. While we broke out our own tent to beat the cold, we were informed we would be treated to a traditional set of dances from the bushmen, and also a bushman would show us how he used to survive before modernization and reprehensible government practices began to eradicate his way of life. This last was very useful, showing more about a traditional culture than anyone could learn from a book or museum, even in its paucity of time. However, the whole thing felt a little disingenuous, almost as though "they trotted the natives out for us to gawp at". The teaching was expertly done, and it was good to give something to the community other than money (salt, sugar, oil, tobacco) - but seeing the tribe sharing out lollies just showed how demeaning it is to be a tourist here. In the presence of one of the oldest cultures in the world and in return for timeless life-saving knowledge we bring opal fruits and chocolate...

Walvis Baai is Western super-mare gone mad. There's the mud flats and the general shabbiness, along side the surreality of a mountain of salt harvested from the sea. Driving along the main road there is pure sandy desert on one side while on the other is the blue atlantic trying to eat its way inland. There are flamingos and the salt mill... there is a wind that rips out of the desert as the ocean reflects the warmth of the sun. The wind snarls and grabs at our legs and clothes and we bundle up warm in fleece and wind-cheater. This is midday in Africa and we are wearing the latest technical clothing designed to be up an alp somewhere. It is as normal as putting socks on your ears. Walvis Baai is the meeting point of two cultures that will never see eye to eye, but need each other. The ocean and the sand break against each other, each giving no quarter and taking what they can where they can. That humans have planted grass and lawns out here just adds to the confusion - white, not pink, flamingos round out the whole surreal package.

The road to Swakopmund is a virtual trip through the images of the middle east. Baghdad looms over the horizon, Kuwait is a memory that lingers in the rearview, and at the end of the straight blacktop is Swakopmund, thriving metropolis. There's a full on backpacker scene here with adrenaline junkies catered for as in all mainstream places. You can hurl yourself from perfectly serviceable aeroplanes, ride quadbikes around the dunes or even grab hold of a waxed piece of hardboard and launch yourself face first down vertiginous sand. It's a weird little outpost of backpacker hell, but topped off with the wonderful friendliness of Namibia. There's no pressure, no hard rush and no money at the bank. Things happen with a lacksadaisical efficiency along the lines of "maybe yes, maybe no". If there is one thing that Swakop needs, it's a surf shop. There is a guy who will lend you a board, but when the wind is blowing surf to nothing, there's no point. I was really hoping to surf Namibia, but the closest I got was belly down in a dune.

If you've ever tobogganed down a hill near your school, or slid on a slip'n'slide, then you've got no idea at all what it is like to sandboard. The long hard slog up the hill is made harder by every step slipping back 3 feet. The sand is everywhere. There's no cold. You are superheated by the sun and the climb. Fitness is not advisable, it's required. Getting to the top of the dune, some dude will dig a bit of hardboard out of the sand for you, and say "Off you go then!". There's no training, no safety helmet, no forms to fill in, and all of it is gleefully lapped up by the inner child. If Watterson had been Namibian, Calvin would have had a field day. The moment of truth comes as you launch yourself belly first down the dune... And you keep going... and going... and then you have a moment of clarity where you are past the fear and feeling the speed and the soft swish of the sand under the board and you keep going... and going and BANG... wipeout. Remember your left and your right, Cads. I marched up the small hill twice or so and then the large hill another two times. My final ride was a full on stand-up throw myself through the air, land and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiide... "Wheeee" as Calvin would say.

We spent a little longer in Swakop than we desired due to funds issues and a broken driveshaft. But then it was a rip back to Windhoek via a small craft fair. Craft fairs are what describe the locals trying to eke out a living from passing tourists. We bought a stone and took some pictures, but after Swakop this brought us back to Africa with a huge thud. It was as though we had been parachuting through tourism and dropped back in on reality before we realised it. It is impossible for these people to live except through tourism and yet there they are trying to work for a living, to supplement whatever food they can grow, catch, eat with some money from the rich westerner who somehow exacerbates the issue while all the time trying to help. This part of Africa is somewhat still the old dichotomy of white and black, but where black was oppressed and downtrodden, now white is taken advantage of, and does not realise it. Or perhaps they are willing partners in the game. When truly disposable income for a typical western traveller exceeds the quarterly earnings of a local, perhaps I should be less cynical. There is a work ethic here that I admire and respect greatly. It is offensive to locals to be tipped large amounts of money. A small tip is welcomed, a large tip is an affront. With some grounding in what tipping should be, it was good to see that tipping responsibly is fast becoming the norm.

After our trip back to Windhoek, it was awesome to get back into a comfy bed (though Swakop was good) and relax before the next part of the adventure... Etosha, Bushmanland, Okovango and the Caprivi strip. We'd be getting up early, but hoping to see the big 5...