Bad Games, A Big Hole and The Last Border

Hello once more. Well, it's a bit late, but this entry will hopefully get us to the Namibia/SA border. Hopefully...

So, when last I had to be pried away from the machine, it was dinner time of our second evening in Sesriem. Which was potje time again, only this time, it was oryx potje. Mmmmm. That said, there's something bizarre from knowing that what you're having for dinner now is one of the things that you were happily photographing only a day or two earlier. I guess it's not usually an issue with pigs, cows or hens, but applies more when you decide that antelope or zebra or ostrich is the way forward (as indeed each of them is!). And then, post-potje, it was time to head off to the bar once more. Although the bar at Sesriem has to be one of the smallest and most pitiable attempts we saw in many a campsite.

Which actually makes it all the more surprising, then, that this turned into one of those occasional nights of drinking games when everything gets just a little bit silly. We had Brandon and Matt, our American buddies, teaching people how to play "Whales' Tails", a game involving a mythical inquisition by the Prince of Wales into who has slept with his wife (just DON'T ASK) that requires extraordinary powers of concentration, so is best done early in the evening (it also really screws over people who aren't that quick to work out things with numbers). Then we played that old standby, the Name Game, involving shouting out celebrities' names in turn as you go round the circle, which tends to mess up people who don't have a good memory (it punishes repitition and hesitation). Then Jo got us playing Whizz-Bang-Bounce, some variant of which is familiar to many people, and which tends to make life hard for those who've already got drunk in the previous games. And then that old classic, Bunnies, was wheeled out, which just confused absolutely everybody. At which point, some bright spark suggested the most evil incarnation of drinking games known to western civilisation: I Have Never...

Now, for those lucky souls not familiar with "I Have Never" (which also goes by the names Never Ever and Never Have I Ever), I shall summarise it as follows: going round the circle (most lethal drinking games involve a circle), everyone takes a turn to say "I Have Never Done X", where X can be pretty much anything. Often, at the start of games, X can be something harmless like "Done a bungee jump" or "Skydived" or "Been to 3 different continents". But, people playing drinking games being what they are, the tone very quickly descends to the gutter, down through the sewers and onwards, and you frequently end up finding out things about the people you're playing with that you would never have guessed (and often that you wish you'd never found out at all...). For this reason, it works quite well with backpackers whom you've only just met and are unlikely to spend much time with in the future, and is an exceptionally bad idea with good friends or family members!

The usual rules can also include the imposition of a "Circle of Trust" between those playing the game, such that nothing found out in the course of play can be passed on to anyone else. This is essential in the (obviously purely hypothetical) situation where you have one half of a couple playing the game while their other half is fast asleep elsewhere, and will be seeing other people involved the next morning... In any case, due both to this and to my occasional attempts to remain close to some standard of public decency, I won't be divulging any of the knowledge brought forth from the game, but I figured I might as well give a little background on it, as it pops up once or twice more in the course of my travels .

Anyways, after the late bout of I Have Never around the campfire (and an impromptu decision by the lads in the group to graffiti the desert...), it was a slightly owlish group who surfaced in the morning for our trip out of Sesriem, and further south through Namibia. This was another of those occasions where we just didn't really do much during the day, although for once we actually got where we going on time, so there were no issues with getting into the camp, finding our allocated spot etc. Some unkind souls remarked to Paul that they'd almost forgotten how to put up their tents during the daylight. Still, after setting camp it was time to hop back on the truck for a quick trip out to the rim of the Fish River Canyon, which is, Namibian tourist authorities reliably inform me, the 2nd Biggest Canyon in the World (after the Grand Canyon). Don't know on exactly what basis they do this, but I can reliably inform you that it is one bloody enormous hole in the ground. And we actually reached it in time to get photos of the sun setting, even more improbably.

After that, it was back to the campsite for dinner and the usual drink or two (although for once there was no campsite bar to help out proceedings, so we were entirely dependent upon our own supplies, and upon the Valdy Bar, an esky stocked with alcohol by our esteemed driver and sold on to us as the most convenient repository of cold liquor). That evening was enlivened somewhat by another broadcast of Leonie's DVD of her getting savaged by a lion cub in Vic Falls, by the seemingly dozens of copies being made of a CD of African music that Paul and Valdy had repeatedly used to greet the morning on the truck, and by the attempts of Scott, aided by myself and Paul, to finally fix the damned stereo on the truck (which was now happily playing in the back of the truck again, but not in the front, leading to our being plagued by horrible music at horrible volumes while Paul and Valdy listened to something else on a personal stereo in the cab...). Eventually, after much mucking about with electrical gubbins and me having climbed on the roof of the cab, we got all of it working apart from one speaker, which seemed a pretty decent effort given that a bloody "professional" electrician hadn't been able to get it working!

There was an effort to get another drinking game going, one involving each person in turn adding one word to the sentence underway, but it didn't really get going that much, and the night turned into a pretty quiet one. The next morning we were up and away again, on our way out of Namibia. It was actually a pretty late start, as we didn't have too much ground to cover to the Orange River border crossing point. What we did manage along the way, though, was one of those occasional unadvertised breaks, and this one was a doozie: some hot springs, at a little place called Ai-Ais. Now, the last time I'd been in anything similar was when I was over in Hungary last year, but this was vaguely similar: hot pools of various temperatures, some indoors, some outdoors, though the ones in Budapest didn't have a set of fountains that went off occasionally, and worked as a very effective back massage for those standing underneath them! They also didn't see their outside pool hijacked by a bunch of overlanders with a rugby ball (in defiance of the "No ball games" signs liberally plastered around), leading to much fun, amidst shrieking, splashing and generally scandalising the other (mostly German) holiday-makers there.

Soon enough, though, it was time to hit the road again, and head for the border, where it was another hassle-free crossing (you know, there I'd been, pre-trip, imagining all kinds of nightmares at African border crossings, and it was mostly so easy it was booooring!) and there we were, in our final country on White Nile, the good old Republic of South Africa.

And that's where this latest instalment will tail off, as the details of our final truly silly night on the truck will have to wait. Until then, dear reader, fare thee well!

Pat

Sand, sand and more sand

Right, time to cover a little more ground on the Blog, and see if I can finally get a bit nearer to the Namibia/SA border. Looking back on last time, we had just had our second night in Swakopmund...

Well, we were all up and ready to leave Swakopmund on the Tuesday morning, but unfortunately White Nile wasn't! Due to some issues we'd been having with the stereo, and a couple of other minor issues, she was being looked at by a mechanic. So we got a little time to ourselves, which most of us used either for catching up on net time, or for shopping. Eventually, an hour or so past our original departure time, White Nile rocks up and we all pile on. We then find out that the attempted repairs haven't fixed things, as they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Bugger. So, we head on, dodgy stereo and everything, down the coast to the town of Walvis Bay.

Now, Walvis Bay was the last town to join Namibia, as the South Africans didn't release it until 1994! The reason for this is that Walvis Bay was historically part of South Africa under the British, when Namibia was the German colony of South-West Africa, largely because Walvis Bay sits on the only decent harbour along the entire Namibian coast, so we Brits decided that was the only bit worth having (note that this was way back before anyone found diamonds...). These days, though, it's re-integrated with the rest of the country. And we were popping down there to go see flamingoes. You see, there's pretty big salt marshes along the coast there, which the dumb pink birds love, so there's thousands of the buggers just sitting there. I wasn't really in the mood to get that excited about them, but a few of the others went off determinedly up the beach, with a cunning plan to try and drive some of the hordes perched outside effective camera range back towards the waiting masses armed with cameras. Unfortunately, due to a shortage of time and the fact that distances on the beach can be deceiving, this came to nothing, which was a shame - I was rather looking forward to them jumping around trying to scare some of the birds into flight...

After that, it was back onto the truck for another long drive down through the Namib desert, enlivened as ever by the always-competitive intra-mural games of scrabble, Uno and chess which flourished on the truck. We also made a stop at a farmhouse, which I believe was called Solitaire, where many of our number had what Paul and Valdy promised us was the "best apple pie in Namibia". From there, it was on towards the campsite of Sesriem, the gateway to the greatest dunes of the Namib, and to Sossusvlei. Except that we got there late. D'Oh! They did let us in, but our original pitch had been sold on, so we had to share with a poor family on holiday. By this point, it was too late to make our scheduled trip to see sunset at Sesriem canyon, so we just settled in for the night at the slightly surreal campsite. You see, it's all sand, but then you have these big trees sprouting up out of the middle where their roots have found water way down - each pitch is generally around the base of a tree (vital for shade during the day). Another very early night followed, as we had to be up really early...

... because the next morning we headed off on what is an informal race across the park. As soon as the gates from the campsite into the park open, most of the 4WD vehicles of whatever stripe within head out in their very own version of the Cannonball Run, albeit over a much shorter course! In this case, they are all rushing for the base of Dune 45, which is basically the designated point for watching the sunrise from within the park (wily people that the Namibian National Parks people are, they provided road access, a car-park etc at one of the dunes, on the basis that if people are going to muck about with the dunes by climbing them, it's probably best to restrict it to one of them...).

Still, despite a slightly later start than we had planned, all seemed to be going okay. Then, on arrival, I made the critical error (perhaps understandable given my oft-stated aversion to the hours of morning) of mistaking the word "sandals" for "shoes" in the phrase "We don't recommend you wear sandals when attempting to climb the dune". So I went off to climb a huge red sand-dune in my besocked feet, despite the fact that said sand is bloody freezing first thing in the morning. Given my performance on the dunes during sand-boarding at Swakop, I was expecting pain, but even that didn't necessarily prepare me for the horror of climbing that bloody dune. I was halfways sure I was bloody dying out there, as I struggled along, trying to use others' footsteps as much as possible to lessen the amount that the sand slipped out from under me as I climbed. Still, I made it up the steepest part (the first bit) and was progressing okay along a ridgeline as the first glimmers of light started to show on the horizon. Time for the first pre-sunset photo.

So, out comes my camera, snap goes the shot, and then comes the whirring of it turning itself off. Bugger. Flat battery. Oh well, time to put in a spare. Except that one of the spares is flat, and the other one isn't there. Bugger. I put it in Roger's bag when we went sand-boarding, and never got it back. And Roger is way further up the dune than me at the moment. Nearly howling audibly with anguish, I stumble on up the dune to where the rest of the group are gathered, searching frantically for Roger and Chiara as the light grows brighter on the Eastern horizon. And then, having found them, discover that Roger doesn't have his bag with him. It's not even on the truck. It's back in the camp at Sesriem. Bugger bugger bugger! We're out in one of the most photogenic landscapes on the planet, and my camera is basically dead. Aaaargh! Eventually, I remember that I have a disposable 35mm camera in my daypack (purchased for those times when even I'm not daft enough to take my digicam out...), and manage to get some shots. I still don't know how they turned out, though, as the film hasn't been developed yet!!

Oh, and by this point my feet are not merely sore, but also rapidly going numb, standing in very cold sand (joys of the desert - it's totally bloody freezing at night...). After a short while to appreciate the beauty of the sunrise and the majesty of the ensuing view, it's time to make tracks back down the dune. Literally. I think all of our group made it down the main approach again (admittedly with much whooping and jumping), but some idiots from other groups on the dune just charged down the pristine faces of the dune, which seemed just a bit childish - there's a certain stark majesty to the sand dunes there, and a line of footprints running down the side just seems to desecrate it somehow. I know that when more sand blows over, it'll just get wiped away, but it just feels kind of disrespectful to the place.

Anyways, when we got back down it was to be greeted by two sights: first was Paul applying the finishing touches to a massive fried breakfast; the second was another (northbound) Acacia truck, laying out the chairs and tables for a champagne breakfast. We'd been trumped. Dammit. That said, once we were tucking into our brekkie, it was widely agreed that champagne at 6:30am was not a good thing, and we'd rather be stuffing ourselves with bacon, boerewors (S African "farmer's sausage" - very good) and scrambled eggs. Oh, and defrosting our feet, for those of us who went up barefoot or in socks. Soon enough, though, it was time to move on, heading to the main parking lot out in the middle of the desert, which serves as the base for trips to Sossusvlei itself.

Before arriving at Sossusvlei, Paul had been really selling us on the possibility of doing this walk with a bushman out to the vlei, which would show us all the life in the desert and that kind of thing. Only on arrival did he discover it now cost almost twice as much as he'd thought it did, so he offered to lead a trip through the dunes to another, nearby vlei, the Hidden Vlei. Now here I have to confess to one of the few possible regrets I have from my trip with Acacia - due to my tiredness, the soreness of my feet (which were recovering from some other cuts even before I nearly froze them) and my unwillingness to climb any more bloody dunes, I didn't join most of the others from our truck as they followed Paul. But I also, due to not having got enough cash out last time we were in a town, didn't fork out the 80 Namib dollars (or about 7.50 GBP) for the shuttle vehicle into Sossusvlei itself. Looking back, that's faintly ridiculous - to have come that close to what's regarded as one of the natural wonders of the world, and then stayed in the car park nursing sore feet for want of a few quid in local currency. Bloody stupid. Oh well, I guess I'll have to go back to Namibia some other time to remedy that!

Anyways, after all the morning adventures, we headed back to the camp at Sesriem, where we had an afternoon at leisure. Most of the group used it to chill out by the pool. I used it to resuscitate and then back up my digital camera. I know, I'm a geek, but it needed doing. Then, that afternoon, we had our delayed appointment with Sesriem canyon, which is surprisingly impressive. So much so that we wandered down into it, lost track of time, and came back up to find we'd just missed the sunset again! D'Oh! Then it was back into camp, and dinner time.

But I shall have to break off here, as my time is about to run out, and this entry is (once again) getting stupidly long. Take care and have fun,

Pat

Zooooooooooom!!

Hello again,

Shall we head back to the narrative, which cut off last time just as we entered Swakopmund, which seemed to be utterly dead...?

The good news here was that we were staying in a hostel again. Beds! No putting up of tents! Yay!!! So, we got everything settled into our rooms, then headed off for the obligatory videos outlining all the activities available to do in Swakop. The main ones of these are Sandboarding, Quad Biking and Skydiving, making good use of the sand dunes just out of town. For me, this was relatively unnecessary, as I already knew I was going to do Quadding and Sandboarding. No contest whatsoever. Various of the others umm-ed and ahh-ed a bit, but it was pretty similar sentiments form most people, although Roger and Chiara (our Canadian couple) decided to do the skydive as well!

Having decided on our activities for the next day, it was off to the bar (or back to the bar in a few cases...) to start our belated celebrations of Valdy's brthday - given that he didn't have to drive the next day, he was good to come out with us and start the mayhem. However, the early action was fairly brief, as we adjourned from the hostel bar to a pub/restaurant called The Lighthouse for another big slap-up meal (mmm, oryx...). Although, given the amount of wine and beer consumed alongside the food, matters were proceeding fairly energetically anyway. Once we finished there, we decided that, given the deader-than-a-morgue state of much of Swakop on a Sunday night in the middle of winter, it was back to the hostel bar again, where Valdy renewed his long-running relationship with shooters, aided and abetted by various of the usual suspects from the truck.

What followed was probably one of the daftest nights on the whole trip, and hence the memories are slightly more fragmented. Highlights included Belinda's seriously energetic dancing up on the tables, Dave's dogged pursuit of the barmaid, several games of pool that went on way too long, largely because I think some of the players could scarcely see the balls, and the classic comedy moment where I found myself chatting to one of the jump-masters for the skydive company, who'd had a few bevvies himself. It was partway through his trying to persuade me to sign up to jump the next day, that he pointed out a guy passed out on the bar. And told me that was the guy who packed the parachutes. What little enthusiasm I had at that point faded away pretty sharpish. By the end of the night, though, I'd apparently dozed off on the bar myself (classy, I know) before staggering back to my bed.

The next day was another bright and cool day, enlivened somewhat by the post-mortems of the previous night over fry-ups. And by Dave's smug appearance that morning in a tasteful T-shirt emblazoned with a variant on a certain Pizza restaurant's logo featuring the words "Pussy Hut". And no, he wasn't referring to a kitten sanctuary. Soon enough, though, it was time to load up into the Kombi vans associated with most good backpacker activity companies and head out to the dunes, ready for sandboarding. For those not familiar with the activity, this involves climbing sand dunes, then going down them either on a waxed-up snowboard, or lying down on some form of toboggan. The first bit (going up) is the painful bit. Really painful. Climbing up a mound of shifting sand whilst dragging a board of some kind is not fun. Not at all. Especially not when recovering from "the night before", as so many of us were doing (I will freely admit to having several thoughts along the line of "I am going to die" in the course of climbing the dunes that morning).

However, the going-down bit is great fun. I had decided, given my brief exposure to snowboards a few years earlier, to give the "stand-up" version of sandboarding a go. And, well, frankly I sucked. The only real benefit of quite how bad I was was that I made a couple of appearances in the video of the day (they always like good crashes...). After a couple of attempts, and a couple of gut-busting climbs back up that evil dune, I happily switched over to tobogganing. Now this was much more fun. Sliding down the slope at up to 80km/h on a sheet of waxed plywood is very addictive. I made one descent down "Lizzy" (the 2nd-fastest route down the dunes, and still a real eye-opener!), and then 2 further ones down "Dizzy", their fastest run, featuring a point where the slope drops away and you can get "air" under at least the front of your sheet. Absolutely superb fun. There's nothing quite like doing near enough 50 miles an hour down a sand-dune on a sheet of plywood, frantically trying to keep elbows and hands (gloved) from digging into the sand and causing a spectacular "wipeout", either screaming like a girl or giggling like a loon. I was still bouncing around a couple of hours later, when it came around to time to go out on the Quads.

Now, to be honest, I love Quad bikes (4WD 4-wheeled motorbikes for those unfamiliar with them). I almost never pass up a chance to have a go on them, and this trip just sounded like it would be amazing, as we would be heading out through the dune fields, before "roller-coaster-ing" up and down the sides of the dunes. And doing so for about 2 hours. I won't bore everyone with all the details, but suffice to say that, at least after I had got clear of some of the more nervous riders near the back of the field and joined up with the over-enthusiastic idiots in the leading group, I was ploughing along at near enough full throttle for most of the rest of the trip. And the "roller-coastering" involves going at full speed, often down a slope, towards one of the dunes, driving as high up the side of it as you can then, just as you are losing traction and slowing right down, turning back down the slope to pick up more speed and (often) do it again over the other side of the dip. There was general agreement from those of us who did it that this was probably the single most fun activity on the whole damned trip, and for most of us that included rafting the Mighty Zambezi (TM).

We got back to Swakop itself after sundown, having caught dusk looking over the South Atlantic, and caught some air over a few of the bumps on the way back. Various of us were obviously disappointed when told that, no, we couldn't go and do it again, and yes, we had to give the quads back now. We then headed back into town to the hostel, and shortly popped over to one of the local pubs, to see the video CD from our sandboarding earlier in the day. I loved this so much that I gave in and bought a copy. I know, I'm weak, but it is quite cool, and I actually quite like the music too! Then it was back to the hostel, where my cooking team were to have our final shift making dinner on the trip, and rarely can there have been an easier one - chicken burgers. Fry chicken breasts, chop salad, get out bread rolls and sauces. Even the washing-up was pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, though, by the time we'd finished cleaning up, everybody's ardour for any further celebrations had dampened somewhat, and it ended up being a very quiet night.

And that will have to do for now. Until the next time, mis amigos, adios!

Pat

Fast beasts and smelly beasts

[From this point on, the untimely loss of my notebook in Pretoria means a few of the remaining posts are less detailed than they might have been (stop cheering at the back!). Still, I shall continue with the chronicles of my time in the Dark Continent. And so I return with you once more to the north of Namibia, and to Etosha National Park.]

And to another early departure, in search of yet more game. This, though, was to be our final game drive of the trip, on our way out of the park and back south again, on the first stage of the long descent towards Cape Town. And, to be honest, there wasn't really anything else to excite me on the way out. It was simply a case of getting back to the gate, having lunch at the campsite which had no room at the inn when we arrived, and then heading on south for what Paul assured us would be a quick drive of an hour or so to the Otjitongwe Cheetah Park (try saying that one after a few too many beers).

Unfortunately, for once Paul's knowledge of the route (which he hadn't been on for a year or so) failed him. It was significantly more than "an hour or so" to the cheetah park, such that we arrived there rather later than anticipated, and were hence unable to pet the cheetahs. Yes, you did read that right - I said "pet the cheetahs". As in, go and stroke them and generally sit next to the big predatory puddy cats. This is apparently possible because, alone amongst the Big Cats, cheetahs are not born with the hunting instincts, and so do not automatically see us as Food. The people who run the park rescued the 3 cheetahs in question as cubs. So they're like big domesticated housecats. That can run up to 100km/h or so. And have non-retractable claws (another little unique cheetah feature). Not going to go into the morality or otherwise of doing this, but the animals seem happy enough.

Anyways, as noted, we weren't able to do the petting that afternoon, so it was off to the enclosures further out in the park, where they keep the other cheetahs. These are generally wild adults who have been caught on farmland and would otherwise have been shot. So, instead, they are kept in enclosures and fed regularly. Again, not quite the same as having them free in the wild, but I reckon better than having them dead. Anyways, as you may have guessed, we were there for the spectacle of them being fed. Only we were late, and we weren't the first group, so we got to watch from White Nile. And I didn't think this was necessarily a bad thing, as the other intrepid visitors were in a little trailer, surrounded only by low railings, behind a bakkie (transl. = "pick-up", or "ute" if you really must). In an enclosure with half a dozen or so big, hungry cats. Protected only by a guy in the stereotypical Afrikaner costume of khaki shorts, check shirt and boots, wielding that known weapon of mass-destruction, the Big Stick.

The feeding ritual itself largely consisted of: Afrikaner oke (transl. = "bloke") goes to bucket in back of trailer and grabs large hunk of meat (another reason NOT to be in the trailer, in my book, though some of the others on the truck were loudly lamenting that they weren't out there); beckons to circling pack of cheetahs; waves stick at any that get too close (seriously); throws meat out into pack; cheetahs pounce in giant furball; one of them gets the meat and legs it off, sharpish, to a safe distance to feed; repeat until no more hungry cheetahs prowling around in enclosure; repeat for next enclosure. All pretty prosaic, were it not for the fact that a cheetah haring in at near-top speed in search of food is a pretty awesome sight, even if it is basically getting a steak served blue.

Anyways, after that it was back to another small square of dusty ground masquerading as a campsite (although this time in a cheetah park), there to pitch our tents and settle in for the night. Dinner crew made dinner. A bunch of the rest of us headed off to the bar. I know, it does seem like my alcoholic tendencies were coming to the fore again, but there really wasn't a great deal else to do. Although this bar did sell some pretty cool cheetah park T-shirts, one of which I purchased. Several others of the group also did so, and some of the discussions around colours were enlivened somewhat when Helen (who's training to be a makeup-artist) started suggesting what the most appropriate colour for various people would be. Before anyone asks, mine was apparently pink. Now, unfortunately, I actually rather dislike the colour pink, associating it as I do with pink-shirted, pin-striped, rah-rah City Boys (spot my pet prejudices) and several rather over-enthusiastic student Pantomimes on which I worked. So I got a rather fetching maroon/burgundy kind of number instead. STOP LAUGHING!

That was about all for that night, and the next morning dawned for us slightly less bright and early than Paul habitually liked (I wasn't complaining). The reason? Well, it was time to do our cheetah-petting. Those nice people at the park had offered to fit us in first thing (i.e. around 7:30, engendering something of a lie-in for us) and so we struck camp and drove over to the farmhouse at the entry to the park, where we went through the (rather substantial) chain-link fence into the front yard. There to be confronted by 3 adult cheetahs.

I have to admit feeling just a tad nervous when walking in there (in a daft-arse show of bravado, I'd gone in as one of the first in the group), but our true Afrikaner oke from the previous afternoon talked nicely to his pets and got them to lie down, and we then took it in turns to crouch down and pat and scratch them behind the ears (obviously with a barrage of cameras going off - luckily they're apparently used to all the bleeps, clicks and whirrs). The one I patted first even purred! I mean, it's logical for a cat to purr, but I'd never quite envisaged a scenario where a cheetah was purring right in front of me while I scratched behind its ears.

The roll-call of pictures was interrupted every so often, though, when the cheetahs got distracted by another family pet, a little vervet monkey, which would sit just out of reach in the bushes, or on the scaffolding around the water-tower, and chatter at them. We also had a comedy interlude when one of the cheetahs took a bit too much of a liking to one of Dave's flip-flops and went off with it! He got it back in the end, but now complete with cheetah bite-marks on it. And there was a slightly overly dramatic end to the session when the cheeky little monkey dropped down to the ground to taunt one of the farm dogs (who played quite happily with the cheetahs?!?), and took its eye off where the cheetahs were. And one of them pounced. Cue much shrieking, first by the monkey, and then by the lady of the house, whose pet it was. Eventually, the cat dropped the little rascal, who promptly climbed back up to the roof, and order was restored. Hopefully, the little pest may have learnt not to go around teasing the cheetahs, though!

And so, we were off again, down slightly more minor roads, heading SW for the coast and our next stop, the Cape Cross seal colony. Now, the origins of the name Cape Cross are faintly humourous, so prepare for long-winded explanation. Originally, it ws named because it's a cape, and the Portuguese (who were the first Europeans to reach the place, en route to their discovery of the sea-route around the Cape) placed a cross there, proclaiming how glorious it was in the eyes of God that they had found this coast, yadda yadda. All was perfectly fine, until sometime in the 19th Century, after the area fell under the control of the Germans, who, in a fit of sublime inspiration, called their colony "South-West Africa". Catchy, huh? Anyway, they apparently, for reasons known only to them, waltzed off back to Germany with the original cross, and erected one of their own in its place. As you do. ??!? Matters were then, however, further complicated after Namibia's independence from South Africa, as the Portuguese supplied a replacement replica of their original cross. So there are now 2 crosses at Cape Cross. And a lot of seals.

And, despite how cute people may find them, there is one overwhelming issue with seals: they stink. Absolutely reek to high heaven. Poo poo poo. Almost up there with hippos. (Almost). To the point where Paul advised us not to wear any fleeces or the like out of the truck, as they would take in rather too much of the odour, and he'd hate to have to throw them out the window (or words to that effect). You get the idea. They smell. They're also really rather noisy, keeping up a pretty impressive barrage of honks. And there's somewhere in the vicinity of 80,000 of them there. Covering the rocks, and the shoreline, to the point where you can barely see them. You get the idea. Lots and lots of smelly seals. Oh, and I saw a jackal wandering around, which was also kind of cool.

And then, not before time (I'd been wearing one of my bandanas as a mask over my nose and mouth to alleviate the aggression of the smell somewhat), it was back onto the truck, and further on down the coast to the little town of Swakopmund. Now, as you may be able to guess from the name, Swakop is a pretty Teutonic place. Kind of like a small Prussian town dumped in the desert by the sea. And we arrived on a Sunday night, when it wasn't exactly kicking. Actually, more than that, as we drove in, the consensus was that we'd arrived in a ghost town. It looked like the local tumble-weed was on a fag-break. Could this be the place described by some guidebooks as "the adventure-sports capital of Namibia"?

Well, this post is long enough now, so you'll have to wait for the next one (possibly as soon as tomorrow) to find out. Awww, ain't I a tease?

Until then, taraa!

Pat

Bloody hell, leopards DO actually exist...!

[Thankyou so much to Yohan, for sending on the best leopard picture from our truck, gratefully reproduced here]

Hello again my friends,

After a spate of horribly expensive internet in Durban, and non-existent internet during my sojourn in the Drakensberg, I am now in Pretoria, with cheap-as access, so it's time to try and bring the story a little closer to the present day, so let's pick up where last I left off, in Etosha:

This being a national park, you can guess how we started the next day. Yep, dark and early (5am or so, again...), loading onto White Nile for further chasing off bloody antelope. Or at least, that was how I felt at the time. As predicted by Paul back up when we were in East Africa, I had been getting fairly game-fatigued. Once you've seen all these animals a certain number of times, you do find yourself saying things like "Oh no, not another bloody giraffe", and people making jokes about only wanting to see another hippo if it was fighting a lion at the time. Combine this with my usual aversion to early mornings, and you'll have some idea that I was in not the most happy of moods.

This wasn't helped by the fact that the seat-rotation policy on the truck had now brought me right back to the back again, and when we did stop to see things, our driver Valdy tended to line us up okay for those near the cab, while unintentionally leaving some of the rest of us looking at bushes, which was mildly frustrating. Still, we were seeing a fair bit of game, which kept quite a few of the newer occupants happy. As it was, though, I was fairly tuned out and having a conversation when we stopped to look at another giraffe. So I wasn't the first to react when Dave and Heetan, from opposite ends of the truck, both made comments along the lines of "Are those spots in the bushes there?".

Indeed, it turned out, they were. Finally, after over a month on the road, I could see a leopard, the most elusive of the "Big 5" of Africa! Incidentally, not sure if I mentioned it back in my musings from Kenya and Tanzi, but the Big 5 are named not for their actual size (there are much bigger creatures than the leopard out there) but for their danger to hunters - hence, the Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Lion and Leopard were the 5 most dangerous things for big-game hunters to take on back in the 19th century. Anyways, there was much frantic photography, as everyone tried to get a decent shot through the undergrowth (unsurprisingly, their camouflage is pretty effective...) - the best of ours was Yohan's, which he kindly sent on arond the group afterwards (and I have shamelessly used here). And then, there was astonishment as another leopard loped out of the undergrowth just behind it.

Now, leaving aside London bus-style jokes about waiting forever and two turning up at once, this is incredibly rare - adult leopards are solitary creatures, and only ever pair up just before mating, splitting up again just afterwards. Neither Paul nor Valdy had ever seen a pair of them at once before, and it's not many people who have. Understandably, this completely rejuvenated me and got the enthusiasm back up, so I was a very happy bunny when we got back to camp for lunch. Most animals being sensible enough not to wander around much in the heat of the day in the deserts of Namibia, we were not due to head out again until later in the afternoon and so had a few hours of leisure around the campsite, which any of us put to good use by jumping in the pool. Or at least, those of us with a certain tolerance for chilly water - compared to the hot desert air, the pool was really rather cold, and it was notable that the Brits were rather more ready to plunge in than the Aussies in the group.

Much splashing around in the pool with a ball (and a much-needed ice-cream) later, it was back on the truck for more beastie-spotting. Amidst the hordes of springbok, and quite a few kudu, we managed to get a glimpse of a lion, much to the joy of the crew who had joined up in Livi, as this was their first leonine sighting (and completed their entire Big 5, all within Etosha!). We also went out briefly onto the Etosha pan itself, a huge salt-flat. This gave us a chance to get out of the truck in the middle of a park for once, as there were more than enough sight-lines for safety. We put this unaccustomed freedom to typical use - taking photos of one another, kicking balls around and general horseplay (e.g. Dave deciding to lick the salt-pan, and Amanda deciding to ride on his back while he was doing so...). And in all the excitement, we nearly lost track of time, and so were left at the mercy of Valdy's driving once more as we raced to get back to Halali camp and avoid being locked out! This time we managed to cut it even finer, as we drove through the gate and almost immediately passed the guard heading over to lock it. Phew.

It was then back up to the waterhole for most of us, where we saw elephants, hyenas and jackals again. The highlight, though, was definitely when rhinos came back down again. And this time, the mummy rhinos brought their kids, leading to a situation where we had two adult females and two juvenile rhinos all clustered around the waterhole. Absolutely mesmerising, and really lovely for Helen, whose favourite animal they are, and who had missed the rhino the previous evening. Eventually, though, it all got pretty quiet and it was time for bed again.

And that is where I must leave you now, as I have spent way too long on the net today. Adieu, mes amis!

Pat

Beer Halls, Funky Labs, Bakeries and Waterholes

Hello once more. Or should I say Guten Tag? For our travels had now taken us to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia (Africa's youngest country) and probably the most German city in Africa, though it actually feels more like a colony of South Africa. Most noticeably, Windhoek is very "first world" in the centre, with banks, takeaways, shopping centres, supermarkets, buses, and everything else, all looking clean and modern. The roads are also excellent, and the vehicles are largely in a decent state of repair. Botswana had been similar, but the contrast with Malawi, Tanzania or Kenya was very pronounced.

At any rate, our stop on that first night was in Windhoek where, joy of joys, we would be staying in a hostel (the wonderfully named Cardboard Box), meaning dorms and beds! I was, by this point, getting fairly sick already of the tents (especially the whole hassle of pitching and striking camp almost every day). Windhoek also meant the opportunity to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner, and go on drinking in bars afterwards. After an hour or two at the hostel (used by the boys mostly for playing pool or drinking beer, and by the girls apparently for straightening their hair...), and the fun of breaking into the back of the truck (the bolt on the door had slipped on due to the steep slope we were parked on!), we headed off to Joe's Beer Hall, a much classier establishment than the name might suggest, for dinner.

Now, Joe's is one of those wonderful places, found in many large African cities, which offers a good variety of game meat on the menu. I had a truly divine Kudu steak, while Belinda, sat to my right, had Zebra, and various of the others dined on other antelope, or on ostrich or crocodile. With the beer and wine flowing, this made for a very agreeable environment (despite the dents it was putting in our individual budgets), and a fair few of our number were still in the mood for a party. Hence, we headed on to the Funky Lab, a gloriously-titled drinking den, in a motley cavalcade of taxis.

At the Funky Lab, Matt amused himself by claiming that Paul was a famous pop-star in Europe, and that he was his manager, in order to blag the "VIP Room" of the bar for us. This served the additional purpose of giving us somewhere slightly more private where we could celebrate when midnight chimed and Valdy's birthday began. Eventually we were moved back out to the main bar, where I had one of my occasional sulks that the music was mostly R'n'B (which I enjoy dancing to almost as much as I enjoy trips to the dentist), and amused myself by watching some of the other antics (Helen attempting pole-dancing by the bar, Brandon swaying gently whilst looking confused, Belinda boogeying away furiously on the dance-floor, etc etc). I joined the second exodus back to the Box aroud 1am, while various of the die-hard party crew (mostly those who actually liked the basic) moved on to another bar, Chez Ntemba. I might have been tempted to go along, but was determined to make at least reasonable use of having a nice soft bed to sleep in.

Given the state some people were in the next morning, I felt I'd probably made the right decision to bail out when I did. After fairly relentless progress south and west since Dar, we were now headed back northwards, up across Namibia towards Etosha National Park. Namibia being mostly desert, this wasn't the most visually stimulating of trips, but that didn't really bother that many people, as most of us were either snoozing or engaged in the usual games of Scrabble, Chess, Uno, etc. We made a couple of stops in the few little towns along the way, one of which was used to grab cakes for Valdy's birthday. We also encountered the rather bizarre sight of a "Baeckerei mit internet" (Bakery with internet, for those unfamiliar with German, which wasn't a combination I'd ever considered particularly likely).

Unfortunately, all these little distractions meant that we were running quite late as we entered Etosha. Our problem was that the campsites in the Park close their gates just after sunset, and people are liable for hefty fines, on top of probable loss of their camp slot, if they arrive late. Paul had been hoping to get us into the campsite closest to the southern gate, but this was fully booked up, so we had to race across the Park to the Halali site, attempting to cover around 80kms in under an hour. That we did this is testament to the determination of Valdy, who pushed White Nile about as fast as he possibly could, and got us to the camp with barely minutes to spare.

After pitching camp yet again, the dinner crew (Jo, Jen and Belinda this time) got to work on the night's food, while the rest of us headed up to the water-hole. One of the attractions of Etosha is that the water-holes tend to bring a lot of the animals in the park into places where they can easily be seen, and each of the 3 campsites has its own floodlit water-hole. Hence, we arrived at ours to find an elephant having a very lengthy drink. During the course of the night, we would also see hyenas, jackals, kudu and, best of all, black rhinos. This more than made it worth sitting out, braving the cold. It also made me really appreciate the little tripod I had bought from Jessop's before leaving, as without it I wouldn't have got anything but blurs on the night pictures. Hence, I was a pretty happy bunny when I snuggled down under my blankets to sleep that night.

And the wonders of our second day in Etosha will have to wait, as I have other backpackers circling around, wanting to use the computer. Until next, my friends, goodbye!

Pat