Northwards

Botswana,

The land of the Delta and the Donkey. I’ve never seen as many in one place in my life. They are everywhere you look. I think the expression breeding like rabbits can easily be applied here. You’ve got to be careful driving though because from time to time you have horney donkeys chasing each other and in their amorous state they don’t even register cars heading for them. Not to mention the “Cowboys,” riding their cantankerous mounts in pursuit of an errant Bull! Then there are the goats. The goats seem to be a more intelligent bunch though. They are clever enough to know they are no match for a car. I’ve even seen some climbing trees!

We got to our destination in Maun after travelling for most of the day. We traversed the Eastern Kalahari Desert for the day. The heat was incredible and we eventually ended up at our camp site. It was a nice place, just out of the town and had a pool, bar and showers. What more could you ask for? This is a camping tour ya know. It’ funny because one of the days they ran out of everything I ordered. Black label beer, sorry no we’re out, Hawaiian pizza, no sorry no pineapple. It’s ironic as I’m in Botswana and I had a pizza for lunch and dinner! I do have a valid excuse though as everything else on the menu was yeh you’ve guessed it out of stock! In fairness I’m not here for the food anyway so I can deal with it.


The Okavango

We crossed the Buffalo fence and arrived into the Okavango. The Buffalo fence stretches for 3,500 KM’s across to Namibia and into Zimbabwe. I think the Dingo fence is longer but not by much. What a magical place. It strikes you the moment you get into your Mokoro (type of boat) that you are entering something that up until now hasn’t been influenced by man. The eco system is still pristine. The water is un polluted. The animals have been unmolested. It’s such a different place from anywhere that I’ve been. You can dip your hands in the water and drink it straight. As fresh and clean as you’ll ever get.

We met our guide or Poler for the trip and he tells us his name is Brendan. It’s bizarre because I ask him where he got his name and he just shrugs. Even here there is an Irish influence. We gently paddle through the Delta to our island camp. We hear just wildlife. Its amazing. We are as far as you can get from civilisation. It has a bit of a Ray Mears feel to it. We will be camping and cooking under the stars with Elephants, Hippo’s and Crocodiles as our bed fellows.

We go for some game walks and the thing that strikes me is the sound. The quietness. It’s inspiring. There are no vehicle’s here. No evidence of man bar footprints. It’s amazing to be having such little impact on an area. It’s a pity all the parks aren’t like this. We come across Giraffe and Zebra and they don’t hang around to say hello. They are very shy and even the Steenbok and Hippo are the same. They don’t want to have anything to do with us and it feels more special to me because this is the way it should be. Wild animals shouldn’t hang around and not be afraid of humans. We were they’re natural enemies for thousands of years. Habituation is the next best thing to domestication. What next will we have domesticated Lions? We end a long walk in the Delta and the air was tinged with a constant smell of Sage. It was a fantastic experience and just when we were on our way back to camp we stumbled upon two male Elephants. We keep a respectful distance and that’s another thing about our guide. He respects the Elephant’s comfort zone and doesn’t push into that. The Elephant just goes about his business without worrying about us. We don’t rely on a gun for comfort either which is great. Wild life watching at it’s best. We took a Mokoro out onto an open Pan and we watched the sun set across the Okavango. It was truly magical.

I go for any early morning shower/bath in my birthday suit. I’m in the middle of a clear pool of water and nature is alive all around. I can hear all the birds singing the dawn chorus and I can hear the occasional plop of water as fish take some insects from the surface of the water. I can hear a Fish Eagle calling somewhere out in the Delta and it completes the scene. I keep an eye out for any potential risks though. It’s not a play ground after all and I’d be a nice snack for a hungry Croc!

We take a 1 hour scenic flight deep into the Okavango. It’s amazing. It’s like the BBC Earth DVD. It’s definitely a place where I’d love to come back to. We saw massive herds of Waterbuck, Lechwe, Elephant’s and Buffalo’s. I have never seen as many Hippo’s before and some of them were monstrous in size. Not something you’d want to run into on a dark night.

I’m travelling with a German guy Axel (who’s a mad just out of a long spell in College partier) and an English lass named Laura from Beeeerminnngham for the first 4 days. We’ve all got along really well and we’ve had some great chats by the camp fire. We all seem to be relatively similar on our outlooks on life and that makes a huge difference. We hook up with another group on Sunday and continue through Botswana to Zimbabwe. It’s a place where you meet all kinds of people. The guy who owns the campsite in the Okavango is a Kiwi on the run for something at home. Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions! Our guide is a sound Oke from Jo’burg. He has travelled and done some various jobs and he’s definitely someone who I can relate to. It’s all going swimmingly well so far but I’m just hoping that the dynamic won’t change when the other folks show up on Sunday. We travel Northwards and head through the Foot and Mouth control point. It feels like Dublin airport again after the outbreak a good few years back. We had heard they would give us hassle at the point but we flew through with no hassles. We are heading for a place called Nata to meet up with the others.

On to Zimbabwe and we join up with 5 others. 2 Dutch, 2 Swiss and a Yank. Yeh and the dynamic changed. The two Swiss are pretty dreary people. They were telling a story about having partied hard one night and that they had to take it easy on the first night we met. Fair enough we said until they told us the party had been a week ago! It’s not the end of the World though and the Swiss aren’t renowned for their drinking anyway. I think it’s more like watches, Heidi, Purple Cows, hidden bank accounts and hot Zurich chicks!






Zimbabwe

The things that strike you about Zim are the people. They are very nice. They have seen their country ruined by a dictator but they all seem to have a resilient attitude to life. They try not to let the struggle for survival affect their attitude to life. They barter for old tea shirts and shoes with you. You can trade your shoes for curio’s and trinkets. One guy wanted my shoes! The notion is enough to make you laugh. I am backpacking around the place and I think he thought I was lugging around a suitcase full of the things. I do need my shoes though so no deal was struck. I wonder what I could get for my autographed Irish rugby jersey though? At least he wasn’t offering me a coffee table for them! If you have an old wardrobe then this is the place to come and trade them in. it’s a beautiful country where poverty is the main theme. Victoria Falls are beautiful. We’ve come when the Zambezi is at it’s highest in 40 years. The sound of the falls can be heard 3 km away. It’s to use the old American cliché, awesome! It’s like visiting a rain forest when you go there. You get completely drenched with the sheer volume of water being thrown up by the falls. There’s a great trade in rain Macs and brollies. I met a guy from Duleek at one of the view points. It’s funny to hear a Paddy or Mick in a small backwater like this. You can’t get away from the Irish. They must be literally everywhere. The town must have been a pumping place ten years ago. Now it’s practically a ghost town apart from some backpackers like us rolling through from time to time. It’s a small World in a lot of ways but this place is definitely one of the wonders.

The toilets are classic here. You take your toilet roll from a holder before you go in the door. I guess you have to be good at estimating the amount you need cause once on the pot there’s no turning back. It’s another idiosyncrasy of the country. Mam don't get any idea's of installing them in Castleknock Avenue! Another is the fact you can’t get any money from ATM machines as the currency is worthless. It must be the only place in the World where the national mint had the audacity to print a 100 Trillion dollar note. We went to a casino last night in the town. It was as plush as any Vegas gambling den but there was nobody there. We had our own private casino. Guess what the maximum bet was on the roulette table. 50 Cent! We were only gonna become billionaires if we got lucky but alas we all just about broke even! Red seven did come in though a few times to get me out even.

In the town you can’t get petrol or meat and credit cards don’t work because they don’t have enough zero’s to calculate the amount in Zim Dollars. Despite all this, it’s a great place and it’s a pity more people don’t spend time and money here.

Thanks Bob!

Travel

So I’ve spent a while looking for work and to no avail. The course I was doing hasn’t as many contacts within the game guiding industry as presented on their web site. I suppose that’s not a big surprise in a lot of ways. It’s essentially a money making scheme like any other except that the people who leave the courses seem to have been cast adrift in the majority of cases and are left to pick up their own pieces.

It hasn’t worked out too badly regardless as I’ve had an opportunity to see how to run a lodge the right way. I stayed in the Timbavati lodge for a couple of weeks and surprisingly it is run by an old Irish ex pat. He lets his son do the steering now but it’s a well run lodge and it caters for the middle of the road type of guest. It’s relatively cheap and cheerful and it’s got a killer location. It’s right on the Orpen road into the Kruger National Park. I got to know the owner and his sons and a few of his friends and it was good to make some new acquaintances. Paddy’s night was good craic obviously considering I’m in the middle of the bush and there isn’t much of a hullaballoo about it here. We made a good night of it. Marie a lady from Dublin and me gave it a lash and we sung a few songs and had the craic. It was good fun but it wasn’t as heavy a session as I would expect to have at home! Unfortunately one of the girls who manages the place had an accident in the wee hours after having one too many and she had to be brought to hospital. I was woken at 3 in a bit of a drunken stupor and asked if I would ferry her to hospital in Fixer (My car) Considering she had a bad back injury and it’s a pretty bumpy road I decided it wouldn’t be the best bet and we called an ambulance instead. Luckily we did in the end as she fractured 3 of her lower vertebrae. God only knows what could have happened if we had gone in to town with her.

I spent some days in Kruger looking for some material for my blog and wasn’t disappointed. We saw all of the big 5 and loads of other cool stuff. The worst things about Kruger though are the idiots that hang out of doors, windows, sunroofs etc. They have even dedicated a board to them called the “Kruger crazies.” I’ve had my fair share of them over the last 9 months. One guy the last time I was there was filming out of his sunroof and was completely oblivious to the fact that the Lioness who was on the road about 2 metres away from me got the shits when she saw him. She ignored me completely even though I was 2 metres away from her with my window down but could see him with his video camera coming towards her on the road. Not only did she get up and run off into the bush but the “idiot,” didn’t even realize he ruined the sighting for the other 4 cars that were there at the time! I was offered a job in the Timbavati lodge doing tours around Kruger but unfortunately I don’t have my PDP permit which you need to drive in KNP. That’s as a result of the fiasco with Fixer A.K.A. Moses Mkuntho. I ended up not having the license and my options are limited but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I headed off down to Jo’burg one of the days and stayed in a hostel for the night. I woke up the next day with a fairly bad case of the itchy and scratchy show. I don’t really want to know what the hell it was that was giving me the heeby jeebies but I’ve been in a few Backpackers in me time and it wasn’t a massive surprise! Alex landed into Jo’burg and we spent the day downtown in a shopping centre drinking coffee and for me scratching myself! Lovely! We had a flight down to Cape Town in the evening and the South awaited us. I was eager to get down and see the sea again. We flew in at night and checked into the Fire and Ice hotel. A real trendy hotel in the middle of the city. It was a cool spot and loads of thought was put into the design. Even the jax’s were class. It actually made you want to go and check them out. 6 different ones and all with different themes. It was like the Laughter lounge jax but by 6!

The taxis were big time hustlers and to be honest they aren’t unlike their Irish/Non Irish counterparts! If they could get away with a bit of shimmy shammying they would. You needed to ask them to put the metre on or they’d just make up a price and smile like a little angel. They were good craic though and well able to have a bit of craic. There was a bit of a rough element in the game as well though. The Cape Town Mayor has had death threats over trying to introduce a new quality bus corridor and transport system. The Jo Maxi drivers don’t like the sound of that and wanted to string her up to the nearest tree. We’ll see how it pans out. She could refer to the Irish example and she’d have at least a 10 year delay on her plan and that would give herself a bit of a chance! The drivers were real buds as well and seemed to be fairly sharp. Funnily enough they all seemed to appreciate me because I was from Ireland. Thank you Niall Mellon. Keep up the good work!

Cape Town is a great spot. It’s got a mix of San Fran and Sydney rolled up with an African twist. Table Mountain is a spectacular back drop to the city and it’s blue flag beaches. It has some nice café’s and bars and can be a great place to have a sun downer. The South Easterly wind whips up though and if you don’t mind being lashed out of it by the wind at different stages it’s magnificent. The water is Baltic though but great for a hang over cure! There are some spectacular sunsets as well. You can Hang glide down onto the beach as well so if that’s your ting then Cape Town is for you. The city has a lot of history. Unfortunately a lot of it is down right shameful from a human perspective but it gives an insight into how the country was formed/exploited in the early days.

One of the funniest things about Cape Town was the constant harassment on the beach by people selling stuff. It was nice harassment though if you get my drift. There were mostly fellas selling ice cold drinks, ice cream you scream etc and the best of all was the no worries attitude of the vendors if you weren’t really interested in buying a lovely hand made coffee table! Some entrepreneurs just don’t have what it takes!

One crazy punter came over to us ranting about something or other. I think he wanted a few shillings but I hadn’t any change. I offered him a melted Twix and he gladly accepted. He then said he was gonna give me a book because I was the only person who had offered him anything and he starts rooting around in his plastic bag. He pulls out a book and hands it to me. Surprisingly it wasn’t the new Maeve Binchy hardback but a car maintenance book for 2001 to 2003 models of the Toyota Hilux! I had to refuse his generosity for obvious reasons but I would have settled for an Isuzu KB 250 Le 2003 model if he had it knocking around!

The trip down to the most Southerly point in Africa is well worth the trip too. You look out into the Atlantic at the Cape Point on the Cape of Good Hope. Many a seafarer lost his way around here and ended up swimming for his life in the cold Atlantic waters. This is the point that the first explorers from Portugal recorded in Africa on their way to the Far East. It’s steeped in history and there is similarities with Ireland and particularly the West of Ireland. The land is vast desolate and wind swept. It reminds me of Connemara. It’s beautiful in it’s own way. On the way back we went to a place called Boulders beach where you can walk with Penguins. They are hilarious to watch as they lope along. Very ungainly on land but wait till you see the change when they hit the water. It’s incredible and hilarious at the same time! It’s worth the trip to see to the Cape to see the Penguin’s alone! Alas the Cape Town trip has come to an end all too quickly but a marvelous time was had.

Back to Jo’burg for a few days before heading off to Botswana and Zimbabwe. I took another bud from the airport and I’m convinced he had the metre running before I got into the cab. Bleedin taxi drivers! I’m really looking forward to the trip. The Okavango Delta is supposed to be spectacular. The bad news is that there is massive flooding there at the moment and there is a big humanitarian problem in the region because of it.

dats all folks!

Well folks the dream is over. I am now officially unemployed. Myself and my boss didn’t see eye to eye and I had to quit for the sake of my sanity. It turns out that I probably got out at the right time as apparently on Thursday, the day after my resignation a sub adult male Lion killed one of the Wildebeest on the conservancy!

My guess was that he came under the fence after the heavy rains we had last week washed out the base of the fence. It just shows you that you can’t be too complacent even in an area where you’re not supposed to have these animals predators! We all knew that there was a Leopard on the premises but you can’t keep Leopards out with fences. The fences are supposed to keep Lions out though! Guernsey conservancy can say that they’ve had 3 of the Big 5. I had just been pointing out the holes to some Dutch guests the week before and said that a Lion could easily come under through the gap. I didn’t realise at the time how prophetic those words would turn out to be. As well as that we had hunters in to cull some of the Impala and the Wildebeest on the conservancy. It looks like all you have to do is make a hole in your fence and let nature take its course. It adds a bit of extra adrenalin to your game walks when you could possibly have a Lion on your land!

Kevin and Ruth had come to stay with me for a few days and to say my boss and his wife were embarrassing hosts would be an understatement! Ruth and Kevin had been on a horse back safari in “Big 5,” country for a week and were amazed with the care they were given by their hosts. I think it was a great contrast to see the difference that a personality makes to the guests experience. Anyway we had a great time for the few days regardless. We went to Kruger the first day and as we were driving towards the park we saw a White Lion on the fence. I was actually driving along and my phone rang and I just spotted this shape in the corner of my eye and there it was, a beautiful White Lioness! I’m here eight months now and it’s the first one I’ve seen. Kevin and Ruth got some nice pictures! We headed on to Kruger and the lads wanted to see Elephants and Buffalo’s and we saw a herd of Elephants quite soon after driving into the park. Ruth loved the cute little baby and we have some nice pictures of a five legged Elephant male! Kevin got his Buffalo’s as well by the end of the day and all were happy!

We went to see the animals in Moholoholo the second day and Jessica the Hippo on the third day. I think the guys got a real impression as to how big the likes of Lions are in real life when they met “Big Boy,” the male Lion. He’s an awesome sight! We got back one of the evenings to see chaos on the road into Pezulu. A couple of cars had gotten stuck in the mud and this caused a pile up. Nobody could get in or out. We abandoned ship on the road and called for Jeff (The other guide in Pezulu) to come out and collect us. It was a cold and miserable evening. I stepped out of the car and I could hear snorting. It turns out there was a herd of Buffalo watching us through the fence. Ruthie was a little bit freaked out and she kept shining her torch on the fence to make sure nothing could creep up on us! Good girl Ruthie! We got back to the lodge and of course my inconsiderate boss had set a table for three with a big roaring fire on to warm up her hungry wet and cold guests! (NOT!) The thick bitch had set up two places and no fire. I think she expected me to eat down in the kitchen! At least she had left enough food for us tonight just about. You wouldn’t have wanted to be hungry is all I’ll say! Kevin loved his pint sized slice of Cheesecake. You know Kevin and desserts!

Anyway the straw that broke the Camel’s back regarding my resignation was when Claude came back and told me that he and some guests had been chased by a male Giraffe. The Giraffe had tried to kick one of the guests! He recounted the story while getting stuck into his 7th Klipdrift and Coke of the evening. I couldn’t believe that a lodge owner would be so irresponsible to bring 1.guests out when not qualified to do so 2. To let his dogs chase the Giraffes 3. To laugh about it afterwards. If a Giraffe kicks you, you are dead full stop! This was one of a good few incidents involving the owners of the lodge regarding animals. He had previously been calling Hyaena and making a fool of himself in front of a game vehicle full of guests and chasing Giraffe and worse again letting his dogs chase Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest, cars, Cats and guests!
I told him the next day that I had had enough and was leaving. The conversation went something like this. “Claude I’ve some bad news, I’m leaving. You’re leaving? For where? No, I’m leaving Pezulu, I’m quitting! Oh, why, are we not treating you well? Are we not nice? Well actually now that you mention it, no you’re not nice and you can’t pretend to be nice when you’re not! Are you leaving because the ranger life is not what you expected? It’s great but I’m not a ranger. A ranger looks after the animals and manages a reserve. I’m a guide. (The guy is as thick as a plank) What are you going to do? I don’t know but I’ll figure it out. I know that I can’t stay here working for you anyway. Well I can’t stop you from leaving if you want to. Yeh well that’s the first thing that you’ve been right about for a while. Good luck with your business!”

If I was to make a prediction on the future of Pezulu lodge I would say that it will be sold within two years. The old ninety ten rule comes to mind. The rule goes something like this about 90% of people think they should be in business and 10% actually should. Take a guess which side Claude and Lydia are on?

I’m gonna try and look for a job in the area, failing that I’m going to do some travelling through the country and stay in backpackers and see how things go. I’ve a few friends coming over to visit in the not so distant future and I’m really looking forward to that! Things could be worse!