Cape Town Goodbyes

Posted on March 12, 2013 by hilarylust

We had a tight schedule when it came to exploring Cape Town. We had two less days in South Africa than we had originally thought. Two blondes trying to count the number of days in February is a disaster. What happened to the 29th and 30th of the month?! Oh that’s right, they don’t exist. And just like that we were two days short. Fantastic!
We cut one day off our road trip and one day off Cape Town. Then we filled our days with as much as we could.
We arrived on Friday pretty early. This was perfect because it was a day in the city we hadn’t counted on. We hit the markets, got accustomed to the city center, checked out the waterfront and went for an incredible Italian meal in the evening.
Cape Town is amazing! The city has such a great laid back vibe and the people are so helpful. Long street offers everything a young backpacker could want: clothing stores, markets, great restaurants and a fabulous nightlife. The waterfront is simply stunning. Fancy restaurants, out of this world seafood, sunset cruises, and quaint shop fronts; the waterfront is the hub of life, and was packed full of people throughout the day and evening.
On top of all that, Table Mountain can be seen from almost every part of the city. It stands on a hill behind the hubbub of urban life and looms down over the city. It is stunning. Table Mountain combined with the unusual looking Lions Head makes for a gorgeous backdrop to an already wonderful place to live.
Saturday morning we got up early so we could hike the mountain ourselves. No one was really sure what to expect. We’d heard it wasn’t so bad from one person, then we heard it was the most exhausting thing ever and we wouldn’t be able to walk for days after hiking it. Oh well, we were doing it anyways. So Kelsi, Gina, Anisha and I caught a cab to the base and began our slow ascent. It was steep, and far, I’m not going to lie. The sign at the bottom estimated a 2 and a half hour climb time… But we were mentally prepared.
“I’m going to go ahead and assume it will take me three hours” I said, “that way I won’t be disappointed when I don’t reach the top right away.” And so we climbed. And we climbed, and ten minutes into the journey I couldn’t believe that we hadn’t already been hiking for 45 minutes. But the morning was cool and the hike wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Actually, it was really fun!
We passed a whole lot of people stopping to catch their breath on the way up, but trekked on at a steady pace. At one point Anisha had a flip flop blowout and had to start walking barefoot. Kelsi and I trekked forward while the two of them made their way up more carefully, step by step.
I couldn’t believe it, but 1 hour 27minutes later we reached the top.
“We made it!!!” Kelsi exclaimed.
It didn’t seem possible, but we had hiked to the top and I didn’t feel like I was near death either! What a bonus.
Unfortunately, during our hour and a half climb, our beautifully clear morning had disappeared and fog surrounded the top of the mountain. We hike ALL that way to come into a cloud of white. Fabulous.
Either way we were stoked we had climbed it. We ran this way and that once we got to the top, trying our best to catch a view. We sat on some rocks just as the view cleared up enough to see Robben island, then in a matter of seconds it was back to white.
So we passed the time waiting for Gina and Anisha by having breakfast in the cafe, climbing around on every cliff face we could find, and creeping in on a wedding that was going on. After two hours, we were wondering where they had gone. We were so obsessed with catching even the most minute view, that we hadn’t realized how much time had passed.
“Maybe they went down the mountain without us” we thought.
So we bought a tram ticket down and hoped for the best. Sure enough, the two of them were crashed out on a park bench waiting for us!
They had made it up only ten minutes after us, but couldn’t follow our sporadic pattern at the top and missed us. Oh well.
The rest of the day was filled with dress shopping and bevvies around town. Finally a city with nightlife!
When our dress shopping afternoon was over, we met up with Falafel for a Mexican dinner on Long street. We ordered nachos and enchiladas and beers and a litre of margaritas. Well… Kelsi ordered a litre of margarita.
When dinner was finished all of us were a couple beers deep, and Kels was a litre in. It was hilarious. We trekked back to our hostel and started back up at the rooftop bar. Kelsi went around introducing herself to every person on the roof, while we all switched to vodka to try to keep up. All of a sudden Kelsi was missing and Anisha said she had “taken a quick nap” and we were supposed to grab her when we headed out to the clubs. Oh no.
An hour later we were all caught up and we rushed to grab Kelsi on the way out. “We’re going to the club baby!!!” I shook her. No response. She was curled up and dead to the world. “Kelsiiiii, wake up!!” Nope. Nothing.
So off we went, out to explore the nightlife of Cape Town with our new found friends… Until the sun rose. I refused to believe it was 6am until I turned and saw the glow of morning light coming over the hill. Okay… Time to go to bed. It was probably a good thing there wasn’t anything else open, because Gina, Anisha and I would have been there. Instead we called it a morning and crashed in bed.
By 10am Kelsi had had an 11 hour sleep and was ready to go. “Okay, wake up! We’re going for breakfast!”
“Nooooooooo!” We moaned. “I can’t do it!”
“Yup, lets go”
So Gina and I rolled out if bed and we jumped in a cab to the waterfront where we had eggs benny at a cute little cafe by the ocean. Afterwards we tried to complete the days activities. By a CD, get some new flip flops, book our car rental. It was overwhelming, I couldn’t do it: I got cranky.
“I’m going for a nap” I announced, then took off towards a cab.
An hour nap was all we needed to survive the rest of the afternoon. Then we were up and exploring the food markets back at the waterfront. We had some savory soups, fresh baked sourdough bread, the most incredible halloumi samosas I’ve ever tasted, and then taste tested a plethora of cheeses and olive oils and meats from various food stands. Everything was incredible.
After that it was dinner. Yes, we had hangover pit. But also, it was our last dinner with Gina, Anisha and Falafel! We stopped at a place on Long street just a couple blocks from our hostel that served the best milkshakes in South Africa. They were huge and filling and by the time we downed them, Kelsi and I were almost too full to eat our dinners. Then it was sadly time to say goodbye again. As Gina said, that is the sad part about meeting so many amazing people while you travel. Eventually we all go our separate ways…
It hadn’t hit me that we were actually separating until I hugged Falafel goodbye. She had been our one friend that stuck through the entire trip with us. And despite us being completely opposite people, I was really going to miss our overly cautious little vegetable! Who was going to say “no” to Kelsi and my terrible and whacky ideas?! Instead, Falafel took a photo on my phone of a sign that said “take care, not chances” and said, “every time you guys want to do something stupid, think of me and this sign.” And we replied with “Oh Falafel… What could possibly go wrong?”
And from that point forward… We were on our own!

Orange River and Wine Country

Posted on March 12, 2013 by hilarylust

Our first stop in South Africa was right over the Namibian border at a place called Orange River. There wasn’t any spectacular activities to participate in, but the place was still breathtaking. The Orange River apparently got its name from the colour. However, I don’t see how. The water looked blue enough to me, and the surrounding hills were lush and green. Perhaps we hit the wrong part of the river…
We could hardly wait for lunch before it was time to jump in the river. “Careful of the current!” Manda warned. But how bad could it be? The river wasn’t very wide, and we were strong swimmers. Wrong.
The current was so strong that it was nearly impossible to swim the 10 meters or so to the middle to grab on to the paddle boards. You had to swim way upstream then cut across as fast as possible. By the time you’d made it that far, you were exhausted. Kelsi as Gina made the trek out to the paddle boards just to prove they could do it. I decided to lie on the deck with the puppies and get some sun. As with every campsite we’ve stopped at, this one had no shortage of adorable puppies wanting to play. So we spent the afternoon sunning ourselves and relaxing by the water.
The next morning we were up and driving again. For our last night out in the bush, we stayed at a lovely winery partway down the west coast of South Africa. The winery was beautiful (as most wineries are) and the owner Sparky was a delight!
We had a couple hours to relax, then all sat around on the patio for wine tasting and cheese and crackers. This is exactly what I wanted to do while in South Africa!
The winery had some really nice wines to try. My personal favourite was the Klawers pinotage. It went perfect with the cheeses, and we bought a bottle to have with dinner as well!
Sadly, this was the last night that Farai was cooking dinner for us. We all sat around in a circle while he did his final speech for us. All of his meals had been so incredible, and this one was definitely one of his finest. It was sad to say goodbye to Manda and Farai and Vincent, who had taken us through so much of Southern Africa in the past three weeks. But there’s so much more to explore, and I must admit, Kelsi and I were pretty excited about getting away from the confines of a tour and exploring on our own. We had two more weeks in South Africa to get into trouble, and we couldn’t wait for it to begin!
Next stop: Cape Town

Fish River Canyon

Posted on March 10, 2013 by hilarylust

Our next Namibian destination was Fish River Canyon. Just a few kilometers from our campsite, Fish River Canyon is the second largest canyon on the world…
This statement confused me at first. I thought I’d already BEEN to the second largest canyon: the Colca Canyon in Peru. Turns out, after a little more investigation, this canyon is the second widest, while the Colca Canyon is the second deepest! So many slight variations to claim a record. Either way, Fish River Canyon is still very impressive!
We were dropped off by our truck, a couple hours before sunset, to explore the area. We had three kilometers to walk to get back to our dinner area, and could take our time with photos and exploring. The canyon is gorgeous, there’s no denying. The jagged rocks and cliffs, the small river, snaking its way around the bottom: fish river is beautiful. At sunset it is even more stunning. Even so, there are only so many angles one can photograph a canyon from and soon we were having more fun taking pictures of Kelsi pretending to be a koala on the only tree we could find in the area. Then we sat down with a beer and waited for dinner, which was fish. Very appropriate in a place called Fish River.
When the sun had set, it was back to camp! Our campsite’s claim to fame was its very unique bar. The bar was like a graveyard for old automobiles. It was neatly laid out with classic looking cars and trucks all scattered among the tables. There was even a small gift shop that sold its wares out of the back of a wagon. As Manda said, you could take a couple hundred photos in the bar and never get bored. And he was right.
We spent the evening having a couple beers on tap (tap beer is pretty much non-existent here, so this was a treat) and then had an early night. The next morning we were off to our 8th country: South Africa!

The Dead Trees

Posted on March 10, 2013 by hilarylust

In the past few months, I’ve had more than a few friends post new and exciting things for me to add to my bucket list. Two of my friends managed to find the same website and send it to me. It was called “25 places that seem unreal but are actually real”. These places are INCREDIBLE looking. And now, obviously, I’m stuck adding another 25 amazing places to my travel list… It’s simply never ending!
One of these 25 places happens to be in Namibia. Just south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the place is called Soussusvlei. Soussusvlei is an old, dried up marshland in the middle of the desert. I imagine it was once an amazing oasis in an otherwise dry world.
At some point, however, the marshland dried up, the ground hardened and the trees died. The incredible thing is, that the ground hardened into a rock hard clay, and the trees that died remained upright. They now sit, blackened and eerily twisted in the middle of a clay field, backdropped by massive orange sand dunes. The place is out if this world.
Yes, I agree with Falafel: “it’s just dead trees Hairy, what is so exciting?” It is just dead trees. But they are beautiful in their own unique way, and Kelsi and I were like two kids in a candy shop waiting to explore them.
The two of us literally ran towards the field of dead trees. We only had a half an hour to take photos! We needed every last second.
My recently newfound love for photographing trees kicked in BIG time in Soussusvlei; these are the most unique trees I’d seen all trip! Pretty much there is no great way to describe them, which is why I’m just going to upload photos and let you see yourselves.
Even with a full 30 minutes, Kelsi and I felt rushed for photo time. We had way too much fun climbing and jumping and trying to take the most ridiculous, or the most artistic shot we could think of. Unfortunately, our group didn’t share the same enthusiasm for dead tree trunks, and so, we were dragged back to the bus. All in all, the trip was worth it! We got some great shots of both the trees and the desert, and stopped at a sand dune called Dune 45 to take photos and climb on our way back to camp. Gina and I decided we’d had enough running around for one day and relaxed in the shade while Kelsi climbed the sand dune. I think it was a lot further up than she expected, as she came hobbling barefoot around the back side of the dune a half hour later, hot and exhausted from the trek. Just another exciting day in Namibia, and a newly added bucket list item completed!

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Swakopmund

Posted on March 6, 2013 by hilarylust

Swakopmund was the first city we’d seen in god knows how long. We were excited for some good shopping, an actual bed in a hostel, a fun night out on the town and some extreme sports to participate in. Swakopmund is a small city right in the middle of the desert. Just rolling dunes and vast expanses of sand then, bam! there’s Swakop. We arrived on the weekend, which meant that nothing in the entire town is open past noon. On top of that, on the Sunday, they shut off the power to the entire city for some rewiring. This meant, no restaurants, no lights, no shops, nothing. The city was eerily quiet: no people walked the streets and the perfect German architecture and brightly painted buildings left the place feeling like a deserted model town in the middle of nowhere. So much for our city vibe!
On our first morning, we woke up early for some activities: quad biking and sand boarding! Namibia has some of the largest sand dunes in the world, and offers a plethora of adrenaline rushing sand activities for tourists. We signed up for two hours of quading and 1 hour of lie down sand boarding.
The quads were so much fun. We raced up and down dunes, sped across straightaways and paused for morning photos on top of a hill overlooking the desert. By the time we stopped for boarding I was covered in sand. My hair, face, shoes: all filled with fine sand that stuck to me for the next week. Well, what more can you do but throw yourself down a sand dune at 60km/hour.
The sandboards they offered us were not boards at all. When I went sandboarding in Peru, the boards we used looked just like snowboards. These were just flat pieces of thin plywood that they heavily waxed up before handing to us. This is nuts. That means, for the entire slope, you have to pull up the front edge of your board, so that 1. You don’t crush your hands, and 2. You don’t dig your board into the sand, immediately come to a stop, and hurl yourself overboard. Alright, let’s do this.
Our first hill was not too high. It was average height and similar to some of the smaller hills I’d gone down before. But it was steep. Very steep. And as a bonus, it had a weird bump, that you couldn’t see, at the bottom of the hill that sent you flying. Good times.
Kelsi went first and absolutely flew down. I’m pretty sure Kels held the record for furthest slide down every hill, and this one was no exception. I followed behind her and was the first person to hit the invisible bump. I knocked my chin against the ground, but nothing serious. It was the older guy that came after me that smashed his face really hard into the sand after vaulting over the bump. He ended up with a bleeding nose and sand burn all over his knees by the end of it. But I have to give him props, because when we all hiked it up to the big hill, he followed along and was ready to go again!
The second hill was MUCH larger. Probably twice the size of the first hill. To add to that, it had a huge curve. The hill fell off at one side, causing the board to curve to the left or else end up flying off a cliff to the right. “What happens of we go off the edge?” We asked.
“No, no, that won’t happen” said the guide.
Then this Aussie guy named Reuben tried to explain why it was impossible to fall off that side. “It’s the natural curvature of the dune guys. There’s no way the board will keep going straight, it just can’t happen”
“Ok” we all agreed, then we set up to board down the mountain. The run was incredible. We got huge speed on the second hill, and a lot more distance than the first hill by far! The guide was right, the hill curved nicely to the left and we all ended up right were we should at the bottom. Success!
Because our group was small, we still had a lot more time to board before getting back on the quads. So we all decided to hike up the big dune one last time.
It was Reuben’s turn to go first. He pushed himself and his board gently over the edge, holding up the front of the plywood as he picked up speed. We all stood at the top of the dune and watched him go. He went straight as an arrow right down the dune. There was absolutely no natural curvature in this slide. He flew off the edge of the dune and straight down the right side where the drop when significantly more vertical. He tumbled down a couple rolls then lost his board and came to a standing position. We all thought that was it until he list his footing and kept falling backwards. His hat and sunglasses went flying from his head, and he did several more rolls before coming to a crashing halt three quarters of the way down the dune. Oh my god.
“Reuben!!!” We all called “are you okay?!”
No response. No movement.
“Reuben!!” We called down at him again.
Finally he shifted, turned his head and gave us the thumbs up. Our guide jumped on the quad bike and flew down the other side of the dune to try to find a safe way down to him. But by the time he got there, Reuben was standing up and laughing just as hard as we were.
“So much for the natural curvature of the dune, buddy!” We taunted from above.
Amazingly, he had zero scratches on him. He was just dizzy from the barrel rolls, and completely himself by the time we all reached the bottom. Still, it made for a pretty exciting morning on the hills!
After that it was back in the quads and we trekked the hour back home. When we arrived back at the base, Gina and I decided to head out on some camel riding for a half hour or so. I had never been on a camel before (or ever really seen one until we spotted a couple in Nairobi) but I am always keen to ride any strange or new kind of animal, so I was pretty pumped about the idea.
The thing I was shocked about was how TALL camels are!! I had expected them to be similar to a horse, but I was clearly mistaken. There legs are so long that I rode about one and a half times higher than a normal horse height. You even have to get on them while they are lying down, then wait for them to stand with you on their backs. The getting up and down part was actually the most exciting. They get up two feet at a time, which leaves you jolting back and forth in the little saddle. I thought I was going to fall off when the camel was trying to lie down. His front legs were on the ground while his back ones still stood straight. I was at such an angle I thought I was going to fly right over his head! Luckily, no embarrassing camel falls for me.
The ride was lovely though. We walked out through the desert, just the two of us and a guide. The beach was way off to the right, and rolling sand dunes to the left. Couldn’t have asked for anything nicer! (Except for the highway to get out of our view).
After our full afternoon of adventuring, we tried to explore the city. This was a fail, because, being Saturday, everything was closed. So we opted for heading back to the hostel for a couple drinks before a long night out on the town!
Sunday was also a let down as far as events. Gina, Anisha, Kelsi and I spent a lot of time wandering the deserted streets in a hungover daze, searching endlessly for a restaurant to fill our hunger pit. Sadly, as I said earlier, the entire city had its power shut off, so everything was closed until dinner. We did luck out and find a tiny cafe that had a generator running and was the only place in town serving food.
When the power came back on that evening, our whole group went out for our last final dinner in town together. We went to a restaurant called Napolitana that was incredible! And, strangely enough, one of the nightclubs we’d partied at the night before. Apparently the place becomes a raucous bar after a certain hour on the weekends. Either way, we stuffed our faces with homemade pasta and pizza and called it a night early! We had another early wake up call in the morning, then it was back on the road!

Spitzkoppe

Posted on March 6, 2013 by hilarylust

The morning after cheetah park, Kelsi and I woke up early to watch the sun rise. We walked the short path to this rickety wooden viewing tower and climbed to the top. The sunrise was gorgeous, and we entertained ourselves by playing the lion king soundtrack as the sun rose. We are nerds.
Then it was off to breakfast and into the truck. Our drive to spitzkoppe was only a few hours, so we had time to stop at some craft stalls along the way. We pulled over at the side of the highway to see the wares of the local tribes. They sold bracelets and dolls and all sorts if little hand made trinkets for tourists to buy. There were three women from two different tribes and three small children running around at their feet. The two tribes were the Hereros and the Himbas and although they both spoke the same language, their customs were extremely different. The Hereros wear long dresses, and have hats with horns on their heads. We had seen them on the border of Botswana and Namibia all grouped together with horned hats and crafts to sell. The Himbas attire is completely opposite. They wear pretty much nothing at all, and the women never shower… Ever. Instead, they cake their bodies in mud to stop the smell and keep their naked skin cool from the sun. They are definitely a sight!
The children were adorable and were having a great time just running around causing trouble. Kelsi and I gave them some lollipops and they were so eager to have them that they started sucking them with the wrappers on.
After all the shopping was done we climbed back into the truck and made it to Spitzkoppe.
Spitzkoppe is the beginning of the Namibian desert: for us anyways. It is deathly hot, very dry, and has some of the most amazing rock formations. Our campsite was right next to this huge, mountain-like boulder. Just down the road, there were more crazy rocks, each one more alluring to climb on than the next. This was Kelsi’s rock heaven. She couldn’t wait to start climbing around!
We started with a rock formation called the bridge. The bridge was massive brown-red rocks that stretched out like a walkway across the horizon. Gina, Anisha, Kelsi and I spent a good half hour or so climbing around the rocks, before Kelsi got attacked by wasps and we decided it was best to go home.
When we arrived at camp, it was already time to head out on our walking tour to see the cave paintings. Our guide was a funny little short man from the damara tribe. He explained some things about the area, like how the rocks had been carved by wind and water erosion over a million years ago, or how Spitzkoppe means “pointed head” in the local dialect. Then he tried to teach us some if the damara language. I say tried, because we all failed epically in the lesson. There are four basic click noises in the damara tribe; each one with completely different meanings. To me, they all sounded identical. One was a click from the front if the mouth, another the back, one from the side. I could make out the differences between them when he said them all in a row, but then was lost again when he spoke a sentence. Pretty much the language lesson was a complete failure. So on we went…
We continued on to some cave paintings called “The Small Bushman’s Paradise”. These were paintings written by the nomads, to pass on information to other nomads. For example: a picture of a rhino facing east, meant that water was in that direction. Our guide explained about some more drawings, as then about the history. “These paintings date back to between 200 and 4000 years ago” he explained. I actually had to stop him and ask again “did you say 200 and 4 Thousand?!”
“Yes”
Seemed like a pretty huge gap. A lot can happen in 3800 years; but there you go!
When the walk was over, and we’d had dinner, we decided to hike the 20 minutes to the top of the large boulder for sunset. It was a pretty steep climb at parts, and we left pretty late, but we managed to make it for one if the most sensational sunsets on the trip thus far! Plus, we successfully watched a full sunrise as sunset on the same day!
By the time we made it back to the bottom, it was pitch black. We sat around the fire for a little while telling stories, then it was time for sleep. Tonight, however, we were upgrading from our tents, to a cave!
In the giant boulder we were camped at was a little cave that had an opening to see the stars at night. It was a perfect place to sleep for the night! No matter that we saw a rat scurrying about earlier in the day, and our guide ensured us that the scorpions don’t go into caves, and the leopards will avoid us as well. Great.
But Manda had set up some candles to light our way, and about 7 of us decided to sleep in the cave and watch the stars! Such a perfect ending to a fun filled day.

The Cheetahs of Otitotongwe

Posted on March 4, 2013 by hilarylust

Our next stop was a campsite called Otitotongwe, or more commonly referred to as Cheetah Park. It was hot and dry and desert-like at the campsite, which was perfect for drying all our wet belongings.
At 4:00 it was time to see the cheetahs. Cheetah park actually has 4 cheetahs that are tame enough to play with. You can touch them, play tug of war, cuddle them, whatever you’d like! We were overly enthusiastic (as we are about most everything here) about petting the cheetahs. Gina especially had been waiting for this day since Vic Falls, and it was finally upon us.
It was unbelievable to pull up to the reserve and see cheetah’s just wandering around with people. At first we were all a little uneasy about how or where to pet them. We had rules like “don’t wear sunglasses” and “don’t touch their feet or tails” but otherwise we were free to romp around on the grass with them!
There were three cheetahs that were a couple years old, and one cheetah that was only 8 months. You could tell he was the baby of the group. He had softer fur, tufts of fuzzy hair around his head, and had the energy if a kitten on catnip. He zoomed around the yard, tugging on people’s loose clothing, stealing hats, and playing tug of war with anyone who would join. At one point he ran over to me and started chewing down on my ankle. His mouth fit around the entire thing as he tried to detach my foot from the rest of my leg. Attacked by a cheetah in Africa? Check!
When playtime was over, we drove off to the next part of the reserve. This area is where rehabilitated cheetahs are slowly introduced back into the wild. They have a few hectares of land to live on and hunt as they please, but once a day a truck drives through the area to feed them. The cheetahs clearly know that the truck means food. As soon as we drove down the road, the first cheetah came running towards us. The driver got out, while we all stood in the truck’s trailer and took photos. The guy took a stick to ward off the cheetah, then used it to spear a giant hunk of meat. Instead of letting the cheetah chew the meat off the stick, he flung it in the air for the cheetah to catch. As soon as he did, the cheetah sprinted off to eat the meat alone.
We carried on, and before long there were three more cheetahs running towards us. We fed all three of them in similar fashion then moved on to the next ones. We fed 9 cheetahs all together and then finally drove back to camp. What an exciting afternoon!

El Dorado

Posted on March 2, 2013 by hilarylust

We arrived at El Dorado by mid afternoon and the sun was shining! Unfortunately, our tent was still full of water, so we had to borrow our driver, Vincent’s, tent for the night. After setting up our tents and eating lunch, a group of us followed one of the workers at the campsite to see the daily cheetah feeding!
El Dorado is a campsite / farmhouse. The Dutch family that owns the place allows campers to set up on their property for the evening, while they continue to tend to the animals they own. They have a number of ostriches roaming around, as well as some oryxes, puppies a leopard, and three cheetahs.
When the cheetahs saw us coming they ran towards the fence, eager to be fed. Then they started mewing! They sounded just like little kittens that were hungry. It was the strangest thing. These cats were huge! I would have expected them to roar, or growl or anything except for sound like a small house cat that could fit in the palm of your hand.
I turned to Kelsi, “that’s it, new favourite African animal! Sorry giraffes, you’re out, cheetahs are in!” Then it was feeding time. The guy opened up a large bucket full of raw meat chunks and pulled out a stick. As he skewered a large hunk of meat, the cheetahs went wild with mewing. They jumped up against the fence and pressed their faces as close to the meat as possible. Then the guy pushed the meat into one cheetah’s mouth, it tore it off, and ran off to the side to eat it. Then he fed the second cheetah, and the third, and by then the first one was back to get some more! On the second round, he let us feed them. We each got a turn to give one of the cheetahs some food, take some photos and carry on. It was so much fun.
When our cheetah high was over, it was time for the bar. We heard that El Dorado had a very unique bar, and we were eager to check it out. Turns out, the rumors were true. The bar was really just the living room of the family’s home. They had a little bar set up for travelers to order drinks, then you just sat on their couches, chatted with their children, and socialized. As well, the room was full of animal heads mounted on the walls. Each one had been caught by the owners, stuffed, and set up around the room. There were all sorts of antelope, a lion, cheetahs, leopards. Pretty much everything we had just seen in Etosha. It was very impressive having all these animals staring down at you as you sat and had a beer.
While we were sitting around, we met the little girl that lived at the house. She was very sweet, and almost a little shy, but wanted to chat with us anyways. She proudly brought over a little 6 week old puppy for us to hold. This was the only remaining pup from their litter of 5. The others had either died or already been sold to other families. This puppy was absolutely adorable! “That’s it guys, cheetahs are out, this puppy is my new favourite African animal.” We probably spent more time cuddling this little dog than we did staring at the cheetahs earlier.
Unfortunately, while we were sitting there, the wind picked up and it began to rain. Not again! Kelsi ran back to the campsite to close the tent flaps. When she returned, she was soaked to the bone.
“The tent flew away and I found it in a tree nearby! It’s full of water…”
Great. Two tents down, no more to go.
It took a while for the rains to slow, then we all walked back to the campsite for dinner. We were lucky that we could eat outside. The weather was nice and gave us a half hour window to eat in the fading light without getting wet. Then it started back up.
We were exhausted, and the miserable weather was matching our moods. I was not very interested in sleeping in a puddle two nights in a row.
Nonetheless, we had no other options. So once again, we took our towels, soaked up what water we could, slept as much in the middle of the tent as we could and tried to get a couple hours of sleep.
After another restless sleep, we woke up in a moat. Water was all around the edges of our tent, but otherwise we were doing okay. All of our stuff was safely in the truck, so we just had to dry our sleeping bags out!
Then we found out that the truck had flooded and all our bags were wet as well… There’s just no winning.
So we packed up our wet things and piled back into the truck to try to nap on the next drive!

Etosha

Posted on March 2, 2013 by hilarylust

It was a 10 hour drive from the Delta to our campsite near Etosha National Park. Even though we knew this, we thought having drinks at the bar the night before was a good idea. When someone suggested shots, we also thought it was a good plan. Then when pulling an all-nighter was laid on the table, Kelsi, Gina and I were definitely in. We sat at the bar, went swimming, played our new favourite Afrikaans song “Maybe Baby” about 100 times, and partied with Sean and Nick, two of the guys that ran the campsite, until our breakfast call at 5:30 the next morning.
The 10 hour bus trip was excruciating. We kept pointing blame at each other: “did you suggest shots last night?” “Why would we decide to stay up ALL night?!” We did a lot of napping during the first half of the trip. We also did a lot of itching.
Kelsi and I had been bitten by bugs so many times while we were in the delta that our legs looked like they’d been through a war zone. We probably had 30ish bites on each foot alone: Mosquito bites, ant bites, and caterpillar rash covered our bodies. We slathered on this silver ointment that Gina had, but to no avail. We tried tea tree oil, an aloe itch relief gel, and anything that people could offer to help. In the end, only scratching our bites until they bled gave any sort of satisfying relief.
We were almost too distracted with the scratching to see any animals on our Etosha game drive. Being our 9th or so game drive on the trip, we were not overly impressed by seeing an impala on the side of the road. But the animal sightings picked up when we came across our first watering hole.
The watering holes are where the action takes place. The first one we pulled up to had a tonne of animals. There were a huge herd of impalas, an oryx or two, a bunch of zebras, about 15 giraffes, and a pride of 8 lions hanging out in the trees a few meters away. They were all so close to each other it was possible to fit them all in a single camera shot! As soon as we arrived, the lioness got up to have a drink of water. You could see the rest of the animals tense up. The impalas shuffled the other direction, the giraffes stood still and followed the lion closely with their eyes. The zebras ran in a frenzy to the other side of the watering hole, then every eye in the area was intently watching the lioness move towards the water. She lapped up water for a few minutes, with the whole animal kingdom watching, then stalked her way back to the shade.
Just a few moments later an elephant came walking towards the back of the bushes where the lions were relaxing. This was where we got to see who the real king of the jungle was… Turns out both elephants and lions are scared of each other. The elephant jumped back in surprise when it came around the bushes, face to face with 8 lions. The lions were equally shocked to see a full sized elephant sneak up behind them and ran to the next tree grove. The animal kingdom still stared, alert and ready to flee! The only animal un phased was the male lion. He sat his ground and simply lifted his head when the elephant went past. What an exciting afternoon at the watering hole! Eventually, the elephant washed himself in the water and we drove onwards to camp.
Just before dinner that night, it began to rain. Kelsi and I, worried about our tent, frantically tried to pull it under the cover of a tree and save our bags. It was just a little rain, under the safety of a tree, what could go wrong?!
Then, the wind picked up, and it rained harder. It poured actually. We all huddled in the truck to eat our dinners. When the rain failed to slow down, none of us were keen on leaving the safety of the truck. So we sat, and waited. We waited until the rain slowed and Manda told us we had to get off the truck to save the battery…
So remember in Vic Falls, when we picked out the most dilapidated looking tent we could find? Well this finally caught up to us big time in Etosha. When we made it to our tent, the walls were saturated with water. The floor had small puddles around the sides and drips were falling from the ceiling. We took our towels and mopped up what we could in the tent. The rest we wiped down with wet wipes and crossed our fingers that the rains wouldn’t come back in the night. Then we went to sleep.
It didn’t take long before the rains started up and the water came dripping into the tent again. The bottom half of my body had a steady drip and my feet were sitting in a puddle. Kelsi had it worse… “I’m gettin’ it in the face, Hairy!” She announced.
At first it was funny. We laughed at our sad situation as we felt the drip drop of the rain fall into our laps. Then we nearly hit our breaking point. We’d had very little sleep in the past 48 hours and were getting cranky. The rain soaked our sleeping mats and our wake up time was creeping closer. We contemplated pulling our sleeping mats into the communal bathroom and sleeping on the floor, but it was too much effort.
At 5 am we were brooding. This was the worst tenting experience we could think of. When Manda woke us 45 minutes later we didn’t want breakfast and we didn’t want to socialize. We had a cup of tea and took it for a walk to see the sunrise. Screw this day!
Luckily, we calmed down a little and had a good long nap on the bus. We had another game drive to get through, then off to our next campsite: El Dorado!

The Okavango Delta

Posted on March 1, 2013 by hilarylust

Our next adventure was a 2 night, 3 day trek in the Okavango Delta. It was a half day drive to the campsite at the mouth of the delta. When we arrived, we were given a brief overview of the next few days. Then we set up our camp, had lunch, and off to the bar to have a few drinks. We chatted and danced, well into the evening, with the tour leaders and the guys who worked at the campsite. Our five AM wake up call was less than pleasant. Nonetheless, we packed up again and piled into a truck that drove us the hour or so to the entrance point. The Okavango Delta is between 50 and 80 000 square kilometers depending on the season. It is a labyrinth of waterways, shifting islands, and reed covered marshes. It is home to thousands of animals, and a huge array of plants and animals.
When we arrived at the entrance point, we were greeted by a bunch of local villagers that would be our polers and our guides for the three days.
We paired off into twos, and were given our own poler for the weekend. Our poler was a young guy named “Life”. Life quickly became Kelsi and my new favourite person; he was laid back, loved to dance and sing, and had as much fun laughing at Kelsi and I as we did at each other. Plus, our new favourite game was coming up with generic phrases about life that could literally be used in each situation. When Life would push our boat past all the other boats, we would say “That’s just Life in the fast lane”. When we’d cruise through different waterways from the rest of the group, we would nod our heads and agree that “sometimes Life takes you on an unexpected path”. Then we’d curl over in laughter at how funny we thought we were. This continued relentlessly for three days. We’re such losers.
The first thing we did was pile into the macorro boats. Macorros are small, hollowed out, wooden boats. Each boat held two people, and a poler. Kelsi and I climbed in the front as Life gave us a push forward and climbed in. The boats moved through the delta by being pushed along with long poles (thus the name “polers” for the guides).
It was about an hour and a half to our camp by boat. Life pushed us along easily through the tall reeds and lily pad filled ponds. The passages were tiny. They were hardly wide enough for our little boat to make it through.
The entire trip, the reeds kept smacking Kelsi and I in the face. It was difficult to see what was going on around us. But that was okay, we just kept noting how “sometimes Life throws many obstacles your way”. The puns made the ride all worth it.
Finally we had arrived at camp. It wasn’t much, just a small island with enough space to set up our tents and a communal area for eating and bonfires. The whole camp was set up under a giant sausage tree. This was the first time we’d seen a sausage tree close up. It was finally possible to see how massive the sausage fruit really were. I went into my tent one afternoon, and when I came out, one had landed right outside the door. It was huge, and easily weighed a couple pounds. I was lucky that it had missed hitting me in the head. That thing would have knocked me out for sure!
Our fear afternoon was lazy. We couldn’t leave the camp without a guide, so we lounged around and napped for the first hour or so. By midday it was too hot to be in the tents anymore, so we grabbed Life and Manda and a few of us headed to the swimming pool.
The swimming pool was just an area of the swampy water that was slightly deeper and had less reeds around it. The water came up to our waists, and we had a few meters to swim around in. Kelsi, Gina and I had way too much fun koalaing each other (leaping and clinging on to another person with all fours) and attempting to take underwater photos in brown water. We completely disregarded the “no splashing” rule that was in effect to avoid crocodiles. Oh well, we survived!
By late afternoon it was time for our first walk. We split off into smaller groups of five. Our group was Kelsi, Falafel, Gina, Anisha and I. We set out with two guides : Life and Brian (And yes, I made the Monty Python connection, even if they were completely oblivious to it).
I have two words to say about our walking safaris: Sticky grass. Sticky grass looks very similar to the long grass with fuzzy spurs on the end that we were constantly walking through. Only occasionally, the long grass would be a patch of sticky grass that would death cling to your clothes, never to come off! Okay, perhaps a bit dramatic, but it wasn’t pleasant. Note to everyone trekking in the Okavango Delta, don’t wear yoga pants! By the time I was half way through our walk, my favourite black Lululemon pants were completely green with sticky grass. You had to pull each needle off individually (which took me about a week of working at it on the bus). I heard a bunch of remedies: wash it, burn it, stick tape to it. In the end, it was a painfully slow process of doing it by hand.
Other than sticky grass, the Delta walks were actually quite fun and informative. We didn’t see a tonne of animals. I had expected this, from what we were told by other groups, but that was no problem; the scenery was beautiful and the guides were super knowledgeable. We came across lots of zebras and birds; we saw frogs and grasshoppers and all sorts of crazy looking insects. We did come across a number of fuzzy caterpillars, especially in our campsite. They were cute to look at, but they attached themselves to people and gave them really itchy rashes that lasted for days. Mostly, our walks consisted of looking at the ground avoiding anteater holes and staying safe from prickly acacia trees.
At one point, I caught my foot on an acacia branch, tripped forward and scraped the top of my foot on one of the spikes. Kelsi began laughing at my weak attempt to free myself from the branch. Then she fell in an anteater hole. Karma’s a bitch.
The walk finished around sunset, and then it was time for dinner. We all hung around the campfire for the evening, but had an early night. Our next walk was scheduled for 6:30 the next morning.
Our morning walk was 4 hours long and was before breakfast. We were all unimpressed at having to go on a four hour hike without a full stomach, but after a small rusk bar and a cup of tea, we were refreshed enough to start the trek. Our second walk was similar to the first. Brian explained about all the flora and fauna and we became experts in identifying animal droppings. We also got to try some red star berries that looked like grapes but tasted like apples. It was really neat to have Brian as our guide. He is one of the few guides that was originally a bushman. His perspectives on the trees and the animals was so interesting.
The baobab tree, the one with the massive trunk that is so often seen here in Africa, was particularly special to Brian. He believes that the ancestors from his tribe live within the tree. You can hear their voices in the night, that is why you should not camp directly beneath one. The spirits in the tree will steal the voices of enemies that decide to camp under the safety of a baobab.
Good to know!
Brian also taught us some of his bushman language; finally we had found an African language with clicks! This was very exciting to me. We learned Natambooka (Good Morning) and Hongu Mana (Thank You). Back at camp, we played a traditional bushman game called xhonu. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. The “x” is some crazy click sound that I couldn’t make if my life depended on it. The game was similar to the Malawian Bao game, but had more complex rules. The guys said that if two people are really good, the game can go on all day.
Our second afternoon was lazy as well. We arrived home from our walk late morning and had another nap. Afterwards, about 6 of us ganged up on Sox at a game of xhonu and got our asses kicked. When games and lunch were over, we had Hector teach us how to pole.
We were disasters. It is much more difficult to steer the boat than it looks. Kelsi and I spent more time stuck in the reeds laughing than we did moving. But we didn’t flip the boat and end up in the water, so I count that as a win!
In the evening, everyone got back in the macorros to watch the sunset. Life pushed us along to a lake about 45 minutes from camp where we hung around waiting for the sun to go down and watching for hippos. We never found any hippos, but we did make lily pad necklaces and I got to try my hand at poling again. I hadn’t improved much in two hours, but the open water made it easier to move around. The three of us almost missed watching the sunset because we were laughing so hard at my inability to push the boat straight. Finally Life had had enough and he took over.
I decided to ride in the boat backwards on the way home. My thought process was that the reeds wouldn’t hit me in the face that way. Instead, I sat there in constant anticipation of being smacked in the back of the head. My anxiety was so hilarious to Kelsi that she was left in wheezing laughter for the entire 45 minutes home. That combined with our still constant Life puns and we were exhausted by the time we arrived back at camp.
“Kelsi?” I asked at one point “what would you do if you turned around and Life just handed you a bunch of lemons?” We really are special.
Back at camp we had dinner and then dancing around the fire. All the locals got together to sing and dance traditional African songs by the campfire. It was really fun to watch, and they even got all us up off our seats to join in.
The next morning we were up early to head home. Life poled us back to the truck and we said goodbye to him from there. Quite an incredible three day trip!