Leaving the Falls - Onto the Land of the Namibs - 29 July 2002
Monkey Business
TV rÈsumÈ
Vic Falls (at last) Helen Haggles for Blighty
Botswana (done it)
Numbibia
The down side of gorge swinging is that the harnesses tend to dig into the soft fleshy parts of ones thighs. Being arrested from a downward plunge at excessive speed by thin straps of webbing left us both with rather gaily coloured bruises and pronounced limps. We decided to refrain from further bodily abuse for a day and made the most of the glorious weather in this area, lounging by the pool for the day.
I rose early as ever to get Hippies breakfast on the go and decided first to wash some of the clothes that had been ravaged the previous day. Humming away at the sink doing my new man thing, I became aware of a commotion behind me. I turned to see one of our obliging neighbours on the campsite chasing away a baboon from the awning of our tent. I donít know, I canít leave Hippy alone for a minute without her attracting unwanted male attention. She did not seem as amused as I by the incident and I promised to always close the outer tent flaps in future.
At lunch we went for a pop in the campsite bar. Watching the telly brought back some of the golden African TV moments that we may have missed out on in this journal. In this case, we were honoured to be watching an American documentary on the hazards of consuming alcohol. There were some pretty gory bits; livers, arteries, bone marrow and all that in glorious Technicolor. We were not surprised, then, that none of the gathered campers was consuming anything more than a fizzy soft drink. The barman was completely unaware of what was being broadcast as the TV was pointing away from him. Probably a bit puzzled about the lack of sales, though.
Vic Falls benefits from its proximity to Zambia and so receives Zam telly in preference to Zim. This is unsurprising as Zim telly is a nearly incessant stream of propaganda. Our favourite moment that demonstrated the depths of poor quality to which they sink was when there was a news broadcast about the OAU summit in South Africa. A spokesman from the OAU was giving a run down on what had been happening. ìThe delegates expressed their concern over corruption levels in Madagascar, Angola and ZimÖ.î The editing was so poor that they had not even managed to fully cover up the problems at home. Perhaps a new editor has taken his place already.
Most all African channels feature regular public information broadcasts about HIV/AIDS which is obviously a good thing. The methods of generating public interest seemed often strange to us, but I guess we look at these things with a pretty Euro centric eye.
Vic Falls (at last) Helen Haggles for Blighty
It may seem odd that weíve been in Vic Falls for the best part of a week and not regaled you with tales of being drenched by the magnificent spray and deafened by the thundering torrents, blah, blah, blah.
Put simply, weíre a complete pair of tight-wads. We visited some of the constructed wonders of the world on the way down and paid nothing over 5 dollars each. Faced with a waterfall which, letís face it, does not require a lot of maintenance and the requirement to pay 20 US dollars each to take a look at it, we palled. We spent days trying to figure out how to pay in local currency. This would equate to 1100 Zim dollars and so at parallel rates be 2 US dollars. We decided that a full frontal attack was required and marched up to the unsuspecting guy on the gate and demanded that we be allowed to pay in coin of the realm. Regrettably there was a large poster behind him that he indicated which proclaimed that ìAll tourists are now required to pay for visits to the falls in US dollarsî Not much to argue about then. We pleaded, cajoled, pointed out the wondrous fund raising works that we are doing around the world and finally accepted defeat.
Of course, having spun the line that we had no US dollars with which to pay, we could not simply retire to a safe distance, pull out our wads of foreign wonga and return to the gate pretending to be someone else. We mused that maybe ëwe all look the same to themí (on the basis that Helen was often mistaken for a ginger haired Geordy in Guyana) and we might have got away with it un-humiliated. No, we would not be drawn into this scam.
Plan B was to go down to the bridge across the gorge on the pretext of watching bungee jumpers (itís amazing the number of ways you can spell bungee by the way) and take snaps back up the gorge to the falls. This has the added advantages of being far enough away to avoid filling your box brownie with Zambezi spray and actually being able to fit the height of the falls onto a standard format picture. In order to get onto the bridge, one has to check out of Zimbabwe and so we had to nip back and get the passports.
Thereís a nice little road that follows the Zambezi and means that you donít have to be subjected to the hawkers on the way back to the campsite. Lonely Planet informs one that there are all manner of dangerous beasts at large in this area from lions to large man-eating dinosaurs or some such. Of course, we had walked up this road before and seen only an extremely inert baobab tree and several meerkat sized creatures scurrying away from us. Now, having been on our rhino walk, we now consider ourselves skilled in dung spotting and it seemed that something with an extremely large-bore bottom had passed this way. Hippo, elephant, buffalo ñ we knew not what. What was clear, though, was that as we progressed, the dung became fresher and fresher.
We rounded the corner past a steaming pile to find the perpetrator facing us and looking for all the world like a big nasty elephant. Because it was. I tried to find a good position to get a picture while bearing in mind that Hippy is unable to ride the bike. Discretion, valour and all that and I guess it will be another wildlife shot that my webmaster chooses to broadcast to the world with some scathing caption.
So we picked up the bike and returned to the border. Obviously this meant going along the road with the said pachyderm, lumbering along it. I for one was wondering whether the game park organizers were correct in their assumption that wildlife reacted badly to motorbikes. Thankfully, in the few minutes it took us to return, the enormous creature had wandered off.
Through the border to the Zambezi Bridge was straightforward, and they seemed to be quite used to visitors just nipping back and forth. Unfortunately, all these extra stamps in my passport are meaning that I am rapidly running out of corners of space, for the officials to put their paw marks. Luckily for us, there was a bungee about to plummet into the gorge. The nano-seconds it took him to descend meant that he was investing 2000USD per hour. The chap was not offered lunch or even a celebratory bottle of beer for the 95USD it cost him for 3minutes of excitement. Even more of a rip-off if he wanted to go again he had to pay an extra 40US. Go for the gorge swing every time (www.zambeziswing.com to webmaster you may be able to nick some photos of it if ours are crap). (WebMaster - Alas no such site on the web)
To be honest the views from the bridge mean that you can see the full width and height in one go, and we can only see that better views could have been taken from the sky. So we didnít miss much.
We decided that since we had saved 40USD by not going into the falls. We changed up 20 of it, to support the local economy with a little souvenir buying and a meal out.
I quite enjoy the whole haggling process, but Pat, not being that inspired by shopping in general tends to shy away from it a little. We have found repeatedly that we get, much better service and prices from stalls run by women (this as you will know is true in the UK, where we all are aware that the slowest tills in the supermarkets are those with male operatives. Sorry men, but you canít ignore the truth.)
So, we headed for the stalls of carvings, woven baskets etc. armed with a pair of shoes to trade (it is necessary to discard some luggage to fit in our bounty) and $10 worth of local wonga. The women were quick and perceptive, spotting the second my gaze lingered on an item, and the fact that we were limited on space (male stall keepers in the past had persisted it directing us to the largest items hoping to make a big sale, despite our protests that we did not have the space to carry them). Objects and prices were being spouted from every direction. It was easy to see that a sale for these women would make the difference between food for the week and not. I bargained and joked with the ladies who clearly preferred to deal with a woman.
The banter continued as we left, spent up, when I returned realizing that I had failed to trade my shoes. These had to go, we needed the room. I went back into the hall of stalls, and all the remaining ladies, wanted me at their stall to get the prized footwear. Unluckily, there was nothing that appealed, so in the end I decided to donate them to which ever lady fitted the shoes. A Cinderella situation started with all the women in the vicinity trying to squeeze their feet into the shoes. Foot after foot was too large, in the end I fell for the hard luck story of one lady who claimed see had a daughter in need of shoes. I handed them over, and left the ladies scrapping over the prize. I suspect that survival of the fittest meant that the largest of the ladies won.
We had decided a long time back that weíd head over into Namibia by way of the Free Transit Route in Botswana. It seemed more interesting and saved us visas and stuff in Zambia. We were aware that this involved passing through a game reserve, but as this has been our moan all the way down, we were keen to let the bike see the animals, too.
Well before reaching the fenced game reserve in Botswana, we had to pass through a game area of Zimbabwe. No check points or anything and so we decided that it must be plain sailing. There was a disturbing, increasing amount of elephant muck at the side of the road and it came as no big surprise when we saw a herd of big grey things in the distance. I decided that cruising to a halt at a distance with the engine off would be the most pragmatic approach.
All went well, the big tusky fellows all left a big gap down the middle of the road and seemed quite nonchalant as they grazed at the trees on either side. As the verges were quite wide at this point, there was quite a big gap in between them and I decided that I should be able to negotiate them with no problem. As I started the engine however, one of the beasts on the left started a bit of ear flapping. I pondered turning the engine back off, but reckoned that now I had attracted his attention, I would be left somewhat vulnerable without power. The only option was to run the gauntlet and I could feel the tension in Hippyís body as she squeezed me tighter with her legs as we zoomed through the elephant corridor. I wont be doing that again.
Until a couple of miles down the road that is! And again a bit later. When weíd gone through the border (straightforward, although we did have to go through a foot and mouth dip ñ they must have been waiting for someone from England for ages) and got to the game park in Botswana (Chobe), I began to take heed of the guard at the gate who was trying to deny entry to us. He suggested that there were lions, buffalo, elephants and all sorts. We considered our position. Lions would be asleep at this time of day and unlikely to attack anyway as they only tend to feed on things that they have a strategy to catch. We assumed that it was unlikely that any pack would have had experience of chasing down a bike. Elephants we had already negotiated. We studiously ignored the buffalo threat.
After a bit of cajoling and pointing out that this was supposed to be the national transit corridor, we managed to persuade the chap to let us through. He really wanted us to have a letter to give him exempting Botswana from any liability. I could see his point.
In fact, we saw less game in the park than we have seen pretty much anywhere else, game park of not. A group of 4 Kudu (big deer) were the only source of interest and they were mostly passive. One of them did decide to take us on in a race for a while, but I eased off and let it cross in front of us. The only other animals at all was a group of ground hornbills ñ ugly vultury things, but only likely to give a bit of a peck.
Another simple border crossing into Namibia taking our total to four countries visited in as many days! Perfect, flat, straight, boring roads. We knew this was to be the pattern for the next few days, but it did not really prepare our bottoms for the tedium. We were greatly relieved when the lodge we arrived at in the afternoon was as delightful as had been made out in the guidebook. Hippo lodge does in fact have hippos in the vicinity, but they only make their presence known with a bit of belching during the night.
Boring, Boring, Boring, Boring. The Caprivi Strip has been hard to access for some years because of banditry in the region. Now, even the bandits are bored with it. Straight, flat (reported to vary by only 39 metres in itís length ñ 500 km) with little in the way of interesting views, we spent a day considering out navels. The main town (Divundu) which appears on the maps and is signposted all the way turned out to be a filling station and a bus stop. Hippy claims to have seen a supermarket, but I believe it was a mirage. Thank God we werenít doing this in mid-summer - at least the temperature was quite pleasant.
At the end of the day, the road ceased to be boring. We opted for a nice sounding lodge that is frequented by overland trucks. Come on, you need a bit of other company from time to time and not all truckies are hard work. Regrettably, this camp/lodge is a short distance (3km) off the old road and the old road is about 4 km off the new road and the turnings off the old road are about 4 km apart. All of this ëoff the new roadí is a selection of corrugation, loose gravel and sand that I had vowed never to travel on again. The back tyre is getting a bit thin now and the steering is playing up again and so I did not enjoy this little bit of rough road having had a pretty hard day. Harsh words were passed between us. Sorry, Hippy.
The lodge was nice though and we met a charming couple of Swiss, Tanya and Martin, while we were there. On the first night, there had been a truck in and they had organized for a traditional dance troop to come in and entertain them. We watched from the sidelines and managed to avoid being dragged onto the dance floor. As people who know me will testify, I DO NOT DANCE. I know this is a great disappointment to many people as they relish the chance of seeing a two-left-footed bloke lurching around the floor, but thatís life. The Spanish truckies accredited themselves well, though and everyone had a good time.
Considering the size of the dogs owned by the lodge and their desire to join in with the dancing thing, it was remarkable that any dancing was done at all. During the singing finale, the Jack Russell chose to start a fight with the largest of the dogs ( a breed I am not familiar with, but the hugest thing Iíve ever seen) which caused a moments wavering from the chorus line.
We rested our weary bones for a day (actually, I couldnít face going back out on the sand road again). Sitting by the side of the river, I heard rustling on the other bank (Angola ñ I was going to take a dug out over the river to bag another country but thought better of it) that could only have been made by a large wallowing creature. I strained my eyes to catch sight of what could only have been a hippo or at the least, buffalo. And then I saw it ñ a large dark grey back showing above a low patch of reeds. Yes, a hippo. Then it disappeared again. The rustling continued for some time and then the whole herd ÖÖ of cows appeared. Bugger.
Next morning we awoke to find a damp patch on the corner of the tent. One of those dogs had decided to mark his territory, b******d! As the largest of the canines approached, it affectionately rustled up, then began motions to raise its leg. It took all my force to move the lumbering beast to prevent it doing more urine damage to the tent.
Tanya and Martin are just setting off on an eight-month trip from Namibia, where they bought the vehicle, to Kenya. I feel they went away a little more confident for having met us and shared information and I felt we had given a very honest picture of how it has been for us, warts and all. It seemed they were quite familiar with the type of travellers that there are who either bemoan every moment or reckon that everything was a breeze. I really felt that this was a couple of folk I would really liked to have travelled with for a bit, but they were heading in the opposite direction. Cíest la vie.
After weeks of determined effort, we finally managed to get in touch with Fi and arrange a pick up to get into Etosha Park. Weíve had several confirmations that Etosha, like all others, will not allow bikes through their portals.
From Rundu to Tsumeb is more of the same (Namibia roads wise) until the very end when there were four or five corners.
Tsumeb is a little bit of Europe as Tanya and Martin had promised. Cafes with Black Forest Gateau, bratwurst, schnitzel, loads of Aryans wandering around, German spoken freely. And very clean. For Europe, read Germany.
We like it!