Namibia - Furry Animals of all Sizes - 30 July 2002
Theyíre Back
Etosha
Hair
Even more game
Even more small animals
Even more large animals
Reunited
Another day another Capital
Cardboard boxes and Aluminium boxes
Accountants can be VSOs, too
That night was a full moon and the frogs were in full swing, croaking away. It was strange, but they had made not a sound the night before and here they were Budweisering like the best of them. We guessed that it was of those strange nature things where they only get it on for a full moon.
The Hot rockers were due to arrive in the morning at an unspecified time and so we decamped ready to set off at a momentís notice. We knew that there would be a new set of ëpaxí (as the truck reps charmingly refer to their clients) on board and that it might seem a bit odd to them picking up an odd couple of folk in an out of the way place. To clearly the way with them, we toddled off to get a couple of bottles of strange liquors as the preferred method of making acquaintances these days seems to be a ëshooterí session.
Of course, while out shopping, they arrived at the site and left messages to the effect that they would be back in an hour or so. Oh dear, weíve not made a very good impression so far! We chatted with a lovely South African family while awaiting their return. Mark, Arianne and the kids were landroving through Namibia, Botswana and back to S.A. Mark proved to have been working in Britain, propping up the ëPreston Health Serviceí anaesthetising people. He had been on an off road course before setting off on this trip which had included a guy from Bolton. How small is this world?
With the usual blare of their exotic horn system, the Big Red Truck rounded the corner to whisk us away to Etosha. It was a very strange feeling to be setting off on a no input trip. Weíve got so used to being able to stop and look at things at will and take breaks as and when, that it was all a bit constricting. Still, sitting on a comfy seat and being able to hold conversations with folk as we went made a nice change.
Etosha is the park if you want to be sure to go and see the whole gamut of game. On the way in to the first camp, there were myriad springbok along with oryx, zebra, eland and various birds. Nothing major then, so we were not pleased that bikes were banned from here. I mean theyíre all pretty tame even if they do have pointy horns.
Arriving in the first campsite it was a refreshing change to sit on the truck contemplating the world as Fi and Dave leapt off and sorted out all the admin and finances. Itís easy to see how the pax on an overland truck can become inert and probably are completely unaware of all the organisation that goes into planning, booking and budgeting such a trip.
Each of the campsites on the park has been placed next to a water hole and evenings are spent in silence sat around them seeing which animals were going to turn up. Clearly, Namutoni camp was not flavour of the month and hardly a beast arrived. We chatted in the background until we were severely reprimanded by a lady who clearly objected to Hippyís strident tones. She canít help having schoolteacher projection! We were puzzled by the lack of beasts as they seem not in the least bit bothered by the vehicles during the day and so a few tourist behind a fence at night is hardly likely to scare them away. Possibly having 2 mega watts of spotlight pointing at you when youíre going for a moonlit sup is not inspiring!
Pat managed to cause quite a commotion, on his way to the toilet block, as he chased a jackal, round and round a bunch of tents and off the campsite that had an eye on the rubbish bin. Jackals have an easy life here, preying on the defenceless dustbins of the tourists. Unfortunately, some other campers, thought the jackals were rather cute, and berated Pat for his attempts to clear the campsite before they succeeded in spreading rubbish everywhere. They shouted, ëSome of us are trying to watch the wildlife!í obviously disgusted at his lack of decorum.
Up early for a game drive and Fi was giving trucking instruction to those that wanted. Having driven the truck at Wadi Halfa, she seemed reasonably confident in my skills
(I donít know whether this is Patís ego speaking, it would be nice to know if Fi would confirm his assumptions)
and allowed me to bowl along at 60 kph which is the park limit. The roads were absolutely superb and so there was no problem for anyone that wanted to take the wheel. This morning, things proved somewhat better on the game front. Without boring one and all with a list of mammals. Basically this park seems to have a plethora of all manner of different antelopey-type animals. The highlight of the morning was the spotting of a couple of rhino. One a little shy and the other more extrovert, as it ran along side the vehicle for a couple of minutes, before it veered off into the bush. Later Fi confirmed that the lumbering beast was doing a speed of 30mph not bad for a few tons of flesh.
Brunch was at the middle campsite. Here the water hole was a little more frequented with a few oryx, kudu and springbok. It seems so pleasant to sit and watch these elegant animals all having a good slurp together. They managed to show no antagonism to each other, maybe humans could learn a little from them.
That afternoon we were treated to some distant hunting action, where 2 lioness were making attempts to catch lunch. Unfortunately, for us but sensibly for the lions they kept their activities in binocular spotting range only. So there will be no photos, Iím afraid. Later in the afternoon, we found a family of elephants huddling under the only bit of shade in the area, trying to escape the sun. It struck me as strange that, this arid, sparse landscape supports populations of some of the largest mammals in the world, as well as a bunch of horse sized creatures. Where do they get enough food? And surely in would make more evolutionary sense for these huge things to be living where there is more food, e.g. Europe. If any ecologists out there can explain, this to a simpleton like me, I would be most obliged.
As we arrived at the third campsite, elephant were spied at the waterhole. As we put up our tents, a bunch of ground squirrels were running around. Johnnie and I sat and spent some time, making friends with these cute creatures that had a meerkat way of moving about, standing up straight on their back legs and munching their food. It was clear that the different squirrels had individual personalities, some prefer, lettuce to bread and some were shy and others extrovert. What impressed me most was the fact that they had very clean habits, one would dig a hollow in the ground to do their business and the other squirrels would also use it a bit like a communal pit latrine. Very tidy!
This waterhole was clearly the place to be seen if you are an animal. Here the tourists had a slightly less anal attitude to game watching and chatted away around the waterhole. It certainly, did not seem to deter them at all. That evening there were rhino, giraffe (which are always a laugh when they try to drink) and more elephant. Later, that night, we were entertained by the most useless lion in Africa. Tension rose as a lion approached the waterhole and lay down in anticipation of prey. A springbok walked right past it as it lay in the dark hidden from view. The lion gave chase and missed. Half an hour later another potential victim wondered past and again this pathetic lion failed to catch anything. We had to laugh.
Fi had offered to do a dawn drive next morning but only if someone brought her a cup of tea. Personally I feel this is meagre thanks for dragging yourself out of your sleeping bag in the dark to drive around a bunch of people.
(Donít be so soft, thatís what sheís paid for)
Pat decided on a lie-in that morning, whilst I went off with Fi and the other early risers. It is sad but true that after a couple of days in a game park, you get a bit, no in fact a lot complacent about seeing the common beasts, and by the third day people are aching to see the big five only. At this point, I felt for Fi and other game drivers, that their job becomes harder and harder as their clients demand more and more elusive sights. But, good old Fi did it again, and won the game spotters badge of the month and brought us up to a pride of about 8 lions lounging, as only lions can do in the sun at the side of the road. It never ceases to amaze me how undeterred lions are by truckloads of tourists rolling up, and I have to say that the big red truck is probably the least subtle of the conveyances in the park. They mooched around, yawned and generally gave the impression that they didnít give ëa flying fig about whether we watched them or not.
Later we lounged lion like by the pool and a failed again to perform well at tiddlywinks. Johnnie is hoping to train up a world-class team, to take the competitions by storm on their return to the UK in 2 years. Dave is already and talented team member, but Iím afraid that my skills would not even get me into the reserves for the equivalent of Berwickñon- Tweed football team. Pat was in dire need of a hair cut. Kate had done some excellent work on the Hot Rockers. Dave sporting a rather sexy gecko, Dan with a hand (unfortunately unbeknown to Dan, a hand is the symbol of the opposition party of Mugabe, maybe not the thing to parade around Zimbabwe), Tom with a spiral etched into the heads, to name but a few.
I confess to be something of a victim to the whims of the hairdressers around and hence the progressing Mohawk. This time, Hippy and Kate fell into secret conversation as to how my trim should shape up. There was a bit of a problem with the hair trimmers as the one that has a grading attachment was knackered and so only shaving was available. The resulting zigzag carved into my barnet was found to be highly amusing by all those around. When Hippy got to see it, she was mortified, describing it variously as a ëbeard on the back of my headí and making me look like an Easter egg. She could not live with it having been a party to my humiliation and insisted in taking the ëbeardí off.
I am finding the Mohawk an interesting experience. Having been a follower of the heavy rock culture in my teens rather than having the confidence to break the mould and embrace punk, I spent most of my time with a huge lump of hair on my head which our camp barbers used to refer to as a worzel. I suppose I was always a little jealous of the self confidence of the punks and so here I am sporting a crest. I will bear with it as I am intrigued by how there are seemingly two camps in the world ñ one that totally prejudges you on the basis of your looks and those that donít really give a monkeyís. Being a little controversial saves a lot of time in finding out which type of person you are with. On the down side, Iíve never really been much of a follower of fashion or a poser (OK, the yellow leather jacket period was a mistake) and I find it very odd to have people staring at me as I pass. The experiment continues as Hippy does point out that the look does in some way add a little humour to my face which naturally is a little frowny and angry looking. Maybe a face-lift and a sensible haircut would be more appropriate.
The advantage of being in a camp inside a game park and having a watering hole next to you is that the game simply comes to you. Just as dusk was gathering, a trumpeting in the distance heralded the arrival of a herd of heffalumps. In an almost exact replica of the famous ëJungle Bookí sequence, a long line of 35 flumps passed by our tents in line astern. 15 of them were young and did their best to fall in with the general procession with a series of short steps for every pace of the adults. Once at the water hole, they played at hosepipes and blowing dust about, rolling around in the grey dust and generally doing what elephants do.
Fortunately, most of the animals that come in the night move very slowly and so we are hoping that the time-lapse photos of all sorts including rhinos will soon be gracing the web site.
The horn stopped working in the truck (which is perhaps a good thing). Inspection revealed the cause to be rodent nibbling of the wiring harness. As Fi and Dave tend to keep a few personal snacks in the cab as well as the obvious concerns about truck safety with the wiring been exposed, desperate measures were called for. Traps were summoned and baited with all the favourite foods of rodents. As with all traps, the little blighters managed to steal the food with no worries. Further measures are to be taken ñ phase 2 is to put the traps in the bottom of a greased waste bin. We shall see.
A bonus from our trip into Etosha was a visit with the Rockers to a cheetah park (Otjitotongwe). Without dwelling too much on the reasons for and implications of keeping these cats behind wire, it must be said that our time at the farm was ripping fun.
Around their house, the managers keep four hand reared adult cheetahs.
The owners had given us lots of dos and doníts, including staying 2m away from them without the owners there. So you can imagine the adrenalin rush as one pushed through the gate with me its fur stroking my leg.
Not many burglars there, then. We were encouraged over to stroke the cats and whilst not doing so to sit on the steps of the house. The cats decided that they would save us the effort and come to see us. First they sported with Fiís flip-flops and then I was highly amused as they licked and purred the legs of Rex, who was sat next to me.
As it played with Fiís foot attire, its speed and agility were all too clear, and itís potential deadliness was obvious.
Then one of them walked round behind me and started to do the same to my back, shoulders and (most alarmingly) my neck. Everyone leapt to their feet and snapped away at me as the purring creature gave me the most remarkable exfoliation with its rough tongue. Scared, me? You bet.
I moved away on the pretext of recording this moment on film but in fact was relieved to be out of licking reach. I knew that my nervousness had made my skin sweat, and if the cheetah got a taste of me I am sure it would have never left.
The rest of the experience was to go into a large enclosure of about 2000 acres to see the wild cats that have been trapped on surrounding farms. Punters hop up into pick-ups which traipse around the park handing out large chunks of meat to the beasts who oblige by leaping into the air to catch bits. Alarminglyí one of the cats decided to climb up over the bonnet and cab and through the tail section as we all cowered to the sides.
(We all went into self-preservation mode and instantly there was a scramble of people trying to give the cat as much room as possible, whilst hiding behind the nearest available adults)
Our guide seemed unconcerned and we got the feeling that this happens every day.
In the evening we had a talk from Mario who explained the conservation role of the farm. Cynically, I came away feeling that he had tried to push the beer a bit too hard and I inwardly questioned his motives for running the gaff. Still, we bunged him some cash towards his ëbuy some more fencing and increase the size of the parkí fund.
There was one remarkable fact about cheetahs in Namibia that was vouched safe to us. Every year, licenses are issued for the game shooting of 150 adult specimens.
By extremely rich hunters, fees per day being 1500USD and you must pay for a min of 21 days, this does not include the trophy cost of 10,000 per cheetah. Needless to say the majority of hunters are American.
Throughout east and other parts of southern Africa, game parks are crying out for cheetahs to restock now that they are endangered.
(only 7500 left in to world, but 2500 in Namibia, so hence they are not protected here)
Yet the Namibian government has a complete export ban on live animals even though there are the likes of these at the farm that are having to be sheltered internally when they could be let back to the wild. How mad is that? Write to your MP.
Mouse update ñ it was not foolish enough to be tempted into a greased bin. Phase three needed
Thankful for the help the Hot Rockers had given us in seeing stuff, we now had to work out how to get back together with the bike. We arranged to be dropped at Otjiwarongo where transport would be available back up to Tsumeb. Fi duly obliged and assured us that they had not had to go out of their way to do so. We have our doubts and are eternally grateful for their hospitality. As they parted, they were talking of getting a snake to catch the mouse and then a mongoose to catch the snake, etcÖ Iím sure you know the song.
Leaving Hippy at the campsite to set stuff up, I went in search of a bus to take me back to the bike. Communication was not perfect and I was worried as I sat at the side of the road that I might have been in the wrong place or not giving enough ëI need a liftí body language, but after a while a guy in a car poled up and one of my roadside neighbours united us. Clearly, this was not a taxi but a guy in a private car who was after earning a bit of petrol money on the way home. Like Iím bothered.
Meanwhile, I did the domestics, got in provisions etc. I met Fi the the supermarket, collecting a selection of anti-mouse apparatus. A new bionic mousetrap and I found her testing swing bins for catch-ability. Looks like this could be an on-going saga, and there may be desperate measures needed to catch it before in consumes the ignition system. (Technical note there is no ignition system on a diesel, Hippy. Tsch)
We really flew up the road and I was delighted to find Bertha in one piece and happy to start for me. Back down the road at a similar speed and I was reunited with Hippy mid afternoon having covered 300 miles on a variety of conveyances. Quite a day ñ it made a nice change to have variety travelling in Namibia even though the scenery was once again invariate.
Thankfully, as we approached Windhoek, some hills appeared. Nuff said.
Cardboard boxes and Aluminium boxes
By a strange coincidence, we have been staying in the Cardboard Box Backpackers in Windhoek and have taken all of our stuff out of the panniers and put it into cardboard boxes. The reason is that the aluminium is wearing thin here and there and cracking in others. (Take note Touratech ñ most of the people we have met with your panniers have had the same problem with them cracking ñ stiffen them up)
By a stroke of good fortune, there is a BMW dealer in Windhoek who also had a back tyre and can do a bit of work on the front steering bits. We await the bill with baited breath.
We spent a lovely evening with three VSOís, Paul, Catherine and Rachel - two accountants and a teacher. This evening goes into competition with the great bunch of VSOís we met in Mzuzu.
Catherine, had the brave task of trying to create a fair and incorruptible way to distribute cash to regional areas of Namibia, taking account of various factors on the HDI (life expectancy figures, literacy rates, etc.). It is one of those tasks where it usually impossible to please everyone but she seems to be having some success.
Rachel, teaches at the hospital. Improving the English of the nurses so that they are able to perform well in their exams which are of course in the ubiquitous English.
Lastly, Paul works with a catholic disabled group and helps to train them in accounting. So that their fundraising can be more thrifty. I am sure that he will be pleased to hear that we think his knowledge of statistical facts is most impressive.
They seemed positive about Namibia, but pointed out that the apparent wealth in the cities and of the whites as a rule is a far cry from the basic lives of many of the people in the rural areas. (Largest differential between upper classes and poor in the world) Surprising they say that there is little resentment of the whites wealth. However, they have found it hard to form genuine friendships with the black majority, as with the legacy of apartheid they are seen as part of the ex-pat community, and with that comes a whole batch of assumptions about them.
However, there is a growing black middle class and so there are gradual moves towards some redistribution of Namibiaís wealth, but progress is slow. Much as in most areas of the world, integration between classes is weak and so, in this case, racial, also.
We joined them for dinner at a rather swanky restaurant ñ similar to ìCarnivoresî in Nairobi. Predictably, the clientele were all Caucasian and the staff black. Portions were huge and so we managed to fill a doggy bag for tomorrowís lunch. How much pork can one eat?
Conversation flowed around tips for travel in Namibia, for which we are most grateful, and anecdotes about their time in Namibia. As they pointed out, it was strange to think that they had come out to take up their posts at about the same time that we left England. They certainly seemed to have kept up with events in Blighty better than we have. A very charming evening, especially as we got door-to-door service in the car that is provided for Paul. Not all VSO posts involve preparing lessons by oil lamp light in a mud hut, then. Good luck to them, I say.