Hayestack

We stayed in Rundu for the next few days to catch our breath before heading south to the Etosha National Park and the coast. This gave us a chance to chill out, and for Sally to visit Georgina’s school and meet the learners. On our way to Etosha we camped overnight at Treesleepers where elevated platforms allow you to pitch your tent amongst the branches of the trees. A wooden spiral staircase is built in, so you don’t actually have to climb the tree. It is a long and perilous way to the lavatory from the platform, so if you think you can hear the distant sound of Victoria Falls in the middle of the night you can imagine what is occurring. Unless the moon is shining, the total blackness and absolute absence of artificial light will protect anyone’s modesty.

The Etosha National Park is the main Game Reserve in Namibia. It covers a vast area and has a large, dried up lake at its heart. If you’re lucky, you can see any number of zebra, springbok, Kudu, giraffe, wildebeste, elephant, etc. You have to be lucky to see lion and rhino, and really lucky to see leopard or cheetah. Buy a lottery ticket on that day. Naturally, when the animals hear that we are arriving, they scoot over to the other side of the park which is closed to visitors. In the several times we have visited we have seen most animals in various numbers, but we have not yet had occasion to do the lottery. With Sally we took the main route through Etosha stopping at the best waterholes on the way. Leaving one, we saw the biggest herd of zebra we have ever seen, coming out of the bush and heading straight towards us in our parked car. I hesitate to say this but no doubt they were looking for the zebra crossing. One of the most striking features of Etosha is the dried up salt lake at its heart. We drove onto the pan and surveyed the stark whiteness all around us. It’s an amazing sight. The Halali rest camp, with its shop, restaurant, information centre and watering hole, is a tourist village half way along the main route. The camping site resembles a hardcore car park which did not look at all appealing. I am told that the once pristine ablution block have deteriorated a lot. At the Anderrson Gate, the Park’s exit, we climbed the old brick tower and watched 2 old elephants destroying a tree just below us. As it would soon be getting dark we found a campsite just down the road. We arrived just before a large safari bus full of intrepid explorers who, fortunately preferred exploring the other side of the campsite.

We set off early the next morning for Outjo and, beyond that, the Atlantic coast. Sally was driving and enjoying the blue skies and empty, straight road. We were travelling fast, but safely. We could see as far as a mile ahead. The two black dots on the road ahead gradually turned into little figures, larger men and then full-sized policemen. Unfortunately, one had his arm raised, beckoning us to stop. “What’s your hurry?” he asked, good-humouredly. It was 7am on Sunday morning, no other cars in a five mile radius. Why were the police mounting a road block just for us? They didn’t seem that serious about it anyway. They sent us on our way with the advice to drive more slowly as we were just entering Outjo. He was right and the whole town seemed asleep apart from a few pedestrians and a couple of bare-breasted Himba women plus baby sitting by the side of the road selling jewellery. We took photos and Sally bought a trinket. Suddenly, a line of police cars shot around the corner at great speed, sirens blazing. Was the US President in town and under terrorist attack? The police response could not have been greater. We drove around and discovered police officers on every corner. At 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning this must have been a training exercise and explained our road block on the edge of town.

From Outjo we headed towards Khorixas. The deserted road was metalled, the scenary picturesque. Instead of the ubiquitous, flat, somewhat tedious, Namibian scrubland, we had interesting, rolling, Namibian hills. I was looking forward to getting to Khorixas. The name sounded exotic and alluring, like Timbuktu or Xanadu. In fact, it turned out to be a dilapidated, one-horse town, with a donkey instead of the horse. It was shabby and sleepy, the people looking as though if they were still suffering the effects of too much homebrew the previous night. But there was a filling station, and it was foolish in this semi-arid desert to pass a filling station without filling. Who knows where the next one would be? A group of aging Hell’s Angels had parked their huge machines by every pump (at least 2) and didn’t seem in a hurry to move. I had almost decided to send Sally out to give them some grief, but they moved off before she could get at them, the cowards. Next to the garage was a supermarket that had a group of males hanging around the shop entrance looking bored and thirsty. They did not look too intimidating but they followed with their eyes every movement we made until we were safely inside the store. The best crisps in Namibia are Simba Creamy Cheddar. We could only find small bags but we bought them anyway. Talking about cheese, there is confusion about the different varieties in Namibia. There is only one sort of Cheddar that tastes anything at all like Cheddar and that is made by Parmalat. The rest is rubbery and processed tasting as though it was made of plasticine. There is Gouda which is actually Edam, and Edam here is more like Emmental. The fridges are stacked with feta cheese and there is a South African version of Brie that is quite pleasant. Variety and choice are two unknown words in the Namibian English dictionary.

We backtracked a kilometre down the road leaving Khorixas behind us without a second glance and headed for the Brandberg mountains. The tar soon gave way to gravel and we began to leave a large cloud of dust trailing behind us. There were no cars following us to be inconvenienced and we met few cars coming towards us. The journey was long and arduous, the highlight being when we passed through the sign saying we were crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, but it felt just the same on one side as the other. Although the mountains and undulating road made the scenery much more interesting than the tedious flat scrubland of our usual Windhoek – Rundu route, we were being constantly bounced up and down and buffeted by the gravel roads.

Before scrub gave way to desert, we came across a group of huts all selling small Herero rag dolls. The ladies selling them wore traditional Herero costume including the headdress that resembles a cow’s horns. This exhibition was pulling in the tourists and the ladies were doing a steady trade. The amusing thing was that the Herero costume was not traditional in that part of Namibia. Evidently, someone had decided it would be good for trade, and it was.

Willy and Hilion on their cell phones.

We couldn’t find Kei Mouth on the map because Willy, Danie’s aged parent, insisted on calling it Kei Mon. Willy had a strange sense of humour. I’m still not sure whether the biltong he gives us to eat is actually giraffe as he claims or not. “I good at English” he tells us. “Speak me no question,” he says to prove it. This, of course is just part of his act, which he rehearses a surprising number of times while we are with him. As you can imagine, he is an absolute scream.

He and his wife, Hilion, have kindly consented to give us a lift to the coastal village of Kei Mouth, just north of East London, where they will spend their annual vacation with their four children and assorted spouses. Lifts in Africa are paying affairs. No-one has much money so you, quite rightly, pay your share of the transport costs and accommodation. Willy had been a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church until they had a falling out about something fairly crucial, namely, amongst other things, the presence of Jesus in your life. Since then he has been involved in a number of money making schemes. He has been a melon trader and currently runs a pancake stall in the Saturday Farmer’s Market in Bloemfontein. Neither of these has dampened his evangelical zeal and is keen on an organisation from the USA called “Christ Love”. “Willy loves to preach,” we are warned. “When you have had enough, tell him so. My husband just walks away,” says one well-wisher. In fact, Willy is quite refreshing. We were growing tired of the “prosperity gospel” that we have heard preached so much in Africa. You know the sort of thing, believe in God and you will have a big car and a grand house. To hear the message that the only thing worth having is the living presence of Jesus in your life has the definite ring of truth about it. After all those years of being a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church it is wonderful that he has at last come to recognise the living presence of Jesus in his life.

The day of our departure from Bloemfontein does not start particularly well. We have been told that Willy and Hilion would be making a leisurely start, say about 11am. At 9am Kathleen says that we have to be ready to go in 30 minutes. Panic stations. We haven’t begun to pack. We bundle everything into our rucksacks and we are ready to go. It is sad to say goodbye. Kathleen and John have been such good hosts and have practically made us members of their family. Marie did a very efficient job organising our travel to the coast and booking our bus back to Rundu on the internet.

As Kathleen drives us to Willy and Hillion’s house we worry that we may be delaying their departure. We arrive to find Willy outside in nothing but a pair of shorts cleaning a large tarpaulin. They won’t be ready for a few hours yet. This gives us time to accompany Kathleen on her weekly visit to John’s mother who lives in an old folks’ home a short distance away. “She can be a difficult woman,” warns Kathleen, “so don’t mind what she says.” Old people are supposed to be cantankerous, aren’t they? I look forward to being so when i get old, which is a long way off. We stop off for a few groceries and cigarettes. These are rationed as mother would smoke them all in one go if she could. She has good fug going by the time we reach her room. Is she smoking or burning a pile of wet leaves? Her outline emerges through the smoke. She is pleased to see us and is on her best behaviour. She speaks fairly good English with a deep, husky voice. She sounds like and elderly Lauren Bacall and the atmosphere is pleasant and warm, in fact, disappointingly, no drama at all. A sepia photo on the wall shows a smartly dressed young man and a beautiful young lady. What couple they must have been in their heyday. On the way out we pick an apricot off one of the trees in the grounds. Someone taps on the window. The apricot is hard anyway so we chuck it away.

Willy and co. are still packing so we go back to Kathleen’s for a cup of coffee. When we’d parted an hour previously I had wondered if we would ever see this family again. I never dreamt it would be so soon.

First goodbyes are difficult, second are just plain embarrassing. However, we survive.

Etosha is one of the best game reserves in Africa. It is amazing that anything can live on this vast arid plain and the fact that elephants, giraffes, zebra and many kinds of antelope amongst other large animals thrive in such abundance is a miracle.

We took the “gravel” road to Etosha. This kind of road is one that the builders forgot to finish, or they ran out of tar. Consequently, your car, leaving a billowing trail of dust in its wake, will rattle and shake until the joints knock and bits start falling off. An ordinary saloon is no good for this kind of road. You need a 4×4, and a tough one at that. Then you can fly at speed across the ridges and bumps, sneering at their attempts to slow you down and wreck your car. The roads inside the game reserve were even worse. Here there were ridges the size of the Grand Canyon and pot-holes the depth of Cheddar Gorge. We zigzagged our way along the Etosha roads like drunken maniacs with the ominous clanking of universal joints in our ears. But the view outside the car was astounding. In the distance we saw a group of giraffes towering above the trees. We had to take photos. We had not seen a group of giraffes before. By the end of the day, after photographing dozens of giraffes within kicking distance we realised how lame the first photos were.

We seemed to see springbok, impala and zebra at every turn. They watched us from the side of the road as though thoroughly bored by the whole business. At least they didn’t demand money to have their photograph taken. Humans are more canny. The other day I took a photo of the River Kavango as it meandered through a particularly interesting piece of countryside. In the distance I heard a woman calling to me. It turned out she wanted money as I’d apparently taken her photo. She was a blob in the far distance and not a very interesting one at that. Though I admired her enterprising spirit and sheer gall, she was disappointed that day.

We hadn’t seen an elephant all day and when we’d just about given up, a proud male came marching majestically out of the bush. For some reason all the other animals abandoned the water hole allowing the elephant free reign to wallow in the mud.

We visited several water holes that day and saw many elephants squirting water and chucking dust over themselves. Springbok lined up at the water’s edge sipping nervously, giraffes splayed out their legs doing the splits in an effort to have a drink. Amazingly, they managed to recover their posture with little effort. The birds were too laid back and didn’t notice the black-backed jackal stalking them until it had one in its jaws. It was a light snack and gone in a second. The jackal had a harder job surprising the birds after that. One very common bird was the kori bustard. Karin, our Dutch friend, misheard this, we assume, and every time she spotted this large bird she would shout with glee,

“Look, there’s another bastard over there!”

There were lions and leopards in the park but we didn’t see any that day. As the sun sank, the hyenas began to slink out of the shadows one at a time on their way to the water-hole. Looking sly and savage they gathered together for the night’s hunting.

We looked around. All the other cars had left.

“The clock at the entrance definitely said closing at seven-thirty,” announced Georgina with her usual tone of misplaced confidence.

It was now getting quite dark and we were the only people on the road. We were locked in. I was driving and we picked up speed, considerable speed. We nearly took out an impala but it managed to jump off the road just in time. A large mass came into view by the side of the road. It was black and had a horn at one end.

“Rhinoceros,” I shouted, slamming on the brakes. By the time we had reversed, the rhino had sloped off into the bush leaving us with a view of its disappearing rump, which, strangely, resembled the expression on the face of the woman gate-keeper when we eventually arrived at the exit.

The tense conversation went like this:

“You’re late”

“The clock said 7.30 closing time.”

“The clock’s broken. Closing is seven.” (How did everyone else know?)

She frowned and obviously thought we were idiots or desperate criminals.

“Where’s your tickets?” Yes, we still had tickets.

“You Namibians?” As VSO we paid the local rate. Tourists pay at least double.

We didn’t look like Namibians and were obviously confidence tricksters.

With a humiliating amount of profuse apologies, ( I was prepared to go so far as throwing myself on the ground and kissing her feet) she capitulated and instructed her henchman to unlock the gate and let us out. As we drove back to the campsite we felt relieved that we had experienced a close encounter with the wildest creature in the game park and survived.

Our journey to Kisora took us on a short safari through the Queen Elizabeth National Park.We could see elephants in the distance and many water bucks, kobs, water buffalo, hippos and gibbons. But we were disappointed not to see zebras and giraffes in particular.  We were told the recent rain had sent many animals deeper into the bush (where they kept their umbrellas, no doubt).  However, a driver stopped to tell us where we could see lions eating a water buffalo.   Moses’ eyes lit up at this and he became very excited.  He really wanted to see a lion eating a buffalo and we shot off at great speed.   We reached the place before the lions had finished their breakfast.  One female ate while the others stood guard.  We warily climbed out of the car to get a better view.  Suddenly, a lion’s head popped up from the grass uncomfortably close by.  Moses reached for the thin twig he had picked to ward off attacking lions.  I didn’t fancy his chances with this, though he did use it later on, very effectively, to shoo off little boys who were coming too close to the car to beg.

The road from Kabale to Kisora was appalling.  The word “road” is a ludicrous exaggeration for that dirt track with ruts in it the size of the Grand Canyon.  Huge articulated lorries carrying petrol thundered along sending up clouds of dust and thick, blue diesel fumes while we picked our way between the crevasses,  fearful that the back axle was about to drop off.   Moses stopped to examine the back of the car.  “What’s up?” we asked.  “There’s a strange noise.”  There was a strange noise. He jumped back in the car and resumed the switchback ride strangely unconcerned.  We, however, were haunted by that noise all the way to Kisoro and back knowing that the nearest RAC man was at least 4,000 miles away.    The noise mysteriously disappeared when we hit tarmac again.  But sometimes, when dusk falls and the night is still, I can hear that strange noise taunting me from afar.

It had taken 2 hours to travel 50 miles and our internal organs were playing musical chairs.  My knuckles hadn’t been so white since a ride on Disney’s Space Mountain, where the drops weren’t so sheer and I had never thought I might actually die.

The fading light didn’t improve the feeling of gloom and depression that hung in the air over Kisoro.   The poverty seemed no worse than anywhere else, the rubbish tips were just the same, the shops just as drab.  Huge chunks of meat for sale hung outside the butchers’ shops to collect dust and flies just as anywhere else in Uganda.  It was probably the sight of these that gave us our first and enduring bout of diarrhoea.  I apologise for this subject.  It’s a bit like vomit.  I didn’t want to bring it up.  We were very particular about hygiene and washed our hands every time we saw a toilet.  We had bottles of ant-bacterial gel and were careful what we ate. We certainly didn’t eat the gel.  Sometimes we were caught unawares, such as by  the shredded goat meat on the avocado that was hidden under a dollop of 1000 island dressing ( They had, obviously, forgotten to remove  a cess pit from one of the islands before they made the dressing).    I suspect the currency is a great transmitter of disease.   The bacteria on some of the filthy brown notes was probably the only thing holding them together.

The television in the hotel room that night had only 1 channel.  Previously we had had 3,  namely 2 football channels and an African soap much like Neighbours only much slower and worse acting.  Boy was it bad?   I mentioned this lack of choice ( i.e. football or off) to the porter who said he could change the channel from reception.  Which did I want BBC or CNN?   Either would be fine.  A few minutes later the screen flickered and the channel changed to rugby football.  I gave up, exercised choice and switched off.

The Ugandans are crazy about football, especially the English Premier League.  They wear the strips and know who all the footballers are, like er, (who do I know?) Oh, yes, David Beckham.  Slogans painted on their vehicles such as “Jesus lives” and “God is Great” rub shoulders with “Arsenal” and Man. Utd”.  (see Gallery)

There is one good thing about Kisoro.  It’s near the Rwandan border where petrol is a lot cheaper.  Uganda has abolished Road Fund Duty and placed it on petrol.  Our hotel wasn’t in a good location, though, being next to a disco that raved until the early hours.  This was complemented a bit later by the Muslim call to prayer.  All that was missing was a cock crowing.  No, I spoke too soon.  There it goes….. cock-a-doodle-do.  What joy.