put the kettle on, it's a long one

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Jumping into the front seat of a taxi in Livingstone town centre I offered the driver 30,000 kwatcha for a ride to the waterfront.

“40,000” was his reply, as I knew it would be.

I spied a Lionel Richie cassette tape sat on the dashboard.

“40,000, but we listen to Lionel Richie all the way”

“Deal!”

Two minutes later we were hurtling through town, the mist of Victoria Falls hanging across the horizon. The driver was bellowing into his cell phone as we approached a police road block. Spotting the minor offence and the opportunity for a quick side of the road bribe, the officer waved his red flag and moved the road block into our path. My driver simply accelerated towards the policeman, whose AK47 hung idly from his shoulder, swerving around the road block - which the officer then kicked into the passenger door. “I’m late” my driver managed to offer through the open windows as we sped on, laughing out loud.
This is Africa, finally, and it’s awesome.

Hello again! Hope you guys are all well! Long time no speak, soooooo much has happened since my last blog. 6000km and 5 countries, for a start. It’s been intense and immensely enjoyable and I’ve not made notes so I am writing from memory, you’ll have to forgive the inevitable loss of a couple of days. I’ll go back to when we last spoke, Cape Town, and start there.

The Sunday I was due to leave Blue Mountain, I had planned to do everything I had needed to do for about midday, then head to the meeting point of my Overland tour for about one. I rushed through the last blog in an internet cafe, flew down to the waterfront to try to post my surfboard home, got my online banking up to date, packed and unpacked and repacked until my possessions finally fit into my backpack, all before 12. I didn’t manage to tear myself away until 6pm. I sat on the balcony, drinking 10 year old Brandy on the rocks with friends, promising each hour would be my last. After warm goodbyes I finally threw my backpack on and walked the 10 blocks to The Tulip Inn, surfboard under one arm, guitar in the other.

I arrived just in time for the 7pm Orientation meeting, where I met 25 new people in the space of 5 minutes and instantly forgot every one of their names. It was pretty scary stuff, a little awkward for everyone I’m sure. It was Andrew, a Canadian with the sort of voice that would be well placed saying something like, ‘coming soon to a cinema near you’ and a fantastically quick sense of humour, that made the most lasting first impression; Quoting Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction with my all time favourite Tarrantino line, ‘Lets get the fuck of dodge.’ I don’t remember the context, but I remember the line.
I was sharing a twin room with a German guy, Martin, with whom I’d be sharing a tent for the next 12 days. In just this short time I’d fall a little bit in love with Martin. When I woke up in the Namibian Desert and complained I was cold, he would simply sit up and reply, ‘oh! There is snow outside’ in a manner so believable that the sheer stupidity of the concept passed me by, to both of our amusement. When 21 of us were huddled over our cereal bowls in a morning, unwashed and too tired to utter anything but the occasional grunted greeting, Martin would be sat at a table, clean shaven and reading the newspaper, beaming as if he’d just had the best news of his life. He was one of the funniest and nicest people I’ve ever met, even when he wasn’t trying to be.
That first night, the group went to the waterfront for dinner, I’d said I would take a quick shower and meet them there for drinks, but when I discovered the hotel room had a bath, I soaked myself for an hour watching Blade 3, (I hate vampires but I love Ryan Renolds in that film,) before going in search of food. I’d later discover that particular hotel had a reputation as a bit of a brothel, where you can order a hooker with your room service.

The next morning the trip started for real, at 5am. After struggling to find room for the surfboard on the bus, we set off on the longest drive we would have, up the western coast of SA to the Gariep river, the natural border between SA and Namibia. A river that runs through the diamond fields of western Namibia and washes its treasures out into the Atlantic, a treat that means it’s illegal to venture too far down the river, but those that are brave enough can find their fortune glistening on the river bed.
Having set up camp for the first time, we spent the afternoon swimming in the river, its warm water a perfect place from which to enjoy the sunset, and more than deep enough to take running dives into. If I’d have been a better swimmer I would have swam all the way to Namibia, as it was the gentle current quickly consumed what energy I had after the long drive. We sat around the campfire braai and introduced ourselves. The guitar I had brought made an appearance. Annie, the sexiest French Canadian you will ever meet, who seemed to form her words from the tips of her toes and speak them through her whole body, gift wrapped in a French accent, had brought some sheet music and could sing perfectly, We worked our way through some classics and, bizarrely, some James Blunt. By the end of the night, myself and Roger, a Swiss German travelling with his lady - Sena, were the last ones up. Rodger had a hipflask filled with a home - brewed whiskey, which we shared, tapping he flask before and after each sip for luck - as is apparently the norm in Sswitzerland. We had a fantastic conversation, strangely intimate for two people who met 24 hours before hand, before I snuck into the tent in a routine I’d quickly become fluent in, so as not to wake Martin.

The next day started with another head long dive into the Gariep River, which seems a great way to start any day. With just a short drive ahead of us we had the morning free to wander around the farms surrounding the campsite. Martin, Roger, Sena and myself spent a couple of hours wandering between the fruit trees, searching for lizards and scorpions under rocks along the way. Martin had promised a friend from home he would return with at least 10 pictures of lizards, a target he would easily surpass as the whole group directed him to every lizard we found along the way and he chased them with his camera until he had the shot. As a concierge in a 5 star hotel in Berlin, Martin was incredibly good at following through with promises and if needs be, could get you a 200ml can of Sprite Lite flown in from America and waiting for you in the minibar when you checked in. One day, I intend to visit his hotel with a list of outrageous demands. Anyway, after adopting a farmers dog on our walk and another quick swim in the river, we packed our tents and headed through the border into Namibia, and north to the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon on earth, a runner up to the Grand Canyon.

I fell asleep on the bus within a few kilometres of passing through the border, having read Shantaram until my eyes wouldn’t stay open, a trick I’d repeat daily on the bus until I’d devoured all 950 pages. If you’ve not read it, I highly recommend it.

When I woke up the landscape took my breath away. It looked like the surface of the moon. The dryness of it clung to the back of my throat with each breath. There was nothing for as far as you could see, just rocks. The vegetation that did grow was bare. Huge piles of rocks were scattered either side of the road, untouched since glaciers left them there millions of years ago, as was everything else you could see. Not even the wind dared to disturb the tyre marks of the last person to drive through, the only indicator that we were on a road at all. We must have driven at least 100km while I was awake and we didn’t pass another person. The inhospitableness of the landscape made me remember Bear Gryll’s rule of 3’s. You can live without air for 3 minutes, without shelter for 3 hours, without water for 3 days and without food for 3 weeks, apparently. Left to my own devices under the afternoon sun out there I don’t think I would have lasted 30 seconds.

We arrived at the Canyon at half past 3, though some confusion about the direction of the time change at the Namibian border had us believing it was half 5. With 2 hours of our lives gifted back to us we had plenty of time to explore the canyon. I walked with a few of the English folk on the bus, Tom and Claire, a great married couple from London who had a knack for making me laugh, Catherine, who I regret I’d never really get to know as well as I should have, Sue, who always seemed full of smiles and stories of her travels that would fascinate me, and Annie. The canyon was huge, the Fish River little more than a puddle in the bottom, it seemed everything was doomed to dry-out there. There were some beautiful pictures to be taken though, the one tree with green in its leaves providing some much needed foreground interest in what would otherwise have been a picture of an endless sea of rocks, relenting only to give way to the sky at the horizon that could easily have been a million miles away.

As the sunset we sat around the truck and ate nacho’s before heading back to camp, setting up a fire and drinking wine. As the darkness thickened, the thin slither of a new moon struggling to illuminate anything, we found ourselves sitting under the most incredible ceiling of stars I’ve ever seen. Millions of tiny little holes to heaven filled the sky under the haze of the milky way. It was just incredible, after spotting the obvious constellations we all fell into an awestruck silence and I found myself thinking that just maybe one of those stars was named after my dad and wondering what he might have thought of me staring up from the Namibian desert. After a little more wine, I found myself the last one up and played around on the guitar for a little while before heading to bed.

The next day we headed deeper into the Namib Desert, arriving at camp mid-afternoon with no plans until the next morning. With the free time we each went for a walk, there were mountains either side of the camp and everywhere between the two ranges was flat and dry, but beautiful and unspoilt. Antelope bounced past as I wandered out to an acacia tree to watch the sun drop from the sky and set the horizon ablaze. I got a photograph I’m pretty proud of. Heading back to the camp bumped into Vikki and Laura, who, along with Andrew, were becoming my closest friends on the trip. Between the two of them they had been to every place I ever want to visit in my whole life, yet they were just 25. Both from Oxford, Vikki could keep me in wonder for hours as they told stories of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, India and Laura’s stories of Australia had just the same effect. By the time they would leave the trip in Windhook, Vikki would have given me a list of things to do and places to see to remember her by, I promised I’d do them all, but I’ll remember both of them for the best of times in Namibia, their contagious laughter and uplifting optimism as well as their horrendous navigational skills and vrazy dance moves.
We headed back to camp together for braai, the standard dinner of meat and meat, cooked to perfection by Barry, one half of the tour guide couple, along with Athene. Barry drove the truck every single mile while we all slept in the back and cooked pretty much every piece of meat, every night, yet still had the enthusiasm to be up before all of us making breakfast. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a single question they couldn’t answer about anything. They were really great guys, as enthusiastic and hospitable as you could ever hope for in your wildest dreams. They were an absolute blessing, their inexorable passion for what they do made the trip the success it became.

We were due to be up early the next morning, to be the first people to sink our feet into the perfect peak of dune 45, the 120m dune from which we would watch sunrise, so It was an early night for all.
The morning came all too soon, as they always do. This was the morning Martin would have me believe there was snow outside. We were up at 4.45 to be at the gates to the national park for 5.15 when they opened. We were first in the queue of cars and trucks at the gate and Barry hurtled along the 45km to the foot of the dune to make sure we’d ascend the sand unspoilt, somehow avoiding the startled antelope and Jackals that were unlucky enough to be crossing the road. We made it, and by 6am we were the first people to spoil the ridge of the dune as we started our descent, led by Andrew running straight up, me and Laura following not quite as enthusiastically. Climbing the dune was so difficult! Every step was made redundant as your feet sank back to where they had been lifted from. Even Andrew, who was ridiculously fit, appeared almost as fast as he had disappeared at the bottom. Bent double and gasping for breath we finally made it to somewhere near the top and settled in for sunrise. Unfortunately, a curtain of fog hung between our vantage point and the horizon, blown in from the skeleton coast and masking the sunrise so that we didn’t see it until it had risen far enough to burn its way through the mist. Though it wasn’t quite what we were hoping for, it was still spectacular, the mist hanging off the dune and settling as clouds that sat on the sand provided a couple of amazing photographs.
Of course, as difficult as it had been to go up the dune, it was infinitely easier to come down, turning into the sunrise and running as fast as your legs would carry you, in huge leaps that made it seem like running on the surface of the moon. It must have taken 45 minutes to get up, it took 20 seconds to get down.

After a much needed fry up for breakfast we had all booked an ‘optional activity’, a Bushman walk through the dunes to the sossusvlei, the clay pans that the dunes had closed off from the river and the ancient acacia trees that had stood dead for thousands of years in them. Our guide for the walk, Frances, was one of the most amazing characters I’ve ever met. He was a tiny guy, whose ear-to-ear smile seemed almost big enough to knock him off his feet. His looong drawn out vowels and clicks made his catchphrases ‘you can surviiiiiiive in the deeeeesert’ and ‘you eat this one, you deeeeeeead’ instantly famous. His awareness of his environment was incredible, almost unbelievable. He would walk with blistering pace, barefoot across the sand and almost magically stop for the footprints of a spider. A spiders footprints - in the desert. He’d follow the footprints and where they stopped he would magically slide a knife under the sand and reveal a spiders nest. He would sneak up of lizards and catch them barehanded. When he spotted the footprints of a beetle and revealed it only had 5 legs, then pulled a 5 legged beetle out of the ground the whole group ooohed and aaaahed as if we were 5 and he had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. He told stories of life in the desert with such enthusiasm and comic timing, dancing and joking that he became a bit of a hero for the whole trip.

After dinner we had a little more down time, though there was the option to go for a walk to a little canyon not too far away. I decided against it and instead wandered towards the mountains and another spectacular sunset. Vikki and Laura got themselves spectacularly lost, trying to retrace the route Andrew had walked yesterday, but somehow ending up at the wrong end of a mountain and having to climb sheer rock faces in flip-flops. It gave us something to laugh about around the camp fire, where we would once again work our way through our very brief setlist, which still included 2 James Blunt songs, I am ashamed to say!

Later in the evening, as the temperature dropped, I would play pool with the Dutch group on our truck. Sgors (George,) Naomi and Nick. George was as typically boisterous and flamboyant as I’ve come to expect from the Dutch, so much so that we all struggled to imagine him in his career as a carer for disabled children. It wasn’t until he got out his phone and showed us the pictures of ‘his kids’ that we saw a whole different side to the loud and really funny big child we all grew pretty fond of. Towards the end of the tour, I would spend more time with George and Naomi than anyone else. They were the last of the people to leave the trip in Livingstone, we spent the few days after the tour had officially ended procrastinating by the pool, promising to do something after one more beer, until we had had too many beers to achieve anything. They were a really great couple, I’d really like to find them in Holland one day. Nick, also a care worker, would leave the trip early when his girl was taken to hospital, but in the 12 days I knew him, he would make me laugh - not always on purpose - with both surprising clever and surprisingly stupid humour.

That night though, George beat me twice at pool, in two of the most talentless games of pool ever witnessed by anyone. In both games I should have won, but managed to pot the white and the black at the same time, much to the amusement of the crowd we had gathered.
The next day began with the drive to the skeleton coast, and the town of Swakopmund, where we would have to opportunity to spend a small fortune on optional activities. Quad biking, skydiving, horse riding, fishing, sandboarding and many more where on offer.

Not really fancying quadbiking, but really keen to find some scuba diving amongst the famous wrecks of the Skeleton Coast, I had the afternoon free to search for somewhere or someone from whom I could rent some scuba gear. My search quickly appeared fruitless and fated to remain that way, so I gave up and walked out of the town, over the desert dunes to the coast and found my very own shipwreck, beached a hundred meters or so into the freezing Atlantic Ocean. I sat with some local fisherman on the beach for a while before heading back into the town to watch the sunset from the pier. I met a few more locals, some trying to sell bits and pieces, some trying sell drugs, some begging and some just chatting - my tattoo and the chunky camera hanging around my neck generally kicking off the conversation.
When one guy asked me my name, then asked me to spell it, he slipped a little knife out of his pocket and gently scratched each letter into the soft skin inside his forearm. No sooner had he heard the last E of Pete, he had whipped a palm tree nut out of his other pocket and carved my name into it. It literally didn’t take him two seconds. By the time I realised what he was doing, I was looking at my name carved into the nut, along with the faces of each of the big 5. He wanted 300 Namibian Dollars, I gave him 11. I didn’t want the nut but I couldn’t help but be impressed with the speed and skill he had carved my name.
That night the whole group headed into the town to eat together at a restaurant. It was pretty much Gemsbok steaks all round, before we moved into the bar downstairs. When the bar eventually closed and kicked us out, Vikki, Laura, Andrew and I accompanied some locals we’d met to the local club. It was very’ local’. The intimacy of the search on the way in was more concerning than it was reassuring. We danced like idiots all night, ordering shooters by what colour they were, Vikki told me tales of all the places I should visit along my route. I was envious she had seen everything I hoped to, she said felt the same that I had it all to come. We danced and laughed until the early hours before we left the club, which was in the middle of an industrial estate on the edge of town - a remote location from which we would incredibly lost, it took the better part of 2 hours before we found anything resembling familiar in the dawn light.

It was an awesome night, but when we woke two hours later to go sandboarding we all felt pretty awful. There is no worse way to spend a hangover than climbing a sand dune in the desert in snowboarding boots. I promise. The boarding itself was good fun, but after a 30 minute climb, the 1 minute descent was little reward. In 4 hours, we managed 4 trips down the face of the dune, just enough to almost - but not quite - get the hang of it. Vikki fell badly on one of her runs down and just about broke her finger. It swelled and turned purple and put a premature end to her sandboarding career. Andrew, who could already snowboard, made it look easy, but the rest of us - Laura, George, Naomi and I struggled and spent more time eating the sand than gliding over it. We got the chance to try laying down sandboarding. Laying on a thin and well waxed piece of plywood heading face first down a dune, your knuckles scraping the sand as you lifted the front edge of the board, wasn’t really my idea of fun. Every thud as the board flew over a little bump or hit a divot felt like being hit with a truck and by the bottom of the dune I felt like I had been in a fight and lost. I did manage to achieve 66kmp/h though.

When the majority of the rest of the group went skydiving in the afternoon, I crawled into bed and didn’t emerge until I headed out for a meal with Martin, Sue, Catherine, Chantal (a trainee guide,) Kate and Helen - the two people who would make me laugh more than any other on the tour. Helen, a fellow northerner, with whom I shared a pretty similar sense of humour, would have me in stitches pretty much every day. When we gathered around the water hole in Etosha to wait for the black rhino - an occasion that called for silence - just eye contact with each other had us crying with laughter, just loud enough to clear the other spectators from the two benches either side of us. Cups of tea, toilet humour and Helen’s unique take on backgammon would provide the fun in the Okovango Delta long after everyone else had gone to bed. Kate’s quick wit and sarcasm was just as funny, particularly after a generous vodka or four. Together they were comic gold and well travelled, full of fascinating tales of all the corners of the world.
After the meal, a rather sophisticated contrast to the eating meat with your fingers around the fire suppers we were used to, we played a little cards and headed to bed for a pretty early night.

Heading north again the next day, en route to Twyforfontein, we stopped at the cape cross seal colony to check in on the thousands of seals that inhabit the coastline. Whilst one or two seals are pretty cute, a thousand or more of them gathered on the beach , stinking - despite the offshore wind, and sounding a lot like a herd of goats wasn’t really all that appealing. A little later Tom somehow spotted Desert elephants hidden in the bush at the side of the road. We sat and watched them for probably half an hour, amazed at how tom had spotted them so far a way and fascinated by a rare species ,genetically different from both African and Indian Elephants. Arriving at the damaraland camp late in the afternoon, we had the chance to go see bushman paintings on rocks, or join Athene for a walk along a river bed. I chose the latter and with a few others, headed up the river in search of a dam to swim in. We never found the dam, but we did spot fairly fresh elephant footprints, springbok and heaps of birds.

Later that night, as we sat around the campfire, a herd of desert elephants wandered through the riverbed, maybe 20m from where we sat, completely oblivious until a neighbouring camper hushed us. Sat watching those elephants pull the few leaves from the trees of the riverbed was probably the highlight of the trip for me. In a national park you can pretty much expect to see a certain amount of wildlife and even though they are completely wild, it still doesn’t compare at all to seeing really wild elephants that close. It was one of those moments so amazing that when I recall it I don’t just see the elephants, but I can smell the smoke on my clothes from the fire, feel the cold air, and hear the stunning silence as a whole herd passed by without a whisper from us, their footsteps so quiet it was as if they were floating above the dirt. I get goosebumps even now, 3 weeks later, from thinking about it.

The next day we headed further north, into Etosha National Park. Etosha meaning the great white place of dry water, a name that only makes sense when you’ve seen the huge flat salt plains. We stopped en route at ‘the petrified forest,’ a place that sounded fascinating - with trees that had turned into rocks after millions of years under the earth - but was in fact rubbish. Trees that have turned into rocks, it turns out, look a lot like rocks, and not a lot like trees.

After dinner we headed out on a game drive in our truck and spotted all the usuals, elephants, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, monkeys, antelope and all sorts of birds. Back at the campsite, which was built next to a natural water hole, we were hoping to see black rhino. It was here that Helen and I laughed so much we cleared the area. I don’t remember exactly what was so funny, but the obligatory silence was impossible to maintain. Eventually, after a couple of hours, 5 black rhino slowly emerged from the bush and drank and bathed in the water hole. The fourth of the big five. I set about making a tripod from sticks, rocks, my wallet, cigarettes and anything else anyone had handy and, just a couple of times, the rhino stood perfectly still for the entire two second exposure and I got some photographs. When the rhino eventually headed out, Vikki, Laura, Andrew and I finished our beers and headed to bed, we were up early for a morning game drive the next day.

The game drive was beautiful the next morning. We saw a young male lion walk a couple of hundred meters along the road right in front of the truck and the youngest baby elephant any of us had ever seen, still hairy and walking between the feet of its mother.

We were heading from the centre of the park to it’s eastern edge and stopped for dinner at a beautiful campsite along the way. We had a couple of hours to kill so I headed to the waterhole just in time to catch 17 elephants arrive to bathe and drink in the midday sun. After the standard salad, meat and bread lunch George and I headed to the huge pool to fool about doing somersaults, backflips and making the biggest splashes we could in the deep end, along with Elias, a Swedish guy travelling with his girl, Elin. The two of them were just about the cutest couple you’ll ever meet, they seemed made for each other. Their happiness and energy was contagious, hilarious and great for the soul. Elias would spin the phrase ‘stoopid tourist’ which would become the groups motto. Europeans use the word stupid so often, you would assume it was overused, if it wasn’t so often appropriate. Whilst I may say that’s different, or surprising, or confusing, or exciting, or crazy or a million other things, Elias and George had a brilliant ability to label it stupid, which it nearly always was.

I never knew I could backflip until that afternoon. Whilst George and Elias made ‘stoopid’ shapes in the air and huge splashes in the water, I suddenly found an ability I never knew I had! After the swim we headed further east through the park to the camp. There was the option of a night game drive, but in my experience, night game drives are not the best, and after two whole days of driving in the truck, the last thing I wanted to do after dinner was get back on it. Martin, Vikki and Laura felt the same so the four of us sat around the camp fire with Barry and Athene sharing white wine until our eyes couldn’t stay open. It was the first night Martin and I had gone to bed at the same time and we had chatted in the tent for a little while before we eventually dosed off. It was Andrew I saw first the next morning, I obviously wanted people to have enjoyed the game drive, but I would have been devastated if they had seen a leopard, the elusive member of the big 5 I’m still hunting for, “how was the game drive?” I asked. “brilliant for the 20 minutes I was awake” was his less than enthusiastic reply. The others replied in much the same way. They had been driven around for 3 hours and slept for nearly all of it, for a mere US$60. It was maybe a little soon to bring up how funny that was that morning though.

We headed south after breakfast, towards the Waterberg Plateau, a petrified dune from which the Germans had driven 80,000 Himba tribes people to a slow death in the harshness of the sahara in the early 1900’s. Martin apologised on behalf of his country. The camp was at the foot of the plateau and after a quick swim we began the scramble up the rocks, though Athene had made it sound more difficult than it was and it only took 20 mins or so. The view from the top was pretty spectacular, but it was half three and 2 hours until sunset. After posing for some stupid photographs, Vikki, Laura and I headed down, finding Tom and Clare along the way. We got a little lost as there wasn’t much of a path to follow, we blamed the girls as they were leading the way and had already established themselves as quite talented when it came to getting lost. Another quick swim before hitting the bar and one last night camping with Martin. The next day we’d hit Windhook and the first leg of the trip would end. We’d lose seven and gain three newbies.

We arrived in Windhook about midday and had the afternoonto explore the city ourselvers. I set off in search of a post office to make another attempt at getting my surf board home. It was still going to cost £180, a little cheaper than cape town, but still outrageous. After that bombshell I headed to a mall and found a sushi place to eat, before heading back to the hotel.

We ate out as a group for the last night of the tour. Andrew, Martin, Laura, Vikki, Nick, Sue, Rodger and Sena were all jumping off the trip here. After the meal we partied hard in the restaurant. I spent the night with Helen and a fantastically drunk Kate, drinking Jagesmeister before Andrew, Vikki, Laura and I jumped into a cab to another local club. Stood in the queue outside i felt my wallet slipping out of my pocket and span around just in time to catch it and meet the eyes of the great big twat who was trying to take it. We partied just as hard as we had done in the first club we found. Laura and I got ourselves initiated into a dance circle, populated entirely by people who could dance - well. I met a guy who seemed pretty cool only to be told by a crazy girl that he was a dangerous criminal and I shouldn’t speak to him. In all fairness the ‘dangerous criminal’ was a lot more likeable and believable than the crazy girl. We had the sense to get a taxi back to the hotel this time, Vikki and I slouched in our doorways chatting over the balcony for a little while before heading to bed to catch a few hours sleep before we had to say our goodbyes.

Of course the morning came too soon again and we gathered around the car park to say our goodbyes. I’d miss each of them for the rest of the trip as the dynamic of the group changed. The next few days seemed unusually quiet without Andrews voice booming from around the campfire. I was armed with a list of promises I’ve made to Vikki; to visit the ngoragora crater, the tsipi falls, to take a bike taxi tour of Rwanda and to read the Zanzibar chest. But it would be Martin I would miss the most, though I’d not spent such a significant amount of time with him during the days. His replacement was Rolf, a man it was almost impossible to warm to, with all the symptoms of aspergers and the loudest snoring you ever knew. Before bed me and Helen would stand outside my tent and laugh at just how loud he could snore. Helen laughed a little harder than me, she didn’t have to get in the tent with him.
Tanya, a Danish girl and Kerry, a welsh girl made up the threesome that would join us for the next 9 days of the tour. It must have been pretty difficult to integrate into the group from that point, but the two girls managed it well.

From Windhook we headed into Botswana, crossing the border smoothly, having hidden all the meat on the truck in sleeping bags behind the back seats. Botswana has a mad cow disease problem and the movement of meat products is illegal. They don’t mention the smuggling in the itinerary! Ha! At the border I spotted a poster for a music festival in Maun on the day that we were there. I had planned to take a Plane ride over the Delta with Elias and Carol, but a local music festival sounded a way better idea. I asked Athene if I could leave the group for the day, she saw no reason why the whole group couldn’t go. Perfect! Carol, I’ve not mentioned yet, she was the oldest member of our group, an American military nurse fresh from Iraq. I didn’t honestly spend a lot of time with her, other than holding her hand up and down the odd set of stairs. Typically American in manners, but full of energy and enthusiasm and when she made the hike all the way to the boiling point at Victoria Falls - and back up, a hike that would exhaust even the fittest of us, you couldn’t help but respect her, even if she did have to stop the truck for a pee-stop so often she would earn the nick name ‘granny-bladder’

Upon arrival in Ghanzi we had all opted for the extra walk with the bushmen. I was a little sceptical, Frances had set an unbeatable standard in Namibia. I was pleasantly surprised though. These bushmen were the real thing, not interested in tourists but just going about their thing. Wearing animal skins, softened and dyed with potions made from the roots of plants, the group of tiny bushmen wandered through the bush, pulling up roots, making a fire and laughing amongst themselves, probably at us. They were fascinated by my tattoo, I was just as fascinated by the way they could live entirely off the land, with nothing even vaguely westernised. It was incredible and left me and Helen with a sobering feeling that is difficult to describe, but I think it falls somewhere between guilt and regret. Their way of life is so simple and in touch with nature, it’s beautiful, yet it is so far removed from what we know it is almost like they were a different species. We really have made a mess of the world.

After the walk and another braai, the bushmen arrived at camp and danced around the camp fire for a little while, rain stopped play a little earlier than intended and left George, Naomi and I in the bar for a little longer than most before we headed to bed.

The next day we headed to Maun, the gateway to the Okovango delta. As soon as we’d landed and bought the bits and pieces we needed for the Delta I hopped off the bus and headed to the Music festival. The rest of the group headed back to the camp for a while and joined me later in the evening. The music was brilliant, Gospel, jazz, Traditional, folk and later what they called ‘contemporary African’ which wasn’t quite as good as the rest. With the afternoon alone I met a few local folks, including some members of the bands and the singer of the headliners, Banjo Mbeke, or something like that. The others arrived about seven as I was finishing off the best meat and pap I’ve ever eaten and we partied at the front until me and Helen shared a taxi home, stopping for a nightcap at the bar along the way to check out the local beer, as recommended by the taxi driver. It wasn’t great, but the evening had been and I was just about tipsy enough not to care about Rolfs snoring, though he had made an effort to snore extra loud, much to Helens amusement. She could hear it from her tent and took great delight the next morning she had sat awake laughing at how loud it must have been for me to sleep.

As we packed up our little mobile village the next morning in preparation for the next two nights camping in the bush, the heavens opened and the rain poured for the journey by open sided 4x4 to the edge of the Delta. Here we met the polers that would pole the mokoro’s into the delta and camp with us for the next two nights. My poler, Galaxy, was a tiny little guy from the local village, just outside Maun. There were ten polers in all. The traditional Mokoros were carved from one piece of wood, probably about 15ft long and 8 inches deep. They sat about 6 inches into the water, which only left 2 inches of boat above the surface. There were fibreglass ones too, which leaked a lot less and had been recommended by the guy in the bar the night before. I somehow ended up in a wooden one. The rain had stopped and as we peacefully floated along the channels of the delta, the mokoro parting the reeds and millions of lilies, I nodded off, waking up just in time to set up camp on an island in the middle of the delta.

A few of us went for a walk with the polers in the afternoon, just before the rain started again and soaked the braai. We were all huddled together under a tiny little shelter when the rain stopped, as suddenly as it had started, the think grey clouds vanishing to reveal the stars. Helen and I played Kate’s backgammon until we headed to bed. Helen thought she knew the rules, but actually taught me a completely different game. We thought it was brilliant when Kate corrected us the next day.

We were up before sunrise to walk around the island in search of wildlife. Searching for them on foot is a completely different experience to driving around a national park for them. We saw zebra, giraffe and wildebeest on the land, and all sorts of birds flying through the orange dawn sky. We swam in the channels of the Delta and I did my best to pole a mokoro to and from the camp, but failed miserably.
The second night we were there the polers sang and danced traditional songs for us, which was brilliantly entertaining. They then said we had to return the favour. I was supposed to have taken the guitar with me, but with all the rain the morning we left, I’d completely forgotten. We worked our way through the usuals, thankfully omitting James Blunt. Somehow I ended up playing percussion on a salad bowl. When we started the Macarena, the polers seemed to know it so I shouted they had to join in. They did and we spent the next half an hour dancing around the fire, the hokey-cokey was sung for the first time since the 1980’s, we joined in with some of the traditional songs as the polers grabbed each of our hands and pulled us into the circle to dance. It was really really good fun. I think even the polers seemed to enjoy it.
After sleeping through the optional walk the next morning, we packed up and were poled out of the delta on the mokoros before a speedboat ride back to the camp.

At camp we loaded the bus and headed out to Gweta and the most amazing camp site of the whole journey. After 3 days in the delta, covered in mud, stinking of smoke from the fire and having used nothing but a long drop for a toilet, arriving at the camp, showering and backflipping into the pool after a cold beer was like heaven. The campsite was built around a huge baobab tree, 1500 years old, with a circumference that took 17 people holding hands to span. In the bar after dinner, George ordered a double, when the bartender put the double shot glass on the bar George asked to pour it himself. He poured, then refilled the glass and poured again, thinking he was pouring two singles. And so began double-double night! George, Kate, Naomi, Helen and I spent the night in the bar, ordering double-doubles until the bar closed.

We had to leave early the next morning, a huge error by the people who organised the itinerary. We had arrived late afternoon and were leaving early the next morning, everyone wanted to stay!
We were headed to Chobe national park, for a river cruise in search of hippos. The river was beautiful and we drove towards the sunset at a snails pace until we found hippos. Along the way we had found African bee-eaters nesting in the river banks, baboons playing, a huge monitor lizard and rare antelope.
After double-double night, we needed an early night.

The next day was supposed to be a short drive to the Zambezi ferry crossing into Zambia. However the floods were so high we were forced to take a 400km detour, back into Namibia to cross the water where it was lower. Even there, the river was 5 times wider than it would normally be. We arrived at a stunning campsite on the banks of the Zambezi river in the afternoon.

We set up camp for the last time and headed out for a cruise on the river. The cruise had an open bar, but had cost US$45, so me and George did our very best to get our moneys worth in free beers. The party slipped off the boat straight to the bar and by the end of the night we had thrown each other in the pool. The whole group stayed up to party, George, Naomi, Annie and I ended up in the girls bathroom singing songs until the early hours. It was a great night to end the trip.

The next day Annie had to leave to catch a plane. It was the first of a new round of goodbyes and it was horrible! Everyone was a little bit in love with Annie and no-one wanted to say goodbye. I’d spent all of the previous night saying ‘don’t go!’ a sentiment I could only repeat as the bus drove off to Victoria Falls and left Annie at the campsite waiting for a taxi to the airport.

Those of us that were left caught a ride to Victoria Falls. There’s no real way to describe how amazing the falls are. 900 million litres of water per second crash down into the boiling pot. Where it comes from, and where it goes is baffling. A couple of hundred meters upsteam, where we camped the water was tranquil, but the violence and power just a short way downstream is mesmerising. Kate summed it up the best; “that-is-absolutely-fucking-amazing” elongating and emphasising every word. I don’t like to swear in the blogs, but on this occasion its pretty much essential. We walked along the Zambian side of the gorge, getting absolutely soaked though I doubt we were ever closer than 100m to the face of the falls. We couldn’t have gotten any wetter and quicker if we were thrown in a swimming pool. Not until you are stood in the mist, hearing the roar of the falls do you fully understand why the tunya people call it mosi- ou-tunya, the smoke that thunders. Just as with the desert elephants in Namibia, the mist clearing for the first time to offer a glimpse of the falls is one of those amazing moments I’ll keep forever. Drenched, we wandered through the craft markets outside. The sellers used the ruse that they want to trade with you. When i emptied my pockets and all I had was lip balm, a guy said he would give me two things for it. He pulled me to the back of his shop and sat me down, slipping two bracelets over my wrist. Then he brought up the price; lip balm plus 60,000 kwatcha. Genius really. I gave him lip balm and 20,000 and left with two bracelets I never really wanted.

I spent the rest of the day by the pool. I wanted to do the bungy, but I didn’t really fancy going it alone so I set about trying to convince others in the group to come along. Plenty offered to come along for moral support, but it was Vivi who was the most enthusiastic, followed by George and Elias’ less than enthusiastic maybe’s. Vivi was the youngest of the group at 20, travelling with her friend Lisa who had turned 21 while we were in Namibia. Cute as a button, if not cuter, and full of energy, Vivi was loads of fun to be around and I was pretty happy she’d decided to come along. We agreed to do it the next day and booked it that afternoon. That was the only real achievement of the afternoon, me and George stayed by the pool, putting off showering, eating, packing and anything else we had to do until it was too dark to do any of them. After the party the night before, most people were pretty tired and there was only me and George who made it from the campfire to the bar. We ended up sat around the campfire, reminissing about the trip. Elin had written a brilliant poem about the trip for Barry and Athene and we’d had a wip round for tips. Barry wanted to learn guitar and Athene seemed to enjoy having one on the bus so I gave them the one I had bought as a thank you. We all turned in pretty early, most people had a plane catch the next morning.

After another morning of too many goodbyes, Vivi, Lisa, George, Naomi, Carol, Tanya, Kerry and I were the only guys left. Saying goodbye to Helen and Kate was the hardest, I’ve loved hanging out with those guys and I’ll miss laughing with them.

Me and Vivi headed out to the bungy, with Lisa and Carol for moral support. We both wanted to go first, but Vivi won the honours and was the first to jump. It was so much fun, probably better than the first one I’d done in South Africa. The sunshine shining through the mist of the falls painted rainbows under the bridge. I totally lost all orientation, I couldn’t tell which was up or down, which way I was going, The sky and River seemed to be on all sides at once, but I loved every second, as did Vivi. We had a celebratory beer and headed back to camp. The plan was for me, George and Naomi to head to a backpackers in town, but we never made it from the edge of the pool.

The next day we did make it into the town, but promptly re-located to the side of a new pool. We played a little pool and ping pong before getting ourselves pretty drunk in the bar. A guy I had met in Chintsa, SA was at the same hostel. He was cooking caterpillars, which tasted pretty awful, and had found a local shooter in the markets that came 20 sachets for about £2. I don’t remember too much after the first few of those. But I felt pretty grim the next morning when I got up to say goodbye to George and Naomi. I was pretty gutted to see them go, they were awesome guys. They left about 9am and I was alone for the first time in nearly a month. No plans, nowhere to go, no flights, buses, deadlines, nothing. For the first time, maybe ever, I was completely free, no responsibilities to anyone, or anything, just the things I can carry on my back, a bloody surfboard and 30 days to either leave Zambia or extend my visa.
I decided I’d head into Zimbabwe, but right now I am sick of writing this, as I’m sure you’re sick of reading this so I’ll leave that for next time.

Hope you guys are all well

cheers to freedom

Lots of Love

xxx

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Photos

Farm land by the Gariep River
just before crossing into Namibia

orange river canyon
namibia

Namib Desert
love this photo

Dunes in the mist
Sossusvlei, Namibia

the skeleton coast
swakopmund, Namibia

Elephant
the waterhole in Etosha

sunset over the waterhole
check the reflections in the water at 11o'clock

Rhino
very proud of this photo, Etosha, Namibia

Implaala
in Etosha, Namibia

Lion
Etosha

More elephants
at the second water hole in etosha

the group photo
thats us from the first leg

the big 5
my team for washing up and cleaning duties. legendary.

the san bushman
botswana

me and the san bushmen
they were really short!

the Mokoro
the Okovango Delta, Botswana

African bee- eater
on the banks of the Chobe - Botswana

hippo
on the chobe river, Botswana

Monkey
in the campsite, Zambia

Victoria falls
900,000,000 litres a seconds. amazing

the falls
as you as you can get

Bungy Buddies!
me and Vivi, looking a lot more confident than we felt before jumping off the zim-zam bridge!