Hey,
I've been supremely busy running around Cape Town this semester and I've been a bit lazy on the whole blog thing, but here goes nothing.
Spring Break 2010-Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe:
About a week ago now, I went on this 10-day camping trip organized by a student travel agency at UCT. There were five groups/buses that went on this trip and ours was called the
"Buffalos". I knew a couple girls from my program on this trip, but not any of my closest friends. That was okay with me though as making new friends is always an exciting experience.
The trip started at 4am Saturday (3/23) morning where we bused to the airport to catch our flight to Jo'burg. I slept for the majority of it. We then boarded our HUGE truck which carried all of our bags, supplies, water etc. This was the one of the biggest trucks i've ever been in. Though I was told the itinerary many times, I was surprised by how long we had to drive. We were headed north out of SA and into Botswana. For the first two days, we just drove and drove and drove but it was a good opportunity for our group to start getting to know each other and getting comfortable.
Serious sessions of Euchre, Hearts, and Righty-Drawy went into action to pass the time as well as rewriting the lyrics to Buffalo Soldier which became our anthem. Our group became pretty tight and we all got along really well.
With us the whole trip were our group leader George, the driver Stephen, and the cook Mxolisi. George is only a year older and goes to UCT but is a very experienced outdoorsman. Stephen was always a character, and Mxolisi was an amazing cook. With only a gas stove and a few pots and pans made the most delicious food. Meals during the trip include: steak and potatoes, fish and chips, as well as some amazing stews and vegetables.
Eventually, we got to the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. The Okavango Delta is the largest inland delta in the world (inland delta= river that spreads out like a delta but does not feed into an ocean and disperses over the land). That evening we hopped in a low flying prop plane to get a cool view of the delta from the sky. It was a much needed reward for many hours of busing.
The following morning we left to camp in the Delta. We bused to the edge of the swamp where we met up with the local guides who took us in mokoros through the swamp to our campsite. Mokoros are a local kind of canoe which is cut from the tree trunk of sausage trees. The guide stands in the back with a long pole, where he pushes and maneuvers the boat. I gave this a try one day and it is surprisingly difficult. It took about an hour and a half to reach the island where our camp was, but it was quite a relaxing ride.
We set up our camp in this cluster of trees which made us feel like it was a home rather than just the bush. That evening we went out on our first walk through the bush to see some animals and the landscape. The animals are generally only out in the early morning and just before sunset because the rest of the day is far too hot to be running around. That evening walk did not yield any good animal sightings, but it was still fun to see the termite mounds, the sunset, and some other common features of the delta. Our guide Cisco, or maybe Sysq
o, was one of the older guides and was thus incredibly knowledgeable about the delta. These men have lived their entire lives in the bush and know how to find animals, avoid trouble, and escape from animals if need be. They did not carry any kind of defense in case of emergencies though, which at first was frightening.
The following morning we had an extended bush walk where we left at the crack of dawn in search of the Big 5. Our first sighting was a large pack of Zebra and Wildabeast. These two creatures generally stick together in the delta because Zebra have good sight but poor hearing and wildabeast have poor sight and good hearing. The duo work together to protect one another. We got pretty close to them and snapped some cool photos.
Later on, we came around this cluster of trees where we came face to face with a wild boar. It was perhaps 30 feet away, just staring at us before it got spooked and bolted. Next, we saw a swarm of vultures perched in two nearby trees. What this inevitably led to was the discover of a dead wildabeast carcass. It was pretty gross to look at and smelled twi
ce as bad as it looked. Later on we found another herd of around 30 Zebra, which we got within 20 yards of. They were all staring us down and seemed a bit threatened, but it was really cool to see them from that close up. We unfortunately did not see any of the big 5 on this hike but it was still really cool. The closest we came we hearing the roar of a lion off in the distance. Our guide estimated it to be 3 km away.
The following morning we had planned to go on another game walk, but the rain came and we were unable to go out. Instead, we packed up and headed back through the swamp to our camp. Our mokoro guide, Julius, seemed to be the leader of the group and so we were one of the two final mokoros to leave from our camp. We loa
ded into our mokoro and waited for another guide to come steer the second one with all of our gear loaded on it. The guide never came though. We went out into swamp to see if we could find this person, but they were no where to be found. We went back to the camp where Julius hopped off our boat and scoured the camp for the missing person. The rain continued to dump meanwhile my tent-mate Ben and I sat getting soaked. After 10 minutes of searching, Julius returned with no luck of finding the driver. Since the trip back to our bus was over an hour long, we could not afford to leave the last mokoro behind so Julius chained the two boats together and steered them both from the back of the front boat. This was an incredibly impresive/bad ass feat when considering it took me about 10 minutes to go 100 feet in one of these things when I had only one boat and nothing loaded in it. Even for the seasoned pro, it was slow going and he was getting tired. Luckily we heard voices of some other boats nearby and they came over to help us get to their camp.
At this point we found out what happened to our missing driver. One of the older women at our camp was supposed to drive, but she ran away from our camp. Why did she run away? Julius said, she was "scared" and "thought something bad was going to happen" and that "she is sick". Ben and I interpreted this to mean that she was scared of the the rain storm and that she thought it was some kind of evil spirit coming to do harm.
We arrived at this other campsite where we found this old women sitting by the burning fire where she just was staring into the fire and rocking back and forth. It would have been more sympathetic to her plight if she didn't have a huge umbrella with her while Ben and I stood there in the pouring rain getting totally soaked. After about a half an hour here, another guide arrived at our new camp to steer the second mokoro and take us back to the camp. We eventually arrived, where our whole group had been waiting and worrying about us. Cell phones don't exactly...work in the delta so they had no idea what had happened or if we were even alive. All was well though, and the couple beers on the drive back to our truck made for a good time as we recounted this story.
Another day of commuting followed as we moved to Chobe National Park in the most northern part of Botswana. In the evening of our arrival, we went on a sunset river cruise down the Chobe river. With our respective drink of choice, we had a fun time cruising and seeing more animals. The highlight of this were all the hippos chillin in the water. We saw probably over 20 hippo swimming, chomping, and playing. The following morning we went on a game drive through the national park. Just before dawn, we hopped in safari vehicles and drove through the park and rough, dirt roads in the park. Within the first 10 minutes we had a flat tire so that set us back a bit, but without too much trouble we fixed it and
moved on. It was really fun driving through the park seeing all kinds of animals. Sights included a sleeping hippo right by our truck, many kinds of birds, impala, kudu, mongeese, and jackals, giraffe, and springbok. The highlights we when we came across an entire herd of buffalo. There were probably over 50 of them crossing the road and as we approached them they surrounded us. It was really really cool and considering our was called the Buffalos it was particularly appropriate. Just after this we also saw 3 elephants, one of which was a baby. Towards the end of the drive we found some fresh lion tracks and followed them, but we never saw the elusive cat.
We Chobe later that morning and continued our travels to our final destination, Victoria Falls. We crossed from Botswana into Zambia and got our the most luxurious camp of the trip. It wasn't too late by the time we got there, we all of us went to the falls. Victoria Falls is epic. From so far away you can hear the rumble, and from high up you can see the splashing water up hundreds of feet in the air. The falls divide Zambia and Zimbabwe, and most of the splashing water fell down on our side. It was hard taking pictures there due to the perpetual rain, but I got a few good ones. Pretty early on everyone was running around only in their swimsuits because of how much water was coming down. The highlight here was a b
ridge connecting to sides of this gorge. The water spray hit here the hardest of anywhere. It was incredibly because it was the air and water are warm and the surroundings are totally lush and beautiful. It was the pinnacle of the trip and made all the driving worthwhile.
We had the next two days to spend at our campsite and around the area where various excursions were available. The following morning I ventured out with some friends to do an extreme sports package. First we repelled down this cliff face in the gorge nearby. Then, we did this zipline across the gorge which was super fun. Lastly, the highlight was the gorge swing. Basically you step off this cliff face, free fall for about 3 seconds and then the swing tensions and you go zooming across the bottom of the gorge and swing around for a bit before you eventually get lowered to the ground.
In the afternoon, I went fishing on the Zambezi river (that which feeds Vic Falls) with the other 5 guys on our trip. We split up into 2 teams and had a little competition to see who could catch the most tiger fish. The Zambezi is a quite fast flowing, so it was hard to fish at times but it was my lucky day. I ended up catching 3 tiger fish, the biggest measuring about 20 inches long and 4 kgs heavy. George, our Buffalo group leader, caught one and no one else caught any. Our team won the bet, and as an additional bonus we got to keep two of the biggest fish. That night we had the local chef cook them up and our group got to a late night snack on some really tasty fish.
The following and final day, started with torrential rain.
We had planned to go on this Lion Encounter in Zimbabwe but it had to be pushed back to mid day. Instead, in the morning we went to the main market across the border. Our group of 8 were the only people in this market aside from the dozens and dozens of vendors all encouraging us to come visit their stand. Bartering can be quite tiring, but after an hour I came away with some cool stuff. At this market they like cash, but even more than that they like to trade for actual goods. I brought some dirty tshirts, a pair of socks, my sleeping bag, an old pair of shoes, and my head lamp. These all were considered quite valuable and I got some good stuff for them. For example, I trade my shoes for a small drum with elephant carvings in the side and I traded my sleeping bag for a cool tapestry.
After the market we visited the Lion encounter where we got to walk with and pet 4 month old lion cubs as well as 11 month old lions. The lions were involved in a rehabilitation project where they would eventually be released into the wild. It was really fun, and after not seeing lions the whole trip it was awesome to come face to face with them. We chilled a bit around the pool in the early afternoon before we headed out for our last excursion, the sunset cruise aka booze cruise. Our whole bus along with many other people hopped aboard this large boat and cruised down the river. There was an open bar the whole time as well as food and good company. It was super fun and afterwards we had a hilarious dance party in this covered auditorium area. The night was full of shenanigans but ended with pranks between the buses at the camp and us sneaking into and sleeping in our bus instead of our ant infested tents.
We flew home the next day from Livingstone to Jo'burg to Cape Town. The trip was a blast, i made some great friends and saw some amazing things.
If you've made it through this entire post, I am most impressed with you and I hope you've enjoyed it. Check out my facebook for more pictures.
More posts to come soon.
amount of good considering how little personal attention they get from their real teachers. SHAWCO is divided up into different age groups and different subject matters and my program is called SMART. We tutor 11th grade students, from the township Khayelitsha, Math and Natural Sciences. Townships are essentially ghettos with mass poverty, violence, and informal housing and Khayelitsha is the largest of these in all of SA.
