Cape Town – The End

16/9/19

As expected, despite the beautiful bed, nice warm blankets and oh so refreshing sleep, Olivia and I were wide awake well before 7:00. As were everyone else as it turns out, so we all met up for breakfast and sat down to chill out. Unfortunately we spent this time looking out the widow directly at Table Mountain which we had planned to visit this morning, and which was covered in clouds.

For a solid hour or so, we contemplated whether to go or not as our plans up the top would in fact require a little more visibility. In the end we decided to take our chances as we knew it would eventually clear up, and we headed out to the cable cars. There we met Brenton and Kerrianne, and headed up the mountain.

I’ve jumped off a bridge and fallen out of a plane, but cable cars – along with Ferris wheels – are awful for me. We were stuffed into a very large cabin with mother 25 or so people and then we went up in the air on our cables. Not too long into the ride up we hit the layer of cloud and suddenly couldn’t see anything anymore.

Once we reached the top, it was basically nothing but clouds anywhere. We found the representative for our activity and agreed with him to wait it out an hour or so and see if the clouds would clear up. Instead, we grabbed a coffee and sneaky piece of cake, and eventually set out to venture along the top of the mountain.

We were walking well into the clouds, with visibility topping at about 15 metres ahead of us. The views over the edge promised to be beautiful, but right at this stage it was nothing but stunning clouds. We decided to do the walk around the top, although we weren’t altogether sure of which way to go since we couldn’t actually see where the paths went.

The strangest feeling was running our hand through our hair and finding it completely damp. Clouds are made of water after all right… Eventually we came to another would-be gorgeous viewpoint and just sat down to reminisce on our trip once more, in the comfort of the covered sky.

Then suddenly out of nowhere, we spotted a patch of blue sky! Then another! Waiting it out a little more, we even briefly spotted buildings all the way at the bottom. With renewed hope, we legged it back to the main building – which we could now see! – and watched the clouds rolling one after the other over the magnificent views we could now partly see.

I went back to the desk, agreed a half an hour window with the guy organising, ad ran back out to start taking pictures. By this point, it was too late for Sarah to join us due to another appointment, leaving only 4 of us to go ahead instead of the full 8 that we had originally planned for the evening before had the weather not gotten in the way. We payed our fees, left our items with Vincent, and went off to get harnessed up.

So for today’s latest idea on how to kill ourselves and end the trip on a super high, we decided to abseil down the mountain. At 1000 metres high, Table Mountain offers the highest abseiling opportunity in the world with 112m of climbing down the side of the mountain. Why I thought this would be a good idea I don’t know, but before I knew it I was climbing down rocks to reach the departure point and our guides that would help us not fall to our deaths.

The clouds were well rolling by now and the views were just as stunning as we had anticipated. Great for photos, but unfortunately it only helped remind me of just how high up we were. Walking off a mountain cliff. Backwards. Up the top of the where we had been, people had started gathering to watch us go off and had the pleasure of watching my cool composed face progressively turn more and more frightened!

Brenton and Kerrianne went down first, and I was pale as a sheet as they hovered over the edge not even grasping the rope that anchored them back to a rock. Down they went into nothingness, and the next thing I knew, I was getting attached to a rope next to Michael, who seemed oh so relaxed while the blood drained from my face.

My instructor Jordan would be the one holding the rope on the top side while I would be gripping on for dear life, more or less, on my way down. He tells me there’s a surprise for me at the bottom, and then starts telling me to lean back. Yeah, I am leaning buddy!!! But there’s a massive cliff behind me and I’m going to fall backwards and this helmet won’t do anything to help that!!

With great patience on their behalf and commitment on mine, I leaned back further and started to let a little bit of rope go through to continue to lean. Terrified of course. Once Jordan was satisfied with that, he told me to take a step back. Lunatic!! Next to me Michael was already on the edge with his heels over the ledge being all supportive to get me over, and slowly but surely I got there, gripping onto the rope with everything I had as my heels hovered over nothing.

So of course they pull out a camera and tell me to put both hands in the air. I was shaking my head in refusal, but they insisted. Up on the top I could hear people encouraging me, entertained by my clear resistance at letting go of the hands. So when I slowly and shakily raised both hands in the air for a picture, I received a round of applause from above – that’s always nice.

“Take a step backwards”. And so I began the climb down, legs straight, letting only a little bit of rope go through at a time, slowly walking down the cliff and absolutely not looking down! The guys then say to take jumps, so I bounce. “Big jumps”, he says, to which I bounce a bit more and yell back that it was a big jump!

The way down felt interminable. I desperately wanted to look down to see how much further we had to go, yet knew if I did that things would end badly. I crashed into the rock a couple of time trying to walk/hop down, and continuously freaked out when I saw myself head more to the left instead of straight down the middle. Not to mention my hands were aching with the strain of gripping the rope.

112m is a long way down. It’s the height of the bungee jump I did so many weeks ago, and to climb down it is loooong (and scary). So when I heard Brenton’s voice below me, I knew it was almost coming to an end, I was almost safe. Only a few more steps and I would be on the ground once again. So I stepped and stepped.

And suddenly out of nowhere, there were no more steps, just a massive giant gaping hole. I look down to try to find the rock, and see Michael hanging mid-air zipping down slowly. With no rock because there’s no rock for the last 25 or so metres. Turns out the “surprise” at the bottom isn’t a beer or a photo session, but just finding yourself in mid-air to finish. So I did the only thing I could do of course: Aaaaaaarrrrrghhhh!!

Brenton and Kerrianne were hysterically laughing below me as I gripped on to the rope screaming bloody murder. I could feel my instructor above trying to get the rope through to get me down, but every time I released my grip on the rope slightly, I went down! The fact that my descent was entirely in my own hands – literally – made this feel even worse than the bungee jump.

Somehow I got to the bottom where another operator met me with a huge grin on his face to unharness me, while I stood petrified and shaking. The others were laughing so hard as I cursed their names, and repeatedly stared back up the ropes telling them there was a massive hole there! Under better circumstances, I might have appreciated the sedimentation, or the natural beauty of the droplets of water dripping down the cliff, but in that instant I saw nothing but the horror I had just gone through!

My hands were shaking, my arms hurt from the strain I had put on my grip to not fall, and my grip had been so tight that the rope burned my skin when I touched it. Hilarious to watch, but my face was still dreadfully pale! As Brenton mentioned, and rightfully so, if I had known about the gaping hole who knows whether I would have gone through with it. So I suppose the surprise element could be classified as a bonus…

With everyone back down on the ground, it was time to hike back up to the top of the mountain. Looks like when they asked our level of fitness before commencing this activity, it wasn’t to huge whether we could abseil or not, but rather whether we would make it back to the top! The “path” we used was little more than an occasional marker placed on one of the many rocks with had to climb over to proceed. Without the guide, I can safely say I would still be at the bottom of the abseil wandering aimlessly hoping not to get eaten by a caracal!

The winds had well and truly blown the clouds away by now though, and we could now fully appreciate the views from the mountain. Table Mountain was listed as one of the “New 7 wonders of the world”. I’m out sold on the need for a new category, but I can definitely agree it deserves its place in this list. The mountain from the bottom is stunning, and the views from the top breathtaking.

Our hike up took a decent amount of time – between the photo stops and trying not to roll an ankle on a rock and fall off the edge… – but by about 14:30 we had made it back to the top. We found Vincent waiting for us by the coffee, received our certificates for the abseil, and finally started to make our way back down the mountain.

By the time we were back at the foot of the mountain getting into a car, we were absolutely ravenous. So it was decided we would fill a second craving today: McDonald’s! 2 months of ham and salad sandwiches opens up quite the appetite for a massive Big Mac and a set of nuggets! Satisfied with our feed, we returned to our hostel to waste the last few hours before our final group dinner.

We met up just before 19:00 to make our way to dinner. Mark and Lizzy had expressed a growing need for Indian food which we were all too happy to indulge, so we had found an excellent restaurant nearby. Good food, great company and a lot of reminiscing, what more could you want?

Unfortunately all good things come to an end, and it was finally time to split up. We stood in front of the restaurant, giving goodbye speeches to the group – often interjected by another story of “remember that time when…” – and said our farewells.

And then Brenton and Kerrianne went their way and we went ours. And then Mark and Lizzy went their way, and we went ours. But the worst part was watching Michael and Vincent say their farewells, after 2 months of tent-sharing and developing the most beautiful bromance. Going to bed that night was not easy, knowing we would not all be getting on a truck tomorrow, armed with our sleeping bags ready to take on the world. And knowing soon it would be me on that plane heading out, alone.

17/9/19

Another day when I could sleep in till whatever time I want, another morning I’m wide awake at 7:00 despite the late bed time. Yep, this trip will have ruined my sleep for quite some time. I can only hope this plays in my favour when I make it back to the UK and that it will pass soon!

I got up slowly and got ready even slower, only to find out Sarah and Michael were just as awake as I was. Vincent had left earlier in the morning to go shark cage diving so would not be back until the evening. I grabbed a free breakfast very quickly and met with the two leftovers to waste our last few hours together and pack our bags. Around 9:30, Michael got word that his transfer had arrived. So we walked him out, hugged our goodbyes and waved him away.

Sarah had booked a tattoo at midday, and with no other better plans I decided I would go with her. The place the taxi dropped us at was an industrial zone, looking extremely dodgy, and I promptly scolded her for doing this journey alone the day before! But sure enough the tattoo studio was there, and 2 hours later out we walked with her new design inked on.

We then made our way directly to the V&A Waterfront where we would be catching our ferry to Robben island – the infamous prison which held political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. We had only about half an hour to spare before we needed to go, so we ran into the first restaurant we found which offered us takeaway options, and ran back out soon after to get to the waterfront.

And that’s the story of how 2 seemingly respectable looking girls get on a ferry with other seemingly respectable looking tourists and devour the life out of a massive burger on the boat! Quite frankly, my main concern wasn’t getting myself covered in burger juice, but rather getting seasick from a freshly eaten meal!

But in the end, to our relief, we were both fine. The journey across took about 20 minutes or so, during which time we were shown the tourism office video of Cape Town, essentially detailing every single activity to do and place to visit during our stay. By the end of this video, I felt like I had seen everything necessary and might as well have just done a virtual tour of the prison rather than put myself through the tour!

Once on shore, we were split up into 2 or 3 buses to carry through the visit of the prison and of the island. I instantly hated this situation. After spending so long with such a fantastic group of people travelling in places of pretty low standard, nothing was more annoying than the self-entitled tourist dissatisfied with the most first-world problems… Not to mention I was missing my group’s laughter and whispered funny remarks in my ear.

We began with a tour of the prison given by an ex-inmate. Our guide had spent “only” 5 years in the prison out of the 30 years, and therefore would have been able to give a more intimate tour of the jail. Unfortunately ours was a much more by-the-book tour with only basic information about the jail which anyone could have given. Apparently some of the other tours got a much more personalised and personal tour, but I guess like game driving, it’s all a game of chance.

Considering how long the prison had been in use and how many prisoners came and went through the halls and cells, the place was in remarkable shape. As political prisoners, the men here were treated slightly differently to other jails. No option for parole or altering one’s sentence, but depending on their political influence and visibility, they were put into different sections, fed differently and given various privileges such us studying opportunities or outside correspondence.

The tour took us around a couple of the sections, including the section where all new arrivals spent anywhere between 3-6 months before being categorised and placed elsewhere. This part in particular included stories from prisoners which had resided there on their treatment, or their lives before imprisonment, which only went to reinforce the meaning of what their sentence really was. After all, many of the convicts were in there for little more than suggesting they may like some equality in their own country.

Further to this, we visited the cell in which Nelson Mandela spent some 17 years. Not too shabby by prison standards, but definitely not a holiday resort. Following this, he had been moved to 2 further prisons before the government finally changed its policy and all political prisoners, regardless of their sentence, were released. They chose to renovate the prison into a museum and the rest is history.

We were then put back on the bus to do a tour of the island itself. Robin island was used also to put away people who simply fit the “undesirable” category of the population, including people being banished for their skin colour or beliefs, and even housed a community of lepers. We were shown the leper cemetery and the church – the only remaining leper building on the island – where some even got married to then go on having children, despite the rules against this.

The island today is home to about 200 people, including some current staff members, ex-inmates and even the some ex-wardens. All these people live in perfect harmony now and the place even offers wedding services and a school for this community.

We drove around for some time, reaching the point with the best view of Table Mountain back on the mainland. The island is several kilometres away from Cape Town, but the city and especially its impressive mountains are very visible. Prisoners sent to work in the quarries or outdoors were served this view as a reminder of where they were really, though some chose to look at the mountain as inspiration and hope.

A few photo stops later, we returned to the ferry terminal and back to the waterfront. We returned to the hostel where we met up with Vincent who had finished his shark diving as well. No great white sharks though, disappointing for him. None of us were in the mood to face the outside world again however, so we decided to order some delivery food and enjoyed it in the comfort of Sarah’s room. Last night to go!

18/9/19

Unfortunately for Olivia and I, the third night in our dorm was not to be as calm and easy as the first 2 had been. One girl checked in after midnight to the dorm, the other whom we had met earlier in the day returned around 3:00, full lights on of course. Add to that several loud group of late-night talkers staying up outside our window, we weren’t too impressed.

Wide awake well before 7:00 once again, I grabbed all of my stuff from the room and did the final reorganising of the bag outside in the entrance hall. To my utter disbelief, it all somehow fit in the big bag, which looked like a tightly wound sausage, ready to explode at the first mistreatment. But it fits and that’s all that matters!

The 3 of us left behind grabbed some breakfast, and then headed outside to meet our tour guide. Sarah would be leaving in a couple of hours and therefore we had to say our goodbyes out by the gate before heading to our van with Caitlin who had booked the same tour. And so our magnificent group of 8 was now down to 2 remaining.

We drove around Cape Town picking up several couples along the way, and then finally started leaving the city. Our destination today: Cape Point, or more precisely the Cape of Good Hope. This is the most southwestern point of Africa,and the dangerous cape which many explorers – including Vasco de Gama – had to navigate around to reach the East.

Ahead of us was one of the most fantastic tours I have ever seen and made me envious: a Harley Davidson tour. These guys were doing the same route as us more or less, but so much breezier. Those without a license rode on the back of the Harley bikers of Cape Town who wore microphones no doubt to provide tourist information along the way, while those with licenses followed behind on their own. In retrospect, I only wish we had known of this tour before, because we definitely would not have been in a van in this case!

We stopped several times on our way down the coast to take some pictures of the phenomenal coastline. The mountain ranges are stunning all the way down, and when you pair up giant boulders with crashing waves on a beach, you get postcard worthy shots, well worth the brief stops. Something I had never seen before and yet makes so much sense were the shark spotters at the top of the mountain with super binoculars to see sharks. To avoid killing dolphins and seals, they had to remove their shark nets and now rely on an alarm system given by these spotters to warn surfers to get out of the water.

Finally just before 10:00, we stopped at a ferry landing which offered brief 30-40 minute cruises to the fur seal colony on the island just off the shoreline. Caitlin from New Zealand gets plenty enough seals when she wants, and Vincent would be snorkelling with these very seals tomorrow morning. As for myself, I’ve seen, smelled, fed and kissed plenty of seals in my life and didn’t need to spend the money here.

So the 3 of us stayed ashore and visited the craft markets on offer. Many times I had to remind myself it was completely physically impossible for me to fit anything else into my bag, no matter how much I wanted the carved ostrich egg! We picked up some coffees, enjoyed the ambient fishy seal scent for about half an hour, and once the others had returned, off we were again!

Our guide provided a lot of very interesting information and history of the cape and of South Africa as a whole. I had known the situation before Nelson Mandela had been bad, but hearing the details from a local put things into perspective once again. We drove past different sectors and communities which had once been segregated and restricted through the separation laws in place at the time.

Our drive took us past an ostrich farm before we reached the front gate of the Cape Point National Park. The national park covers a number of routes and trails on the cape, culminating of course with the very southern point. We drove round looking at the vegetation and looking out for animals, which were scarce unfortunately. But within about a half hour, we had made it to Cape Point.

This part is at the foot of a hill on which the original lighthouse of the cape is placed. Unfortunately for them, as demonstrated by today’s weather, it turns out the lighthouse placement was of poor choice as it often gets covered in low clouds. And if we could barely see the lighthouse from our position at its foot, ships approaching had no hope of course, so they had to build a newer lighthouse lower down.

We were left here with plenty of time to enjoy, so the 3 of us decided for some dumb reason to walk up to the lighthouse – despite the perfectly operational funicular. It might not work well because of the clouds, but they definitely picked their hill correctly for a high vantage point! It took us a good 20 minutes to make it to the top, kicking up a ice sweat along the way.

And it was so worth the climb. The lighthouse has a beautiful view looking out to the bay and over the Cape of Good Hope further down. At least I assume it does. All we got was cloud, cloud and more cloud. With a nice strong, moist wind just for good measure. So we didn’t stick around the top very long and made our way back down to the parking lot.

We had several lunch options here and threw ourselves on a couple of pizzas before briefly walking around the souvenir shop. We had had the option of walking down from Cape Point along a coastal path to the Cape of Good Hope further down, but felt that we just didn’t have enough time to make it there by foot. And also that we had walked, climbed and hiked more than enough on this tour and didn’t absolutely need the extra bit here.

At 14:00, we hopped back onto the van and drove down to the Cape of Good Hope directly. A beautiful sight overlooking the cliff side awaited us there, and we almost regretted missing out on the walk if only for the views – no clouds down the bottom! We took our pictures and went on our way back to the entrance gate of the park and further up the other side of the coast.

Our next stop was Boulder’s Bay, home to a colony of African Penguins. These adorable little flightless birds are about the size of fairy penguins, maybe a little smaller, and are endangered. Penguins normally prefer the very cold temperatures of the Antarctic regions, but these African penguins have gotten used to the warmer wether of the Cape and thrive as much as possible here.

We walked around the boardwalk areas watching the small birds waddle their way around the beach. The wind was brutal down here, and brought sand with it making it feel like razors on our faces and bringing back my favourite crunchy feeling! Here we ran into a few of our other tour members by coincidence, who were busy making their way in reverse to us, and had the chance for one last goodbye before heading back to the van, leaving the penguins and friends behind.

The final stop for this small day-tour were the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, supposedly the 7th most beautiful in the world. With the stunning view over the back of Table Mountain, this is a well-deserved title. However none of us were all that interested in botanical gardens, and instead started y hitting up the cafe where I tour guide had said we would find scones with jam and cream.

10 minutes later, disappointed at the complete lack of scones, off we went into the gardens. We walked around only a little bit until I saw the sign for the treetop walkway, which I had seen images of in the video on the ferry yesterday. We decided to go check it out and found the rest of the group there as well, so we rejoined them and finished the walk all together.

We were dropped off at our hostel at 18:00, where Vincent and I said our goodbyes to Caitlin and the remaining members of our tour. Although we had been invited to dinner with whomever was left, I felt it was safer to stay around the accommodation rather than stress out over dinner and have to return in a hurry to pick up my bags and head to the airport.

Vincent stayed behind also, and instead we hit up the hostel bar/restaurant for a last beer together. Eventually however, it was time for me to pick up my stuff and make my way to the airport. Vincent walked me out, we said our final goodbye as well, and I drove off leaving him as the sole survivor of our amazing eight-some.

And so ends the most incredible and emotional experience of my lifetime. Over 58 days of touring this massive continent, more than 12,500km travelled overland, and a good 3,000 photos to sort through upon my return. As I sit in transit in Nairobi airport awaiting my next flight, I can hear the announcements for places that now bring so many memories: Dar Es Salaam, Livingstone, Zanzibar, Cape Town. Where once upon a time these names meant little more than a dot on a map, today I fight the urge to just get on any of these flights and go right back to it all.

And so much has changed, in what feels like only the space of a heartbeat. I have made friendships that will last a lifetime, my already inexistent fashion sense has died once and for all, my foundation no longer matches my skin tone, I can’t fathom looking at a ham and salad sandwich – or a tent for that matter! – for a long time, I will forever be picking sand out of my pockets and I look at every bush on the side of the road assessing whether I could pee behind it or not!

More than that, my perspective on life in general has changed. Yes, you should finish your plate because there are children in Africa with no food. But oh my are those children full of joy with what little they have! And that in itself should be inspiration enough to see the bigger picture. I’m no philosopher, but to end this diary on a thought for the future: with the right attitude, something as simple as waving at someone and getting a wave back can bring joy and adventure to your day. So cherish the little things!

Fish River Canyon – Orange river – Cederberg – Cape Town

12/9/19

With a long drive ahead of us, we left the campsite by 7:00 with our packed lunches ready to go. Most of the day was simply a blur, just sleeping through the drive. Occasionally I would look up from under my blanket to see more mountains and more sand, but that was about it. Getting well bored with the sand now…

We arrived at the campsite around 14:30, and were shocked to still be cold getting off the truck. This time we are definitely int he Southern Hemisphere during winter! The reception of the campsite was a nicely made up roadhouse style restaurant, which most importantly offered us Wi-Fi, and thus a brief portal to the outside world after a few days of nothing.

Once we had set up our tents we made our way to the pool area to chill out for a little while. Not to swim because it was freezing, but just to use up the free 100mb of internet each of us had for the day. I also used this time to swap from shorts into longer pants. I’m no hero, I’m a wimp and I’m cold!

Ali picked us up at 16:15 and drove us to Fish River Canyon. As the name entails, the canyon had a river flowing through it called Fish River – though apparently has no fish. At this level of dryness, barely any water was actually left, but I believe even in the wet season the level is never one of a full river.

The canyon itself is spectacular. Depending of how one calculates the size, this is arguably the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon of course. Most interestingly, it was formed both from tectonic movement originally and then through erosion, offering visible differences in sedimentation throughout.

Ali dropped us off at one of the lookouts and pointed us to the other lookout where he would pick us up after the sunset. We had ages to do the reasonably short walk however, so we took our time admiring the spectacle. And taking photos all the way through. Including a number of silly group photos, making the most of our last few days together.

The main lookout offered a lot of information on the canyon and the people who used to live here. At times, it is also possible to do a trek inside the canyon and through to some hot springs about 80-90km away – that’s a 5-day trek. Judging from how massive it looked and how high above the river bed we were standing, I can safely say I am not attracted by this idea in the slightest, but I can appreciate the walk would be amazing.

Once the sun had set behind one of the rock formations, we finally hopped back onto the truck and made our way back to camp. Justin had been cooking during our absence, and therefore our dinner was almost ready when we arrived. To my delight, the showers were boiling hot – a welcome treat given how dramatically the temperature had fallen during the evening. Expecting a very cold night’s sleep on this one…

13/9/19

It’s very possible that this night was even colder than the night we spent on the Ngorongoro crater a few weeks ago. I went to sleep with socks, jumper and beanie, Sarah zipped herself up in her jacket and then sleeping bag. And still we were freezing all night long.

In the morning, all we could see were shapes of people wrapped in their blankets trying to put down their tents with frozen fingers. Screw fashion, I was proudly sporting my pretty purple blanket as well and had absolutely zero intention of letting it go. It makes packing up slightly more difficult, but I cannot stress enough how cold it was – Only Lizzy the crazed British was enjoying this!

Today’s programme was mainly a short enough drive to our campsite. We stopped along the way at a set of shops for a bathroom break and to pick up some last minute drinks and snacks, and made it to camp by about 10:00. With heavy hearts however, as this was our last drive in our beloved truck, Tana, which due to having a UK registration was not allowed to cross into South Africa with tourists onboard.

So began the awful task of taking all of our items off the truck, emptying out our lockers and checking under the seats. And then to get onboard Rumphi, our South African registered truck to finish the tour. After already losing our tour leader and driver, losing our truck was simply the final blow to our hearts, and watching Tana drive away definitely left a pang.

The campsite on the other hand was fantastic. The pool was massive – albeit freezing as usual – with a nice bar serving cheap cocktails. Most importantly, the view from the bar area was beautiful, overlooking more mountain ranges and the Orange River. Across the river, we were looking directly into South Africa, our final destination of the trip.

We headed to the pool bar for a cheeky drink before lunch, and returned shortly after lunch was done. About half the group decided to do a canoe safari during the afternoon, but I decided I could use an afternoon of relaxing and reading with cocktails once after the other. And with perfect timing, I was able to sneak in a super hot shower just before the rest of the group returned from their excitement.

For dinner, someone had suggested to Justin that we should make carbonara for dinner. He agreed whole-heartedly, but the condition was that we do it ourselves. So I, along with a couple of others, stepped up to the challenge of making carbonara for the whole group, without any cream – Italians would be proud…

If I’ve now learned one thing, it’s that I will not be hosting parties for 20 people at my house without ordering food in, ever! Between the stress of getting the doses right for each element, cooking a separate portion for our gluten free members and a 3rd portion for our vegetarian/non-pork eaters, all this over only 2 hobs, it was definitely an experience I will not be repeating any time soon!

In the end, it took us just over an hour and a half – for a dish I make in 20 minutes or less at home – but tasted quite nice. Despite the lack of cream, garlic, pepper, or even the correct pasta and lardons. Justin gave us the run-down for the next day, and before long we were snuggled in bed in our freshly cleaned tents. One more sleep to go after this!

14/9/19

Most of the morning pack-up was spent trying to figure out how to pack this new truck. We had breakfast and packed sandwiches for lunch so we wouldn’t have to stop on the road for too long. South Africa is currently experiencing some riots and strong xenophobia towards other Africans with many people having been killed in the last weeks. Us mzungus are perfectly fine, but Ali and Justin were clearly uneasy – and rightly so – about stopping too long in any one place.

It took barely 15 minutes to reach the border crossing to South Africa. We left Namibia without any hassle, then drove about a kilometre to the other border which took a bit longer. Eventually we retrieved our passports, got back on the bus, went through a customs check without the sniffer dogs – a shame as we would have loved to pick them up to reach the lockers at the top of the truck – and we were through.

So welcome to South Africa, our last country on this itinerary! The landscape difference here is striking. While the southernmost part of Namibia had finally started getting a little green with a few more bushes, the more we drove into S.A., the greener it got. Fields of agriculture and vineyards can be seen all around and the beautiful mountain ranges are actually covered in green, not just rocks.

Unfortunately although the conditions of the roads had greatly improved, the condition of the truck comfort had significantly decreased. Rumphi’s suspension has long since died – if he ever had any – and every single bump jolts the truck in every way possible. Quote of the day: “I can feel the exact layout of the road in my bum!”. I attempted to get some sleep which resulted in great neck pain from basically head-banging the whole time – with video proof, curtesy of my bored co-travellers.

You would think the extra greenery would make the bushy bush stops easier, but turns out not so much. Field are delimited on the side of the roads and fenced off leaving very little room between it and the road to get a cheeky pee in. One of our options had a solid meter or 2 of dip between the road and the fence, which made us get a climb in with our toilet break. Suffice to say I look forward to no longer having a challenge ahead of me each time I need to pee!

The drive took a long long time, as we were covering some 600 or so kilometres. Well and truly bored out of our minds – and aching all over thanks to the new truck – we finally made it to our final campsite around 16:30. We were offered an upgrade, but after all this time, this last campsite would be special and dammit were we going to camp it out one last time!

The campsite was situated in the middle of several vineyards and itself farms grapes for making wine. As such almost the entire group took part in the optional wine tasting experience to try to the local vintages. 6 wines later – including a particularly smooth and strong dessert wine – and we were ready to dinner and party!

Dinner was offered by the accommodation this time, in an effort to keep our newly cleaned equipment as clean as possible. Add to that a few more glasses of the local wine, and you had a very happy group celebrating their last official night on tour. We cranked up the music in the bar, and danced up a storm until our host kicked us out of the bar – and the pool! – around 23:00. Last night in a tent!

15/9/19

And thus, for the last time we put down our tents, in the cool dark morning hours. Justin made us some french toast for breakfast, I went up to the bar to order a coffee for the road, and then off we were. With only 240km or so to get to Cape Town, we were apprehensive at splitting up once arrived, yet eager to let go of the bad new truck that hurts.

We stopped along the way for a quick ATM stop and shops. This included a KFC which Michael and I threw ourselves onto. I’m not normally into fast food chains, but I have to admit this trip has made my heart leap every time I spotted a KFC. Looking forward to not touching it again!

Around 11:00 or so, we started the drive into Cape Town. It is so completely different to every town we have been to in the last 2 months. For starters, it’s a big city of course, but it feels so out of place after seeing so much of “real Africa”. Big shopping centres sky scrapers, fancy restaurants. I simply wasn’t ready for all of this.

We finally made it to the hostel which marked the end of our trip and would be the accommodation for most of the group. While a few people had gone for single rooms, I had booked the cheapest possible option and found myself in a dorm room. To my delight however, despite the 6 beds it looked like only Olivia and I would be sharing the room.

After checking in, we all started going back and forth between the truck and our rooms, trying to clear out absolutely everything from our lockers and chairs. I said goodbye to my pillow, blanket and sleeping bag which I would not be taking with me, and carried the rest of my immensely large amount of stuff to my room.

When it became apparent that our plan for the afternoon of getting to the top of Table Mountain wouldn’t work out because of the windy weather, we figured it was time for a late lunch. After so many days of packed lunches, there was one craving we had spotted on the way to the hotel: Pizza Hut. Finally I was devouring a Hawaiian pizza – judge all you like, I like my pineapple pizzas! – and feeling all the better for it.

We returned to the hostel where Kerrianne and Brenton picked up their stuff and headed off to their own accommodation a few kilometres away. For my part, I decided it was time to start reorganising my bags. More specifically, the bag made up for tent purposes and the souvenirs left in the back of the locker for the whole trip now needed to all make their way into the big bag. By the time I was done, it still looked like I had achieved nothing!

A few hours off being alone took its toll on all of us though. After so long being constantly surrounded by people – even when sleeping alone in my tent, there was still always another tent nearby – it felt strange to suddenly be alone in quiet silence. So I got ready for dinner and headed to Sarah’s room, where I found Vincent had already had the same idea! How will we ever live without our big group?!

The whole group met up at 18:30 to head out to dinner. Following a recommendation, we went to a place which served a mixture of African dishes from all around the continent, and did so with music and entertainment. An all you can eat serving of food, though by the time we were through with all the included items, we were way too full to order any additional serves!

The restaurant was phenomenal though. While the decoration was already splendid in itself, the entertainment was just great. Once we had sat down, a woman came around to do some basic face painting on each of us with some traditional motives. Musicians and dancers came around several times offering songs, costumes and the opportunity to join them in dance, and it made for a fabulous last night all together.

Although our smaller group of 8 would still see each other in the following days, it was the beginning of the end for the rest. We said our goodbyes to those not staying in the same lodging or flying out the next day, and hope to see the rest in passing one last time before the final goodbye. It was beautiful to finally rest once again in a bed with a real duvet and blanket, but this could only mean we would soon be split up for good, and that did not help the sleeping at all.

Swakopmund – Sossus on foot – Little Sossus

9/9/19

After so much excitement and a sleepless night, I slept like a log – or slept like a rock as has become our new saying after our outdoor sleeping experience! In fact we all did, so much that no one heard poor Sarah being sick during the night. In the morning, we headed to the breakfast area and grabbed some eggs and bacon to get us ready for the morning exercise. With that we were even able to convince Mark and Lizzy to join us for a morning of fun, replacing Sarah who chose – and wisely so – to sleep off the morning rather than join us in our latest stupid idea.

At 9:30, 13 of us headed out into the Namib Desert on the outskirts of Swakopmund, pumped and excited for yet another dumb way to test our mortality. This time, we’d chosen sand-boarding as our method of death. The concept is simple really: you climb up to the top of the sand dune, and then you slide back down. Some of the group went for the stand-up version, where you get a snowboard and do your thing trying not to roll over too much and hopefully land some jumps.

The rest of us less coordinated folks went with the lying down version. Essentially you get a wooden board to slide down, head first, as fast as you can. Sound stupid enough? Yep! The description of the board capabilities included the lack of breaks, the lack of steering, and the lack of windshield. Essentially keep heading straight, do not steer at all, just let the dunes take you where they want or you wipeout. And break with the feet – if at all – and scream with your mouth closed unless you want sand for lunch!

We were armed with a helmet and elbow pads, given a board and then pointed up the dune. Wow that is hard! I knew walking in sand offered resistance, but this was so much more than I had prepared myself for. Getting to the top of that dune was absolutely exhausting, and when you add sand blowing in your face in the process, it makes for quite a difficult climb.

Once at the top of the dune, we were offered some cups of water – the sand really adds a nice crunch to it! – and handed freshly waxed boards to each of us. I decided the shoes had been a terribly bad idea, making the climbing that much more difficult, and took them off. Let’s get breaking in the super hot sand bare foot!

We were shown once how to get down the dune, and then it was our turn! Knees on the edge of the board, grab the front and lift it up, elbows out, and DON’T STEER! I’d like to thank my pilates instructor for the “superman pose” – basically lifting the upper body and legs up straight, using only the back muscles. It worked absolutely perfect for the aerodynamics required to get maximum speed sliding down.

I had been sure I would be breaking the entire way down from fear of speed, but in the end the rush of sliding down as fast as possible was too much to resist! The first dune even had a guy at the bottom standing with a speed gun to measure our speed. And I managed the top speed for the day on this dune, at 45km/h. Freaking epic!

The only downside of sliding down the dunes was that each time you got to the bottom, you had to climb back up… Even when walking in the footprints already made in the sand, the experience was exhausting and goodness knows I could feel my calves and bum by the end of the day! And of course we were completely covered in sand. Head to toe and everywhere in between!

On occasion we would take a break in between dunes – more specifically climbs – to watch the stand-up boarders while our guides re-waxed our boards. Nothing more satisfying than watching someone take a jump off the platform and face-plant the sand on their landing! All in good fun of course.

One of our dunes was done in tandem, so Katie and I went down first. Her sitting in front holding the front end of the board up, me in the back with my hands in the sand to steer the board around. And down we slid like lunatics, with no idea of the direction to take and minimal control over our high-speed engine. Fantastic!

On another dune, the stand-up boarders were also given a chance to slide down lying down and compete for the highest speed. This course included a good dip which, when taken at high speed, resulted in a bit of a jump – and rough landing! – only to then finish on a bumpy track. With my 63km/h, the bumpy arrival meant I am probably now infertile, but oh so well worth it!

I maintained the top speed record on this dune as well for the first run through, but Michael was determined to win this one. Personally, I was determined not to climb the damn dune again! So down he went with absolutely no breaking just hoping for the best, and he managed a 69km/h. Not good enough, down he went again this time being launched wheelbarrow-style by the guide to reach 70km/h on this one. I happily concede defeat here: I was done with the climbing!

Our final dune was one crazy dip, followed by a second smaller dune if you went fast enough to catch it. I was so keen on carrying it through, but alas my board began to spiral meaning I had to tap the ground several times to straighten it, making me slow down and just miss the second dune. Michael didn’t waste any time though, threw reason out the window and flew down the second hill, probably reaching about 90km/h according to our guide.

We returned to the cars and ferociously attacked the eski with drinks, downing can after can from exhaustion. The organisers pulled out some sandwiches as well which went down wonderfully. Climbing sand dunes opens the appetite! We then called it a day and returned to our accommodation where I proceeded to empty my pockets which were carrying probably about half of the Namib desert. The other half was in my ears, nose and places I won’t mention, so I think I earned myself a nice long shower!

We decided to spend the afternoon walking around Swakopmund and looking for a nice coffee place. Swakopmund is an interesting town, resembling the large American country towns in my opinion. Large roads, a lot of pick-ups and SUV’s and shops everywhere with few locals. Still, we found our coffee shop and indulged ourselves in real beans instead of instant coffee – magical! – before grabbing some ice cream and doing a last shopping round for snacks.

Once back at our hotel, we were rejoined by Steven – our camera guy for the day – who had put together a slideshow of pictures and a fully edited video of the day. It took over half an hour to go through, but oh so worth it! Seeing the crash landings and wipeouts in high definition on a large screen made our day and we once again made a great impression on the other residents as we cheered each face-plant on screen!

After the videos, we replayed our skydiving videos for Mark and Lizzy who had missed the viewing yesterday, and then headed out to dinner. The 9 of us opted for a nice looking German pub where I picked out what I believe may well be the most beautiful piece of fish I have ever eaten. Then it was back to the dorm room, a quick repacking of the bag and crashing out on the bed ready to leave Swakopmund in the morning.

10/9/19

We were rewarded this morning with the latest departure time of the whole trip: 10:00! Of course after almost 2 months of early morning starts, my body clock didn’t particularly care about how late it was, and thus I was well awake by 7:00. Not such a bad thing, since I managed to get breakfast, type up some more diary and even make a run to the ATM.

Justin went out desperately looking for bananas in the morning, so we left camp a little bit delayed, but made good time on our drive. This part of Namibia is even dryer than when we were near the Botswana border. The landscape is basically nothing but sand, sand dunes, rocks and more sand. At times we passed some mountains of solid dry rock, and then back to more sand.

Unfortunately this means no bushes for bushy bush, as there is one small tree every 15km, and shrubs reach no higher than about 30cm. So bushy bush became sandy sand, with the girls taking turns to squat behind the truck, waving at the occasional car driving past. Alas, that’s not discreet enough for my liking, and we were right back to a good old psychological blockage!

We had lunch on the side of the road next to one of the solitary trees, with another solid amount of wind. We carried on through towards our destination, with our next stop being the Tropic of Capricorn. It’s surreal to think that not so long ago we were crossing the equator – twice – and the 8 of us were a bit emotional to see how far we had actually travelled all together.

Around 15:30, we made it to our campsite: Sossus-on-foot – affectionately nicknamed sausage-on-foot by the Aussies. It’s basically a campsite in the middle of absolutely nowhere, sand and desert everywhere all around. But a very nice middle of nowhere. The facilities were nice and clean, the bar area was chill but offered cold drinks, and there was even a watering hole where we could observe some oryx’s coming in for a drink. This place also had heaps of leopard-tortoises, cute little things running around the camp area.

We spent an hour or so relaxing at the bar before meeting Franz, our local guide for a desert experience. We basically just hopped in a 4×4 and drove around the desert area, but we learnt so much in the process. Franz showed us flowers that could stay dead for years and revive with the touch of water, he showed us sand and web “trap-doors” used by spiders to trap beetles for their lunch.

The dunes looked beautiful and even more so with the sunset. I kicked off my shoes and made the most of the sand, to hell with spiders and snakes and scorpions! As soon as the sun went down, the temperature dropped and the sand became cold. But turns out if you dig into the sand a little bit, it’s nice and warm under there. While the dunes are covered by iron particles which can be collected on a magnet.

We returned to camp fairly late, but thankfully dinner was almost ready by then. Given how isolated we were, the stars in the night sky looked absolutely splendid. I don’t think I’ve seen the southern cross so clearly in years. Michael pulled out his camera once again of course, this time to catch a full group photo with the campsite, one last shot as we quickly approach the end of our epic tour.

11/9/19

Our very early morning departure was made slightly easier as Justin decided we would have breakfast directly at our first stop instead of before leaving. So at 4:45, we were all curled up in our sleeping bags and blankets on the truck, catching up on our missed sleep.

Ali punched the accelerator on the gravel roads so much that we arrived well in advance to the National Park. In the end we sat in front of the gates about 20 minutes before being let through to continue our drive. Needless to say we mostly slept through all of this, past all the dunes barely visible in the rising sunlight.

Finally we reached our destination: Dune 45. The National Park has hundreds of dunes formed all over, of which this particular dune is the most famous and most photographed of Namibia. So it makes total sense that rather than just sit there to admire the view, we would decide to climb to the top of the thing…

After the repeated dune climbing from our experience at sand-boarding, I had been sure I would decide to stay at the foot of the sandy formation to just look. And yet so early in the morning, before breakfast, I decided it wasn’t too hot and the dune wasn’t too high. So up I went with the majority of the group, while Justin stayed back to make us a breakfast for heroes.

The sand was quite cold on the way up, but I’d learned from my experience and went up barefoot, holding my thongs in my hand to simplify the climb. In the end it wasn’t nearly as tough as I had anticipated, no doubt thanks to the cool temperature. The main challenges came each time we had to cross paths with another tourist heading back down the dune. Whichever one of us moving out of the way found himself sinking almost knee-deep into the sand, which naturally requires even more energy to climb back to the path of footprints.

But soon enough I had made it to the top of Dune 45, overlooking the rest of the park’s dunes all around. By this point the sun was coming out just enough to warm us up but not yet hitting the scorching degrees we could expect in the middle of a desert. We took a few photos all over, proud of our achievement and then progressively started our way back down to the breakfast.

As I descended via the main path with Kerrianne, a few people were veering off-course and high legging it down the slopes of the dunes. When Brenton made it to the bottom like such without toppling over, he started to call us down as well. I had just tripped to avoid a tourist and ended up straddling the dune – entertaining sight but still – so we decided to risk it and leg it down as well. Sinking down to our knees, leaning way back to avoid falling, and doing a proper Baywatch run all the way down. Turns out it was a lot of fun!

We had our breakfast and then hopped back on the truck to continue our journey through the dune park. We stopped a little further on where all the other tourist trucks were also stopped – and with nice bathrooms! – to swap to smaller 4×4 cars. These took us through the sandy road all the way to the tallest dune of the park: Big Daddy.

I’m not sure of the exact height of this dune, but I understand it is about twice the height of Dune 45. By this point I had well decided I had climbed enough dunes for one trip and that the view was not worth the effort required to get it. So while half our group decided to tackle the climb, the rest of us wondered around the “Small Flay”.

This area used to be a riverbed once upon a time, joining all the way to the ocean. But as years passed, wind and sand would get in the way creating massive dunes in the way and blocking the river further up. The process is still ongoing today, with new dunes slowly forming up-river and progressively blocking the water flow. The result: a completely dead and dry landscape, but for the standing Acacia trees which can stay green for several hundred years after death.

We climbed the smaller hills of sand to get some beautiful shots of the area, before returning to the car area to wait for our friends to return from their digestive morning walk. A couple of people returned in advance to the truck, but I stayed behind to welcome the walkers open armed – and with bottles of water!

In total they took about 2 hours to get to the top of the dune, run back down and cross the deserted salt pan area we had walked up to. Including a multitude of photo breaks, I’d say their time was fairly impressive! Once back, we joined the queue of people waiting for 4×4’s to take them back to the main truck area, and finally got back. I had checked out the bathroom situation at the Small Flay, and had been convinced very easily to just hold it in because nothing was worth that! So when we finally got to the truck, we dropped everything and made a mad-toilet-dash before heading off again.

Ali stopped the truck once we made it to a campsite at the other gate of the National Park. Here we pulled out our food items and went about making some sandwiches for a late lunch. We also picked up a couple of cold drinks for the road, and before long we were off again through the sand, dunes and rocky mountains to our campsite.

We got to the campsite around 16:00 or so, and immediately rushed to the pool to dip our sandy, beaten and dried-up feet into the freezing water. Once this is over, I think I’ll need to book a solid pedicure to counteract the effect the desert has had on me! We then put up our tents, I showered and did my laundry, and we grabbed a drink at the bar quickly before heading back for dinner.

The view of the sunset over the mountains was beautiful and well-worth braving the cold temperatures that were quickly settling in once again. Damn deserts. For the fun anecdote of the day: I saw one of the campsite dogs walking around our tents in the dark and called out to him to come get a pat. No response from the dog, so I stopped whistling, and watched with surprise and a bit of horror as the shape turned around and ran off, with long bat-like ears and a fluffy tail. Yep, I was calling out to a jackal… Smart move!

Spitzkoppe – Swakopmund

7/9/19

After another night listening to elephants making noise all night long, we woke up almost refreshed and left the campsite at 7:00, when the gates opened. We drove through the park without seeing anything special, and soon enough we were back on the main road heading to Spitzkoppe.

On the way there, we stopped for a quick shopping break to pick up snacks and drinks as our campsite tonight would have no facilities at all. A little further up, we made another stop for lunch where I proceeded to finish off the crepes Justin had made for breakfast. Too much Nutella never hurt anyone…

The early afternoon was insanely hot once again. Between the super crowded bus, the sun coming in through the windows, and the water turning hot, the rest of the drive was thoroughly unpleasant. We finally made it to the entrance of the main campsite area where we stopped for a quick toilet break – the last nice toilets for 24 hours – while Justin signed us in.

We then drove another couple of kilometres into the camp area to a desolate place with nothing resembling human interaction other than a hut with some pit latrines. We hopped out of the truck in the middle of the desert, surrounded by some stunning rock formations all around us. No time to waste, we started to walk off to one of the rocks in the distance.

There we met our local guide who was showing us the rock paintings found on this particular rock. The paintings are only about 2000-4000 years old, so nothing to compare to the ones I was used to in France, but they were much clearer because of it. A couple of people hunting, a lion, elephant, giraffe and even an ostrich, and an incredibly well detailed rhinoceros.

Our Little Rock painting tour finished, we walked back to our truck to sit in the shade for a little while and get a drink that was more or less cold. Around 18:30, all our group except Sarah and I went up to climb the big rock we were parked in front of to go see the sunset from the very top. The 2 of us decided however that given we didn’t have any shower options here, it wasn’t worth climbing a rock in the sweltering heat and sun.

Instead, we pitched up our tent as aa backup scenario. The plan for the night was to camp out under the stars on top of one of the rocks in front. But as I expected it would get a bit cold during the night, Sarah and I figured it couldn’t hurt to have the tent pitched up already in case we gave up halfway through the night.

We had our dinner ready around 20:00, as the wind started to pick up a little bit. But it wasn’t quite cold yet so the plan to sleep on top of the rocks was going ahead. A couple of people also put up their backup tents, but the majority had decided to just hold it out for the night.

I went up in 2 trips, starting with mats for Sarah and I, and then followed by the sleeping bag/pillow/blanket combination. We split up into 2 groups on 2 separate rocks, leaving the full 8 of us doing the full tour on our own little bit of rock, along with Katie whom we decided to adopt into our close-knit group in Livingstone. The area we picked was in front of a cave area, but unfortunately it was too steep to sleep on. Instead we selected the dried up river bed, and enjoyed the stars before a nice outdoor sleep.

8/9/19

Well that was a royally bad idea! When we had set up our beds, it was only mildly windy, just like a soft fan above our heads. As the night went ahead however, the wind got stronger and stronger. At one point we realised each one of us was turning around and therefore was awake, so we started to discuss just how strong the bloody wind was.

Out of nowhere, I see a blanket fly off, followed by a pillow, followed by Kerrianne legging it behind the items trying to catch up to her pillow. Then suddenly another pillow flies off, which I managed to catch mid-air, and I see Mark come running after it. He grabs the pillow, and then started to chase after his mattress which had then flown off. Lizzy was in hysterics, and quite honestly so were the rest of us.

Thankfully it wasn’t too cold contrary to my expectations, but I still undertook the next level of human cocoon to facilitate sleep: human larvae. This time I slid as far into the sleeping bag as I could – gripping on to my pillow in the process – and wrapped myself in my blanket. Then I pulled the pillow in as much as possible, tried to hook the opening of the sleeping bag under the pillow, and somehow it helped. Though the wind was still blowing into the sleeping bag and the blanket every time I tried to turn.

We woke up several times during the night of course, often bursting out laughing as the wind only kept getting stronger and stronger. My only movements were limited sticking a hand out of the sleeping bag occasionally to check that my jumper, shoes and water bottle were still there. The rest of the time, it was like having a tent folded on top of my head. And the worst part was that as much as I would have wanted to go back to our tent, I was sure I wouldn’t make it down the slope with all my stuff with this wind.

When my alarm eventually went off at 5:45, it scared the life out of me, and managing to get out of the sleeping bag enough to dig out my phone was a real challenge. The wind was still howling just as strong as before unfortunately, so it was clear the walk down would in fact be as difficult as predicted. As was the process of packing up all our stuff and trying to put shoes on to walk down – all except Kerrianne who had lost one of her sneakers in the blanket/pillow fiasco around 1:00 in the morning!

As I begun trying to fold my blanket while still sitting on the sleeping bag and pillow, I suddenly got wacked in the head by a flying mat. I looked up and saw Brenton running like mad after his mattress until eventually he had to give it up and return empty handed. That was enough for me to decide not to risk it. So instead of wasting my time trying to fold my sleeping bag up, I grabbed all my items, threw them into the sleeping bag which I then launched onto my shoulder, keeping the mattress firmly in the other hand. And that’s the story of how I walked down a rock in almost pitch black darkness, getting pushed around by wind and looking like Santa Claus with his sack!

But that’s not where the party ends! Once back down the rock, the sight in front of us was complete chaos. Turns out the wind at the bottom of the rock was almost as strong as on top, and the tents did not enjoy that! Luckily, Max and Nora had given up on trying to sleep around midnight and headed down to their tent. Just in time to catch the other tents flying around. With Justin’s help, they took down the tents and threw some chairs over the top to keep them there.

Around 4:00 apparently, Michael had given up and, armed with nothing but 2 blankets, had climbed back down. Once at the bottom, he had tried to re-pitch our tent to crash in there, but quickly gave up and moved to the truck. All of our stuff which we had left in the tent however had gone all over the floor. I went tent diving to try to get everything out – hopefully my toothbrush is still somewhere in there! But good news: the runaway mattress and lone shoe were found stuck against a tree in front of the truck!

Justin was setting up breakfast as we were trying to pack up our tents. We tried to convince him to drop the idea, since most of us had gotten little to no sleep and were feeling pretty crap, but he pushed through. Nevertheless, we managed to leave before 7:00 and were out cold for the entire drive to Swakopmund.

We made it to our hotel from at 9:00, and to our delight we were given a massive dorm room to fit the whole group. With a few people leaving us I Swakopmund and a few more upgrading, the 24-bed down was given to only about 11 of us, making it nice and spacious. There will be some pretty solid bag repacking going on in here!

A few of us quickly showered and we met back up to have eggs and bacon with Justin – nothing better than second breakfast! Afterwards, we sat in the bar area and got the full speech and video on the multitude of activities we could sign up for during our 2-night stay in town.

A few days ago, while discussing some of these options in advance with the tour guys, I had been convinced of giving into peer pressure for the dumbest idea yet. And the lack of sleep did not help in making a sane decision either. So less than an hour after the talk, there I was, signing a bunch of disclaimer form and getting in a van with 9 others on tour to go do yet another dumb thing on this trip: skydiving!

We drove about 20 minutes out of town to reach the skydiving base. There Frank, one of the main instructors, gave us a brief introduction and safety briefing, reminding us that we would need to be comfortable with sharing our “personal bubble” with one of the instructors. So basically if you’re not comfortable with sitting on a stranger’s lap, maybe sit this one out!

The plane could only hold about 3 jumpers with their instructor and cameraman each. So we were taken up in turns, based on height and weight. Which meant I was left to the last plane ride with Vincent and another tourist. As the last group was up in the air, we were called up to gear up, and that’s when the nerves – which had been steadily building until now – really started to kick in. I was nervously dancing around to the songs in the background, and even more nervously watching the plane very high up in the air suddenly dropping 2 small dots all the way up there only to finally open a parachute and land safely and happily.

The speed of turnover was incredible. Frank did every single jumping round, with barely enough time to use the bathroom in between. He just walked off the plane, handed his parachute bag to the colleagues, walked into the hut to pick up a new bag and name of the next guy, then walked back out to find his jumper and dragged him back into the plane.

Before I knew it, out came Jack smiling at me, shaking my hand, and taking me to the plane. Holy shit I was shaking so much. The plane was a beautiful yellow with fire painted all over it and a phoenix on the tail – the bird that is literally famous for dying and resuscitating, great choice… But no seats. No seatbelts. And seriously dodgy looking doors. Nothing to inspire me.

Jack sat in the far corner of the plane, then sat me I front between his legs. Then in came Frank, who came in and sat between my own legs with Vincent in front of him. Parachute bags are large and not comfortable when stuffed into your crotch! So with a small dose of banter about getting to know a guy before spreading my legs, in came the next instructor with his tourist, our camera guys sitting at the back of the plane, and we were off.

Taking off when sitting backwards is definitely a weird feeling. And doing so without seats was more than a little unnerving. But the instructors definitely didn’t give a crap. One pulled out his kindle and started to read, another started texting on his phone while a third was playing a racing game. Chilled as they were, I was the complete opposite: legs shaking, fingers tapping against the knees, and occasionally exchanging glances of pure dread with Vincent in front of me.

At one stage, the other tourist turned to me and with a big smile told me we were halfway to his jumping height, and mine would be 3 times our current altitude. Given I had been looking out the window thinking “Oh shit we are so high up!”, this latest piece of information only made me freak out even more.

Before long, the pilot and instructors started making hand signals to each other, which I understood meant something along the lines of “5 minutes before you throw this idiot out the door”. His instructor started to get him ready, and all too soon the door was opened in mid-air. I genuinely squealed as this guy whom I had never met before suddenly fell out of an airplane at 10,000 feet of altitude. What kind of a sick idiot jumps out of a plane?!

At this point I am still not attached to anything or anyone, staring out the door into absolute nothing (except the ground all the way down there). My instructor sees me squirm and says “no, no, we are staying here”, to which I replied: “yes! Yes very good idea, let’s stay here!”. That made him laugh of course… They then shut the door, Frank and Vincent sitting in front of me moved up to sit where the other guy had just been, and up we went again.

When the hand signals started up again, Frank handed his kindle back to the pilot and my nervousness levels on a scale from 1-10 were probably at about a 12! We were asked to sit on our instructors’ laps while they hooked us up. I watched intently as Frank attached Vincent to every possible harness, knowing that behind me Jack would be doing the same thing.

With one minute to go, at least Vincent was starting to look a bit nervous as well! His camera guy got into position, then the door was opened again. How were we so freaking high up?! I stared in absolute horror as Frank went to sit on the edge of the plane, dangling Vincent out of the plane completely like a human bum-bag – thanks Lizzy for the perfect analogy.

And then the camera guy launched out followed by Frank pushing off the edge and taking my friend out with him. Much like with the bungee jump, I think the worst sensation – retrospectively – is not the jump itself but watching someone you know leap off a plane (or bridge) to their certain death. As I sat there horrified at the loss of a dear companion, I wasn’t given much time to contemplate as already my own camera guy was moving to the outer part of the plane, and my little bum-bag self was being edged towards it too!

Within seconds, I was completely in the air, with my legs bent backwards UNDER the plane! Deep breaths, deep breaths! At 15,000 feet (about 5km for metric people), I could see nothing and no shapes, only sand and desert. And that’s not good! Jack pulled my head backwards and told me to open my eyes, because obviously I had them shut by this point! Then he rocks me forward once or twice, and before I knew it, I realised the camera guy was still facing me but not holding on to the plane anymore. Which could only mean one thing.

So there I was, plummeting to my death. I looked out and could see the plane just there getting rapidly smaller. So obviously I did the only thing I could do: Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!! For about 3 seconds or so. Until my brain recalibrated and realised I was facing a 60 second free-fall, so realistically there was time before I crashed into the ground, so might as well save my breath and enjoy the ride.

From there, it was an absolutely incredible feeling. It didn’t really fell like falling more just like a super powered fan blowing at me, while the ground – still oh so far away – slowly became more detailed and clear. My camera guy was just smiling at me, showing me to blow kisses at the camera, and even to try to “swim” in mid-air. Breaststroke in the air. Yep. What an idiot.

Then the camera guy pushed away a little bit, and the next thing I know we are spinning around! All I could see was nothing, nothing, camera guy, nothing, nothing, camera guy. And I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Until he stopped the spinning. And then started spinning in the other direction. Enter the sudden desire to spew again.

But nothing happened except the sheer exhilaration of looking out to the floor spiralling to my death. Absolutely phenomenal. Although the falling felt like an eternity, and I soon became acutely aware of our lack of parachute. Which got me thinking I was really hoping it would come out sometime soon. Because the ground was definitely getting closer now.

To my delight, I watched my camera guy suddenly wave and disappear below us – and I had watched them all land before the jumpers at an insane speed, so I knew where he had gone. And then I felt a massive jolt from behind me, I was sprung into an upright position and my legs went flying above my head. The chute worked!!!

From here we glided down happily, chatting along the way – nice guy Jack! I could see another parachute further down below which could only mean that Vincent had survived his jump as well and was heading to the floor gracefully. When it was our turn to finish our decent, I lifted my knees high into my chair – the complete opposite of a normal landing gear… – started kicking in mid-air when we approached the ground, and jack landed us with ease where I was able to put my feet down on solid ground.

As soon as I was unhooked, I did a bit of a happy dance and fist bump/high fives my crew guys before walking off back to my cheering group of friends. Although walking is probably not the right word, more like shakily zigzagging towards them given the ground was still moving and every muscle in my body was shaking. They took my harness off, the jumpsuit went back, and I ran to the bar for a can of coke to get a much needed sugar rush.

As we waited for our USB’s to be ready with our jump photos and videos, our driver – Craig – decided we couldn’t wait empty handed. So he took us to the bar, told us the owner of our tour company is a good friend of his and that he was buying us a round of beers. Since we had met the guy in Livingstone, where he had told us he’d buy us a round but too late, we took him up on the offer to put it on his tab and said to tell him it was to make up for taking Pete and Francis away from us – he’ll know what it means!

Once we were back at the hotel/dorm area, it was time for the second run of the big show. One after the other we plugged in our USB’s to the big TV in the bar area and watched in horror as each of us jumped out and fell for an interminably long amount of time. With that done and dusted, we got changed and headed out to dinner by the waterfront.

A few of our newcomers were finishing here in Swakopmund, so we had agreed to go to dinner the whole group together. The place looked a lot fancier than we had expected, but to our relief the prices were manageable and we enjoyed a nice German dinner – everything here is German! It was a freezing walk back to the accommodation but we barely felt the cold given how exhausted we were. The lack of sleep last night and the crazy day we’d just had meant we were all fast asleep well before hitting the pillow.

Windhoek – Etosha National Park

4/9/19

The fun thing about deserts is that, while it is scorching hot during the day, at night it gets insanely cold. So we were absolutely freezing as we packed up our tents, had our breakfast and hopped into the truck bright and early. Despite the overcrowded state of the bus, we pulled out our sleeping bags and blankets once again and somehow managed to make it work to finish off the night.

After a few hours drive, we made it to the Namibian border, ready to cross into our second last country of the tour. We went through the process fairly quickly considering we had expected a few hours worth, and soon enough we were on the other side. As we left the immigration offices, the 8 of us felt a twang of pain at the thought that it was this damned immigration that prevented us from finishing our tour with our amazing tour guide and driver.

So welcome to Namibia! The landscape here for the most part is similar to Botswana: dry, arid and thorny bushes to pee on. Our first city stop however was a lot more built up than we had previously encountered. Turns out Namibia mines diamonds and has a very good deal for it. Add to that some booming tourism and you’ve got a pretty good economy.

Interestingly, because of their history of changing hands between the Germans, British and South Africans somewhere in there, the street names are often in German, some signs are even in Dutch, and there is a crazy amount of white people everywhere. We grabbed some money and some beer, a quick sandwich, and off we were for another few hours drive.

Around 15:30 we finally made it to Windhoek – the capital. Now this is a sight to see. The city is very modern, with very expensive housing all over the place. After well over a month of shabby housing and questionable roads, it was surreal to suddenly find ourselves in a place comparable to any city around the world.

Our campsite was equally as fancy as the town. After setting up our tents, we headed out to the pool area – small pool but very cold so it wasn’t much of a fight! – and bar area. Vincent and I decided to try our hands at the different Shandy’s on offer, a traditional non-alcoholic Namibian drink. Not half bad for something that doesn’t have any rum!

I got to take a nice boiling hot shower in a large open-aired shower area for once, and started to get ready for dinner. Right next to our campsite is a famous restaurant called Joe’s Beer house, which serves dishes from a German background and, more famously, a wide variety of local game meat. So of course it was no surprise that the entire group wanted to go and try some of these delicacies.

We walked to the restaurant and were amazed at the sheer size of the place – and how incredibly white it was! Honestly, it was like stepping into a German beer house, only the decoration had a ew more crocodiles and lions than usual! We opened with a few cocktails and shots for those willing to go hard, and followed through with many of us ordering the meat platter which consisted of kudu, springbok, oryx, zebra, and a random chicken breast.

I shared mine with Michael and Katie, splitting it with their pork belly and schnitzel respectively, and no regrets: it was amazing. Because of the sharing process, we got a little bit lost on which meats we were trying, so I can’t say for sure which was my favourite and least liked ones. But overall I loved them all and was delighted when some of the girls offered us their leftover meat they couldn’t finish off.

We had arranged a cake for Justin as well to celebrate his birthday today. By the time it came out, I was already pretty full but a sneaky vanilla sponge slice of cake never hurt anyone… It was also a nice welcome to our final newcomer joining us in Windhoek, bringing our bus to completely full with 24 people for the next few days of long driving. Looking forward to it!

5/9/19

We left the campsite at 7:00 and made our way off towards the National Park we had been looking forward to for quite some time: Etosha. Famous for great game drives and home to many rhinos, which we were hoping to find for the sake of Brenton and Kerrianne who had missed our very first game drive on day 1 – so long ago!

After a couple of hours, we stopped at a shopping centre to pickup food supplies for the next few nights. This is apparently the largest Spar shop in Namibia (if not Southern Africa) so we were extremely excited to get a wide choice of products to snack on for a few days!

We continued for a few more hours, stopping once for a bushy bush stop which was literally just the one bush with nothing else for kilometres on end, so we had to go one at a time. For lunch, we pulled out the table and made our side-of-the-road lunch, this time in the middle of nowhere so no interruptions from kids staring at me while I ate.

By mid-afternoon, we had made it to the entrance gate of Etosha National Park. Justin had to go sort out our papers, and then we were off to game drive our way to our campsite. In our truck Tana… With 24 people in the back… In 37 or so degree heat… The experience was unpleasant at best, and we were all relieved to have made the decision of paying extra to get some 4×4 cars to do the drive tomorrow.

We did spot a couple of elephants, steam bucks (if that’s how they’re spelt) springboks and some oryx along the way. But the heat was atrocious and having to press the button or make stop signs in the window to communicate to our driver Ali to stop, or even reverse to try to find the animals, simply sucked. So we made it to the campsite excited for the game drive of the next day, and definitely wanting to hit up the pool as soon as possible!

Unfortunately for me, I had another priority to go for before pool time: laundry, and lots of it… By the time I had finished cleaning all my stuff, it was a bit late to get in the pool, so I went for a shower instead and then started to do the dishes while the cooking team started making dinner and the boys went to catch the sunset up on the tower of the campsite – which is a very very fancy and expensive accommodation nothing to do with the Serengeti camping we did.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Vincent and Michael came back to our kitchen/camp area running wildly. No way were they that excited about dinner, surely?! Well no, turns out from the top of their tower, they could see the campsite and beyond, they could see the watering hole placed to attract the animals – much like at Elephant Sands – and they spotted a couple of male lions walking towards it.

The rest of us dropped everything and sprinted off. I don’t know when the last time I ran was, but this campsite being absolutely massive did nothing for my fitness levels – gonna need to hit up the gym when I get home! But the run was well worth it because by the time we made it to the watering hole viewpoint, there they were!

There were a few giraffes around the pool – much larger than the small drain at Elephant Sands – but when the lions started approaching, the giraffes took off to give them space. The cats weren’t there to hunt, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe just in case. The sight was beautiful though. 2 fully grown male lions and a couple of jackals just having a drink at a calm water hole, perfectly reflected into the water.

We must have stayed about half an hour watching them before they eventually decided to head off, and we figured it was time for us to go as well. After dinner, Justin gave us another long speech about the rest of our itinerary before letting us clean up, pack up and basically head to bed.

I thought I would go for an early night’s sleep, but just as I was about to hit up the tent, the guys suggested we go check out the watering hole again and I tagged along. Absolutely great decision as it turns out, since when we arrived, we were awestruck as we saw at least a solid dozen giraffes standing shyly away from the watering hole where 2 fully grown black rhinos were having a drink.

Brenton and Kerrianne were ecstatic of course, but dammit so were the rest of us. Especially when out of nowhere, 2 more rhinos appeared to have a drink. In the dark, they are camouflaged so perfectly with the rocks that we didn’t see them until they were right on the other rhinos’ bums. They all sniffed at each other to identify who was whom – bad eyesight – and returned to drinking and even going for a bit of a swim.

I can’t say for sure how long we stayed there watching the rhinos, but it was quite some time. And watching the giraffes cautiously try to approach the water to drink while trying not to get charged by the rhinos. I don’t think they play very nicely… Eventually we went to bed full of excitement and very much eager to see what the following day would have for us out in the middle of the park!

6/9/19

Never thought I would see the day where I would wake up because of an elephant trumpeting at 2:00 in the morning, or a lion roaring before sunrise. But turns out animals are loud all night long as well. Anyway. We were up by 6:00 and ready to go by 7:00. Unfortunately the drivers were running late, and therefore we didn’t leave the campsite before just about 8:00.

The morning was quite cold at this stage, though I expected the heat to start up within a few hours and become unbearable again very soon. Since we left late, the sun was already well and truly up though, so our hope of seeing big cats still out was pretty much non-existent. Instead we satisfied ourselves with a lot of springboks and a hell of a lot of ostriches.

Etosha National Park is filled with several natural and man-made watering holes. The appeal of which being that all sorts of animals show up here to get a drink. And within the national park, that’s a LOT of animals. Our first stop was filled with springboks and ostriches, a few jackals running around and even a few lions in the far back having a sleep.

We drove around for a little while until we came to an area with a couple of trees and a lot of cars stopped around them. Under the shade of one of these trees was a pair of cheetah brothers lounging around. They were unfortunately too far for clear photos, with many thorny bushes in the way, but we were able to spot their little heads bobbing up and down, which of course was cute. Further down, we spotted a rhino equally as far and behind bushes. Hard to see but at at least we got rhinos last night so we were’t too disappointed.

We stopped at several other water holes along the way, including one which had hundreds of animals gathered around, from zebras to wildebeest and a couple of giraffes along the way. I had the pleasure of seeing a little baby zebra prancing around and chasing springbok just for the fun of it. A nice cute sight.

For lunch, we drove into another campsite, equally as fancy as the one we were staying at. We had our potato salad with chicken, and enjoyed nice clean toilets for our short break. With access to cold drinks and ice cream, because by this time it was very hot and only getting hotter.

About 6 of us had decided to do only a half day game drive, because we knew it would get seriously hot and we would have no time to relax. Plus, after so many amazing game drives, we felt that the crazy hot, dry landscape of this particular savannah wasn’t that appealing, and we knew the hot sun would deter the cats from coming out. So we hopped in one car to return back while the rest continued on their tour.

A fantastic decision for us as it turns out. We had plenty of space to spread out and not heat up too much, and I even decided to put my feet up on the truck cabin for full comfort. Most importantly, our drive was about 75km back to camp, so we still had plenty of occasions to spot some animals.

As expected, no cats in sight in the open sun, but our first waterhole had several herds of elephants playing around. A few of the young males started to fight for the fun of it which made for an impressive show, especially with the dust everywhere. Meanwhile the others enjoyed a bit of a mud bath and general swim around. The smaller ones in particular were endearing as they swung their trunks in the water happily, clearly showing off how happy they were.

We stayed at the watering hole for a good 20 minutes before carrying onwards. We spotted a large group of springboks standing under the shade of a tiny acacia tree, which I perfectly understood given how “tanned” my arm was getting in the full sunlight.

Eventually we made it back to the area where the cheetahs had been, and somehow our driver managed to spot them under a tree once again. This time with no cars anywhere nearby, all to ourselves. As such, we decided to try a little experiment and pulled out the animal noise app on Michael’s phone. And we started to play the cheetah sounds just to see what would happen.

It took a couple of tries, but suddenly both of them jumped up into an upright sitting position. Hello photo opportunity! And what a beautiful pair they were. They just stood there, just for us and no one else, for a solid 20-30 minutes before another car showed up, and they decided the excitement of the cheetah sounds had dissipated and it was time to sleep again.

Just as we had almost made it back to camp, our driver stopped the car, right over a small drain/tunnel on the road. He told us they had spotted lions there earlier, and he was “making a plan”. He grabbed a blanket, told us to get ready and look on the other side, and then started flapping the blanket on the entrance of the drain hole.

For a couple of seconds, nothing happened and we figured the guy was a bit of a lunatic. Then all of a sudden, a male lion and his 2 ladies – one of which very pregnant – jumped out of the drain and turned around to stare at us. Not happy at all, and for a second it looked as though Mr Lion was going to jump the 3 metres required to get into our car. But he walked back in with one of the females, while the pregnant one took a little while longer, glared at us menacingly and slowly went back in.

With all that emotion, we were finally ready to return to camp, and made it to the very cold pool by 15:30. I went in for a quick dip before proceeding to catch up on a couple of days of diary. When I decided to go shower however the campsite turned off the water all around. I ran around in my towel between about 4 different showers until I had to accept I simply wasn’t washing my hair right then.

Disappointed, I grabbed a beer – the only cold drink available by this point – and started helping out with the cooking after the rest of the group came back to camp. No lions and no standing cheetahs for them unfortunately, so we definitely had made the right choice in going back early. Just before dinner, we went to the watering hole and caught a mum and baby rhino getting a drink with a few elephants. Worth it!

We gobbled up our dinner, and then decided to head to the watering hole once again to get some last glances at the animals. A lonely jackal was running around the campsite at this point but unfortunately too fast and in the dark for photos. However the watering hole offered us yet another rhino and hyena to check out before finally getting some sleep.

Maun – Okavango Delta – Maun – Ghanzi

1/9/19

Yesterday was a very chill day, and so I decided again to skip the day’s diary. We left Elephant Sands fairly early in the morning and made our way over to the town of Maun. Once we got to the campsite, we had lunch and a few people went off to do a scenic flight. The rest of us could go into town to shop around and wait for the flights to finish, but I decided to stay back with a couple of people. A wise decision in the end as the town’s appeal had been greatly exaggerated apparently!

This morning, we were getting ready to head out to the Okavango Delta overnight. Armed with our day-packs, we hopped onto our ride for the morning. Our ride was an open-air truck, with the seats set out laterally facing outwards. No seat belts, no wind stop, and no sides of the truck to keep us safely in the vehicle: perfection!

The morning had already started off being cold, but with the open sides of the truck, we moved on to freezing. We all sat there squished like penguins, wrapped up in our hoodies as much as possible. Essentially a bunch of penguin eskimos. Fancy looking people.

On the way, we stopped briefly at a hotel to pick up food supplies that had been made ready for us. 3 massive crates placed at our feet, right in front of our seats. We were already poised against the sides of the truck to not fall off, but from this point the level of comfort for the lucky few sitting in front of the crates dramatically decreased with this new addition!

After a solid 2 hours – most of which on bumpy, sandy roads which made us hate life – we finally made it to the Delta “station”. Essentially it’s a hub of mukoros – a local canoe pushed around with a pole – to get everyone across the Okavango Delta to our camp. Each canoe could only take 2 people and a guide/poler, so we paired up and off we went.

The first 5 minutes were quite terrifying. The boat goes quite low into the water, we’re sitting with our bags between our legs and the guide is standing the back pushing the canoe around with a pole and trying to keep the balance. I was less than confident about the safety of my camera in my backpack, expecting us to tip over at any point and have to hold my bag high up above my head.

But I the end the ride was quite pleasant. Just over an hour of travelling along the delta through very tall reeds. It was a very pleasant trip, almost peaceful and relaxing, despite the constant threat of crocodiles, hippos and water snakes. Or worse: jumping spiders and frogs. I just knew if a frog jumped on the boat, I’d be swimming the rest of the way there!

The campsite we were staying at had our tents ready for us, complete with camp beds and a toilet in the back. Or rather a pit toilet in the back, and on-request bucket showers. Very luxurious. Unfortunately for us, we had to wait about 2 hours for lunch to be ready, which for a bunch of ravenous people was not an easy task. But well worth it in the end, as they served us a local dish which tasted fantastic.

We had a few hours to waste after lunch, so a few of our group members decided to try their hand at the mukoro manoeuvres. We were taken to a smaller and shallower part of the delta – you know, to avoid the hippos… – where I grabbed Vincent’s phone to take photos and went on to encourage our boys to pole around. To my disappointment, they did splendidly and did not fall in.

Around 16:30, we headed off to our game walk. Having done the walk at Lake Naivasha, this one turned out to be quite underwhelming as we walked a lot, on sand, to see only a couple of giraffes and zebras mainly, but from quite a distance. Our guide was keen on giving the fun facts of animal poo, picking up different poos one after the other and showing us the animal’s diet. Interesting stuff, but I was hoping very much that this guy would not be on the cooking team for dinner…

After the walk, we were offered a full 3 course dinner: soup, stew and dessert. I had hoped to get an early night of sleep, but we were called around the camp fire for some fun and games. The tour guides provided some singing and dancing, then started on a round of memory and reflex game – which I actually almost won, losing the tie-breaker in the end – and then some riddles. So much for an early night!

2/9/19

Vincent tried out the shower bucket in the morning, but the fear of running out of water right in the middle of the “soap” phase made me decide to skip it this time. We got up nice and early and were served a quick breakfast before packing up our stuff and heading back out to the delta and the mukoros.

From the edge of the riverbank, we could very clearly see no less than 3 hippos swimming around in the water which we were about to cross. I thought for sure we would be stranded and need to wait for them to leave, but instead we were each put back on to our mukoros and headed out, going along the sides of the pool until we reached the small canals and made our way back out. Needless to say that entire time, my eyes never left the hippo heads bobbing up and down in the centre of the water!

The ride back to shore was a lot more relaxed than it had been on the way out, and I took the risk of taking some photos along the way. Even though the wind made the water ripple and made our guide wobble a lot more. And despite the fully grown hippo we crossed along the way, which went from standing on the bank to sliding into the water and made the boats go a lot faster all of a sudden. After all, they do hold the title of the most human deaths by animal around here…

After about an hour, we made it back to the shoreline and hopped back onto the uncomfortable lateral-facing truck. This time, I got the crates under my feet and I confirm: the level of comfort drastically drops with that. By the time we had gone through the bumpy roads, highway, and bumpy roads again, my bum was completely numb and my back begging or mercy. So I was really excited to get the afternoon off to relax.

We didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the day, so we spent our time going back and forth between the bar and the pool. The highlight of the day was one of the cats roaming around the campsite which was very friendly and purred so loud it could be heard all around the campsite. Reminded me of my first cat actually. We were eventually served dinner at the restaurant, and I chose to catch up on the sleep I’d missed the night before by having an early night.

3/9/19

What a luxurious morning! We were able to sleep in till about 8:00 and were then awarded crepes for breakfast. Between 24 people having breakfast, more or less, it made for much fewer pieces than I had had with Pete before, but I suppose 2 crepes for breakfast is a good start. Especially when paired up with Nutella. I’ve now earned the nickname: Nutellodie.

We left the campsite at 10:00 and drove off towards our next stop in Ghanzi. Along the way we had to stop once again for the foot and mouth control. Once again walking out in the incredibly hot sun and walking on a wet cloth. Getting a little tired of this so I’m hoping Namibia doesn’t play this game as well.

Once in Ghanzi, we stopped to pick up snacks, drinks and help Justin with the full shopping for the next few days. Considering we have a full day drive coming up tomorrow and the day after, we desperately needed to stock up again. Plus it offered an opportunity to pick up some hot lunch, because quite frankly, I think I’m at my limit of how many ham/salad sandwiches I can eat.

We made it to the campsite around 15:30 or so and put up our tents in the sweltering heat of the Kalahari desert. We then spent some hours lounging by the bar for some cold drinks but before the internet was turned on. The joys of being out in the middle of nowhere: limited electricity…

At 17:30, we were met by our guide Robert and a small group of Kalahari bushman. These people are still following the ways of their traditional people and refusing as much modernity as possible. And for the first time, these definitely felt authentic. No Rolex, no smartphone, not even shoes or any knowledge of the English language – hence Robert acting as our tour guide.

This tour was absolutely fascinating. For starters, the language of these people is like nothing I had ever heard before, with a lot of guttural sounds and clicking their tongue as part of a sentence. They were dressed inn animal skins – mainly dik-dik skin – which they dye with a special root they dug out to show us. The aim of this being to camouflage them further and make the skins water resistant.

Our guide did the translation for us, but the people took turns in acting out full scenarios of what they were explaining to us. One guy showed us how they would have hunted back in the day, using poison on their arrows to wound their prey. This bit was easy enough to decipher, but when they started explaining their medicinal roots, it took some imagination and made for a lot of laughter. When a guy starts acting out diarrhoea in his own language you can do nothing but laugh really.

We were introduced to a root which is used for soap, and were given a demonstration with the water brought in one of the women’s water bottles: an ostrich egg with a root shoved into a small hole to keep the water in. They too were fascinated with us as some of the ladies were on their very first tour for foreigners. They were in particular intrigued with one of our guys’ calves, which are basically just rock-hard muscle, and started to tap them and grab them asking what he ate to get them so tough! Priceless!

Once back at the campsite, I chased Robert down to try to ask him some more questions about the bushman way of life which I found fascinating. The main interest was on how they survive, given that the government has forbidden them from hunting. Consequently they have been forced to do this sort of tour guiding to make money to purchase their meat instead of continuing their traditions.

Dinner tonight was Eland antelope steak, and boy oh boy was it good stuff! So good I went back for more and am very excited about the upcoming game meat experience we’ve booked ourselves into. About halfway through Justin’s explanation about Namibia, a few of us had to excuse ourselves to go watch the traditional dances of the bushmen.

The dances proved to be equally as interesting as the tour itself had been. Apparently they use medicinal dances as a last resort when their traditional medicine doesn’t work for the ailment the doctor is trying to fix, and dance from dusk until dawn. We were shown some of these dances, which are named usually after an animal and expressed in the moves. My favourite has to be the truffle dance, which goes through the motions of searching for truffles, finding and eating them, along with cracking them all over the floor to make new truffles for next year.

With the dances over, we went back to the tent and watch Michael try his hand at the astrophotography again. This time with amazing results! But no time to reflect on those for too long, we had an early morning departure the next day and needed all the sleep we could get before the long drive into Namibia.

Chobe National Park – Nata

29/8/19

After meeting up at the bar to have some cake for Brenton’s birthday, we ran into the boss of our tour company, currently spending a few days of holiday in Livingstone. We attempted to get him to help us out in our plight of course, but he claimed to have no connections at the Namibian immigration. I suppose by this stage it would make no difference anyway, and we had accepted this fate.

We eventually all hopped into 2 taxis and headed out to the restaurant Pete had recommended. We’d understood he was very keen to go and were delighted to take him and Francis there. Especially when he told us it had been about 5 years since he last went out to dinner with his tour group further proving that we are by far the best group ever!

It turned out to e a brutal dinner. The food was very nice, as were our drinks, and we had a great time there. But when we finally got around to each of us giving a small farewell speech, it was not easy for anyone. Not to mention this was also our last night with Jess, TJ and Jo who would be going down to Pretoria instead of Cape Town. A few of us – myself included – definitely got tearful, and watching Pete’s face only made it harder.

In the end we finished dinner so late that we decided to cancel the clubbing plans and head back to camp. We started to say our farewells here, it soon enough decided it just wasn’t right and that we would all just get up early to see each other off. For my part, I headed out to my new tent, since we had swapped out. My amazing and easy hooks were now gone, replaced by a tent with bad hooks and a very high door – one I was sure to trip over at some point going for a night bathroom run.

I was awake nice and early, packing up my tent with Sarah’s help – who having lost Jess, would be my new tent buddy moving forward. As we were finished in time, we all met up and made our way to the truck heading down to Pretoria. There we met our 3 family members leaving the tour, along with Pete and Francis coming to wave them off. Some very heartfelt goodbyes went down, and before long were were chasing after their truck as they left.

We then went back to our truck for some breakfast with the new people. We started packing up everything, and to our horror, Justin packs the truck different to Francis. I could see he looked none too pleased about his baby being packed wrong, but what can you do?

Soon enough, the final farewells came about. We grabbed a few more photos all together, lots of hugs, and climbed onto the truck. I think the newbies on our tour think we are all crazy, as we drove off with our group hanging out the windows yelling goodbyes at our tour leaders yelling back at us. Only those joining the tour from Pretoria understand our difficulties, having just spent a week together before also splitting from their group and leaders.

And then, with a turn of a corner, there were only 8 left. In a group of 23, plus Justin in the back with us, but that’s not the point of course. Off we headed towards the Chobe river, which acts as a natural border between Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Although they are currently building a bridge to connect all countries to facilitate crossing, for now it’s a good old fashioned ferry that acts as a transition.

We were stamped out of Zambia and then jumped onto the ferry. Out of the 3. Ferries available, 2 of them were out of order, leaving only the one which frankly did not inspire a lot of confidence. The control tower was on more of an angle than the tower of Pisa, and when we got on, one of the crew welcomed us by saying “you can all swim right?”. The river wasn’t so large that it couldn’t be swum, but I strongly suspect the crocs or hippos would have gotten us before making it to the other side!

But without too much trouble, we made it across and went to get stamped in. We walked through a bucket with wet cloths to wash our shoes and limit the risk of foot and mouth disease coming into the country, and then we were off. So welcome to Botswana!

About an hour or so later, we stopped at a shopping centre to get some cash out and pick up some snacks and drinks before heading straight to our campsite. We made it there by lunch time and immediately put up our tents in a hurry. The heat was insane, and it’s hard to believe this is actually winter time for this country, but at least we wouldn’t have to actually get into our tents until after the sun had gone down.

We rushed off to start our game drive straight from the campsite. Somehow the drive trucks that picked us up worked out to a small and a large one, meaning the 8 of us fit into the small one perfectly with the rest of the group climbing into the larger one. We felt bad isolating ourselves from the group for the second day in a row – having skipped the sunset cruise and dinner the night before in favour of our farewell dinner – but the reality was that after 40 days of travelling together, and all the emotions that came with it, the idea of splitting up to mingle with others was not an option.

So off we went to our first game drive in almost 3 weeks! I’m sure know you’ve all missed stories about wildlife as much as we’ve missed seeing them, so here goes! We started out by running into some kudus, another type of antelope with very curvy horns – which can grow up to a metre long! – and some light stripes on their back. They also have a weird hump on their back making them almost look like camels, but very pretty camels.

We saw a few impalas along the way, the odd gazelle here and there and even a giraffe. Different to the Masai giraffes that we have gotten used to, this one was lighter in colour with smaller patches. Still, a giraffe is a giraffe, and it’s a beautiful animal. We also spotted several hippos in the water and a surprising amount walking on grassland in the distance, grazing on one of the islands along the Chobe river. Good old standing hippos.

One of the surprising highlights of this drive was a juvenile owl we spotted in a tree. For a nocturnal creature, he sure was making a lot of noise up there! But what a beautiful bird – look at me birdwatching all of a sudden… – and what an impressive beak it has. I would not want to be one of the cute little banded mongoose we saw in the park when this thing flies out to hunt…

The main highlight of the drive was actually the elephants. Chobe National Park is home to about 150,000 elephants, and given the intense heat provided with the dry season, they all have to congregate at the river bank to find water, lest they die of dehydration. We actually came across a poor elephant who had died a few days earlier from a heat stroke, yet somehow had not yet started to get eaten by the cats – despite the intense smell he gave out.

In any case, the need for water meant we could see maybe a hundred elephants around the river, or running down the sandy slopes in front of our car to get to the river. Some were drinking – with the babies still struggling to figure out their trunks to get the process going – while others were enjoying one hell of a mud bath to protect from the sun. The best were the elephants we spotted crossing the river to get to the islands, with their little snorkels/trunks sticking out from the water like a weird snake. I love elephants!

After our game drive, we were taken directly to a safari boat landing to do a game cruise. By this point, most of us were quite tired – especially those of us who had already done many game drives – and the insanely hot sun did nothing to help this. Not to mention the lack of drinks available on the boat – this was no booze cruise!

The boat cruise was pleasant enough though. We spotted quite a few hippos and crocodiles, a few buffalos of course and a large number of elephants splashing around in the water. The cutest was the mother elephant trying to teach her calf to cross water in a shallow location, but failing miserably as the little one would waddle in until his tummy touched the water and then promptly run back out!

Around 18:30 we finally made it back to the campsite, absolutely shattered. We helped Justin out with the cooking, which turned out as a very nice past bake. It’s not Pete and Francis, but it will do! A quick shower and run up to the bar for some Wi-Fi, and it was bed time. As an introduction to Sarah as her new tent buddy, I decided to bring forward my prediction and tripped my way into the tent. Fun times!

30/8/19

We were awarded a luxurious sleep-in this morning, which unfortunately my body clock decided to ignore. As we were ready well in advance, we helped Justin with making some breakfast and packing up everything, and hit the road by 9:00.

We stopped at the shops once again for a last minute round of snack shopping and alcohol supplies before heading off. We took another quick bathroom/shop stop a few hours later, and then continued to drive on in the sweltering heat of the day.

After a few hours, we hit a health road block, once again working to prevent foot and mouth disease. Botswana is one of the major exporters of cattle meat and a lot of other produce, and therefore they are very strict on ensuring all is kept clean and safe from disease. This involved us walking on the wet cloth mat once again, and putting our extra pairs of shoes on it as well, while an official checked we had no fruit or meat in our truck. Which totally had not been moved to a locker temporarily until after the border…

Our campsite was very soon after the border, and called Elephant Sands. Because it has a lot of sand, and a lot of elephants. The camp has a man made waterhole in the centre which elephants come to drink at. Unfortunately because of how dry the weather currently is, the actual waterhole was dried up leaving only a small gutter with water flowing in.

Of course, this situation means there is only a small space for all the elephants in a fairly large radius to come for a drink. Which of course leads to a few squabbles between the big guys trying to reach the water. It’s quite impressive to be sitting not 3 metres away from these massive gentle giants when they start trumpeting and chasing each other.

Around the campsite, you can see pointy rocks arranged in several rows around the bar area, toilet block and each cabin. The aim of this being to prevent the elephants from reaching out to the pipes and pulling them out to get water. It works well enough for the bar area – although they apparently sometimes jump over them to reach the pool at night – but the water reservoir at the back of the toilet block is just barely reachable for the large elephants if they are careful with their footing. Smart guys!

We sat down for some dinner quickly, using the truck as our only option for shade, before proceeding to the bar area situated directly in front of the waterhole. The campsite has no Wi-Fi, the pool wasn’t particularly clean and the optional game drive of the afternoon was no longer available. Meaning we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting directly in front of the elephants, watching “African TV”. And honestly, I could have stayed there for days just watching them.

Shortly before dinner, I decided to have a quick shower and make the most of the warm water. I normally prefer to shower alone, but just this once I was willing to make an exception. Instead I showered with 4 dashing young males standing right outside the shower, trunks in the reservoir! Best shower ever! I seriously hoped one would stick his trunk in to catch the falling water as well so I could get a pat, but no luck there. Just a couple of “peeping Tom’s” really!

As the sun went down, walking around the campsite got more and more interesting. Because somehow despite their weight, the elephants move as silently as a cat. And with limited lighting, all you can see is an occasional shadow roaming around the camp. The whole experience was made even more entertaining each time one us went to the bathroom, as you had to look around the corner of the exit carefully before leaving, in case one of them was waiting for us there.

I would say this evening was as exciting as the night we had spent in the Serengeti. Sure, these aren’t lions or hyenas, but when a car starts chasing elephants away from the dish washing area and towards your tent, it’s quite the sight – especially from inside the tent! Needless to say we all listened to the advice of not keeping fruit in our tent tonight – lest one of these beautiful creatures come shake the whole tent to get it out!

Livingstone

26/8/19

So it turns out the tour group next to us weren’t the very punctual type. They had told us they would be leaving at 4:00, which in our minds meant they would be quietly-ish packing up from 3:00-4:00, leaving us a good 2 and a half hours of sleep. We hadn’t expected they would be up most of the night partying loudly, then getting up around 5:00 and loudly packing and having breakfast until well past 7:30… There goes that sleep-in!

Since we were all well awake by 6:30, we got up and headed off to breakfast. Francis had met me on the way tot he bus and said after reflection, we should just go to the main campsite restaurant and put it on Pete’s tab, since all the others had their breakfast included with their upgrade. No complaints from us, the full English breakfast was well worth it!

From here everyone went their own separate ways. A few people took off towards Zimbabwe for the day-trip to Victoria Falls, while a few others went to water rafting from the falls downwards, and several more decided to just take a day of chilling out by the pool. For our part, Vincent, TJ and I decided to do an Elephant interaction for the morning.

We met our driver at 8:00 and headed off to the Elephant cafe. There were options to include a breakfast, dinner or even afternoon high tea if we wanted, but we were just there to meet the elephants. Most of the elephants here are rescued orphans, either from poaching or following a drought, but have gotten so used to their handlers that they couldn’t be returned to the wild now. And when we arrived, there they were, a mother and her 5-year old “baby” eagerly awaiting our arrival. Because we were there to feed them their breakfast.

Feeding the giraffes had been amazing, and feeding the giant tortoises was such a magical moment. But for someone who has been in love with elephants for as long as I could remember, this experience was beyond anything I could have ever wanted. I started by feeding the baby, which essentially is holding a bag of food and letting her pick at it repeatedly with her trunk to shove in her mouth as quick as possible. 100kg of food a day takes time after all, you need to be efficient!

I then swapped with the boys and went on to feed the mother, much calmer but also a quick eater. For her, we could put the food directly in her trunk which she then blew into her mouth before requesting more. She was honestly eating faster than I could fill her trunk, so occasionally I would say “trunk up”, at which point she would lift up her trunk and open her mouth wide so you could put/throw the food directly in. And once the bag was empty, I could tip it upside down and she understood that was that. No pushing and shoving for more, just waiting for the next bag.

I can honestly say I was close to tears from happiness, and I expect all the photos are of nothing but my smile taking up my entire face. While they ate, we could pat them, and I was ecstatic. The skin is so hard I can’t imagine anything piercing it,and their trunk so strong. Yet the flappy ears are just smooth thin and flat. The whole thing left me so so happy I couldn’t believe it.

Once the elephants had eaten, they left to return to their herd and out came the cleanup team. The cleanup team are the baboons, who know to wait for the elephants to finish their food and leave, where they know there will be plenty of leftover food on the ground for them to pick up.

For our parts we were taken inside to wash our hands thoroughly – given they were covered in elephant snot – and then have a hot drink before returning to the campsite. The cafe overlooks the Zambezi river, a couple of crocodiles, and can be used for weddings. I have to say, offering elephants as an option for a wedding is definitely a possibility I had not thought of and would be very keen on!

We returned to the campsite by 10:00 and made our way straight to the bar area. Whoever said that was too early for a cocktail on the river? And there we sat in the sun looking at the river. At one point the boys spotted an elephant actually crossing the river as well. His head was bobbing up and down in the water, using his trunk as a snorkel just like in the movies. Perfect!

Eventually we grabbed some lunch with the girls who had also stayed behind, and overall were happy to have a nice chilled out afternoon of not doing much at all. After lunch, some of them decided to go for a swim in the pool but if I wasn’t in the mood for a swim before already, watching the frozen faces as they got in did not convince me in the slightest!

The rafters returned shortly afterwards, so we moved back towards the bar to watch their videos once again. A couple of cocktails later, Michael and Jo headed out to a sunset cruise while the rest of us stayed for. Few more drinks and then dinner. A very excited group of us for dinner, trying to calm our nerves before the big jump tomorrow.

27/8/19

Well the drunken idiots around midnight did nothing to help us sleep off our nervousness. But what can you do, it’s camping right? So we were all awake well in advance, heading out to breakfast, or rather to stare at a plate of food and avoid eating. Nerves and everything.

Jo left early to do a microlight flight quickly over the falls, while the rest of us sat there pep-talking each other into calming down. I wasn’t too nervous – purely from the fact that I just wasn’t thinking about it – but Lizzy and Michael looked absolutely petrified. In the end, 6 of us were jumping off the bridge, and most of us were slowly building the nerves leading up to our departure.

Just I time for the departure, Jo returned and thus all 12 of us – our 11 on the tour already plus a new tour member we had met the night before – headed out to take the shuttle to the falls. 6 of us jumping, the other 6 coming to cheer us on. The shuttle ride was loud and stressed out!

About 15 minutes later, we made it to the immigration at the falls. The bridge to jump off is the Victoria Falls Bridge, which joins Zambia and Zimbabwe. Although we weren’t exactly crossing into Zimbabwe, it did mean we needed our passports to get on the bridge, vouching that we were only jumping and returning to Zambia. Jess handed in her passport, was given a piece of paper with. Stamp and the number of people crossing, and then we were off.

Once at the foot of the bridge, we went up a couple of stairs to the cafe/bridge jump hub. Looking out over the side of the cafe, we had a full view of the bridge, the platform, and the abyss below. That’s when it finally sank in properly, and we started freaking out – all except Jess and Sarah who remained calm and composed throughout the whole experience.

We signed in, signed the disclaimer about how if we died, it wasn’t the company’s fault, hopped on the scale to measure our exact weight and then shoe size, all of which the guy wrote on our arms. And with that, we were good to go! We gave our bags to the others looking on, who headed down the bridge to the platform, while we went around the corner to get strapped in.

Our first run was the slide across the gorge from Zambia to Zimbabwe. 250m of zip line across the gorge. This was meant to be the easy start to the jumps, but already then I was uncomfortable. A couple of people went before us, then TJ and Michael, and then I was on. They attached a massive metallic plate to the zip line, hooked me on to it, then sent me flying out.

It would be a lie to say I didn’t scream a little at the start of that, purely from being thrown into the air, but soon enough I actually started to enjoy that. The zip line isn’t too fast, so you can really take in the full view of the gorge and river below – which are absolutely stunning. Towards the end, one of the crew came out onto the zip line as well to come meet me, and that’s the point I shut my eyes, convinced I was going to crash into him. But somehow it all went smooth, he dragged me onto the bridge, one leg thrown over the barrier at a time, and then they hooked me onto the metal rope with 2 clips, and sent me on my way.

Once off the lower level of the bridge, I had to cross back over the bridge to the bungee platform where all the guys were waiting for us. Damn that bridge is high! We had our harness removed, and then swapped to the mighty bungee harness – basically not a hell of a lot of harness to be honest!

Lizzy had already decided she would go first and was determined to carry through albeit shaking in her shoes and harness. A couple of people went off and they finally called out for Lizzy. She looked completely focused, terrified but ready to go. And despite the shaking, they counted her down and off she leapt from the platform to the chorus of crazy cheering from our group.

And then they called me up. I can’t express how absolutely mortified I felt as I crawled under the safety bar into the platform area to get prepped. They sat me down and started to wrap towels around each foot, before tying them up together as tight as possible – I’m talking one foot on my feet as he pulled at the harness to tighten it.

The entire time I was just heavy breathing and freaking the hell out. A photographer and video guy were pointing cameras at me, asking me how I felt, and I just told them I was completely terrified, with my face showing the same emotion. They then stood me up and started doing the verbal checks one after the other, then handed me a GoPro, turned it on and turned me to face the platform.

Holy crap I was panicking by this point. Behind me I could here all of my group cheering me on, screaming words of encouragement, but honestly I heard nothing. The crew told me to walk to the edge of the platform, and the river was so so SOOOOOOOOO far below. TERRIFIED! Then they tell me to get my toes over the edge, which meant my genius plan of not looking down was ruined and I thought I would die. Like, actually. Then then lifted my arms, so I looked like I was being crucified, they counted down 5-4-3-2-1- Bungee, and my brain went completely numb.

I think it took about half a second for my brain to register what was happening, at which point the screaming began. Somehow I actually jumped off the platform – not just fell off but actually pushed off – to get the safe distance, but it’s all a blur. I couldn’t even feel myself falling, nothing in my brain was functioning except the absolute constant need to scream until the horror stopped.

At one stage I felt the bounce and found myself standing upright in mid-air. Which I knew couldn’t be good because I wasn’t back on the platform yet. Which meant it was just going to fall all over again. So more screaming. I think at one point I said it was amazing. I definitely mentioned that it kept bouncing and that I was fairly sure I was going to pass out.

Once I was stable, it was almost pleasant being upside down staring at the river. Almost, not quite. Then a guy came down a rope to come pick me up, and the fear started all over again. Not only was he shaking my rope, but on top of that he was putting me back upright and I was sure I would drop this time. We were pulled back up to the very lowest part of the arch, where a guy grabbed my harness and told me to swing my legs over. Lunatic!

I was shaking to my very core. I could barely feel my arms, heart pounding in my chest, legs barely holding me up – though glad to be on hard ground again – as they unwrapped the harnesses and towels. He then pushed me towards a ladder to climb up to the next level of the bridge, and if possible that might have been even scarier than the jump. Fully shaking, none of my limbs working, it took about 20 seconds per step. The guy at the top told me they were waiting for me to finish the climb to send the next jumper, but heaven knows I did not care!

I was back on the lower level of the bridge, where I had landed after the zip line, and just walking across again. I think at some point I heard Sarah yelp as she jumped off, but I can’t say for sure because I was still petrified at what I had just done. Worse still: I knew there was more to come…

Once back at the jumping area, I was greeted by a wave of applause and hugs, and told I had won “Scream of the Day”. Well I did forewarn them all to be fair. Jess leapt off the platform full of confidence, almost before they had finished counting, while TJ was a little more restrained and pale. Michael was completely and totally freaked out – so much I even thought he might back out – but soon enough he was at the edge of the platform and jumped off more or less quietly.

Following this, we were stripped of our bungee harnesses and fitted with our gorge swing stuff. As I was getting dressed up, the guy asked me if I was jumping alone or with a friend, and suddenly I saw a whole new opportunity. Because to be perfectly honest, seeing the guys jump for the swing and thinking about doing the insane drop all over again was making me tremble all over again.

I turned to Sarah and tentatively asked if she’d be interested, and to my delight she was keen to tandem jump! So Jess bunny hopped off the platform, while we got shown exactly how to stand, how to hold each other – and absolutely do not let go! – and how to jump in sync. Because in tandem, there’s no opportunity to back out at the last second. When they say swing, it has to be a dual synchronisation or shit goes down.

We practiced our synchronised walk off the platform a few times and then proceeded back onto the horrible fearful platform. I couldn’t believe I was back there already, and was freaking out all over again while Sarah was totally chill once again. They harnessed us up and then hooked us onto the line attached to the line in the middle of the gorge.

I was completely and totally freaking again. The harness had a decent amount of pull this time since the ropes were already hanging in mid-air, and I was freaked out at missing the step or anything. I promised Sarah I would jump no matter what, for the sake of security, but dammit was I shaking. They then told us to go up to to the edge, toes over. Only this time I only had one hand holding on the rail, the other grabbing on to Sarah, and the ropes pulling at me. So so freaked out.

And before I knew it, he called out 3-2-1-Swing and we just stepped off the platform. I think somehow this free fall was even worse than the bungee, as the ropes had absolutely no tightness, and we were basically plummeting feet first to our doom. Without even realising it, I was frantically kicking/bicycling in mid-air – like that will help – and then after 4 seconds of fall the rope took effect and we swung up through the gorge.

I was gripping onto Sarah so hard I was convinced we would finish the trip to Cape Town in that exact position! But in the end I was so glad to have done this jump in tandem, because if I’m honest, although I would like to think I would have jumped alone, I’m not 100% sure I could have done it again alone.

We swung around for a little while enjoying the beautiful view, while discussing how insanely uncomfortable these harnesses were. The worst part was that in this case, no one was coming down to pick us up rather we were being pulled up slowly back to the bridge, feet dangling. Yep, still freaking out. So when we were hoisted onto the barrier and he told me to swing one leg after the other, the word “lunatic” once again came into my mind…

Michael jumped shortly after, but TJ decided he’d had enough adrenaline for one day, and Lizzy had only signed up to the bungee. We therefore laughed and cheered each other on before returning to the cafe area to view the video footage of each jump. Somehow watching it again still gave us the absolute creeps, and I still couldn’t believe I had actually jumped off despite seeing it on the big screen.

We purchased all the photos and videos – especially the GoPro footage which showed quite a lot of swearing and in my case, a lot of screaming – and then got ourselves some lunch directly at the cafe before returning to Zambia. We ran into another tour group from our company at the border and tried to hitch a ride in their truck, but unfortunately they were using a van to get back, so we had to split up into 3 taxis instead.

We hung around the bar area for a few hours just to recount all of our excitement over the jumps again and start to share some of our personal photos and videos. Eventually at 18:00 we went off to our respective pre-tour meetings. Little did we know the group guide we had spoken to at the border was the mysterious “Justin” that was taking over our group in a few days.

He talked us through the basics of the tour, how it all works and everything. The 8 of us continuing on were fairly owed through this to be honest, since we already know all of this after a month and a half of travel, and it looked like the other few people joining from their own week-long tour from Pretoria were just as enthused. But for the sake of the fresh meat starting here in 2 days, we listened up quietly.

It’s not Pete and Francis though, and this stayed painful for us throughout the talk. Justin seems like a nice guy, as does the driver Ali, but we were struck with the very real sadness at losing our guides. And after the talk, when we did meet up with our own guys again, we expressed our sorrow which they seem to share. But nothing to be done now. We will be swapping tents, swapping seats on the bus and reducing the number of lockers – full bus coming up… But at least we are keeping out truck in the end – to the great annoyance of Francis who loves his baby – and the 8 of us having just lived through such a crazy experience today are ready to tackle the last leg of the journey together.

28/8/19

Another fun night of not sleeping a lot, between drunken idiots coming back for round 2, the 5:00 wake-up of the tour group next to us, and the constant feeling of falling all night long. When we got up, Pete and Francis were busy making breakfast for the 4 of us, before the rest of our group arrived for our final farewell photos with the truck.

We then all hopped into 2 taxis and made our way to the departure point of the Livingstone island. We got on a little jet boat and headed out to the island. The ride was fairly smooth, especially considering the amount of rapids and rocks along the way. The more we rode however, the closer we got to the massive spray which indicated the exact point at which the water would suddenly cascade over the cliff to form the amazing Victoria Falls.

On the island, we started with a quick toilet stop, which I can say was the most beautiful toilet stop of all tour. They called it the “loo with a view” and it essentially was a portable toilet, with nice scented soaps and everything, but no door so you had a look directly on the beautiful Zambezi river while you peed. Very relaxing.

We dropped off our bags in a locker here and then proceeded to do a quick visit of the island. During the wet season, most of this area is completely covered in water, most of which adding to the full effect of the falls. But at this time of the year, it’s perfect to walk along the very edge of cliffs and look all the way down to the tiny river which yesterday we jumped to get closer to.

After a couple of photo stops, we came in view of our destination: the Devil’s Pool. This is essentially a naturally created pool at the very ledge of the waterfall where the water flows over, but during the dry season there is just enough rocky ledge to swim in without flying over and plummeting to your death. Supposedly anyway.

We stripped down to our swimmers and walked down the rocks to the river edge. Because to get to the pool, first we had to swim across one of the currents. They had attached 2 ropes from one side to the other of the current as a safety measure should the current take you away towards the ledge, and got us to slide into the water.

Absolutely freezing water! The current felt so strong pulling us toward the ledge and I found that I really had to actually put effort into my swimming to fight against it. We then climbed up onto the rocks, directly overlooking the massive falls, and that’s when the terror finally clicked. Because it was nothing but slippery rocks with water flowing over them that separated us from the massive fall. This time with no ropes attached to keep us from dying!

We slid into the pool one after the other and swam to the ledge to take a seat. Somehow all 11 of us were able to get a seat, with nothing but about 30cm separating us from the edge. I was petrified. On the one hand, I think the physical act of jumping off a bridge was scarier than this, but I felt in no way secure paddling around this little pool.

After a few group photos, it was time for the individual shots. So we all swam to one side of the pool while one after the other, we went out to the ledge. One of the guides was in the pool, holding us by the leg and edging us up. Literally, edging us over the edge. My head and arms were literally over the edge of the waterfall and I could see the bottom. And holy hell I almost peed myself with fear!

Another round of massive group encouragement, and we made our way back out of the pool – thanks to a floaty another guide sent to each of us to pull us through the current back to shore. We then swum back across the current to the other side with our clothes, and finally walked back to our packs and tents. We were served some breakfast, though our attention was focused entirely on the photos of each of us braving death in yet another dumb way.

The boat ride back to the main shore was pleasant and offered a couple of animal sightings. Most notably, we spotted an elephant on a tiny little island getting ready to fight off another elephant to stop him from getting on. I’m almost disappointed we missed out on seeing them actually fight together just to see how that is.

Once back at the camp, it was time for the fateful moment of tent swapping. Although we would be keeping our truck, Tana, in the end, the tents would need to be swapped and so we Vincent, Michael and I had to move our stuff into the tents erected next to our truck. TJ on the other hand had to move into a tent next to his new truck, and so our little family was separated.

We got some laundry done and then headed back to the bar area once again. We met a few of the new people on our tour here, and as usual, grabbed a few cocktails. Brenton, Kerianne and Jo went off to do a gorge swing for the afternoon. That’s essentially the same as the bridge swing, but in a different area of the gorge and about 30 metres higher than the bridge one. Jo jumped alone but the others went down in tandem, only here they were made to jump backwards in this case – absolutely no way I ever could have done that. A nice way to celebrate Brenton’s birthday basically.

The afternoon was nice a chilled out, spent partly with the questionnaires to be filled out regarding the tip and the tour guides. Needless to say our responses were heavily focused on a certain visa problem which was still irritating us… But never mind thinking about that. Tonight we are getting all dressed up, and the whole group is taking Pete and Francis out for a “last supper”, and then a bit of clubbing. Because tomorrow morning, it’s the end of everything and we have to split up for good.

Kande Beach – Chipata – Lusaka – Livingstone

21/8/19

So for the funny anecdote about the night this time! About halfway through the night, we were awoken by a loud squeal followed by some grunting as a large 4-legged creature ran past our tents. Yep, pig hunting in the middle of the night in the campsite, what could be more fun?

We left the campsite at 7:00 this morning – what a sleep-in! – and headed away from the lake into the mountains. I can comfortably say my earlier assessment of Malawi was correct: what a beautiful country. The views we got from the climb up the mountain were incredible, overlooking green hills and the lake in the distance. Francis being the amazing driver that he is, would slow down and honk the horn a few times when he saw a good photo opportunity for us.

We stopped at a shopping centre in Mzuzu town a little later on for some food and most importantly drinks. The plan for tonight is a home-made punch apparently, so we all chipped in some money towards buying juice and alcohol, and came back with several bags worth. This will be promising!

We continued the road for a little while longer until we came to a brief stop in the middle of the rubber plantations. Malawi has the ideal weather conditions to grow rubber trees, and so we stopped to have a look at the thousands upon thousands of rows of trees. The older trees had several cut marks covered up by wax with a small cup attached at the bottom to collect the sap before taking it to the factories to make it into the rubber items they need. Interesting stuff.

Another hour and a half or so, and we had made it to the campsite. Once again directly on the beach of Lake Malawi, though on a different part of it. And once again, all the other tour groups were already there. This is getting a bit repetitive now…

In any case, once again we split up between a group helping with the cooking and another group setting up the tents and mats for everyone. Pete made us some burgers for lunch, which tasted amazing, but after which once again my stomach wasn’t all that settled.

In a fit of annoyance therefore, I threw on my togs and headed down tot he beach. Some parts of Lake Malawi have a parasite which can get into people’s skins and make you sick, but thankfully not this part of the lake. It’s quite surreal too, because the lake really truly looks like the ocean, the waves were bigger than in many seas I’ve swum in, but the water is fresh. When you get splashed in the face by a wave, it doesn’t sting your eyes or get the yuck reaction to the taste.

After my nice little dip in the water, I met up with the rest of the group at the bar while Brenton and Jess were busy preparing the punch. The amount of alcohol that was thrown in was quite frankly terrifying and promised a good evening ahead of us!

Around 17:00, the fun began with a dress-up party. Our helpers brought out several bags of what I assume were strange clothing sent as second hand and we – along with the other tour group – had to pick our “costumes”. Some the results were definitely interesting! Lizzy found herself some sort of space suit that looked amazing, Brenton had a beautiful dress and tutu while Vincent found a one-piece sequin shirt and pink trousers with a tail attached! For my part, I went with a classy sequin skirt, an oversized red Santa-style corset and a frizzy head piece. A weird cross between an elf and a nymph apparently!

We then started on the punch and the party began. To our absolute delight, Francis and Pete joined in, looking absolutely fantastic in their leopard print tops and skirts! Meanwhile next to us, the other tour group seemed to act very tame, and we were out to show them how to have a good time. Games, music and a lot of laughs: this is how we party!

22/8/19

Our party went on till 22:30 before we went to bed – such young spirits we are. However the main party at the bar carried on well into the hours of the morning, with very loud music. Thank goodness for earplugs.

This morning was an easy day, we had a village walk panned for 9:00 and nothing until then. Unfortunately by force of habit, we were mostly all awake well before 7:30. So we sat and watched Pete preparing pancakes for us – he really does treat us way too well!

Our village walk was completely different to the previous walks we had done. We began by seeing a chicken house – essentially a wooden house on stilts for the chickens to sleep in at night. The chickens run around wherever they want during the day, but with the threat of hyenas and other nocturnal predators looming around, they have learned to climb up into this small house to spend the night there in safety. Smart little things.

We were then taken through a multitude of cassava plantations, which serves as one of the primary nutrition for this village. Each family has a plot of land on which they can cultivate their plants, and keep their chickens. They then have areas on which they can dry the roots before crushing them and making flour out of it. The plants grow very easily with little water or interference so it makes for easy farming.

We were then taken to the mud spots where teenage boys were making bricks. They have wooden frames, able to make 2 bricks in each, which they fill with the mud, then empty in one swift move in rows upon rows of mud bricks, left to dry for several days. Once the bricks have been left for a few days, they are then baked in their ovens and become the reddish colour they use for housing or any other buildings. This is done only in the dry season of course, so we were quite lucky to see this part of their daily life.

Next, one of the local guys started explain a bit more about how the village works and most importantly the local hospital. The village itself has about 4,500 people, and the hospital services this and almost 20 others, with only 2-3 doctors/midwives. The services of the hospital are provided free to the people in an effort to encourage a more responsible approach to health for the poorer families – such as Malaria, HIV prevention or contraception for example.

What we learned from him and from the doctor/midwife at the hospital directly blew me away. As time passes, more and Moore of the community take to using the hospital for treating issues rather than keeping with their traditional medicines or witch doctors, though a significant proportion continue to observe their traditions. Consequently, the occasional megaphone messages we’ve been hearing while driving around these countries aren’t in fact bible preaching as I had suspected, but messages on general health, on attending the hospital and even encouraging family planning to reduce population and the poverty and other issues associated with the large families.

Our group member Jess is a nurse back home, and was actively asking about many of their practices regarding childbirth in particular. But soon enough we were all chipping in, absolutely fascinated – and sometimes appalled – by the conditions of the treatments they can offer. For instance, should a woman require an emergency caesarean, she needs to go to the mother hospital, almost 80km away. The only ambulance they had no longer works, so any transport needs to be organised urgently within the community, and I can only imagine how many times this process ends badly.

We were shown around the facility, which despite the best efforts possible clearly showed signed that this was definitely not the best environment to deliver a baby. I also felt a bit embarrassed as while the doctor was telling us about their operations here and we picked his brain some more, no less than 15 patients were waiting outside to be seen. I won’t go into more detail about the many many things we learned in this place, but I will say that I now have even less respect for the outlandish requests and complaints about western hospitals moving forward.

After the hospital, we were taken to the local school. 1,250 students for 12 teachers. That’s classes of 100 students for those who can’t do the math. Most of the subjects are similar to ours, but I was intrigued about the agriculture and life skills subjects. In many ways I feel that our western children are missing out on some important general life lessons which these kids are benefiting from. Finally some good in all this!

We were back at the campsite in time for some lunch and ready for a fully relaxing afternoon. I’m talking some swimming, some reading, some typing up diary, and overall chillaxing. Occasionally changing hammock just to feel like I moved and did something. It was magical and I loved it.

As I walked around the cooking area we had made for ourselves, I thought for sure that my mind was playing tricks on me, because what I was seeing couldn’t possibly be real. And yet when dinner time came around there it was: a plate of home-made lasagna. In the middle of a campsite. Pete, Francis and our helpers had made lasagna from scratch in a metallic tray, and then placed an empty tray upside down on top of the lasagna, covered with red-hot coal. Improvised oven right there. And it tasted amazing. Never again will I accept canned goods for dinner on the excuse of “because we’re camping”!

23/8/19

The first of 3 full days of driving. We left the campsite around 7:00 and left the view of the lake shortly after that, heading westward. A couple of stops here and there for some bushy bushes, and finally we stopped a few kilometres away from the border for our makeshift lunch.

Francis had re-parked the truck in a strange angle, trying as best as possible to hide us from the road. His ploy didn’t work however, and soon enough a few kids spotted us and started to just stand by the trees to watch us – thank goodness we had had enough time to pee before they showed!

We made our lunch and before long, all the kids of the local village had shown up and were just standing there. It was very very unnerving, as they just stood and watched in silence. I’m not sure if it reminded me more of people watching animals feeding at the zoo, or seagulls waiting for a moment of inattention to snap at the chips. Suffice to say we weren’t very comfortable and I knew I’d be getting indigestion from this!

When we left, we gave the kids a bag of the leftover food which they promptly began to fight over before the eldest kid started to share out potatoes evenly. Once again, being confronted to the sheer level of poverty here can be a bit stomach churning.

Shortly after, we made it to the border. We exited Malawi fairly easily, and then had to walk across to the Zambia side, much like we had with the Rwanda crossing. There the visa processing took about 20-30 minutes a little longer for the truck customs forms to go through, and finally we were through.

Welcome to Zambia! The difference is striking. While the scenery is fairly similar to that of Malawi once we had left the lakeside – dry, arid with not many bushes to pee behind – the difference was with the people. When we stopped at a small town shopping centre a few hours later, I suddenly felt underdressed in my thongs and bus pants. After seeing the level of poverty apparent throughout Malawi, seeing the fancy shopping centre, nice clothes and gadgets of the people here was simply strange.

We grabbed some more drinks and snacks to get ready for the next few days of driving, and headed off to our campsite. We set up our tents, then started cooking up another great meal and chilling out before another super long drive day.

That’s when Pete sat us down to give us the terrible horrible news: the Namibian immigration had not processed the work permits for him and Francis. Which meant as of then, neither of them could go through Namibia to finish the trip. Another tour doing this route in reverse from Cape Town would be in Livingstone on the same dates as us, and consequently the head office had had to make the decision to swap the trucks and crew.

We were livid. After 35 days with Pete and Francis, the idea that we would not finish the tour with them was completely unacceptable. We spent the next hour or so in a group crying session trying to come up with any idea to get them across the border – the most popular being currently to dress them up as a zebra which can cross borders as they please. The likelihood of the visas coming through is extremely low, but needless to say we all strongly hope it may still work, and none of us slept too well that night.

24/8/19

Another amazing 5:00 departure, though the mood this time was less than humorous following last night’s revelation. Pete was desperately trying to keep our spirits up, telling us not to think about it, but it was on everyone’s minds as we curled up in our blankets and sleeping bags on the truck ready for another long leg of journey.

A few hours later we found ourselves at a petrol station checking the pressure of the tyres, and sure enough, Francis was dissatisfied and informed us we needed to change a wheel. Pete tried to give us options to go for a walk for about half an hour, but one of us would have it: we wanted to see the truck wheel change!

So the girls took up seats on the ground in front of the tyre in question, while the boys stood there watching, in good old macho style, ready to try to help. What fun that was! The truck is a nice big size, and the tyres required are definitely sizeable. Not to mention the culprit was one of the inside wheels, meaning they had to take 2 wheels off to change only the one. To be fair, it was definitely shredded and in need of a change – no doubt one of the rocky roads we took didn’t work out so well.

Francis and Pete worked tirelessly – no pun intended – on the wheel change, with the support and cheers of the whole group. The boys tried their hand at the process as well but they were no match for Francis of course – if highly entertaining for the rest of us on the ground. We then cheered them all on as they lifted the lifeless tyre back up onto the back of the truck, and I imagine that was not a light feat!

We continued our journey a little further on, with Pete giving us the routine speech about Zambia history and politics. Francis eventually stopped us for a bushy bush toilet again, and this time we had enough. Boys can complain all they want about the “direction of the wind”, but with the dry, arid climate around here, leafy bushes are small, few and far away and girls needs to fight off thorns to find a spot to eventually pee on our feet and get scratches all over our backsides from the rough vegetation. For the quote of the day: “It’s like I jumped into a cactus!” We demanded that the next stop be a pretty leafy bush, to the delight of Pete and Francis who were in hysterics of course.

We finally made it to Lusaka – the capital of Zambia – and stopped at another very nice shopping centre. Pete went off to do his shopping while the rest of us went off to do our own version of shopping. We rushed to the KFC and were disappointed to find it was not open. So off to the supermarket for snack stocking up and a proper coffee before we headed off again.

After countless hours on the road, we finally made it to our campsite, absolutely exhausted. By this point, the sheer boredom had started to settle in and, in an effort to keep occupied and entertained, I had started to take my braids out. Unfortunately by the time I was finally finished, it was too late to wash my hair and let it dry, so I had to make the decision to keep it insanely curly for the following 24 hours.

The campsite was a bit more special than usual, as it had zebras roaming around. Pete insisted heavily that, although they were cute, we were not to approach them because they have a mean kick! We made dinner showered and then tried to get some sleep despite the party going on next to us – though baby now we’ve become experts at sleeping through noise.

25/8/19

Once again we were up nice and early, ready for yet another full day of driving. Or at least as ready as we could be. The boredom seriously started to hit in this time, with many of us starting to lose our minds slowly. I started to run out of shows to watch, people were running up and down the bus, basically anything to keep entertained.

Our first stop was a toilet stop at a petrol station/pizza place. Pete told us the toilet was payable, so we could always wait and do a bush toilet as soon as possible, but most of us rushed off the truck to enjoy a nice clean toilet. For the quote of the day this time: “At least I don’t have an Acacia tree up my bum!”.

We stopped somewhere along the road at a sort of restaurant place, and from sheer boredom we all rushed in to try to get food. A little disappointing as the facade was definitely fancier than the food on offer was, but at this point, anything was better than chips. There was also a small shop and this is where things started to get interesting.

Back on the bus, bored out of our wits, I kept watching my TV shows and slowly running out of downloaded episodes, when Jess handed us each a balloon. She’d found balloons to make animals with, and we figured why the hell not. Only problem was that no matter how badly we tried – and we really tried, I’m talking eyes popping out of our skulls – we simply couldn’t blow the balloons up.

So instead they guys started tying the balloons between the seats to use as slingshots. Which someone then asked “how many do you think we would need to tie before someone could sit on it?”. One thing turned into another, and before long, several people were heavily invested in creating a full hammock in the middle of the bus – which worked by the way! When Pete came on to talk to us about the Victoria Falls we had almost reached, he simply looked confused (understandably so) at what the heck was going on.

Finally though, after well over 30 hours of driving in 3 days, we had made it to the Victoria Falls. The falls cover the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, though apparently they are more beautiful not he Zimbabwe side. Still, the price involved in doing a day-trip to Zimbabwe – between the multiple visa entries, transfers, access to the national park and so on – was too steep for me to justify just for a photo stop.

The falls were first identified in the west by Dr. Livingstone, who named them for the queen at the time – Victoria. During the dry season, only a portion of the falls are heavily active, with a lot of spray to be seen for miles around and mainly on the Zimbabwe side. But it seems during the wet season, the entirety of the cliff side we could seen is covered but the Zambezi river overflowing into several small falls combining to the one massive Victoria Falls. Needless to say I will be returning during the wet season at some point to Zimbabwe!

For now we were given an opportunity to walk around the national park and grab some beautiful photos of the smaller falls, and rapids down the bottom. We also got a good look at the Victoria Falls bridge, the bridge joining Zambia and Zimbabwe, built to get a good idea of the main falls area and, perhaps more importantly for us, the place from which adrenaline junkies bungee jump. We decided to stick around for a while to finally watch a jumper go off, and to be honest I can’t say whether it inspired me more or less, but I can’t wait to finally e there myself!

Our group split up on the way back to the truck, and we found ourselves sitting on the bus waiting for the last few stragglers. As I sat comfortably watching Netflix, out of nowhere I suddenly heard Pete go crazy and start making angry chasing sounds. I looked up but I never would have expected to see a fully grown baboon sitting on top of our fridge and angrily hissing back at Pete! The whole thing was surreal. Pete grabbed Jo’s backpack – the first thing he found really – and started swinging it at the monkey to scare it away, which eventually succeeded. For all of about 10 seconds though, we were pretty sure that was it for us and our tour. Death by baboon, how pathetic.

The other guys only heard the commotion and watched some baboon’s rear side sticking out of the bus but they seemed rather impressed with it all as well. The monkey then climbed on top of our bus, and Francis and a park ranger then had to try to dislodge it before we could leave. But we were all sitting on the truck in hysterics at what we had just seen, and hailing Pete as our selfless hero who took on the big bad scary baboon!

Shortly after, we made it to our campsite, which would be our home in Livingstone for the next 4 nights. Most of the tour decided to upgrade to rooms for this occasion, but I decided I’ve made it this far by camping, and I will not lose out to Vincent and Michael! So we put up the 3 tents between the 4 of us – TJ and I being in individual tents – next to a tour group who told us they would be leaving at 4:00. Not a problem, we are so used to these things by now.

We booked ourselves into a bunch of activities each – breaking our wallets one after the other – and then took to the bar/restaurant area. Pete and Francis get the next 3 days off essentially, only needing to supply the 4 of us tenting some breakfast. So we headed off, attacked some well deserved pizza while being devoured by mosquitoes, and decided to get an early night sleep to catch up finally!

Iringa – Chitimba Beach

18/8/19

The night was long and difficult, complete with stomach pains and almost running to the bathroom several times. But when the morning finally came around, I was almost feeling better and had managed to keep down the modest half potato I had eaten for dinner. A slice of toast was followed by more cramps and nausea, but I felt cautiously optimistic that the worst was indeed over. Plus Pete had told me if I was still not good by tonight we would go to hospital, and that I did not want at all!

We left the campsite at 7:30 and started along another long drive section. This part was very scenically interesting as, other than the national park we had to cross once again, we then had to drive through a valley of baobab trees. Baobabs are very large trees, consisting of too much water to be used for timber but offering a lot of shade and moisture. For me, it reminded me of a musical story I used to listen to as a little girl – about a little African boy and his drum sleeping under a baobab tree and running into tricky jackals – and I had the song stuck in my head the rest of the day.

The drive itself wasn’t so long in terms of distance, but our destination was at about 1700 meters or so above sea level which meant climbing a very winding narrow mountain. Our truck has got fairly good engine power, but the same cannot be said for the other petroleum or container trucks taking this road. And with limited visibility and a lot of traffic, it meant we were stuck at a slow pace for quite some time.

We finally made it to the campsite just before 14:00 and set up our lunch tables and salads. I decided to brave a small serving of salad and pasta, which once again my stomach did not appreciate but thankfully did not throw back up. Afterwards however, the afternoon was entirely ours to rest and do as we wanted before a long drive the next day.

With no real prompting, we split up into 2 teams at this point. Half of us put up the tents for everyone in a nice small circle while the other half undertook the task of cleaning out the fridge of the truck. There was a lingering smell in the truck – unrelated to my illness the day before – and we decided it was down to the fridge. We took this opportunity to deep clean the whole truck as well, and were all very proud children when Pete returned wanting to clean out the truck and we told him we had already done it.

Most of us then took this opportunity to catch up on our reading, calmly in the shade while the last of our laundry dried on the trees. At around 17:00, we had found a makeshift map of the area around the campsite and decided to go for a walk. The map was very much not to scale, which made our trek a little more complicated than expected, but we managed some sort of walk as planned, passing by baskets of sunflower heads along the way – who knows what those are for.

Once back at the campsite, I went to try out the fabled “hot showers” of the campsite – which to my delight burned my skin! – and we proceeded to the campsite restaurant which Pete had organised for dinner tonight. Dinner was beautiful, and I risked an extra mouthful of beef – to the disagreement of my stomach once again. Still, I was feeling much better by then so no hospital!

Unfortunately once the sun had gone down, the reality of the altitude hit us hard. We scrambled onto the bus to grab jumpers and socks ready for the short but cold night awaiting us as our final farewell to Tanzania.

19/8/19

The night was definitely cold and I reassumed my human cocoon position from the Ngorongoro cater to get me through. By 4:30, the tents were down, we had had breakfast, made a packed lunch and were on our way for our full day of driving.

Fun fact about the truck: there is no heating! As we all tried to get comfortable to finish sleeping off the night, we were positively freezing. By the time we had reached our first toilet stop, half the bus had braved their way to the lockers at the back to grab their blankets or sleeping bags. And with heads and legs sticking out from all angles the the many speed bumps on the road, that was a challenge in itself.

After the stop when the rest of us had also grabbed our blankets, we looked like a right bunch of weird eskimos. The positions to sleep became even more extravagant and honestly it’s a miracle I didn’t fall off my seats with each speed bump.

Once the sun had come up though, we began a whole new pastime: fly hunting. The campsite last night had been absolutely riddled with flies – like seriously – and the truck cleaning had unfortunately required us to open the door and windows. After dark, they had all settled for the night and work up with the sun. Hundreds of them. So we spent a solid hour of the morning opening and closing windows (it was still cold after all…) and coaxing the buzzing things into going outside.

We made it to the border around lunch time, more or less. The first part of the border was the simple exiting Tanzania, filling out forms getting the stamps, then back on the bus. We then had to drive to the Malawi side of the border which started the interesting part of this border control. We had to get passed countless trucks facing every possible direction, and were convinced we would be there all day. Somehow, we started reversing out, seeing cars trying to get through in front of us then reverse again, I’m almost certain someone got driven on, and we then barged our way through.

The Malawi part of the border was fun. We filled out a full visa form – not that they cared much since some of us forgot to sign the forms and they didn’t blink – handed our passports and yellow fever certificates and then sat and waited. The 11 of us were processed in about 45 minutes – record time really – but the truck paperwork took a solid hour and a half.

We found any way possible to kill time until Francis finally came back on board and we drove away. Welcome to Malawi! We drove about an hour until we reached a big town (the local equivalent anyway) for a quick ATM stop and to get some drinks. The heat was intense as we sat there waiting to leave and a cold soft drink made a huge difference to our day!

We only drove a couple of hours in Malawi but I can already confidently say it is an absolutely beautiful country. Possibly the prettiest one we’ve seen yet. A significant proportion of the country is occupied by Lake Malawi – the third biggest lake in Africa – which is so big that if I didn’t know Malawi was a land-locked country, I would be convinced we were looking at the ocean. Because of this, the land is very green, with many trees and complete with the mountains all around, it’s a postcard picture at every turn.

Malawi is also one of the poorest countries in Africa. They have basically no resources to mine or trade, though the land is quite fertile and they are very big on the cassava plantations and rice fields everywhere. But they are also known as the warmest heart of Africa as the people are arguably the most welcoming of this continent – understandably so when you see the amazing scenery.

Francis punched the accelerator, almost ran over a couple of people, and as promised we made it to the campsite by nightfall. The camp is directly on the lake (with that size I think everything in this country is on the lake) but to our annoyance, the camp was already pretty packed with other tour groups – including the ones we’d met at Nairobi and Arusha!

We set up our tents and then had a walk on the beach before dinner. Pete treated us to spaghetti bolognaise, which again my stomach was a bit anxious about but managed to hold down in the end. The additional tour groups however meant that for the first time we had a queue to get to the showers. This experience has confirmed my overall dislike for people basically!

20/8/19

An early start this morning, our whole group had decided to take part in the Livingstonia hike. This hike basically takes you about 16km to the top of a nearby mountain, at the top of which is a museum on David Livingstone – a very important British figure in African history. On the way to the museum, at only 11km up the mountain, is a beautiful waterfall and a cool pool for a quick swim as well.

So at 6:30, after a bacon and egg breakfast I would later regret, we left the campsite – me almost wearing thongs instead of sneakers and having to rush back on the truck to swap! Quite a few guys owning the shops outside the campsite started to walk with us, no doubt to get us to buy something from their shops, and to my surprise they just kept going to the top – anything for a sale right?

The hike was definitely tougher than the gorillas had been. Although the forest of the gorillas had proved challenging, and we had faced a lot of up and down sections of the path, we were armed with a walking stick, the ground itself was steady (for the most part anyway) and the guides stopped very regularly for a long time.

This was different. It was just ascent, constant ascent, on sand and rocks for the most part, and the breaks were few, far between and fairly short. It was all made even more interesting each time our main guide suggested we take a “shortcut”. This essentially avoided the long winding road of just ascension, but meant swapping from walking to full on mountain goat climbing!

Unfortunately for me, I had given my stomach too much credit and had thought it was better than it actually was. The breakfast had been a colossal mistake and I immediately knew when my stomach started turning. Add to that the sun and heat, and the effort of the climb, and I was positively dying. The guys walking with us kept saying to just take it slowly, take breaks, but even with that I could see myself failing.

A few others were struggling at the back with me, but I kept feeling worse and worse, needing to stop for breath hoping that would prevent me from throwing up. Eventually I reached my peek and realised I was about to pass out instead of vomiting and I called it. Found myself a rock on the side of the road to sit on and dropped my head in between my knees to breathe and either pass out or vomit.

One of the guys had stayed behind to watch over me, kept saying it was ok to just take a break and walk slowly, but I told him it would happen and I would fall any minute. He called up our main guide who came back down and said the same, but I think he quickly understood from my face that it wasn’t happening – according to TJ’s later description I looked definitely awful and my lips had gone an unnatural shade.

I asked if it was possible to get the car up to the waterfall just to finish that since I had told myself I would make it there and was very disappointed not to. He made a call and told me the car was not yet there but would start going up soon so we could hitch a ride. He left us to rejoin the group, and I was left semi-dead on my rock with my helper guy watching over me.

We must have waited about 40 minutes if not longer – even trying to hitch a ride with another guy – before the car finally arrived, parking a little further up using a rock as their anti-rolling technique. I was very happy with my decision to take the car though, as even just the 100 metre walk to the car made my almost settled stomach want to cry again.

When I say car, I do in fact mean a ute. Filled completely with 20kg bags of white sugar, and 5 people sitting on top. Malawi taxi baby! So up I went, sitting on top of a bag, feet trying to squish in between some of the other bags for support, gripping onto the bar of the cabin for dear life. Going up the mountain of sand and rocks. It shook in all possible directions, and more than once I was convinced I would fall off!

Turns out I must have made it about 65-70% of the way to the waterfall before crumbling to the floor. And no regrets about trying my hand at the crazy ute drive instead of the walk which, contrary to my guide’s claims, would have taken much more than 30 minutes! And would have killed me of course… I made it to the waterfall just after the rest of the group had reached it as well too which worked out well for everyone.

The waterfall was very beautiful, it’s almost 900 metres in total drop I believe, though through many smaller falls and rivers or pools along the way. We then walked around the corner in 2 groups to get to the pool area we could swim in. The first group went ahead in advance so they could carry on upwards to the top of the mountain and the museum, while the rest of us were going to take the car back down to be on time for our afternoon planning.

While they swam, we were taken a little further around to what they called a “cave”. Turns out it was a dug out ahead in the rock behind the falls which was used by runaway slaves to hide back in the day. The view on the valley from behind the waterfall was quite amazing, and the coolness of the cave was more than welcome. Although the path going up and down to get there made me almost regret going there despite how short the path was.

We then made it back to the pool where Jo and I got changed into our togs and decided to hop in. To say that it was cold wouldn’t be correct. The water was nothing short of “absolutely freezing”! Jo loved it but my face clearly demonstrated pure agony at the cold. The only good thing is it was so cold I think it froze my stomach in place and stopped it from feeling like crap, if only temporarily.

We made it back from the pool to the ute, which had been emptied of the sugar by now. 7 of us were going back down i the ute with the 5 or so guides coming down with us. Turns out the way down wasn’t any faster – or more comfortable! – than my way up had been. It took us about an hour to make it down the mountain, showing in great detail just how high we had actually climbed up in the end.

Once back at the camp, I still felt a bit wretched so I was happy to spend the next couple of hours just sitting ad resting a bit. At 14:00 Jo and I headed off to see a witch doctor while the others went to a wood carving lesson. The walk to the witch doctor that was “close by” took us all the way back to the start of the mountain, and thankfully we veered off instead of going up. By this time I was already dying again so I was grateful that we had finally made it.

So the witch doctor is the local village’s go-to guru man, with plenty of potions to fix all kinds of ailments, and who also tells you your future. I was psyched! He arrived dressed mostly in red, with a bandana, an open-sleeved jacket and shorts with a white cross on them. Bracelets and necklaces of course, but the most intriguing parts were the jingle bells wrapped around the ankles and a belt of metal pieces to clink together as he walked.

A few boys had been getting the drums ready for him on the side, so they brought them over ready to start a dance. He pulled out a small plastic bottle, then to my absolutely delight and shock, took a sniff in each nostril, closed his eyes and started to dance! With a staff in one hand and a whip-like stick with pieces of fur in the other, he just stood there, rapidly stamping his feet on the floor and shaking his backside. Absolutely fabulous!

After the first dance, we were told we could dance with him if we wanted as well. He turned to me mid-way through his dance, and I declined still feeling a bit rough, but sent him on to Jo who completely went for it! We were then shown the “final dance” – identical to the first 2 but hey – and he retreated to his house.

He returned with a box full of small containers and bottles, each filled with different powders or potions. Our guide acted as a translator for us as he poured a bit of his “potions” in the lids to show us. These included Love Potion number 7 and Love Potion number 9, medicines to treat headaches, constipation, wounds, good luck – which obviously needs treatment – and much more.

Question time come up and of course, our first question was what was the difference between Love Potions 7 and 9. Well, number 7 is for those searching for love to find it, whereas number 9 is for those who have love but want it stronger. How to use these? Either put it in tea, or rub it on the face, or put it in a necklace, it depends on the potion and the desired effect.

He explained to us how he became a witch doctor – which requires approval from the Chief Witch Doctor, who knew?! – and before long, it was time for the fortune telling. Jo went in first, while I tried to entertain the children who had sat next to us entranced by the dancing and potions of course. After about 5 or so minutes, it was my turn.

He sat me down, took another sniff of his bottle in each nostril, and then, through our translator, began to talk about my life as it is currently and my future. What can I say? It’s very much like a psychic reading: you can interpret it in your own way and believe it or not. He was on point about certain things, though most were either obvious or so easily applied to one’s life that it’s hard to tell for sure the legitimacy of the reading. So I guess if, as predicted, I do return to Africa following my marriage and the birth of my son and daughter, I’ll come interrogate him further!

On the way back to camp, we ran into those learning to wood carve – or rather being shown how to wood carve and picking at the small bits themselves – and I found the shop of the guy who had sat with me for so long to watch over me while waiting for the car. As a “thank you” I agreed to buy a couple of bracelets and gave him a tip, and promptly returned to camp for a nice hot shower.

The others returned a bit later from the rest of the hike, looking thrilled but absolutely dead from the 35km or so they had just walked – and especially climbed. I’m disappointed I didn’t make it to the top to see the museum, which was apparently quite interesting, but as it gave me a chance for the witch doctor visit, I can’t completely complain – except for the nausea that is.

Pete and Francis made another amazing dinner, but unfortunately my stomach still was not recovered and, despite have skipped lunch already, I couldn’t handle more than a few mouthfuls of rice. Pete started explaining that the campsite tomorrow will be completely crazy however, including a homemade fruit punch apparently, so I’m very hopeful I’ll finally be in shape for a least a small drink and some fun tomorrow!