Goodbye Blue Sky

British Airways Flight #254 from Lusaka to London. Seat 33B. Clothes reek of campfire. Bandana wrapped around my head. Glass of apple juice. A great setting for my final blog post. I decided to change my flight to leave 1 day early in order to spend a couple nights in London visiting old friends. I was teary eyed yesterday when I said goodbye to everyone. When I left the GSB a month ago I didn’t feel like I was quite done. I knew that I had a month of traveling with great friends. It all came crashing down when Ben and I finally said goodbye and he gave me a one of those winks that said, “we’ll be causing trouble again soon, boy.” Not soon enough.

I’m going to fast forward from Botswana all the way to our final night in Zimbabwe. I’ve previously written about the stuff in between. The afternoon started with us taking a stroll to see the great Victoria Falls. Along the way we met a security guard with a slingshot in his back pocket. I asked him if I could borrow the slingshot and he readily agreed. The next steps were preordained. In one fluid motion a small rock found its way into the pocket of the slingshot and danced all the way to Alejandro’s leg. Whack! Alejandro did a little dance as well, though he could’ve used a bit more hip. He’s got to Latinize his post-injury dance moves. Alejandro then returned the favor. Naturally, he had to one-up me so he picked a significantly larger rock and fired it off at my chest. No problem. The dirt on my safari vest not only gives me style points but also acts as faux-kevlar. The security guard told us that he uses the slingshot to protect the baboons from the people. Apparently the people like to steal the food and trinkets that the baboons carry. Zimbabwe is nuts. The night proceeded in top form. Mariano and I played guitar and sang love songs during sunset while sipping on scotch. We then had dinner at a ridiculous tourist trap restaurant. There was a guy walking around painting faces and I asked to borrow his paint. Alejandro was a wimp and refused to let me paint his face.

Pretty much every post that I’ve written thus far has been textured with irony and laughs. This post is no different, but I’m going to throw another layer into the mix. The tragedy that is happening in Zimbabwe is simply unbelievable. There is literally no food or petrol in the country. All the gas stations we saw were closed. The streets were empty except for a few vagrant street hawkers begging for anything we could give them. I’ve been to some pretty fucked up places along the way but nothing compared to this. There was this incredible feeling of solitude and hopelessness and shame. Another great reminder of just how lucky I am.
Alright, so let’s close this blog off in style. Here are the key highlights, in random order:

· Riding quadbikes in the sand dunes of Swakopmund alongside incredible ocean views
· Salsa dancing at a nightclub in Windhoek called El Cubano
· Whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river with a guide that was so drunk from the night before that his breath still reeked of booze at 3pm
· Eating incredible food cooked by various secret gourmet chef classmates
· Bathing with hippos from a bridge along the Okavango River
· Walking up to a pack of 15 elephants as they drank water and rolled around in mud
· Having rocks thrown at us by a group of Angolan kids as we tried to canoe over from Namibia to Angola
· Burning out the clutch of one of the cars and having to tow it back 20 kms to town with a nylon rope
· Chasing hyenas around the campsite with flaming sticks of wood
· Shaving our heads in order to increase our luck playing bridge
· Drunk dialing our friends from the middle of Etosha national park and asking them to call a taxi for us
· Bird watching (I’m serious, it’s actually really cool)
· Getting the car stuck in sand and having to push it out with the threat of wild animals lurking in the background
· Alejandro throwing a spear at me that he made out of reeds
· Listening to Karina speak English without ever using an article or preposition
· Eating warthog, kudu, and a mipani worm
· Driving into Zambia after dark without having reserved a place to sleep and watching Alessandro freak out as we parked on the side of the highway calling up various lodges
· Playing guitar with Mariano

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Don’t Worry There Are No Animals Here

On the third night of our stay in the delta we did laundry, ate a delicious lamb stew and drank fantastic wine. Great food and wine have emerged as a trip theme. We’ve got some great chefs and aspiring wine abusers. The night was fairly quiet and everyone slept well. The fourth night of our stay in the delta brought the pendulum back in the direction of madness. The astute reader will have realized long ago that this is the direction I prefer. We camped in a remote part of Chobe National Park. This park is famous for having the largest population of elephants in the world. This fame is well deserved. Right around sunset we spotted a group of about 15 elephants munching on some trees about 100 yards from our camp. The entrance sign to the park says in big block letters, “Elephants are very dangerous. Do not approach them. We are not writing this just because we are bored and like making up rules. We mean it.” Of course, the first thing we did after spotting the elephants was gather everyone up and approach them. We came within about 50 yards of the heard – close enough to be completely awestruck and far enough away to give us the false sense of security that we needed to do something so ridiculous. Shortly before the spotting, Dafina took off for a 30 minute jog around the park and then Alessandro went off to do the same.

Later that evening everyone was getting a little worried about the animal activity that we were sure to face while we slept. In one of Ben’s finer moments he tells us, “don’t worry, there are no animals here.” Some animal somewhere must’ve heard Ben’s heresy and spread it around because we were treated to the most incredible symphony of animal sounds that we could imagine. Ben’s credibility as an animal expert took a hit that evening. When we drove around the park the next morning the animal activity exploded. We ran into a heard of about 70 elephants drinking water and rolling around in mud. We even had an elephant bull chase one of the cars. The car was blocked from reversing by a heard of stampeding impalas. Those that were in the car said they were paralyzed with fear. Those that were in the other cars said they were secretly hoping that the elephant would give the car a little nudge.

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Great Friends Are Great When It’s Convenient

On the second night of our stay in the delta things finally started getting a little dirty. Up to now, every campsite that we stayed in had great showers and facilities. I suspect that some of the people on the trip showered more on the camping trip than they did back home. There’s something inauthentic about being so clean while camping and when we discovered that this campsite didn’t have running water I secretly cheered. When we discovered that this campsite was infested with monkeys, I secretly cheered. Monkeys are incredible at making people do silly things and these monkeys were no exception. They were clearly trained by some monkey mastermind. They had the nerve and speed to swoop in while Daniela was chopping veggies and swipe a banana off the table. The best way to get rid of monkeys is to capture one, paint it completely white, and release it back into the pack. The other monkeys in the area will go nuts and run away from the white monkey. We tried to capture a monkey by luring it onto the table with food and then lassoing it but they were too quick. The next best way to get rid of monkeys is to acknowledge that you are powerless in their presence and to roll over and let them steal all your food and your socks. Monkeys love socks. This is the approach that we took. They rewarded our tolerance by peeing all over Karina’s tent.

Back to the showering issue. I actually hadn’t showered in a couple of days and I knew I couldn’t go one more day without tidying up. The only solution was to walk down to the river with a bucket and improvise. Alejandro and Mariano were in the same boat so we all walked down together. For whatever reason I thought it would be funny to video them while they bathed. It actually ended up being really funny, especially when I panned across the river and saw a hippo peeking its head out of the water about 30 yards away. This video will be forthcoming on facebook. They showed great strength in front of the hippo and simply pretended it wasn’t there. When it was my turn to bathe they did what any good friends would do and they ran off back to the campsite and left me to clean and fight off the hippo by myself.

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Shark Sighting

I’ve tried as much as possible to make my blog posts chronological but I’m giving up. The trip has been chaos and the blog should reflect that as much as possible. This post is about our 4 nights of camping in the Moremi and Chobe National Parks in Botswana. The parks are located in the Okavango River Delta in northern Botswana and they’re about as far away from civilization as I’ve been. Once you enter the park there’s no food, water, gas, or supplies until you leave 300 miles later. The roads are a mixture of gravel, sand and huge boulders – no paved roads. Driving in the park hurts. Sometimes a tree branch hits you in the face through an open window, sometimes the car bounces so hard from hitting a bump that your neck snaps back against the headrest, sometimes an animal runs across the front of the car and you have to slam on the brakes or swerve into the deep sand and get stuck. Every moment of madness is makes the last one seem tame. I love it. Do-it-yourself-safaris are for maniacs that love fun.

During our first day in the park our car got stuck in the sand around 4 times. Each time we had to get out of the car and push as hard as possible to get out. It was all fun and games until an 8 foot puff adder, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, slithered right by Karina’s feet. Once we got to the campsite life got spicy. The first campsite we chose is known as a hotbed of hyena terrorist activity. Not even half an hour after the sun went down we heard an awful scream from the camp next door. When we walked over to investigate we found out that a hyena had bitten a young boy and tried to drag him off into the bush. We quickly perked up and every few minutes we’d see several pairs of glowing yellow eyes circling the campsite. Hyenas are very timid animals and they run off quickly when approached by humans so we spent about an hour running around the camp with sticks chasing hyenas. We even played a local game called “bonk a hyena on the head with a rock.” Great workout. Everyone was pretty nervous about animals wandering around our campsite so someone came up with the brilliant idea of encircling the tents with our chairs. If there’s one thing animals hate, its chairs. The next morning everyone woke up and shared their stories of how many animals they heard walking around the campsite. It was getting ridiculous. Someone said they heard an elephant walking around, another person said they heard lions roaring next to the tent. At this point Mariano got all serious and told us to be quiet because he wanted to share something important from the evening. He then told us, “guys, I was so scared last night, I think I heard a shark in the campsite.”

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Whitewater Rafting on the Zambezi River

I can barely move my fingers enough to write this post. Yesterday we went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi River and had a blast. The fierce whirlpools were no match for our finely tuned rowing. The other boat wasn't as lucky and they tipped the boat, sending oars, bodies, and quite a bit of dignity downstream. We delayed our trip into Zimbabwe until today because we were having a hard time finding a hotel but we'll be on our way shortly.

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Civil Unrest is Uncivil

When I went to Kenya back in December I landed in Nairobi on the exact day of the national elections that resulted in Kenya almost plummeting into civil war. Why break with tradition? We've made a late breaking decision to go into Zimbabwe for the night. Apparently they've got great promotions on hotel rooms right now. I learned that the key to navigating around a country that is falling apart is to wear a great hat. I picked up an incredible hat in Namibia so I'll be safe. I can't say the same for my travelmates.

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Jungle Canoe Ride

My image of Africa was formed early in childhood thanks to Disneyland’s jungle ride. Up to now, the Africa we’ve been traveling through has been mostly desert and savannah. The time’s they are a changin’. We camped yesterday at the Delta Dawn lodge on the edge of the Okavango river delta in Botswana. The campsite was set on the edge of the water among lush green vegetation, palm trees, and insects so large that we mistook them for small dogs. We took a canoe trip among the delta for several hours. The delta is not a traditional lake. Thick water bamboo grows over 10ft high and families of water lilies hug the bamboo. Narrow waterways spread out like a spiderweb across the bamboo and are used by hippos and other delta animals to get around. Each time we went around a corner the guide peeked his head up and grimaced. Hippos kill more people every year than all other animals combined. We arrived at a small island and for some exploring. The grimace on the guides face got a little more grim. The island is a local hippo joint. Apparently hippos like to mark their territory by pooping all over and this island was covered. Our instructions were to be very quiet and be ready to run to safety at any moment. “Run to safety” was a euphemism for finding the nearest climbable tree and scrambling up it. When one of the guys pointed out that he was in sandals and that he wouldn’t be able to climb a tree, the guide replied that he’s seen old women in dressed climb up trees while being chased by hippos.

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