Africa Trip Report - Part 4

MAY 12th
Our morning activity was a safari walk around the island we were camped on. Our guides, Richard and Cedric, gave us the serious instructions and hand signals on what to do should we run into a lion or leopard. Of course, I would never remember them so I kept repeating the mantra Richard told us at the beginning of the trip... "If you run, you are diner."

At the beginning, the walk was nice. It was great to finally stretch the legs after sitting so long in the trucks and mokoros. We had to divert on the first part of the path cause it was now swampy with the incoming flood. Only yesterday evening that path was dry as we took it to our sundowner spot. Our travelmates indicated their tent matt was now in the water. It was amazing how the fast the flood waters can come into the area.

As the walk progressed however, my knee, aggrivated early during a stupid attempt to stand on my seat in the truck, started acting up and the walk became increasingly difficult. The uneven ground was the worst... walking through grass you just couldn't see the actual dirt ground so you never knew where you were stepping. But I soldiered on as best as possible cause I didn't want to interferre with the rest of the group's enjoyment of the walk.

We saw a few impala, baboons and warthogs in the distance, but that was pretty much it for game. Thank goodness we didn't need those hand signals afterall.

Lunch was a great pasta, cheese, meat concoction that was simply delicious. Hamburger Helper never tasted so good. Really! It was just like our American Hamburger Helper, but way WAY better.

Xigera was also the first camp where we had crafts available for purchase. Set up on a side table were beautiful woven baskets and gourds. Most were made by the camp staff or their girlfriends/wives. I thought the prices were very reasonable, especially for handcrafted items like these. During the siesta, we got to watch Thealo, the camp cook, do some weaving on a large basket. It is amazing they are made of simple reeds and leaves. I bought one gourd and a small basket made by Thealo and another small basket (which kinda match the first one) which was made by our poler Cedric's girl.

The siesta also introduced us to the common Botswana house spider. My tent mate and I, who are both petrified of spiders, were in our tent when I noticed a few ants. I grabbed the can of Doom (love that name) and started spraying around the edges of the tent and behind the table. Out of the depths comes this rather large dark grey with white spots spider headed straight for my tent-mate. It was large, flat, angular in shape and UGLY. Of course we proceed to run screaming from the tent, completely forgetting the "if you run, you are dinner" rule.

Less than a minute later, both Richard and Cedric come running to our tent to see what the commotion is about. We tell them "spider" and point into the tent. Richard heads in and a moment later comes out with spider in hand and says it is "just a common Botswana house spider". Hee. Common house spiders where I come from are the size of my pinky fingernail, not the size of my palm.

In the late afternoon, we hopped back into the mokoros for another boatride around the area. Again, it was breathtakingly beautiful. The water was so smooth and clear and the sunset illuminated everything with a golden tone. We stopped on a small island across from our camp for a sundowner then quickly mokoro'ed back to camp after sunset.

Before diner, I had noticed Cedric sprinkling water on the ground near the main table. Wasn't sure what that was for, but we soon found out. Our pre-dinner entertainment was the entire staff singing and dancing to traditional African songs. I loved the singing and WS should offer a CD with some of their staff singing these songs cause they are beautiful. That and I kept forgetting to bring my camera with video mode to the dinner table to capture it all.

We loved the Xigera Mokoro Trails staff. They were simply delightful and fun the entire time we were there. Several of the staff had fun trying to talk in American accents using American slang so we encouraged that bad habit by introducing them to even more slang.... We taught them "that's sick" (meaning "great") and "cool beans" and others phrases along with their intended meanings. So on the way back from the sundowner mokoro ride, our poler, Cedric, commented, "My heart is full of sick!" I was laughing all the way back to my tent.

MAY 13th
The Xigera dinning table was out in the open under a canopy of large trees with a handful of "cute" vervet monkeys as their inhabitants. Well, we thought they were cute that is until they started pooping on us that morning. Right before breakfast, it was raining monkey poop! Monkey pula everywhere! And it was like they were aiming. They got Cedric in the back, my monopod and another's camera bag.

We also got some mokoro lessons before breakfast which was a geat experience. They showed us how to stand and steer and then let us try one at a time. We would push back a little to get clear of the other boats and then turn around mokoring a little bit then return back. Nothing major, but it was fun to see how it works. It was fairly easy, except for the balance thing.... and that was with an empty boat. Gives a new appreciation of the polers and their capabilities with a boatload of passengers and gear.

After breakfast, we packed up and said our goodbyes and mokoro'ed away. The trip back was alot slower going as we were going against the flood current. We didn't really notice it at first, but the current was fairly strong and with the higher floods, the polers had to reach deeper with their poles to hit bottom. You don't think about currents in a flood plain, but all the polers were struggling. At times, it was like we were barely moving forward, especially around the main Xigera Camp.

We got to the main Xigera Camp and walked around. Very posh compared to the tents we had been staying in. We found bathrooms and discovered the gift store.... dooh! More trinkets! Good thing they ship DHL. We then headed to the airstrip and the bridge and path was even more underwater than it was just two days prior. While headed to the airstrip, we saw the first Cesna 206 land and then the other followed shortly thereafter.

Right as we were piling out of the vehicle, we realized that we had forgtten two camera chargers back at the main Xigera Camp. Myself and one of my travelmates had given the staff our camera chargers and they were going to get them charged while they were back there doing laundry. We would pick them up on our way out. But now, were were boarding our airplanes and we had forgotten the chargers. Crap! Not good. We were told that there was a later flight into our area so they would get them to us. No problem... or so we thought.

I now see the reason for the baggage restrictions. Tiny, tiny baggage compartments on those airplanes. I got to sit in the co-pilots seat with Stuart the pilot. The view was fantastic. We took off and headed north across Chief's island, the northern arm of the Delta and up to the Selinda Spillway. You can definately see the layout of the Delta from 5,400 feet. I wont even try to pronounce the name of the airstrip we landed at other than it had lots of Xs, Os, & Ms.

We climbed back into our trusty truck and took off for the Lechwe Island Camp. Along the way, we saw elles, giraffe and some tsessebes (large antelope). The camp was nice with the common area and the tents on the edge of the spillway. Beautiful setting. This camp had flush toilets... well, flush only on a number 2 ... and smooth walkways between the tents.

During our 3:30 showers, lions were heard and spotted across the spillway. They were a bit noisy and Richard originally thought it might be a mating pair. We climbed back into the truck and crossed the spillway looking for the lions. This was also our first experience with off-road driving and it was FUN! Plowing right through the bush and over trees (only to watch trees pop right back up after they cleared the back).

Next thing we know, we hear Richard say "there they are..." and we are all looking off into the distance for the lions. But we shouldn't have been looking out, we should have been looking down, cause they were litterally 5-6 feet away from us. Two male lions, about 5 years old, who had the biggest bellies, so full and lazy just lying there swatting away flies with their tales.

Richard indicated that they must have just had a kill and it was probably a buffalo based on the footprints nearby. Man, these guys were fat, feed, and lazy. So lazy, they didn't even bother getting up to pee... they just went right where they lay. Then one of them opened it's eyes and looked right at me. Those yellow eyes are spooky! But they were not interested in us.

We watched for a while as they laid there, rolling over (well, more like flopping over with those full bellies) occasionally. We then went exploring further and soon found the remains of the lion kill. It was indeed a buffalo with only some entrials and two legs remaining. We stayed for a while looking at this carcass. Not sure why, cause really, who needs more than one photo of that? Yuck! We travelled over to the spillway where we had our sundowner then headed passed the lions one more time before making our way back to camp.

At camp, we discovered that our camera chargers weren't coming tonight and we probably would not get them for a few days. Great. I had one extra charged battery so I was hoping that it would last until we could meet up with the charger.


All my Africa photos can be seen at my smugmug site.