Okavangoing
This was a scheduled glamping night. Fancy tents. Personal chem toilets. Shower bags. Not bad overall, but I could have done without waking in the early hours with a pillow full of ants. No bites, but still creeptastic knowing that your face was used as a six-legged highway all night.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We broke the camp in Maun after a night of excellent food and friendship, and headed toward the glamcamp located a bit inside the delta on the 8-seater safari-limo.
Along the way, I spent a lot of my time trying (mostly in vain, if I’m honest) to spot birds and possibly ID them on Merlin. Too much bouncing to get a clear view through the monocular, and Merlin fails to do any of the heavy lifting when out of data range. Sure, you can download the bird-pack, but sifting through 300+ possibles (okay, I can tell the difference between a bee-eater and a raptor, but still) isn’t a thing while moving. And my memory isn’t good enough to remember what the little bugger looked like — out of a dozen more — to ID later. And THAT is even if there is time.
Time. That’s the killer on this trip. If we aren’t traveling from place to place, we are booked up, baby. This is not your relaxing, slow-paced type of excursion. If you ain’t got the gas in the tank to go and keep on going, this is not the trip for you. We even picked up a hitchhiker when we stopped to lock the hubs.
The camp was right along a channel of the river. We had both a land walk and a river ride in pole-pushed canoes. Not exactly Venice gondolier level of posh, but the scenery was worth it. Well, maybe except for one of the polers who had an unfortunate interaction with a submerged tree and ended up in the water. She was okay, and, after getting untangled from the thorny tree where she ended up, she continued on. Trouper to the core.
The night ended with some traditional chanting and dancing by the staff around the fire. At the end, they invited/dragged some of us to join them doing a frog-type dance. My knees said no thanks. Oh yeah staff. Thirty of them for forty of us. That’s nice.
“Forty, you say?” you ask.
Yep. we’d intersected with a second group of G Adventurers on a Nairobi to Cape Town route. That adventure is for 18-39 year olds. Good bunch. I wondered though, if any hookups were happening? I didn’t ask, just curious. They also had a token ‘murican, Alex from Arkansas. We chatted a bit over dinner.
A good time was had by all, with one exception. My seatmate on the Lando (never call it a bus, lest you be subjected to pushups) ate/drank/got bitten/got stuck by something or other than made her really ill. She had a less than wonderful night and ride out the next day.
I’m thankful I haven’t had a similar experience so far. I’d knock on wood if I were a superstitious person.
Be kind and take care of yourselves. If you can, care for someone else, too.
Slang, out.