To the Okavango delta…and beyond!

So, we were picked up at the cardboard box on Thursday, june 26, by a guy named george who turned out to be our guide, and his assistant Alfred (or, as the brits dubbed him, alfredo of nothing) who turned out to be crazy. we had a 15-seater bus whose roof opened and which had oodles of storage space for food, tents, luggage, etc. because yes, we were camping. Kyla and I boarded the bus, the first of the eight people who were going on this safari. We stopped next at a hotel to get another woman. The first thing that registered to me about her was her voice. She was still outside the bus when I heard her speak and thought “she’s from the south!” yep, turned out she was from Georgia, she was in her mid-sixties, and she had been a peace corps volunteer in uganda from 2003-2005. She dubbed herself “mamma” for the trip, as the next closes person in age to her was in his mid-thirties. Actually, sometimes when she spoke, the things she said, or her mannerisms, did remind me of my mother. I told her that once. She was a lot of fun on the trip, and I wish I’d kept a collection of some of the things she said, because they were priceless. She was doing this tour and then returning to Uganda to visit for the second time since her tour with peace corps had finished.
The rest of the group we met at the airport. There were 3 british guys, mike and Stephen, who were brothers, and Andrew, who was not. There was also one british girl, clare, and Johanna, who was originally from the domincan republic but who had been living in London for five years. She had a massive camera that I nick-named “the beast”. So I’ll probably say this again sometime, but I think this trip was the best vacation I’ve ever been on. It was very worth it, and I think a lot of that had to do with the people on the trip, including the guides. I hadn’t really put that much thought into the people with whom I’d be traveling, but they were all really laid back and wonderful. I actually didn’t think about the fact that I could’ve ended up with some difficult people on the trip until a couple days in, when one of the brits mentioned that she had booked the safari through an English company in an effort to avoid Americans. Apparently there are a lot of difficult American travelers out there. George had a couple of stories about them, though the people he liked least were the Italians. I think/hope that they felt differently about Barbara, kyla, and me. We all got along very well. I guess it’s just really important to be laid back and have a since of humor, and not complain all the time on vacations, especially ones such as these.
Moving right along…
Once we’d all been picked up, we drove the entire day from Namibia to Botswana and up to our first campsite. We saw warthogs crossing the street on the way, which made me happy because I love warthogs. One of the british guys, mike, ended up buying me a warthog post card because I kept talking about them so much. The warthog is covered in mud and really cute. It’s now stuck to my wall above my bed so I can look at it every night before I go to sleep.
We got to our first campsite at dusk. We saw cheetahs there, but they were in cages. We also saw wild dogs, which I thought were behind a protective fence, but I was told they were actually in cages, too.
Once at site, we were taught how to set up tents. It’s not that difficult, really. I never got to be very quick at it, but that’s ok. Kyla and I shared a tent. Once the tents were set up, we put our mattresses in (we all got mattresses to sleep on for the trip), and then our backpacks. I was getting cold, and went ahead and changed into my pajamas, and then proceeded to trip on my tent trying to get out of it. And of course, someone happened to be looking my way at the time, so we had a good chuckle about that. After all that, we had dinner and could take showers if we wanted. I think I ate better and was cleaner on my safari trip than I have been my entire year in Lesotho. Showers I tell you, and daily even! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can do without the lighting in my house, but I miss showers. Warm, running water, how I love thee…
Slap, slap, back to reality
After dinner at nights we’d sit around a fire talking. Kinda adds to the romanticism of the safari, doncha think. I finally found the southern cross constellation, after living in the southern hemisphere for a year. And george told funny stories about past safari trips he’d been on. Oh, I also discovered that british people say “crikey!” that night. Really. I’d just associated this with the crocodile hunter, and Australia, and I’d never heard the word used in real life before. It made me happy. Then we went to bed. I think this was the coldest night of the safari. My feet were icy and I kept waking up with a frozen nose. “my name I chilly willy, I’m frozen through and through. Da da da da da da da da, ah, e, ah choo” ran through my head quite a few nights of the trip, but on the first one especially. In the morning we awoke to find antelope tracks outside the tent. I think kyla had heard them, but I guess I had been asleep at the time. We grabbed breakfast (there was muesli and nutella, praise breakfast!) then we were on the road to the Okavango. We had to stop on the way at foot and mouth disease checkpoints to have the car sprayed and the soles of our shoes cleaned. We finally made it to guma, a camp which is right on the delta, set up tents, and got to watch the sunset over the delta. It was beautiful. We had dinner at a proper table, and then I went to take a shower. I discovered that this wasn’t the best of ideas, as it was after dark, my contacts were out, and the showers had no light. They were basically surrounded by wooden poles and ceiling-less. And while it is nice to have a view of the stars while showering, it’s also nice to be able to see, especially when you’re also trying to do laundry in the shower. I was made fun of for taking to long. Ah, well. And we were lulled to sleep that night by the sound of hippos. So, another night passed, and the next day we were on to the delta…