Alice In Clubland

 We had such a chilled out Christmas this year.  No one was really in the mood to make a bit deal about it so we didn’t put any decorations up apart from one piece of tinsel wrapped around one of Jemma’s vases.  We bought each other a couple of little gifts to exchange in the morning but had decided to keep it simple.  We did have cocktails and snowballs for a couple of days before, but other than that didn’t bother getting into the whole thing.  They don’t make as much of a fuss about it all here and it’s a bit odd it being 35 degrees for Christmas anyway.  The funny thing is that the shops that do put decorations up still tend to use snowmen and snowflakes etc, even though it’s the middle of summer and they don’t get snow in winter anyway.  We still had a Christmas dinner but just bought a turkey crown (which didn’t taste at all like turkey) and didn’t even start the Christmas pudding until a few days later.  It was lovely not to get so embroiled in it.

For New Years we booked tickets to go a party called Alice in Clubland.  The theme was to wear a hat, presumably based on the idea of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.  I bought a bowler hat and added the 10/6 plus a feather and ribbon to make one similar to the Mad Hatter, while Jemma added a queen of hearts card to hers and had a gold mask to match her dress.  Glenn had red braces, a red hat and a multi-coloured mask.  After the last fancy dress party we’d been to we weren’t going to be caught out again.  The party was advertised on the radio constantly, so I had an idea in my head that it would be a bit like the Maid in China party we’d been to a few weeks before.  When we got there we were given a handful of mini glow sticks each, a UV sticker on our cheeks and a mini bottle of champagne.  The entrance was decorated with huge neon hangings that glowed in the UV light.  We were then given mini tea cups containing some kind of shot, possibly Apple Sours which I drank whilst sitting on a toadstool.  This is going to be awesome I thought… until I stepped foot into the actual club.  It was not at all as I’d imagined; they hadn’t bothered decorating any of the inside of the club and the place was tiny.  The music was ok but people hadn’t really made much effort with their hats so it was all a bit half arsed.  We had a couple of drinks and chatted to a few people then after a while decided we’d go and check out the Ministry of Sound party at the CTICC.

We got back into the car and jumped on the highway towards the venue, only to get stuck in traffic.  We sat there for what seemed like ages with the clock slowly ticking towards midnight.  I had images of us being in the car in traffic when we hit new year, but luckily it sped up just enough to get us their with 15 minutes to go.  Having parked the car, dumping our hats and practically running to the ticket office we were told that they had sold out and the venue was full, try again in an hour.  Gutted.  We headed up to the entrance to see if there was anything we could do and I noticed that the security checking people’s stamps and tickets were all a bit flustered by the amount of people trying to get in.  In desperation I suggested to Jem and Glenn that maybe we could just walk through with purpose and if we get stopped then at least we will have given it a good shot.  We went for it and amazingly all three of us managed to walk straight through without even being looked at by any of the security.  The place was no where near to what I’d call full.  Not only had we got in with 5 minutes to spare but had also saved ourselves 350 Rand each (that’s about 30 quid).  Bonus.

Managing to get to the bar and grab a drink we immediately joined in the countdown until midnight.  After the clock struck 12 we had a look around to see what was going on and discovered that the layout was still set up similar to the Maid in China party.  It turned out to be a really good night.  There were plenty of different djs in the different rooms again and plenty of bars to keep us entertained.  Towards the end of the evening we took a seat outside on the floor to watch the people with fire poi before heading home.  So it seems my blagging skills work internationally (well more like breaking and entering - minus the breaking).

Table Mountain

 Table Mountain is a huge looming mountain that is a backdrop to the sky of Cape Town.  It’s called Table Mountain for obvious reasons as unlike most mountains the top is pretty flat.  It’s about 1km high and has a nature reserve at the top.  When it’s cloudy there tends to be a layer of clouds that sits on the summit of the mountain which people call the Table Cloth.  One sunny day we decided to take the cable car up to the top of the mountain to see the incredible views of the city.

As I’m not a huge fan or heights or cable cars, by the time we’d got to the front of the que to get in the metal box that would take us up to the top, I was freaking out a little.  They’ve recently installed a new system so the actual cable cars are very flash; they have a rotating floor so you get to see the immense view as you go up.  Not my idea of fun.  I thought I’d give it a go but within a few seconds of slowly rising into the sky I thought better of it and sat down in the centre so that I wouldn’t be on the rotating floor (plus I couldn’t see out the windows from there) and pretended I was on a bus.

Once we were up I was fine with the height, as it tends to be being up high on man made things that can break, rather than the actual height that bothers me.  We walked around the path for a little while then Jemma decided to go off and have a coffee while Glenn and I continued looking around the nature reserve.  You are told to stick to the path when you leave the cable car but as with most things in Africa, no one pays much attention so most people were scrambling up on the rocks to get a better view.  There are no safety barriers or anything so if you slip it’s your problem.  I wanted to see the view and get a few photos of the city below so Glenn would go to the edge first to judge whether I’d cope with the height before calling me over (luckily for me he is fine with heights).  We wandered around the reserve while Glenn explained some of the facts about the wildlife to me.  We found a couple of Dasies which aren’t found in very many other places but they seem to like the habitat at the top of the mountain.  They are strange looking creatures, a little bit like huge hamsters.

The view from the top is absolutely incredible.  You can see all the bays below you plus you get a good view of Robin Island which is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.  You’re so high in fact that the view is quite surreal, it doesn’t really feel like the city below you is actually real.  Surprisingly there was no wind the day we were there so it was very hot.  We all caught the sun a little and ended up with beautiful panda eyes (mostly Jem and I though).  We caught up with Jemma and all got ice creams before joining the que to the cable car to take us back down.  This time I was really sure I’d stand up and look at the view, but again within a few seconds I’d changed my mind and sat back down again.  The member of staff noticed how scared I was and decided to embarrass me when we got to the bottom by asking everyone over the microphone to give me a round of applause.  For some reason one guy sang happy birthday to me in German leaving me looking a little confused then sang it again in English.  I’m not sure why he thought it was my birthday, maybe he misunderstood the announcement.  Looking up at the towering mountain above me, I was happy to have my feet firmly on the ground again.

Maid In China

For Glenn’s birthday we decided to go a party we’d seen advertised at the CTICC.  We booked the tickets, went to the beach, and then Jem and I went shopping to see if we could find an outfit to wear.  We went to every shop selling women’s clothes in the mall and tried on every dress we could find.  We discovered that perhaps going to the beach on the same day wasn’t the best plan as we were both striped with burnt skin and ridiculous tan lines.  Eventually when the mall was about to close we went back to the first shop we’d been to and bought a dress each, a clutch purse each and shoes to match.

After getting ready we set off to the party and on arriving realized that maybe we’d missed some part of vital information about the dress code.  There we all were smartly dressed when the people queing to get in were mostly dressed up as something to do with China.  There were a hell of a lot of people dressed up as pandas and also strangely a lot of men just wearing pants.  Feeling slightly out of place the person in front of us in the que looked at us and said ‘I don’t get it’ (referring to out outfits).  He was wearing some form of dress and had a feather duster.  It seems Maid In China was the theme and not the name of the party.  We obviously didn’t get the memo.  When we got inside we each got a Chinese temporary tattoo spray painted onto our skin as an attempt to fit in a little better.  Jem and I got a Chinese dragon on our cheeks while Glenn got a dragon on his chest.  He did seem to get a lot of attention from the gay men who all seemed a little disappointed when he introduced them to his wife.

The venue was huge.  The CTICC is a lot like the NEC and has huge rooms with concrete floors that can all be opened out to form a maze of different rooms.  They had really gone all out with the decorations and each room was hung with Chinese lanterns, decorated with dragons and had a different dj playing various styles of music.  There was a large stage outside with live bands including Kissy Sellout and various others that I can’t remember as some parts of the evening are a bit hazy.  When I got chatting to an English guy outside he explained that this was a gay party held every year with a different theme.  That would explain the amount of men dressed in bizarre outfits then.

It was really good fun.  There’s nothing like a gay party to have a good time at, everyone was so friendly and just out to have a laugh.  We danced all night and drank a fair amount until we ran out of money.  Unfortunately the cash point had broken by that time so I decided to try to persuade the guys at the Jagermeister stand to give me a free shot.  They were very charming but were reluctant to give me a free drink, until their very lovely manager (and boyfriend of our landlady) paid for it himself.  They also gave me a vest top, hat, key chain and stuck Jagermeister letters across my back.  After this we were starting to run out of steam (and decided Jemma had had enough to drink) so decided to head home.  Thinking it was still early I was disappointed with our performance, but then realized it was 4am.  Not so bad after all.

The Secret Bus Service

So after the longest journey by road I’ve ever done, we had finally arrived in Cape Town to the beautiful new house in Sonkring, Brackenfell.  A million miles away from the bug-dropping, electric shock giving, power cutting out house in Katima.  The first couple of days were of course spent unpacking and organizing whilst getting to know the area.  Cape Town is very American feeling; the buildings and streets look like they’re straight out of Florida and the feel of the place is quite American too.  Being a fairly new city that suddenly multiplied massively in size the transport isn’t that great unless you’re in central Cape Town.  The surrounding areas have been zoned into massive residential areas where there are all sorts of different houses as everyone seems to build their own (it is so much cheaper to build a house here).  I haven’t really seen estates of identical houses anywhere.  The good thing is that each residential area seems to have its very own mini-mall so you’re never to far from a shop.

One funny thing is that there are ‘English’ areas that have windy lanes and have a very British feel to them, and there are the Afrikaans areas that feel very American, with everything in between.  It’s not like Birmingham for example which has a similar feel throughout (albeit apart from the posh bits and poorer bits); every area in Cape Town looks and feels completely different.  There is the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (and yes it is Alfred and not Albert - Alfred being their son) which is the harbour with a huge shopping mall and plenty of coffee shops to boot; this is very modern, well kept and touristy.  Then there’s Table View which surprisingly enough is on the opposite side to Table Mountain so you get the view; it’s trendy with lots of bars and restaurants.  If you venture further out into the vineyards it is a lot more picturesque with pretty white villas.  The time I’ve been here we seem to have been in areas from one extreme to the other.  It being difficult to use the public transport we’ve driven to the destinations we wanted to go to so have managed to see quite a bit of Cape Town.  The good thing is that unlike London it is very easy to drive around the city, even in the centre and the parking is ridiculously cheap and easy to find.  On our travels I’ve seen picturesque beaches with the mountains towering behind the bay, really rundown areas that remind me a lot of the scummier parts of Birmingham, huge modern malls (and plenty of them), windy lanes, massive motorways, mountains and the Cape Flats which are the ‘slum’ villages.

On the whole it’s an astoundingly beautiful place with the mountainous backdrop, vineyards spreading for miles, skyscraper city centre and gorgeous beaches but it still lacks a few creature comforts.  For example when we went into a shop to enquire about internet they only seemed to offer internet via a dongle.  When asking if they had broadband the reply was that they haven’t got it yet.  Is it me or have we had wired internet for about 20 years?  That’s the funny thing about Cape Town, on some levels it’s really advanced and seems super hi-tech, but on other levels they seem years behind.  The internet and mobile phone prices are ridiculously expensive, it’s like the few providers have the monopoly so can and will charge whatever they want.  The cinemas (in Cape Town and Namibia) don’t have surround sound; it took us a while to work out why the sound quality was so rubbish but when we finally did it seemed really strange.  I guess it’s something we just take for granted but when you’re then sitting in a cinema it feels like you’ve got back in time.  One explanation for this is perhaps that the weather is so much nicer here that there isn’t the market for indoor activities like in Britain, so maybe they’re not willing to spend the money on it as they certainly have the technology, who knows.  Generally anything electronic seems either on par with us or a lot more expensive depending on what you’re going for, but the food prices and other things are loads cheaper.  You can easily get a nice lunch in a good restaurant for 3 people with 3 coffees for less than 10 pounds, it’s a steal.

One thing that the Africans in general seem to have that we don’t are basket trolleys.  Genius.  They are small trolleys that hold your basket in the supermarket so you don’t have to lug one round and they even hold up to 3 at a time, why haven’t we thought of that?!  Also the men in the petrol stations that fill up your car for you, I know we used to have a similar operation but these guys also do your oil, water and tyres for you, without you even having to get out the car.  To think what better condition all our cars would be in if we had a service like that.  The parties I’ve been to here have also been awesome, generally very friendly and lots of good fun.  The men seriously need to work on their chat-up lines though; at one party I had a guy that first told me he was gay, then admitted he was straight and continued to go on saying he thought we were made for each other without having even asked my name.  When I pointed this out to him he seemed a little flustered and so I showed him my driving license to give him a clue to which he exclaimed Lizzie!  Not the sharpest tool in the box.

I would definitely recommend a visit to this beautiful place if you ever have the chance, but whether I’d want to live here long term I’m not too sure.  If you’re doing the touristy thing there are loads of places to go and see, plus with the amount of malls (Century City, Tiger Valley, V&A, N1 City to name just a few) there are certainly some opportunities to do some shopping.  Table Mountain is worth a trip as are the vineyards.  You’re spoilt for choice with beaches; some on the Atlantic perfect for surfing with others on the Indian which are great for sunbathing and swimming.  It’s worth checking out what’s on at the CTICC (a bit like the NEC) as both the events I’ve been to there have been amazing.  There are also the gardens and plenty of historical sights to see too.  The only thing really that makes me debate about a life here is the pure difficulty to get any information about anything.  Why not use the internet you say?  Well we have tried that too but if you’re lucky enough to find a website about what you’re looking for then it’s usually not up to date.  We tried for weeks to find out if there were any busses running in our area.  We asked at tourist information (which took us 3 attempts to find in the first place as the maps and websites were out of date) but although they were very helpful, they didn’t know much about the transport.  We finally found a website for the busses but it didn’t state where or when they ran so we rang the enquiry line, which referred us to the website.  We are were starting to think that it is some form of secret bus service that only very particular people could use and have contemplated just standing on the road until we see one (if we see one) and trying to flag it down.  We even found lay-by type things that look a lot like bus stops but don’t have a sign or a timetable so we’re not entirely sure what they are.

The secret bus service pretty much sums up the attitude here about information.  If you don’t already know what you want to know then it’s unlikely you’ll ever find out.  So as a tourist destination, definitely, but to live permanently, maybe not.

The Neverending Journey

After a restful few days in Windhoek with Glenn’s family and much enjoyment of the civilized amenities, we set off for Cape Town.  The cats were being left behind as they needed to have had their rabies jabs for over a month before being allowed into South Africa, so Glenn’s mum was going to look after them and put them on a flight when they were ready.  Amazingly, Glenn’s mum had managed to re-pack the car for us so that Jemma could fit in as well, meaning that we hardly had to leave anything behind; just an old suit of Glenn’s and the kettle (in hindsight we probably could have chosen something less needed).  It was like watching a master at work, she carefully filled the vases and glass jars with anything that would fit, and used a tactical approach to wedging everything in like a jigsaw.  My space in the back was not much larger than me, I had things piled up to the roof on my right hand side, a quilt to sit on and even things under my feet, it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic.  It was quite cosy though, and surprisingly comfortable to sleep as I had the pile of objects to rest my head on.

We set off at 3am again with Glenn driving after a minor panic that Jemma couldn’t find her passport.  Of course Jem and I promptly fell straight to sleep leaving Glenn holding the fort.  After I don’t know how many hours I awoke and continued to read my Harry Potter book.  We planned to drive straight the way through with no sightseeing stops (although we were allowed to ask for toilet stops) as the drive from Windhoek to Cape Town is about 16 hours on a good day, although we did stop early in the morning to grab some breakfast at Wimpy, which for the record is a hell of a lot nicer over here than it is in England.  As we drove further into southern Namibia it struck me how similar the landscape is for miles on end.  From Katima to Windhoek it changed quite constantly going from bush to hills to mountains, but this time it was just flat bush as far as the eye could see.  The roads are incredibly straight, they make our ‘Roman roads’ look pathetic.  These ones go on for hours with no bends, no change to the landscape and no villages or towns.  They’re not fun to drive on because there is nothing to keep your attention as nothing changes for hours on end.  You’d be a bit screwed if you broke down.

After many more hours of the same landscape and me nearing the end of my book in between naps, the scenery started to change.  There were mountains in the distance and the road became more bendy, winding in between the slopes.  After a quick stop at a service station to fill the car with yet more petrol, Glenn warned us that we were approaching the South African border.  When we finally reached it we were immediately told to turn round and go back to the petrol station we had just been to, to buy a ‘Nam’ bumper sticker to show which country the car had come from.  On the second attempt at the border we were let through and did the usual tedious filling in of forms.  The border here was definitely a lot different to all the ones I’d seen in Zambia and Botswana, which looked mostly like run down huts with big scary looking black men who didn’t really pay much attention to you.  This one was clean and modern, and had well-ironed suited men behind the counters who looked at us with interest.  After explaining our trip they stamped our passports and let us through.

Thinking that now we were over the border we must nearly be there I took to checking out the scenery, this lasted about an hour before I got bored and went back to my book (Jemma had mostly been asleep so far).  The landscape continued getting more and more mountainous with each minute we drove through it.  It looked like someone had super-imposed the mountains in the background as there were so many they just became dark shadows against the horizon.  After at least 14 hours of driving, I was starting to get incredibly bored and uncomfortable in my little cocoon in the back of the car.  I can’t imagine how Glenn felt.  With Jemma successfully awake by now I decided to persuade her to teach me some more Afrikaans.  She chose to go with animals and started by telling me the names of them and then quizzing me over and over, with Glenn correcting our pronunciation occasionally.  Soon becoming tired of this and me quite good at remembering the names of animals in Afrikaans, Jemma and I started getting a bit delirious with the boredom and started asking Glenn ‘are we there yet?’ over and over again whilst slotting in random words like ‘owl’ in strange voices.  Boredom can do strange things.

As we drew nearer to Cape Town the scenery was beautiful; we were completely surrounded by mountains and started to see signs of the vineyards that take over the whole outskirts of the city.  It really is an extraordinary sight, they spread out below us for miles with rows and rows of well kept green vines.  When we were about half an hour away Jemma rang to arrange the collection of the keys to our new house, only to find that the landlady was away and her mother didn’t think her husband would be too pleased with her venturing out to give us the keys.  Why they didn’t tell us this beforehand as they knew we were coming that day and why that seemed ok to leave us with nowhere to stay after a 17 hour drive is beyond me.  After some negotiation we agreed that we would book into a hotel which would be paid for by the landlady.  We found one reasonably near the area of the house and booked in to stay the night.  It was nice to spend the evening in the restaurant after such a long trek, with a waiter that was so keen to impress he even suggested with some force to order a passion fruit and lemonade instead of just lemonade, as obviously this was far too bland (and probably a lot cheaper).

The next morning we met the landlady’s mother at one of the malls near the house, where she gave us the keys and drove us to the door as we didn’t know the area.  The house is beautiful; a huge 3 bed-roomed modern house on a quiet estate in Brakenfell.  There are huge walls around the boundaries with an electric gate and garage door for security.  There are armed response vans that patrol the area day and night for extra security, which seem a little extreme as the place is very quiet, but I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry.  The interior is all tiled with new kitchens and bathrooms; in fact I think the whole house is only a few years old.  The area has a lot of plots that you can buy to build your own house so each one in the road is different which makes a nice change from the similar-looking houses in towns in England.  Definitely a good find by Glenn.

Windhoek Voyage

Jemma and the cats having safely been packed off on a flight to Windhoek in the afternoon, Glenn and I packed up the rest of the stuff from the house into the car.  Glenn had arranged for a friend of his to come round to collect the furniture that he had bought, although he turned up about 4 hours late.  By this point we were sat on the floor with hardly anything left in the house.  He came in and started loading everything onto his bukki with the help of his brother and 2 young boys.  Whilst simultaneously asking me to be his wife (he actually already had a wife but his religion allows him to have more than one), he packed everything up and tried to haggle with Glenn for a few of the other things left.  Finally when they had cleared everything and given up trying to buy the TV screen, they left us to it.  There was nothing left except the airbed I was sleeping on and Glenn and Jem’s bed which was being left behind.  Glenn and I headed off to our beds as we had an early start the next day.

At 2.30am my alarm went off, having had all of about 2 hours sleep.  I got up, had a quick shower and crammed the rest of my stuff into the car.  It was absolutely jammed full.  After getting petrol and some drinks we set off on our long journey to Windhoek.  I promptly fell asleep and woke up just as the sun was rising at about 6.30am.  We stopped by the side of the road to have a toilet break and as I walked back to the car I noticed Glenn trying to remove a very brightly colored dead bird from the grill.  He quickly told me to turn around so I wouldn’t have to watch the gruesome sight, then once all was sorted we set off again.  Unlike the UK where there are towns and villages everywhere, Namibia has hundreds of kilometers of nothing but bush, so it is quite common to see people weeing at the side of the road as there’s nowhere else to go.  Apparently it’s not rude to do it, but it’s rude to watch someone.  It was quite a fun journey, we chatted a lot and I read my Harry Potter book which I was quite engrossed in by then.  I certainly got to see a lot of Namibia.  We stopped at one of the small towns called Rundu on the way to have breakfast.  It was interesting to see how different the towns were compared to Katima, which really is the back of beyond.  I took photos of a cow-pulled plough, a small boy rolling a tyre, the pottery markets all by the side of the road etc, pretty much all the things you wouldn’t see in England.

Our first planned stop we’d decided on was to see the Hoba meteorite near Grootfontein.  After a good 8 hours of driving already behind us we started to draw near to the destination of it so took a slight detour from our journey to make this stop.  It is the largest known meteorite in the world that is still in one piece.  The crater it made is immense… it’s so big I didn’t notice that we were driving through it until Glenn pointed out that the valley we were in was formed by the collision.  It was quite interesting to see, and being Africa there weren’t any restrictions so I happily went and stood on it.

After a few more hours of driving, lots of reading, smoking and chatting, we stopped off at a petrol station in Otavi to grab some more drinks and also see if we could find the camel farm I had heard about and wanted to see.  It turns out it is not actually a farm but a private house who’s owner is particularly fond of stray animals.  After some gentle persuasion from Glenn the manager of the petrol station rang the owner of the house and he agreed to meet us.  He was a really lovely guy.  He took us on a tour of his own garden and introduced us to all his animals.  He liked to give them good homes if they were hurt etc so had gradually built up a small collection of strange pets.  He first took us to see the blue wilder beast which was in a large enclosure with a zebra.  He strolled right up to the fence and let us stroke him through the wire, but apparently the zebra had got very bad tempered over the years so we were advised not to attempt to touch him as well. The wilder beast was really friendly though and stayed next to us the whole time we were there, enjoying the attention.  Next the man took us through his back garden to his huge beautiful house and introduced us to a mini deer like thing called a Duiker which was sitting in his kitchen.  I thought it was a baby but apparently it was at it’s full size, they just really are that small.  Next we headed out into the garden and saw two alpacas.  They were a little scary due to them being as tall as me, and it seemed they weren’t that fond of me either.  They let the man stroke them and seemed fine with Glenn but were wary of me.  With some encouragement I shuffled up to one of them and attempted to stroke it, but he seemed more interested in my foot.  I was wondering whether the alpaca would bite me when the man confirmed my theory by warning me not to let him sniff my foot.  He showed us all around the rest of his animals which included some more deer like things and an ostrich or two then we thanked him and said our goodbyes.  It was amazing that he’d just given two complete strangers a tour of his house and garden, especially as he refused to accept any money from us.

After a further 3 more or so hours of driving and the total now racking up to about 14 hours, I was starting to get rather bored and uncomfortable.  It was definitely the best way to see Namibia as we drove straight from the northern most tip to the centre, but it was by far the longest drive I’d ever done, and I wasn’t even the one driving.  I was relieved when we reached Otjiwarongo where we stopped to see the crocodile ranch, my patience with being in the car was quickly running out.  I’d found this place in my Lonely Planet guide and thought it would be a good place to check out as I had never seen a full size crocodile before.  All the ones I’d seen on the boat trip with Mum and Dick had been babies, although I was quite glad of this at the time.  The ranch breeds the crocodiles to be used for meat and their skin, but also to help with the population as crocodiles are quite often poached or killed for fun.  It is the only place in Namibia that breeds them so I thought it would be worth stopping there.  I was expecting it to creep me out at first as I’m usually a bit funny about the subject of things being bred for meat etc, but it didn’t actually bother me and they seemed quite happy.  We had a private tour around the ranch and the lady showed us the adult crocs which were immense.  The thing that surprised me was how still they are; I thought they might be thrashing around a bit but they don’t move unless they’re attacking something or being fed.  We were told all about  the eggs they lay and their lifespan etc, then showed into a building where all the baby crocs were.  There were hundreds off them.  After the tour we had a look at some of the bags and other products made out of their skins and were also given a whole skin to hold.  It was basically like leather but with a scaly pattern on.  Glenn had ordered a crocodile steak on our way in so that we could take it with us to try.  As soon as we got back to the car we had a mouthful each and surprisingly it tasted a lot like chicken.  Aside from the thought of it, it was actually quite nice.

Back on the road again for another couple of hours we eventually started seeing signs of Windhoek.  It looks a lot like Florida, very clean looking and all American style buildings.  After the 16-17 hour drive it was nice to finally be nearing our destination.  When we reached Glenn’s parents house we were greeted by Jemma, Glenn’s parents, Glenn’s sister and her two kids.  It was lovely to meet them but also a little exhausting after such a long drive.  We all ate dinner together and then crashed out for the night.  We spent the next few days enjoying the civilisation of Windhoek compared to the bush of Katima, making the most of the malls, cinemas and bars, knowing that in a few more days we had another mega journey to do.

Cats on Valium

Our journey to Cape Town was going to be done in 2 parts; the first a drive and flight to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, then after a week long stay there with Glenn’s parents we would start the journey into South Africa.  With the plan for the cats and Jemma being packed off on a plane to Windhoek so there would be enough space in the car to pack everything, we needed to find a sedative to give the cats for the flight (although it probably would have been a good idea to give Jemma one too).  Having no luck at the vet and quickly running out of ideas with Katima not exactly being the hub of civilisation, someone had suggested we give them a small dose of valium.  We thought it would be a good idea to test this out before the flight.  The night before they were due to fly we got hold of some from Brent, the pharmacist that Glenn worked for, and gave it a go.

We split one pill into quarters and surprisingly easily got the cats to swallow a bit each.  Thinking the hard part was over we let them wander round the house for a bit, having blocked off all their possible escape routes.  It seems valium doesn’t work that well on cats.  Henry (the tom cat) decided he didn’t like the feeling very much so turned his frustration into anger, attacking everything in sight; the sofa, Oscar (the female cat), our legs, in fact anything that came within reach.  After many scratches and a good half an hour we put him on the bed and Jemma lay with him trying to calm him down.  I sat with Oscar in the living room while she waddled around with lazy back legs looking as if she was drunk.  Having tried to jump up onto the table 3 times with no success (she kept jumping upwards instead of across), she decided to make a break for it and jumped head first into the window.  With a loud clunk she fell back down to the floor looking slightly dazed, it was definitely a sight to see.  Amazingly she went for the one window in the living room that had glass, all the others were made of mesh and she probably would have gone straight through them.

Meanwhile Henry was slightly dozy laying on the bed with Jemma, chewing a toy bird.  When the wings and tail had disappeared from said bird, we were trying to work out where they had gone only to realise that Henry had actually swallowed them.  Having removed the bird from Henry’s grasp we brought Oscar onto the bed too, to see if we could get them to go to sleep.  I lay stroking Oscar while Jemma was still with Henry.  They started to doze off, but at the slightest noise would wake up and attack anything within reach; me, Jemma, each other, they weren’t too fussy.  Realising this obviously wasn’t working to plan, we decided to separate them and take one of them to bed with us each.  I took Henry while Oscar still roamed about the house for a while.  I got into bed taking Henry with me, and tucked my mosquito net in all around the mattress as usual.  For a few minutes the plan seemed to be working as Henry dozed off on my lap.  Oscar, who was still wandering around decided to get onto Jem and Glenn’s bed so took a run up and made the jump.  She missed, hitting the bed head first as she had done with the window.  After a little help and now safely on the bed she settled down for a while.

Henry by this point had woken up and was attacking the moths and beetles landing on my net from the inside.  He kept jumping up and going for the bugs but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t able to catch them.  Having seen what he had done to Jemma’s net as a kitten and with no wish to spend the next few nights with huge holes in mine, I kicked him out.  He didn’t seem to mind and continued to take his aggression out on the bugs.  I finally fell asleep but was rudely awoken in the middle of the night by Henry jumping onto my net again trying to catch a moth.  He was right above my head and ended up hanging there for a few seconds until I managed to unhook him and shoo him away.  If you’ve ever seen the ‘Simon’s cat’ videos on youtube you’ll understand what I mean when I say he looked exactly like a sketch from one of them.  It was not a restful night.  So if you ever need to sedate a cat for any reason, don’t bother trying valium; I’ve still got the scars to prove it.

Mukuni Lion Sanctuary

While Richard was still staying we thought it would be a good idea to go to Livingstone in Zambia again.  Richard had seen Vic Falls on his last visit but it had been high season, so most of the view was mist sprayed up from the amount of water going down the waterfall.  After some deliberation we all decided that we’d rather go to see lions instead, as there is a lion sanctuary not far from Victoria Falls.  After a journey a lot less stressful than the first time I’d been to Livingstone, we arrived and went in search of the sanctuary.  With no luck asking at Fawlty Towers  we dropped into a tourist centre to find that they took bookings for the sanctuary.  After a few minutes and our wallets a lot lighter, we set off for the sanctuary.

It wasn’t too hard to find, although the drive did go out into the bush a fair bit so we were wondering where we would end up.  We were greeted by a friendly man who sat us down with a cold drink in the lodge and explained all about the project they were doing.  We were asked to sign a disclaimer saying that if anything happened to us we could sue, which was a little disconcerting as the guide had just given us some sticks to use as a distraction if the lions looked at us.  I’m not sure how much use the stick would be if a lion decided I look tasty.  We were told that the lions would be released back into the wild when they were older, as the aim of the project is to increase the population rather than provide a zoo for people to see the animals.  The instructions were to do exactly as told by the guides, and only ever approach the lions from behind.  If they wanted to move then you move with them or let them walk away.  Under no circumstances were we to touch the lions heads or paws as they don’t tend to like it, plus we were told not to put anything on the floor as they couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t think it was a toy, and therefore it would be fair game to play with.

We set off from the lodge with our sticks in hand, all a little nervous about what to expect - it didn’t help that our guide had a huge scar down his neck, which we later found out had been given to him by the white lion when she was little. The first thing I noticed was that there were no enclosures; the lions were just roaming free in the bush.  After a 10 minute walk or so we saw two guides stood next to two of the magnificent beasts who were lazing in the shade of a tree.  Although technically they were still cubs, they were absolutely huge, their paws were the size of my head.  We all shuffled up in a line in front of them while our guide explained the details of each one.  One was a white lion and the other a tawny.  They were gently biting each other’s ears taking no notice of us at all.  We were asked who wanted to go first and everyone looked a bit nervous about approaching these huge creatures, so with a little encouragement from the guide we took it in turns to walk around them and kneel behind.  The temptation is to stroke them behind the ears like a cat, but after the strong warnings not to touch their heads I resisted.  Jemma and Glenn had joked about me running up to one and cuddling it like I do with most animals, but once I was actually face to face with one their immense power was apparent so I had no urge to hug it.  Whilst kneeling behind the lions I stroked each of them.  You have to press quite hard while you stroke them as their skin’s so thick if you do it lightly it tickles which apparently irritates them.  We had been instructed to distract their attention away from us if the glanced around at us with the sticks we’d been given, but in actual fact they weren’t that interested in the sticks; I suppose if I was a lion and had a 7 people standing around me I wouldn’t be bothered about a stick either..  The tawny lion seemed to find me quite interesting and so kept turning her head to look at me.  Every time she did one of the guides would dangle this green canvas bag in front of her face to distract her which seemed to work quite well.  She wasn’t impressed with the stick at all.

We had quite a while sitting with the lions in turn and took a lot of photos too.  The guide continued to explain all about them and what they were trying to achieve at the sanctuary.  He also demonstrated their claws by pushing the tawny lions thumb out, much like you would with a cat.  He asked us if we would like to walk with the lions and so the guides encouraged them to stand up and go for a stroll.  It was the strangest thing I think I’ve ever done.  While the lions were walking we were instructed to grab hold of their tails.  They didn’t care at all and merely carried on walking ahead of us.  At one point the lion who’s tail I was holding bounded off with me trailing behind so I ended up being sandwiched between the two of them.  The guide looked at me in alarm and instructed me to let go and drop behind so the lion could pass.  I suppose that probably wasn’t the most sensible place to end up.

The nicest thing about the experience, apart from stroking a lion obviously, was how much the guides respected them.  The whole thing was done on the lion’s terms, not the people’s.  Although I guess logically it would be quite difficult to make them perform on demand.  They really are the kings of the jungle.  They were so laid back and yet being around them made me really respect the power and beauty.  Definitely worth the money.

Once we were back at the lodge we took a look around the other creatures they had there.  There were some cheetahs which happily played with the guide while he was chatting to us and a lynx that hissed at us the whole time we were there.  We asked if the guide ever went in the enclosures with the lynx and he said that he had been in there but it is not safe to do so as they will jump up and claw your eyeballs out.  I’m not sure why he felt the need to be so graphic, a simple ‘it’s not safe’ would have sufficed.  Overall the whole experience is not something I’ll forget in a long time.

The Arrival of Monty

One afternoon Jemma and I were sitting at home reading when I heard this weird squawking coming from the back door.  I crept up to get a closer look and peered through the mesh to see a small ball of fluff shaking rapidly every time it made the weird noise.  It was quite amusing to watch the ball of fur start vibrating every time it squawked.  After a minutes examination I realized it was a baby squirrel that had fallen out of it’s nest.  It didn’t look hurt in any way, although a little bit stressed, so we decided to leave it for a while to see if it’s mother would come and pick it up (knowing that if it smelt of us the mother wouldn’t touch it).  We left it squawking on the doorstep for about an hour, in which time the mother did come down the tree, look at it, then turn around and go back up to the roof.  Deciding that she obviously wouldn’t collect it I opened the door and picked it up.  By this point Christina (the maid) had gone round the house so that she was the other side of the back door matt and was peering at it with disgust.  The locals aren’t massive fans of animals and they tend to be scared of anything small and furry.  Jemma tells me that when they first got the kittens, Christina couldn’t understand why on earth you’d want the scary little creatures in your house.  Over time she grew to love them, and although never picked them up she seemed to like it when they rubbed up against her legs while she was doing the ironing.

The instant I picked it up Christina grabbed the matt it had been sat on and promptly put it in the washing machine, as if it had left some disgusting squirrel germs there.  It soon settled down and stopped squawking, promptly going to sleep curled up in my hand.  After closer examination we realized that it was a boy and after Jemma’s suggestion, I named him Monty.  I cut up my woolen scarf that I had been knitting (that hadn’t been going very well anyway) and made a little nest for him to sleep in.  After speaking with Amelia, who has raised a few baby squirrels before, I found out what to feed him and how to look after him.  I bought a couple of syringes from the pharmacy, made the formula and fed him.  He drank the whole syringe and promptly went back to sleep.

Over the next few days I carried him around in my bra; Amelia told me that they like the warmth and also as he now thought that I was him mum, it would be best to keep him somewhere he can smell me.  This worked quite well for a few days as he’d sleep happily in there until I woke him up every 4 hours to be fed.  If you are wondering how it is possible to keep a baby squirrel down your bra and not get covered in poo, the answer is this:  In the wild the mother would lick the squirrel to stimulate it to go to the toilet.  When they are this young (Monty was about 4 weeks we think) they can’t go on their own., so every time I fed him I would also ‘wee’ him.  It was a very strange sight.  At night I kept him wrapped inside his wool nest next to my pillow, inside the mosquito net so that the cats couldn’t get to him.  I set my alarm every 4 hours to wake me up to feed him during the night which was exhausting as I was still getting up early to ride every morning.

After a few days he began to be a lot more active and would wriggle around too much to keep him in my bra (plus it was difficult to find enough tops that he wouldn’t fall out of when I bent over) so I cut up my fluffiest sock and made it into a pouch to hang around my neck.  He wasn’t too keen on this at first but after some persuasion he curled up and went to sleep.  It was hilarious when he’d wake up, stick his head out of the pouch and start squawking up at me to tell me that he needed a wee.  He was so friendly, if you stroked his tummy he would lift his arm up to allow you to tickle him.  As he got older he would squawk at me for a wee then pull a concentrating face while he was going, letting his legs dangle down loosely while I held him.  He started to sleep less and get a lot more active, getting quicker each day that went by.  His tail started to curl over his back while he ran, which helped us establish how old he was with a bit of internet research.  He started to grow his bottom teeth and would chew on my finger gently when I picked him up.  He became known at Tutwa and most people that came to the café would ask how he was doing.  He went everywhere with me.

One evening I was stressing that he seemed to be a bit constipated, so was trying to work out what to do.  Jemma had got me some milk to make the formula with, but as they didn’t have any evaporated milk, she’d bought condensed instead.  Thinking that it probably wouldn’t make much difference I fed Monty as usual.  To my horror he went absolutely mad.  He was attacking the syringe trying to get more food out whilst darting from side to side.  He ended up with it smeared all over his face and paws, then starting attacking his paws trying to lick it off.  It looked like he was chewing his thumbs off.  I shrieked for Jemma and explained that I thought he might have chewed his thumbs off, and trying not to laugh she calmed me down and said that he probably wouldn’t do that as it would hurt.  I never lived it down, although I still stand by the fact that if anyone had seen what he’d done they probably would have come to the same conclusion.  After dipping my finger in the formula, I realized that condensed milk is obviously just pure sugar.  It was so sweet I couldn’t believe it.  Obviously Monty had had a bit of a sugar rush and liked it judging from his attempts to attack the syringe.

When Richard came over to see Jemma for a few days, I was debating what to do.  I couldn’t leave Monty at home for that long as we needed to pick Richard up from the airport at Kasane which was a good 2 hour drive away.  I decided my best option would be to take Monty with me, which technically involved me smuggling him into Botswana.  I made a nest in my camera bag and took him in the car with us.  While we were driving I had the zip open so he could play, but as we drew nearer the border I zipped the lid on so that there would be no chance of him escaping or someone spotting him.  While we were in the Border Post he was squawking loudly so I had to keep coughing to cover up the sound.  As you drive into Bostwana they have a checkpoint and search your car for fresh fruit etc, whilst also making you stand on a chemical filled rag to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease.  We though it was hilarious as when they asked us if we had any fruit or veg, we were able to honestly say no… they didn’t ask if we had any baby squirrels so technically we weren’t lying.  Richard wasn’t massively amused at first, he thought Monty was cute but expected him to be quite wild and not much fun to play with.  As Jemma decided to sprawl herself on the back seat of the car, Richard was left holding Monty while I drove home.  Monty soon charmed Richard into being just as soppy about him as the rest of us were by squawking at him loudly from the opening in the camera bag.  I think Richard wasn’t sure what to make of him at first, but once he’d realized how tame and playful Monty was, he was happy to play with him constantly.

I had been worried about what to do with him when we moved to Cape Town as smuggling him into Botswana was one thing, but trying to smuggle him into South Africa was another.  There was a woman called Karen that lived on the Fish Farm, who already had a couple of squirrels she had rescued.  Baby squirrels are actually very easy to raise and fine to release back into the wild after only 12 weeks.  After checking out Karen I decided that would be the best option for Monty as she obviously knew what she was doing and cared for the squirrels very much.  When it came to me handing Monty over to her I was very upset and gave her his woolen blanket, syringes and explained how he like to have his belly rubbed.  She humored me and put him down her top straight away, where he burrowed down a bit and went to sleep.  I visited him a few times before we moved to see how he was getting on.  He seemed very happy and Karen was always very understanding with me fussing about him.  Although it was sad to see him go, he has definitely been left it good hands.

Island View

A few weeks into my stay one of our friends, Etienne, asked us if we would like to go camping with him and a group of friends on one of the sand dunes in the Zambezi.  The trip was arranged as a sort of goodbye party for Etienne as he was moving to Cape Town, and also Natalie who worked for Etienne’s parents.  Seeming like an opportunity too good to turn down, we all agreed.  Etienne asked us all to come to ‘The Fish Eagle’s Nest’ (a lodge) for a meeting to discuss the arrangements.  It was completely pointless me going as they talked in Afrikaans the whole time, so I mostly gazed up into the sky wondering what they were talking about.  At one point Natalie went round the group asking each individual person something (which I couldn’t understand) until she got to me and looked at me expectantly.  Deciding I might as well agree to whatever it was she was asking, I said yes and she continued on round the group.

On the Saturday morning Jem and I spent a fortune in Checkers (a mini supermarket) buying all sorts of things to make into a picnic.  We went home and made burgers, salad, sandwiches and jelly, then packed the whole lot including a lot of beer into a cool box.  We then packed a sleeping bag, mosquito net and a couple of towels and waited for Etienne to come and pick us up.  Once he’d arrived and we’d picked up a few other people we set off to Island View.  Island View is a waterside lodge that has a bar, lodges you can stay in like a B&B and boats that you can hire to take out onto the Zambezi.  The rest of the group coming had already gone ahead of us in their own boats so we loaded our bags onto the platoon we’d hired and started drinking.  Etienne drove the platoon while the rest of us admired the sun setting over the water.

After about 20 minutes of being in the boat we came up to the island where the rest of the group had already set up camp.  In total there was about 15 of us.  Etienne’s parents being very organized, had set up a mini marquee with a table and cool boxes, along with a fire in the centre of the camp.  Jem and I set up an air mattress on the platoon and hung our mosquito net over it.  Most of the guys had decided to brave it and just bring a sleeping bag, but a few had already set up their tents.  Not long after we’d got there Etienne’s dad got out his revolver and fired a few shots into the air to warn the locals that we are armed and not to come and steal from the camp overnight.  Definitely not my usual camping experience.  Our small group that had arrived decided to swim in the Zambezi before it go too dark so headed off to the other side of the island.  The entire thing is just made up of sand and probably takes about half an hour to walk to whole way around.  It’s big enough so that you can’t see clearly to the other side of the island but small enough to walk across easily.  We got to the river on the far side of the island and jumped in.  The water was surprisingly warm and if you sat still for a few seconds the current would start to drag you down steam.  I was a bit nervous at first as there are a hell of a lot of crocodiles and hippos that live in the Zambezi.  After a few minutes though I started to forget this and just enjoy the water.

Once we were back at the camp we continued drinking and didn’t stop.  Everyone ended up rather plastered including a few particular people, although I am sworn to secrecy about some of the events that happened that evening.  At one point we decided to have a race swim around the platoon, which in hindsight was a really stupid idea as by that point the sky was pitch black and there was no way we would have seen a crocodile lurking there.  None of us got eaten though so all was good.  At one point when I’d wandered away from the camp to go to the loo, I head a group of hippos snorting, it was rather unnerving.  We continued drinking, chatting and gazing at the amazing African stars until the early hours of the evening when gradually everyone headed off to get some sleep.  When I finally decided to go to bed at around 4.30am, I found that Glenn had stolen my airbed and quilt leaving me with absolutely nowhere but the sand to sleep.  Glenn had originally said that he wouldn’t be going to sleep at all, so didn’t bother to bring a sleeping bag or anything of his own.  As you can imagine this irritated me slightly whilst I was trying to use my wet towel as a blanket, but Etienne took pity on me and offered to share his quilt.

In the morning we all made a new fire and started a braai.  This seemed like a good idea at the time but after discovering that everything we had packed in our cool box was covered in sand, we gave up.  Sometime in the morning Natalie asked me what was on my leg, when I looked down and discovered a huge black and blue bruise on my thigh.  I have no idea how it got there.  By late morning most of the group got into the boats and headed back to Island View to go home, leaving just me, Etienne, Brent, Nicky, Steven, Francois and Harold behind.  We continued drinking throughout the day and enjoyed the sun and water.  We discovered that there was a sand bank slightly under the water near where the boats had been so spent a lot of the time sat chest height in the river. It was a really lovely day.

Eventually in the late afternoon we decided to pack up and head back to the cars, but unfortunately most of the camping gear had been left for us to sort out.  After a long time of hauling boxes onto the boat we headed back in the direction of Island view.  Nicky and Harold went together in Harold’s own boat.  Once we were back we then had the task of lugging everything up the slope to the cars which was not fun with sunstroke and sleep deprivation for the night before.  Not long after we’d packed everything into the cars and were cooling down with a cold beer we noticed that some people were stood on the river bank looking at something heading our way.  We joined the group of people to see what all the commotion was, only to find Harold climbing up the bank with blood pouring out of his forehead.  He looked a state.  It turns out that he’d confronted some of the locals that were fishing in the river in canoes as that area is a no-fishing zone.  They didn’t appreciate this and so swung what was described to me as a wooden stick with metal on the end (an axe?) at him.  It is hard to know what really happened as from what I’d seen of Harold, he was a little bit racist and had also been carrying his gun when he set off from the island.  Whether he provoked them (which seems likely) or not is hard to tell, but either way the damage they did to him was a little uncalled for.  I was panicking as no one seemed to be that bothered by the immense amount of blood pouring down his face, nor did them seem to be attempting to do anything to stop it.  When I asked if someone was going to help him I was told that they were fetching the first aid kit and eventually he was sat down and mopped up.

On the way home the thing that surprised me was how normal this seemed to everyone… no one else seemed to think the confrontation was particularly out of the ordinary!  It is definitely a sight I will never forget.  Aside from the blood and gore though, camping on a sand dune has got to be one of my favourite experiences, although I was quite ill for a week after which was a bit of a downer.  I’m not sure whether I picked something up from the river water or had sun stroke, but it was not much fun.  I also spent the week stressing about having been bitten by a spider as two red puncture marks had appeared in the centre of my huge bruise, but Brent (the pharmacist) informed me that it was nothing to worry about as I would have already been dead if it was.

Bush Riding

In the first couple of days that I was in Katima, Glenn took me to meet Biggy, the man that looked after the horses on the Fish Farm.  We had a brief chat with him and agreed that I would meet him at the stables at 7am the next morning to help him with the horses.  We had asked Katie, the owner of the Fish Farm if I could help Biggy with the horses and maybe go riding, but she hadn’t seemed too keen.  I decided to go on what Biggy had said so got up early the next day and headed over to the stables.  I was apprehensive at first as I hadn’t ridden for at least a year, plus did not know Biggy at all and was worried that he’d just canter off into the bush leaving me struggling on behind.  As it happened he actually asked me which horse I’d prefer to ride - I chose Sneakers, a cute little mare - and we started slowly down the path from the Fish Farm.  It came apparent quite quickly that I was a little rusty… boy did I ache the next day.

And that’s how it all started.  I continued to meet Biggy at 7am and go riding with him every morning.  When it started to get even hotter we would set off at 6.30am instead to try to avoid being out in the blistering sunshine for too long.  Ideally we should have set off at sunrise, but being up at 5am didn’t sound like a nice idea to me so we stuck to 6.30am.  We’d ride for about an hour each day after tacking up the horses, then wash them down with a hose before setting them out to graze.  It took me a while to work out why it was so funny washing them down, as I knew we’d always washed the horses at the yard I used to ride at but for some reason it was far more amusing doing it this time round.  Eventually I realized why; we used to always use a bucket and sponge so that we wouldn’t spook the horses, so I’d never pointed a hose at a horse before, but Biggy’s slightly more cavalier approach was hilarious.  The horses weren’t keen but had grown used to it, so they tended to glare at you with their ears back but not kick up too much of a fuss.  The addition of Sunlight (washing up liquid) just made matters even more funny.  The daily routine of lathering them up then rinsing them off certainly kept me amused.  Most days I’d even give Whisper (Biggy’s horse) a unicorn horn with his mane, which he was never too keen on.

After riding Sneakers the first day I decided to give Cooper a go.  He is a huge chestnut gelding and is as fat as he is tall.  Initially I intended to ride him every day to get him fit, but after a few days of his lazy rides I was exhausted by the constant needing to push him on so decided to try someone else.  I went for Apache… he is pure evil when he’s in the stable but he’s lovely to ride.  Most mornings I would attempt to go in the stable to tack him up and was met with attempts to bite me so that Biggy would have to come and put his bridle on.  I grew to love him and although he never gave up trying to bite me, I started to feel that maybe he was just misunderstood.  I once went into the stable with him and managed to get to the side of him to attempt tacking him up when he suddenly decided he’d changed his mind and tried to kick me.  Luckily for me I ended up wedged between his side and the fence so he couldn’t reach me.  Once the shock had worn off I thought it was really funny.  Biggy was quite worried at first, but soon started laughing with me.

After the first couple of days my rustiness wore off and I was riding quite well.  We’d trot all the way from the Fish Farm up to the power station sometimes, which was a good few kilometers away, then all the way back again.  Sometimes we would ride to the rapids at the border to sit in the nice breeze for a few minutes and sometimes we would ride out into the open fields so that we could canter across them.  We always came back via the Zambezi so that we could say good morning to the glorious river, and on a number of occasions would pass a naked man or two washing so I would avert my eyes as we rode past.  It was a really lovely way to see some of the country, not to mention some of the wildlife.  On a few mornings we saw hippos in the river so stopped to watch them for a bit, and quite often would ride through a whole group of baboons which I always found a little unnerving after all the stories Biggy had told me about them attacking people.  They never approached us though, just stood very still and watched us disappear into the bush.  One of the paths back to the Fish Farm went through a group of trees that the Cicadas love, which meant that they would constantly fly into me, leaving me shrieking with terror and Apache wondering what the hell I was doing.  Biggy always found this highly amusing.

One of the nicest things about going riding every day, other than seeing the country and getting a lot fitter, was getting to know Biggy.  We’d chat the whole way round about all sorts of different things.  Biggy is from Zimbabwe and so is a lot better educated than the locals in Namibia and Zambia.  He was an orphan from a young age and told me all about his life growing up.  We talked a lot about what’s going on in Zimbabwe now with Mugabe, and it was very sad to hear it from an insider’s point of view.  Biggy planned to go back over Christmas to see how the country was getting on, but said that the last time he’d been there what used to be farm land had just turned to nothing.  He thought that gradually they are pulling themselves back together after the currency crashing and all the farms shutting down, but it is difficult to tell how long it will take.

We talked a lot about the differences between England and Africa too.  He always found it funny to describe what the different bugs tasted like so he could watch the look of disgust on my face and quiz me about the type of food I eat.  Not that long ago Biggy got HIV.  It is a huge problem in Africa even though there are massive campaigns going on to prevent it spreading even further.  The problem is that the locals don’t tend to listen to the advice and don’t bother using protection, so it spreads rapidly.  Then when they do catch the disease they don’t seek help or take the medication.  HIV can be controlled successfully if you take the medication and lead a reasonably healthy lifestyle.  Biggy shows how successful this theory is.  I didn’t know he had HIV as he’d never told me, it was only when Dick Sharp explained to Mum and I what had happened that I knew.  Looking at him you wouldn’t be able to guess it at all.  Once I knew though it did occasionally pop into my head as it’s not something I’ve ever come across before.  There was one ride when I was talking about the bloody mosquitoes as by this time I was absolutely covered in bites.  I had scabs down my arms from where I’d been scratching them (and yes I know you’re not supposed to scratch, but they’re just so itchy!) and Biggy asked if he could feel them.  I didn’t think anything of it and offered him my arm to touch.  It was only when he’d prodded them a bit did it start running through my head about him having HIV, and was it really stupid of me to let him touch an open cut on my arm?  It’s sad really because I’m sure the chances of catching it from a fingertip on a bite are ridiculously small, but still I couldn’t help it going through my head.

A lot of funny things happened on our rides, other than being warned off by a snake and attacked by cicadas, we once met an armed police man.  He was just lazily wondering around the bush.  I’m not entirely sure why he was there but it’s not the kind of thing you want to discuss with an armed man, so I just politely said hi.  He stopped to chat to us for a while and then asked Biggy if he had any horses spare as he was after a whole tail to give to his cousin who is the chief of one of the tribes.  Biggy apologized saying that he couldn’t help and rode on leaving me very confused.  Once out of earshot I asked him what that was all about.  He explained that the chiefs use them as part of their dress and so this policeman wanted a tail.  I asked if he meant just cut off the horse and to my horror Biggy explained that the horse needs to be dead as they take the whole tail, bone included to keep all the hair together.  I got the distinct impression that the policeman had been eyeing up the horses we were riding.  Not my idea of a nice accessory.

I was really lucky to ride every day for free as most people had to pay Katie to ride the horses.  I’d offered to help Biggy mucking them out and feeding them etc but it was very rare that he actually asked me to do anything.  The whole time I was there I only mucked out the stables once and helped Biggy with the gardening once.  I was really sad to say goodbye to him as we’d become good friends, but we exchanged email addresses and promised to stay in touch.

Tutwa Tourism

On the outskirts of Katima there is a centre called Tutwa Tourism.  It had a small shop that sells ‘African shit’ as it has become affectionately know by us, a small café and also an office where you can book boat rides, camping trips, game drives etc.  It is owned and run by Katy Sharp who also owns the Fish Farm with Dick Sharp where Jem and Glenn rented a house.  Jemma and Amelia (who also lives on the Fish Farm) offered to take over the running of the café a while before I arrived in Katima.  Apparently it had been doing very badly and was hardly even making enough money to pay the staff, let alone make a profit.  I think Jemma and Amelia saw it more of an opportunity to fill up some time with something productive, as Katima doesn’t exactly have a lot to do.  Jemma was counting down the days until they moved to Cape Town and Amelia was temporarily stuck on her ride to Tanzania; her and her brother were riding for months across the southern African countries to raise money for charity.  Taking over the café seemed like a logical thing to do, it was practically volunteering as they made very little money from it but it filled some time.

The café is actually quite a nice little place with tables in the open air and the kitchen out the back.  There is a canopy over the top which provides some shade / shelter when the rainy season starts, and a constant supply of cold drinks.  There are blackboards with the choice of food and drink, large African wall hangings and quirky ashtrays on each table.  It seemed like a logical place to spend a lot of my time.  In the first couple of weeks of me being in Katima I would go with Jemma and Mum to Tutwa, where we would chill out, drink iced lattes and read our books.  The café was very quiet a lot of the time so Jemma and Amelia would join us, but when customers came in they would get to work.  The first couple of weeks I was there the heat was unbearable; I kept getting the feeling that I should be doing something more active, but if you even step out of the shade within a few minutes you have sweat dripping off your face and a gruesome headache.  So I decided to enjoy the forced relaxation.  I certainly got through a lot of books.

Katima is a funny old place.  Being in the back of beyond it seems about 10 years behind everyone else.  Like I’ve mentioned before, the meat in the supermarkets is already out of date, the service is nonexistent and the locals tend to avoid you.  There were a few of the locals working at Tutwa café, with Jemma and Amelia managing them.  When they had first started the kitchen had been so grimy and disgusting that they spent the first few days cleaning.  They revamped the menus, started baking cakes and tried to get some business in.  They had already done all this when I arrived so I only experienced the better side of it, but even then it could be a bit hit and miss sometimes.  With the completely different values that the locals held, Jemma and Amelia often found it a struggle to keep the food at a certain standard.  If they turned their backs for one minute all sorts of things would be sent out the kitchen.  On more than one occasion we received undercooked chips, dripping in oil and barely edible.  The cook didn’t seem to care at all.  No matter how many times she was told how long to cook them she always sent them out the same.  I once asked for a chicken and salad wrap, and received a look as if I was mad.  The wrap appeared with just chicken and a slice of tomato on the plate.  The next time when I took my time explaining that I wanted the salad in the wrap, the cook had to confirm with Amelia exactly what I meant; apparently salad inside a wrap is a complete phenomenon.  I think part of the problem is that they see the type of food we eat and think we’re mad.  The main diet in Katima is pap, which is sort of a thick porridge that tastes a bit like rice or mashed potato.  It’s usually served with relish, which is a kind of sauce.  It is almost like eating chilli con carne only without the spice or mince if that makes sense.  I guess if they don’t tend to eat what they were serving, then it wouldn’t matter to them how it left the kitchen.  There is a contradiction to my theory though; the supermarkets sold a variety of food other than the ingredients for pap, so someone must be eating it.  Maybe they just truly don’t care, who knows.

It does seem like an odd concept to me as the ladies that worked at the café were paid a salary for being there, but they didn’t seem to realise that if there were no returning customers, there would be no money and therefore no job.  When customers did walk in most of the time they would just ignore them, until Jemma or Amelia told them to go and serve.  When they did they weren’t exactly polite and generally had a disgruntled look.  I don’t know whether part of the problem was the language barrier, as sometimes they didn’t seem to understand me, but also a lot of the time it seemed that they understood fully what I was saying and just chose to ignore me.  If you think the service is bad in England, you want to try living in Katima for a bit.  At least you generally get what you order and it is usually edible in England, even if the reception is usually rude.  Having said that, I very much enjoyed my days spent chilling at Tutwa.  Most of the time Jemma or Amelia made my food so it was lovely, plus I had a constant supply of cold drinks.  I spent a lot of time reading, going on the internet and once Mum had gone back home, Jemma and I started Afrikaans lessons.  Jemma is already very good at the language so she spent the time to try to teach me.

Afrikaans is a phonic language so the letters (vowels especially) sound completely different to English.  Of all the languages that I know a little of, Afrikaans has definitely been the hardest one to pick up.  Some of the words are very similar to German, whereas others are completely different.  It is very much an open mouthed language so it took quite a while for me to relax and just make the noises without trying so hard.  After a couple of weeks of lesson we were both ill so stopped them and never started again, so I know bits and pieces of the language, but am certainly not fluent.

A lot of the time I would be sat in the café on my own which was brilliant.  I’d come in for breakfast and stay there all day with Jemma until she finished at 5pm.  It really gave me the time to relax and unwind as well as the opportunity to rethink my life plan.  It was really nice to spend some time with Jemma and learn a bit of another language too.  I wish everyone could have the opportunity to spend 2 months relaxing in the blistering sunshine, it does wonders for your state of mind!