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.
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.
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