HOMEWARD BOUND

IN REHANA'S WORDS

I have been complaining about sand since day one of this journey. Yes me, who dreamed for five years about travelling up the Indian Ocean coast and along the Red Sea. Who obsessively studied other people’s blogs for tips to traverse deserts. Who planned to travel as far away as possible from cities with tarred highways, tiled shopping malls and carpeted houses.

Our tent has been particularly sandy these past few months as we’ve camped alongside lakes and rivers. I give the sheet a thorough sweeping with my hand when I climb into it every night but wake up every morning with at least a kilo of grit clinging to my sweat-drenched, sticky skin (or so it feels).

Stupidly, I had been salivating at the prospect of the Makgadikgadi Pans without realising that a pan contains thousands of acres of the white stuff.

It rained every day we were on the pan, so the sand didn't stick so much

But at Jack’s Camp, where we spent two nights last week, there was a fairy who dealt with the problem. We tracked sand every time we went into our tent, despite leaving our shoes outside. But when we returned, even if we left only for a minute or five, it had magically disappeared.
I’m not sure if the same fairy dealt with the sand we traipsed in everywhere else, and if she was the one who kept making neat triangles at the end of every toilet roll we used. Jack’s Camp pays that kind of attention to detail, yet I couldn’t imagine lolling about there all day and keeping the fairies busy.
The Makgadikgadi Pans stretched all around us, and that was where we went minutes after we arrived and where we spent most of our time in the next two days. 

Besides, it was too wet and cold to spend any time in the biggest swimming pool in the pans.

The chilly pool. I am told it is welcoming when it's 45 degrees Celsius in the pans

It rained both nights and most of both days we were at Jack’s Camp. The pans were a shallow lake in most places, shimmering wetly into the distance. It was fringed with green islands of grass populated by the biggest herds of zebra I have ever seen, with the cutest gangly babies.
There’s a zebra migration into the area every wet season – a far more attractive prospect than watching ugly wildebeest stomping around.

Best of all were the storms that raged around us as we went for our drives into the pans. In one hour I counted five of them circling us, some grey, some purple and some laced with sparkling rainbows. The sunsets were a spectacular light show – never before have I seen indigo skies.

We had a great guide, Ruh, and the best company – Jules has already raved about Roberto and Manuella, the only other guests at the camp while we were there. 
The staff were savvy, articulate and some ate their meals with us – a damn good idea, I think.

Ruh took great care of us in every middle of nowhere to which he drove us 

Jack’s Camp is a go-with-the-flow kind of place. The staff make most of the decisions (we will wake you with the coffee at 5.30am, then we’ll take you to see the meerkats just as they’re waking up) but they’re very good decisions so you just say yes to everything.

Worth getting up before dawn to catch sight of this cute critter

I had some misgivings about the San/Bushmen/First People interaction. I’ve probably said it before on this blog that I hate community tourism where they take you to a Gogo’s house and you pay to peer into her pots and her longdrop.

But this visit was great. The group of about 10 Bushmen (as they call themselves, with some Bushladies Roberto was glad to see) marched into the camp in their antelope skins, shook us each by the hand as they introduced themselves. 

Our guide, Ruh, stayed behind and left us in the capable hands of Xixa (dunno how to spell any of their names) who spoke excellent English and could translate for his own people. One of the young women (can’t for the life of me remember her name, Click something or other) also spoke excellent English and had chosen to return to her community after finishing high school where she was a boarder.

We went for a walk into the veld with the group for what turned out to be a remarkable learning experience. They stopped wherever they spotted a useful plant, dug it up, explained its uses and then carefully replanted it into the soil. 
One of the young men opened up tunnels in the sand with a digging stick and eventually unearthed a fat yellow scorpion, that his people use for betting games – like fighting or racing beetles. While we recoiled from the scorpion the toddlers came closer and giggled.

Handle with care

It was quite hilarious when the Bushmen showed us how they make fire by rubbing fire sticks into a pile of dried zebra dung.
They had minutes earlier all of them (except for the two toddlers) accepted cigarettes that Manuella offered and the four struggling to get their fire going all had lit cigarettes hanging from their lips. They used a Bic lighter. But still, we learned.

See the resemblance?

Take a bow, Prospero Bailey. Your gift of two nights at Jack’s Camp is the most generous I’ve ever received. If you ever develop a hankering for someone to turn down your loo paper each time you use it, I’ll be your fairy.

LEAVING

 

I’ve changed a lot on this journey – hopefully for the better and permanently. It’s even made me consider changing my final wishes. I’ve been quite adamant about the fact that I’d like my ashes buried under a tree at Kirstenbosch Gardens, but in Botswana I’ve met such magnificent baobab trees that I’m tempted to merge with them instead.

The “Chapmans” baobab near Jack’s Camp is reputedly 5 000 years old. Can you imagine what it would be like to be buried under a baobab – you could hang around for another couple of centuries! First prize would probably be to be interred under a baobab near a house where your family lives for generations. I have to think about this.

Chapman's baobab has featured in travellers' letters for hundreds of years

After Jack's Camp we spent three nights at Planet Baobab in Gweta and saw almost all of the 17 magnificent baobab trees on and surrounding the property.
We spent most of our time with a huge specimen, around 1 000 years old, which Jules dubbed Oom die Boom. It had a hammock in its generous shade, which was hard to leave.
We’d go there after breakfast and skip lunch because it was impossible to stop lying down after being prone in toffee-sticky humidity for hours.

Can't get enough of your shade, Oom

We stripped our sandy bedding when we packed up our tent in Gweta; we’re not going to be camping for a while and we’re going to be visiting our washing machine (blissful sigh).

Next stop Francistown. It’s been a while since we’ve stayed in a local guest house and boy do they get better as we get closer to Joburg. In Francistown we had two double beds in our room, DSTV, a fridge, a kettle with complimentary Ricoffy and Cremora and – T A H-D A H, for the first time on our journey – an airconditioner! Not one mosquito dared venture into our room that night.

The thick forest of trees followed us all the way to Gaborone. There were reports the day before we left Gweta that the A1 highway had been closed because a bridge was underwater. It was drizzling when we crossed the Serula River, but trucks were thundering across the bridge – the vast majority with South African numberplates.

Gaborone's CBD looks a bit like Edenvale's, only smaller. The Ministry of Youth and Sport has a magnificent edifice within which to conduct its important tasks.

Bustling central Gaborone

Botswana’s a bit disappointing. I was hoping that here we would find a government that at least provided some essential services for its people. But people are now paying school fees for the first time in decades, the department of education failed to pay providers so parents have to buy textbooks this year and electricity supply to most schools has been cut because bills were unpaid. The dropout rate is soaring and results at schools and colleges are dismally poor.

Electricity is a huge problem; Botswana still relies on Eskom for 70% of its supply and less than 40% of its population has access to electricity. 

The highways are potholed but after witnessing first-hand the power of the summer rains, I suppose that’s understandable. What less easy to understand is why the parts that have been fixed are such a crumpled patchwork.

According to the business pages in the newspapers, the mines are all producing more than expected and the CEOs all look as fat and happy as the cattle munching the summer grasses. What is the government doing with the tax and royalties revenue?

Next stop, Johannesburg, where I can start griping again about our politicians. It’s going to be weird to be in Joburg as a guest – I haven’t had that experience before. Apologies in advance to the people we won’t get to see. We’re only at home for a week or so before we head off to KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape for the last of our 12-month journey and a taste of camping in South Africa. There are reportedly washing machines and hot water in most campsites. See you soon.