We set out on an immense journey in Africa, travelling nearly 10,000km from Cape Town to Kenya on overland truck, bribing our way through borders when necessary. We travelled through 8 African nations rich in natural beauty, culture, wildlife and tradition. From the lush vineyards of South Africa, the striking desert of Namibia’s skeleton coast, the iconic animals of Botswana and the Serengeti, the water-lilies of the Okavango Delta, the beach villages of Malawi, the dramatic rocky landscape of Zimbabwe, the spices of Zanzibar and the warm welcome in Kenya. This was a true adventure through the sweeping countryside of Southern and Eastern African, dotted with villages, whilst camping under the vast African sky. Some of our favourite moments are captured below.
Giraffe manor is a beautiful mansion house in the grounds of a giraffe sanctuary, where the animals wander around for the guests to feed and cuddle without fences or ropes keeping you apart. This overnight stay came at the end of 45 days camping in the bush and was a well-deserved moment of luxury: with a GNT on arrival, hot water bubble bath, huge room overlooking the giraffes and amazing Italian food and wine. Alex took the opportunity to pop the question after a lovely day enjoying the facilities and eating a candle lit dinner in the garden overlooked only by the warthogs and giraffe wandering by. Rose petals in our room and Prosecco to enjoy last thing before bed and with breakfast topped off the celebrations. We woke to hot chocolate in bed, fed the giraffe who poked their heads through the windows of the breakfast suite and were shown how to ‘kiss’ them by putting a pellet in your mouth and letting their lips, or tongue if you’re unlucky, collect it. It was a magical place to stay that we will always remember.
We spent our favourite day with Ian, a fascinating local guide with a huge knowledge of all things African, who showed us some of the amazing sights of Zimbabwe. The fun packed day began with a great jeep ride past the rocky boulder outcrops that dotted the vista. We climbed up to some hidden caves where San Bushmen painted scenes of animals and hunters 35,000 years ago using blood, bile and urine which are amazingly still sharply visible today. Ian’s description of life for the Bushmen, both then and now, was fascinating – made more so by the fact he’d lived with the rare tribe and spoke in their click’s language. Ian pointed out that pretty much every plant we went past was lethal – Zimbabwe seems to be a good place if you want to bump someone off! We headed to a local village where we were met by Mr Pounds, the chief, dressed in leopard skin and ostrich feathers. Ian translated as the chief laughed his way through the story of the leopard mauling him (scars still visible) before he killed it and turned it into his robes. An amazingly jolly 79 yr old man despite the fact 5 of his 10 children had died from HIV leaving him to raise 13 grandchildren as his own. After dancing with the family (Mr Pounds once danced for the queen) we went on to hunt for rhino. Ian took us to Motobo game park where the signs strictly say that there is no getting out of the vehicles. After about ten minutes we parked up, climbed out and went looking for rhino following tracks and droppings. Ian didn’t have any weapons on him, but did give us strict instructions not to run in any situation, to lie flat if there was a problem, and in the worst instance, to try and climb a tree. After searching for a while, Matt (one of the vets on the trip) spotted the rhino called Swaziland in the distance. We crept forward and got within 10 feet of the 6ft tall giant. Quite a breath taking moment! Ian later told us about the problems of poaching in Zimbabwe, the depletion of rhino numbers from 2000 to 200 between the 80s and 90s, and the shoot to kill policy they have for poachers which regularly ends in shoot outs. A day of amazing stories and amazing sights!
We visited the Serengeti in the last week of our overland tour, so by then had driven through countless game parks, taken many game drives and seen most of the African wildlife. The Serengeti however stands out as the best wildlife experience of them all – we saved the best til last! After waiting for 6 weeks to find a leopard, on our second day in the Serengeti 4 came along at once. I’ve always thought Leopards were rather like buses. This meant we completed the big 5. One of our favourite moments on the trip was finding a pride of lions, including a male lion and baby cub, asleep under a rock. We watched them prowl, think about hunting, roar and play together within a few foot of our jeep. Other memorable moments include a cheetah walking alongside our jeep, a mother cheetah enjoying a fresh kill with her 2 cubs, and watching 3 hippos climb out of the water and trot along in single file underneath a hot air balloon. Camping in the Serengeti in the bush scrub with no fences or guards was quite an experience. Going to the toilet has never been more terrifying, and the sounds of lion’s and hyena’s going past our tent at night was unforgettable. As we heard Jade put it half way through the night after hearing sounds of the animals next her to tent, “What. The. Fuck. Was. That!”.
Snorkelling in the turquoise crystal clear waters of Zanzibar was like a scene from Finding Nemo. Not a bad way to spend our 100th day of travelling. Sailing on the dhow, swimming in the warm sea, eating on the shore, and lazing on the white sand was all idyllic. It certainly made up for getting there by travelling on the ‘vomit comet’ ferry, which thankfully was not as choppy as we had thought it might be. We enjoyed our first double bed since Brazil (a gorgeous wooden carved bed) in Stone Town, only 2 months and 9 countries later. We also explored the fish and meat markets, visited the site for the largest slave market in Africa, tried shark, saw Morgan Freeman’s brother or doppleganger, visited the first house to get electricity in Africa, ate with a family at their home and watched boys climb tall Coconut tree’s to fetch us some fresh juice. The spice tour was an interesting trip around the plantations which contained many spices and fruits we’re used to as well as many that we’re not but then got to taste (I can still smell the stinky Dorian fruit). Plus Liverpool beat Arsenal 2-nil whilst we were there, which apparently Alex says is important.
Spitzkoppe is the moment that we think off when we look back to our trip. It very simply captured the spirit of our adventure in Africa. We arrived after a long drive in the truck at a bush camp (no toilets or facilities). A very simple stretch of soil underneath some beautiful huge orange rocks. We climbed up the slope with a can of warm beer, sat down and watched our crew chop wood, watched Mash dance as he cooked our supper and listened to his African tunes pumped out the truck’s stereo. Sunset came whilst we chilled and watched, and then danced down the rocks to the African beat. An awesome moment.
After chilling at the Heron Hotel for a few days and the opulence of Giraffe Manor, we then spent two nights staying at a nunnery arranged for us by the very helpful Jill Sowerby. Our day started with breakfast with 50 nuns, a slightly surreal moment. We were then picked up by Jill, who runs the
HotCourses Foundation in Nairobi – a foundation Alex was involved in helping start when working at Hot Courses 8 years ago. She first took us to Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi which was featured in Comic Relief when Lenny Henry, Reggie Yates and Samantha Womack moved into the slum and Lenry Henry was moved to tears by what he saw. We visited the Lea Toto children’s project where we helped the children write letters to their sponsors who donate money for school uniforms and education, including the little girl that Neil sponsors. We walked through the slum to visit one child’s house, a temporary tin shack no bigger than our front room where 7 of the family lived. The oldest daughter ran the household after losing both parents. Only 1 of them had found work to help pay for the rent (!) and electricity for the lightbulb hanging from their roof. We were then joined by some little children who proclaimed Alex to be their Mzungu (white person) and who delighted in coming to shake hands and then run away. We donated some rain coats and sleeping bags and walked back through the winding streets of Kibera with little kids hanging off our fingers. Despite the poor conditions we saw (crammed tin settlements springing up alongside an active train track and open sewers running down the streets) it was a happy place full of smiling kids and an emerging local micro economy. Jill drove us to the other side of Nairobi to visit Maureen, the little girl Alex has sponsored for the past 7 years. It was quite a surreal moment to meet her after all this time and to find out that she has been struggling of late which is partly due to some difficult circumstances at home. After giving her the blanket we’d used whilst camping and a little pep talk, Alex made a decision to try and write back to her from various locations round the world to help with her reading and writing. Jill then drove us to the final location which was Nyumbani children’s orphanage for ‘total orphans’ (e.g. no family at all) who have been infected or affected by HIV. We were nervous to say the least as we had expectations of what this might be like. But when we got there, we saw children laughing and playing in a beautiful playground surrounded by family homes where 14 kids stay with a house mama, forming a village of kids. It was an incredible happy place. The facilities are great and improving all the time – they’ve just built a laboratory there which will be one of the leading blood labs in the whole of Africa. It was a privilege to visit and meet some of the children who have brilliantly happy outlooks despite having had to deal with so much in life at such a young age. It’s hard to capture all of what this day meant to us in a small paragraph but we hope to give you a feel of what it was like to have seen the best and worst of Nairobi.
We took a boat trip on the Skeleton Coast to view dolphins and seals at Walvis Bay. We didn’t realise that there would be seals round the boat before we even boarded, which were used to the boat leaving the bay and getting some fish. As we sailed off the seals jumped alongside us and, before long, a large seal called Spotty had made his way on board. Our captain fed him some fish and asked who wanted to sit down and have Spotty climb on their laps. Genna was one of the few to say yes! She sat down with a towel over her legs and Spotty bounded on to her, feeling much like a wet dog. After a big hug, Spotty got back into the sea. We sailed on seeing Oyster farms, watched dolphins bounce along next to the boat and viewed a seal colony with seals playing in the sea alongside us. Oysters and champagne on the ride back to shore finished off the trip nicely.
We clambered into our Mkoro for two (dug-out canoes made from tree bark) and our poler standing at the back pushed off with his stick. The canoes were rocky in the water and were barely a few inches from the water’s edge. This was to be our transport to our camp on an island in the middle of the Okavango Delta, just over an hours ride away. It was really relaxing to sail silently in single file through the reeds and water-lilies to our camp… or it would have been had the water not been crocodile and hippo infested! We watched the hippos at a safe distance and carried on our ride. Later on, we went out for a sunset ride and saw the BEST sunset of our trip whilst bobbing around in the water. We camped in a bush camp – nothing but us and the ground around us. Around our campfire, our guide Chapman told us that several lions had been seen here recently and to expect hippo round the tent at night. He was right and they sounded like they were right next to us. The next morning we headed off for a game walk, wandering round the bush silently in single file again, spotting zebra, baboons, leopard tracks, hippo nests, and termite mounds. Mash made us an astounding lamb shank with wedges and apple crumble on the campfire to top off a lovely couple of days. The Mkoro polers danced and sang for us, causing Brazilian Freddie to jump up and dance when they sang his name. As always when Genna is in a canoe and in danger of toppling out, two spiders jumped in with her. Thank goodness flip flops work very well as a swatting weapon.
We spent the afternoon in Chitimba Malawi, sitting on Norman’s farm that he shared with his 3 wives. He and his 11 year old son, watched by other local kids, taught us how to carve wood in a mask and name plaque. In less than 2 hours we went from having two blocks of wood to having two pretty decent carvings that the rest of our group thought we’d bought rather than made. It was very relaxing watching the chickens catch mice, being jumped on by their puppy and hearing about their life in Malawi. Having said that, Alex was put to shame by the 11 year old boy who was clearly much more talented with a chisel.
Andy was a brilliant guide. A big, gruff, bearded, bear-like Zimbabwean man who swore a lot, called a spade a spade and told lots of stories, every one of them ending up in him shooting or killing someone or something. He took us on a game drive round Hwange, driving whilst studying the tracks on the road. We saw cheetahs rolling around, elephants, hyena and vultures eating at an elephant carcase, giraffe drinking next to a croc, disco donkeys, hippo, kudu, sable, jackals and rhino. On a night game drive with Andy, he proved just how much he hates Baboons by constantly driving the jeep off the road to chase them. We turned off the jeep lights and motor next to an elephant eating on the side of the road and sat in pitch black listening to it eating and its stomach gurgling.
After driving an 18 ton truck down a sand road as fast as possible to reduce our chances of getting stuck, resulting in most of us hitting the ceiling, beer bottles smashing, and Tabitha ending up in Tim’s lap, we reached the San Bushmen living museum. Members of the tribe collected us and walked us to a village to demonstrate hunting techniques, poison plants, jewellery making, how to make fires – all learnt from their ancestors. Alex and the boys made bows and arrows and had a shooting competition. Boys will be boys.
4.45am start. Tent down in the dark. Helena the truck managed to start after being broken for a day (just as well as we’d got up so early). She made it through the desert to Dune 45, one of the largest sand dunes in Namibia. We jumped out and started to climb. It turned out flip flops were not the best footwear given the sand was as cold as ice. We managed to get half way up before giving up and watching the sunrise. Meanwhile the crew worked on Helena and Mash made us banana pancakes to warm us up for when we had climbed back down. Postcard perfect view of orange sand dunes, blue skies and the sun and moon over bare African trees.
In Zimbabwe we mounted Lundi the elephant and went on a game walk through some rivers and grassland. It was very uncomfortable and doesn’t feel that secure! After climbing off and learning how to use our legs again, we fed her peanuts whilst sitting on her knee. Her trunk works like a hoover and sucks them down or tries to pick them out your hand. We touched her tongue which felt like a wet fish. She is very nice though and lets us cuddle her.
We get up early and board a boat made out of two canoes with planks going across between them to make a platform, on which they’ve placed some dining table chairs. We head off down the river. We’re camping in Namibia, but the other side of the river is Angola. We go down the river for a while, watching women wash their things in the river, kingfishers fly by and the fishermen are out to check their overnight catch. After a while, our driver takes us to the Angola bank. We hop out and illegally enter Angola. Feeling naughty, we hold a small cardboard sign and take some photos before hotfooting it back onto the boat and the safety of Namibia.
Our first camp in the middle of a Game Park felt really exciting. We spent the evening sitting next to a beautiful lit water hole where we watched elephant and rhino drink only metres away from us. Jackals ran round our tents and we watched a huge fire come alarmingly close to camp (thankfully it’s an organised fire to burn off the old grass before the rains come). It’s also the first night camping where we hear lions round the tent at night. During a game drive on the next day, we stop at a waterhole for lunch and watch a herd of over 40 elephants play in the water. We all laugh when a tiny baby excitedly runs along and falls over. Having stayed out too long, we have to peg it back to the camp before dark to avoid getting fined. Whilst we’re speeding along Genna spots our first cheetah and has to scream for the truck to stop so we can watch it. Amazingly Dave gets us back 5 minutes before the fine, to a big round of applause. This was the coldest night camping we had – ice formed on the inside of the tent and Genna put her coat over her face to try and catch her warm breath in the night.
We visited an amazing cape fur seal colony on the Skeleton Coast where thousands of seals sat on the beach together. We walked on a small bridge right over them, watched them fight, suckle their young and swim in the waves – so many they looked like an oil slick. The only problem was the stench which was so bad we both wore headscarves over our faces.
Mash was the chef for the truck. He made the best roast potatoes I’d ever had despite only having a campfire to cook on. He was an extraordinaire with potatoes but also baked birthday cakes, meals like shepherd’s pie, lasagne, lamb shank, curry and chapatti as well as traditional meals like ugali all on a budget of about £7 a day per person for 3 square meals, with no equipment, in a pot on a fire. We all helped with the cooking and his stories of life in Kenya made our trip. The best part of everyday was when he called out, “wash your hands”. We miss him. As well as Mash’s cooking we tried to taste the local foods, in particular game meat such as Warthog, Kudu, Oryx, Springbok, and Ostrich. Genna also took a shine to Mash’s Kenya jumper which Mash gave her at the end of the trip, and nearly made her cry. In fact the only downside to Mash was the terrible football team he supports…
The two of us were taken on a walk through the village of Chitimba by Dickson, our guide. We first visited a local school where the facilities were shockingly basic. They had 6 teachers and 6 substitutes to 1000 pupils. The classrooms were bare and crumbling, with birds living in the ceilings, no desks or chairs, and no paint on the walls. We then walked to the free health centre. The only doctor there, Kent, showed us round. There is only one nurse helping him tend to his catchment of 6,000 people. He sees 120 people every day and works 7 days a week. The government hadn’t sent him any supplies for 4 months, so we had more malaria tablets in our backpacks than he had. There is no opportunity to sterilise anything so they just boil everything. He was working hard to try to help people even though it looks like his funding to have further education and training has been denied by the government. Whilst depressing, it was good to see this real side of life in Africa. We finally stopped by the local witch doctor’s house. He came dressed in bells into a room and danced to drums, making us dance in turn with him. He showed us his love potions and then told each of us our fortune separately. It seems we will be having long and happy lives and two of his predictions have come true already.
After an afternoon in an outdoor pool, we got out the safari seats – seats that open out onto the roof of the truck. Genna and I climb (and it is a climb) up to sit on them. Then Dave heads off on the drive to Fish River Canyon. It’s very fast and we hit trees on the way! Jade described it as going so fast her eyes were watering, but there was so much wind the water was rolling back into her eyes. We get to the immense canyon and walk round the top, looking at the horseshoe river in the middle. We climbed back onto the roof of the truck next to the edge of the canyon, poured ourselves a GNT and watched the sunset.
In Nairobi we spent the morning at the elephant orphanage, watching baby elephants up to the age of 5 being fed their milk, play in the water and push the spectators for fun. In the afternoon we visited the Karen Blixen museum. This was at the lovely home she’d had in Africa under the Ngong hills, where she’d based her book Out of Africa and where the film had been shot. We later met one of the extras for the film who told us stories about Meryl Streep (lovely) and Robert Redford (a prima donna who only wanted to be shot from one side).
We arrived in a very luxurious camp which was exciting in itself! We got up for a very early game drive where we saw our first lions. Back to camp, Mash had prepared banana pancakes for us and shepherd’s pie. We headed out for an afternoon game trip on a boat. We got very close to hippo’s, monitor’s, and crocodiles but the best part was watching elephants cross the river with their trunks wrapped round the elephant in front to keep together. Back to camp for burgers and chips.
After the intensity of the previous 50 days in Africa we decided to go to the coast to chill for 6 days in a beach resort. Unfortunately to get there we got into a plane that was so small you couldn’t stand up, only 5 of us boarded, and we were buffeted around in the thermals for 1.5 hrs. Thankfully the resort was beautiful. We had a sea and pool view room, free cocktails, and gorgeous weather and felt very spoiled for a couple of backpackers.
After a 4am start and 16 hours on Helena (including 4 border crossings) the day before, we finally arrived at our campsite in Malawi. And we weren’t disappointed. Set on the shores of Lake Malawi, Kande Beach was a great little camp with a bar with pool table (where Alex cleaned up), live sport (so Alex got to watch the first couple of games of the season) and plenty of activities available. One of the activities was snorkelling in Lake Malawi where there were rare species of fish to see and the opportunity to snorkel in fresh water rather than in the sea. Another new experience. Kande beach was also the birthplace of one of the favourite catchphrases of our Dragoman trip. Another overland firm staying there decided to have their fancy dress night at Kande (see no. 25 for ours) so we could hear the phrase “to the bar Mother Fuckers” used all night. Jade then perfected it and used it whenever we felt a drink may be needed on the rest of our trip. She was also going to record it as a ring tone for all of us, but that hasn’t happened… yet.
After 5 ½ weeks of camping and long days we arrive at Marangu old hotel grounds. That morning we got up at 5.30 and were feeling grumpy when we went to set up our old broken tent and found that we’d been left with the old, crappy mats. Both of us had a little moan and decided that a drink away from the group was in order. Luckily for us the grounds of the hotel were nice and we could go and have a bit of time to ourselves, and more importantly, we could do it with a couple of beers. Eventually Dave (our leader) came to join us and had a beer with us. Then he got up and pointed to where Kilimanjaro was covered by cloud and we could actually see the peak of the mountain. This was only the 2nd time Dave had seen “Kili” on his travels, and there is only about a 20% chance of seeing it normally. Mash then cooked us Chicken and Chips, and all seemed right with the world. It goes to show, that bitching and moaning sometimes leads to good things.
As neither of us being particularly keen on “forced fun”, it’s fair to say that neither of us were massively up for the fancy dress night. Especially as the draw for who bought for who was random, so it meant we couldn’t buy for each other. However the draw was kind to us. Genna got Jade who we knew had a great sense of humour and I got Nat, the Dragoman trainee who was crying out to be stitched up. We got to a random little market town to buy outfits, and after a good hour and plenty of haggling we managed to get suitably horrendous items of fancy dress for the two of them. Jade got a very unflattering, baggy, floral dress, and for Nat, we got a purple and pink jumpsuit. Happy with our purchases we headed off to camp to hand over the outfits. It was then that the reality that everyone else was probably as mean as us hit hard, especially when the first couple of outfits to be handed out were loin cloths to the boys. Genna got a horrendous brown flowery skirt, white eagle frayed top and little pop socks to wear with flip flops and Alex got a little green see-through skirt, skin-tight bright orange t-shirt (complete with shamrocks, to replicate the Irish flag…) and chainmail belt. We rocked them as best we could and laughed at the cavemen and Nat in her Abba jumpsuit, Jade with a drawn on mono brow (very Susan Boyle) and most of the guys dressed as women.
Our first night camping was ace. Partially as we’d been nervous about what to expect as neither of us had been camping for a while and we expected pretty poor facilities in Africa. We had driven up the coast road from Cape Town to a vineyard with a stunning view of mountains. We put up the tent with a little help from Tom and then had the pleasure of a wine tasting run by the vineyards owner. Unfortunately the South African’s like their wine very sweet, but the Pinotage was nice – so nice that we had to buy two bottles of it. A very drunken night ensued which included the whole group doing a Springbok shot. This involves making Springbok ears, jumping round and eventually you are supposed to show your white bottom before drinking the peppermint Amarula shot down. A fun way to get to know everyone.
The people in Africa are the friendliest and nicest we’ve come across. This was clear from the moment we arrived and were greeted by the officials in Cape Town airport with “Hello you lovely people. Welcome!” Everyone we walked past in Zimbabwe was grateful for our tourism $ coming to their country and thanked us saying “We hope you like our beautiful country, thank you for coming”. Trying to post things home to England after some serious shopping in Swakopmund, we found we needed to get a box, brown paper, bubble wrap, sellotape and some help to pack it all up. We went to a different shop to ask for each item, and every shop we went into gladly gave us what we needed – so much so that they ended up packing the box we’d got in brown paper themselves and wouldn’t even let us help. From taxi drivers who’ve told their colleagues that we’re their friends and need to be looked after, to contacts who’ve been willing to collect us from airports or drive us to ATMs, or make dinner reservations and even hotel bookings for us, the people have gone out of their way to help and make sure we’re having the best time we can.
Driving across Africa in a big orange truck, you see a lot of strange and wonderful things out the window. Women and children carrying the strangest things on their heads including wheelie suitcases (why not wheel it?) and in one traffic jam in Dar Es Salaam we saw a man weaving through the cars carrying an aquarium on his head full of water and live fish. They also sell strange things on the side of the road, from coffins which we saw all over Tanzania to cooked rats on a stick that kids were trying to sell us as we drove past. We drove through towns with literally one shop, past villages of wooden huts, and through huge cities like Harare so the view was constantly changing. We also pulled up when we saw a nice spot to stop the truck and made an impromptu lunch on the side of the road. We’d pull out the tables, chairs and food boxes and Mash and the cook group would cook away. This included some very random locations – next to the signpost marking the Tropic of Capricorn, before a bridge we’d hope to cross but that was still being built as it was broken where we got surrounded by kids and had to hand out balloons, in the middle of the bush where we couldn’t see any building or person for as far as the eye could see. As Dave put it, T.I.A. This Is Africa and you have to expect the unexpected.
On our walk down to Vic Falls we were stopped by a guard and told to take another path as there were two elephants blocking it. We looked up and he was right! The waterfalls were great. Double rainbows and lots of spray which meant we had to walk round in huge raincoats looking like idiots. We watched some people bungee from the bridge over the rapids. On the walk back we came across a warthog family on our path. Nice day out (but not as impressive as Igassu Falls!).
One of the rites of passage of our trip was to down a shot of firewater at Rainbow camp. This is 96% proof vodka. Nowhere near as bad as Poteen and not even as bad as Grappa, in fact Alex quite liked it. A few of the others seemed to struggle with it though, especially if you drank as the barman said – swilling it round your mouth for 5 seconds and then inhaling through your mouth as you swallow it.
We were expecting African campsites to be pretty basic and not great places to stay. However, during our Dragoman trip we managed to stay in some spectacular settings throughout the African countryside including vineyards, the banks of Orange river, alongside Springbok in the middle of the wilderness, next to floodlit waterholes, on the beaches of Lake Malawi, the shoreline of the Indian Ocean, in National Parks, in the foothills of Kilimanjaro and in the grounds of farmhouses.
Whilst we had a great time in some parts of Zimbabwe, visiting Harare was a low point. A busy, loud, messy city, full of people everywhere. We stopped for lunch, spotted Mugabe and his motorcade driving to the airport and then waited to leave. The Zimbabwean ruins, though very important to Africa, where also a disappointment having recently visited the incredible Incan ruins in Peru.
Helena the truck broke down every day for the first 5 days we were travelling on her, so when we reached Sousslevi in the Namibian desert, the crew needed to do some urgent work on her. That meant we had a spare day whilst they waited for parts to arrive. We decided to take a walk to a nearby lookout point, only an hour or so from the camp. What we didn’t realise is that it would require walking through the desert with no shade in the heat of the midday sun. We got to the lookout which was a small canyon with catfish in the stream at the bottom, saw sand dunes ahead and decided to walk back to camp. The burning hot sun was really affecting us, moreso because our malaria tablets have the side effect of making your skin more sensitive to the sun. After trying to cover our heads with T-shirts, we finally got back to camp, downed water and some drinks and jumped into the freezing cold pool. We decided not to underestimate the African sun from that point on!
What a disappointment. We were excited to visit a centre that cares for the very rare endangered African wild dog known as Painted dogs due to their markings. When we got there, we walked along a rope wooden bridge for about 15 minutes, climbed down into a caged area and saw one dog shaped lump in the distance. It could have been stuffed as it didn’t move once. That was it. As we walked back to the truck Hiscke saw the bright side – at least it would give us something to be our low point when Tom would ask us round the campfire that night for the day’s highs and lows.