Fear and Loathing (and a whole lot of love) on the Rainbow Bus (part 2)

With Apologies to Hunter S Thompson

PART 2 – CAPE TOWN TO SWAKOPMUND

All of my images from this trip can be found here

The group which will travel across southern Africa, together, has met up in the hostel the previous night and we now decamp, immediately after breakfast , stopping along the way on the northern beaches, just out of Cape Town, where we pose on the beach for our departure photos and for a final view of Table Mountain across the bay. From here we head north across the Western Cape to Cederberg.

Cederberg is a gentle introduction to the trip. A pleasant green lawn to camp on, bar and pool. It is here that Jeff discovers his fate which is to share a tent with me for the rest of the trip. No amount of cool will save him from this fate.

We receive instruction on tent erection, which Jeff and I manage not to hear properly thus taking twice as long as anyone else to erect our tent. There are no particular disasters on this day but instead I receive a bonus of free and cheese tasting for some unknown reason related to my bookings having been changed to a different date than those I originally booked.

The main events are swimming and wine tasting events which, when taken together, can often have a mixture of hilarious and disastrous results. In our case, aside from being regaled with tales of naked swimming by previous visitors, which seems to have provided a degree of voyeuristic pleasure to the owners and seems to be aimed at persuading us, without success, to do the same, the evening passes uneventfully, if pleasantly, in a haze of sunshine, wine and food.

Evening on the Orange River

Day two brings us to the Orange River. named after the Dutch royal family (the House of Orange). It’s the longest river in South Africa and a key provider of electricity via its hydro station. On the other side is Namibia. The main activity here is swimming the river and illegally entering Namibia though, for anyone other than committed drug smugglers or poachers, it might be a long walk to the nearest town.

The river and associated campsite is quite a beautiful spot especially in the soft morning and evening light and we collectively add to the several million photos that must have been take of the river since the advent of digital cameras. We are treated to an ongoing display of swimming and fishing virtuosity by a resident darter bird.

In the morning a committed few take a kayaking trip on the flat water. There are seven of us who go, myself, Hannah, Mike and Kerry, Ceci and Nico and Sonya.

This is a good opportunity for anyone to argue over ownership of the Malvinas or how long it will take the UK to become a fifth rate country, once it leaves the EU and has to survive on its own, and confront Iceland over fishing in Icelandic waters.

Fortunately, Mike and Kerry have approximately the same levels of kayaking skills as Eddie the Eagle had ski jumping skills and were so far behind the rest of us that the second Malvinas war was avoided.

Rumour has it that they were still on the river the following morning and had to be rescued by Gift in order to ensure that we left on time. Indeed such was the stress of their paddling feats that they strained their only paddling muscle and were unable to wash up for a week.

The rest of us had a pleasant paddle, though Sonja, my paddling partner, was more interested in adding to her portrait portfolio than paddling. Hannah, according to our river guide, did not paddle at all and was fortunate to be saved, according to the guide, by his innate grace.

So far as we can tell, however, it was that guide who fortunate to survive the trip such was his level of sexist bravado. Beyond that the main complaint was from the local narcissists (Hannah, Ceci and Nico) who having posed for photos then complained that they weren’t shown at their best.

Day 3 and we were headed for the Fish River Canyon which is claimed to to be the world’s second largest canyon after the Grand Canyon, although like all these things it depends how you measure it. For example the The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, is regarded by some as the deepest canyon in the world at 5,500 m (18,000 ft). It is slightly longer than the Grand Canyon in the United States.

First though, we have to cross the border into Namibia which, like all border crossings, is an exercise of mixed bureaucracy and futility in which we are all required to disembark for the bus to be searched and to pass through a border post in which a few border inspectors seem to inspect our passports with an overwhelming sense of disinterest.

The roads through the Western Cape and Eastern Namibia are long and dusty but the scenery is spectacular, a cross between the Dakota Badlands and the central Australian deserts around Tennant Creek.

En route we pass Aussenkehr the main Namibian table grape growing area – which thrives for three reasons, the water of the Orange River, the climate which allows grapes to reach the European market more than six weeks earlier than those from anywhere else, and the cheap labour.

The day is hot, dusty, windy and long and the tedium encourages various tour members (mainly Rie) to spend half the day leaning out of the window in an attempt to entertain passing elephants or anything else she thinks she might encounter. Being Rie, it is entirely unclear what is on her mind. Perhaps the company has driven her to suicidal thoughts or, possibly, she is merely trying to have random protein intake by catching a local fly?

Rie contemplates the end, of what we do not know

The 16000 migrant labourers who care for the vines earn a pittance and live under deplorable conditions. They live in a settlement of rudimentary reed and zinc structures two kilometres from the grape farms, and have endured decades without potable water and other basic services like electricity and sanitation facilities. Yet another example of Western nations benefiting from the virtual slavery of others.

As we approach the Fish River Canyon we encounter the aftermath of the rains that preceded us and have turned the Victoria Falls, as we later discovered, from a trickle into a seething torrent. As a result the camp at which we were supposed to be staying was closed and the staff appear to have moved almost the entire contents of the accommodation out into the sun to dry.

All is not lost however, as the owners have assembled a classic collection of vintage cars which allows those of us that are 65 going on 16 to spend a few minutes reliving our driving experiences as 14 year olds. Nico is especially at home as he gears up for his starring role in Blues Brothers II.

64 Going on 16…?

The alternative accomodation turns out to be a more upmarket resort where, to our great pleasure, we are allocated very comfortable resort style rooms instead of the campground and have pretty much sole use of a good swimming pool. We don’t even have to carry our own luggage which is delivered to our rooms, all of 100 metres away, by donkey cart. Everyone is happy.

Room Service in Namibia

Before dinner we take a drive to see the Fish River Canyon which is, indeed, very impressive and much more so illuminated by the setting sun. The shadows of the evening sun provides 3D relief to the Canyon which at the height of the day is “flattened” when the sun is overhead.

We are warned by an adjacent sign not to hike down into the Canyon, something that precisely no one seems inclined to want to do, even if the time permitted.

No day strolls into the Canyon (photo Jeff Davis)

Apart from the statutory requirement to take 20 photos of the canyon each, a further 20 selfies, and group photos, we are mainly entertained by the resident and extremely photogenic local lizard.

Here, we are treated to the first exhibition of drone flying by Rie, which involves repeatedly obeying Rie’s instructions to look at and wave at her drone, as we collectively pose for drone photos, and fervently hoping that the drone doesn’t crash into and kill any of us since it is, apparently, not functioning as it should.

We are travelling in the famed Rainbow bus, which is actually a truck with a bus body on a flatbed. It rattles its way across the landscape and we rattle with it. Whoever built and maintained it clearly has a sense of humour, since they fixed some seats far enough apart that you could be a giraffe and still have plenty of legroom whereas a couple of the seats are clearly designed for midgets or for Hannah/Rie who are the closest thing to midgets that we have.

To compound it someone thought it would be funny to have one seat which was screwed to the floor at an angle of about 75° so that one person has twice the legroom than the person next to them.

Please, please don’t leave me. I know I was mean but….

We’re fortunate in that a bus designed for 22 (11 bench seats), has only 12 people on board, including Gift, meaning eight of us have a seat each, the two couples each share one and there is a seat spare for extra luggage.

The extra space makes it much more tolerable, with the main issue being that, for reasons known only to the safari company, they have decided to have a bus equipped with curtain hangers but no curtains. So if you are on the sunny side of the bus you can use the wires to hang your favourite sarong and give you shade but, if you leave the windows open, you risk having it sucked out never to be seen again.

While we may have “A” class guides we are definitely in the “B” class transport, as we note whenever we are passed by the air conditioned G Spot buses. On the other hand the cost on G-Spot – an 18 day trip is AUD3739 compared to our 21 day trip for AUD2000 however –  is twice the cost. Beggars can, indeed, not be choosers.

We arrive in Sesriem in the early afternoon. Here we are surrounded by endless skies, endless mountains and mountainous dune systems. The light is translucent, much like Australian and South African light. There is something about the light of the southern hemisphere at around 35° south that has a different quality to almost anywhere else on earth, in my experience.

Aside from the views the principal points of interest are the swimming pool and its attendant wildebeest mother and calf. Given what we will see later in the trip, the presence of a mere two wild wildebeest generates an amazing degree of excitement, somewhat akin to someone from the desert seeing the ocean for the first time.

Consequently we have a “who can pose best with the wildebeest” competition, like a sort of wildebeest beauty competition, one won by Hannah and Rie who, if it were possible to be orgasmic over a couple of wildebeest, certainly approached that state of excitement. The ageing cynics and grinches on the other hand were largely unmoved.

Now it is almost impossible for most normal people to injure themselves severely on an entirely flat piece of sandy ground, absent any rocks or obstructions but I am pleased to report that yours truly, aka “The Idiot Traveller” succeeded in doing exactly that.

Proceeding in a leisurely fashion towards the washing line, in the near dark, I succeeded in tripping over the wires, cunningly placed by the campground management, and designed to trap the clumsy and unobservant, namely your humble servant.

It later turned out that numerous people, including Munya, had succeeded, historically, in tripping over those wires (revenge on the white man??) but none had succeeded in ripping off half their shin, and then nearly amputating their following foot. Yes, another first for the Idiot Traveller.

The image you all wanted to see: “Still Scarred After All These Years” (apologies to Paul Simon – Still Crazy after all these years (esp. for Rie)

This relatively minor accident had consequences, for most people on the trip, extending over most of the next week or more. Initially it was the litre or so of blood that I lost through tearing off about 15 cms of skin on my left leg that concerned me but by the morning my right foot was so swollen that it was painful to walk. Worse to come.

Dawn sees us assembled and ready to roll in the dark. We take the Rainbow Bus through the mountainous dunes. For Australians they are reminiscent of the Simpson Desert, though with less vegetation and more irregular in shape and size. As the sun rises the dunes turn from deep red to orange, in parts, and to pinks and whites and a sort of shimmery silver in others and, in shape, like giant sails of sand.

We and then transfer onto smaller four wheel drive transport for another 20 minutes deeper into the sand country to get to the Sossusvlei, which is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes, located in the southern part of the Namib Desert, within the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia.

Changing light, changing colours

The name “Sossusvlei” is often used in an extended meaning to refer to the surrounding area, which is one of the major visitor attractions of Namibia. Specifically though,  “Sossusvlei” roughly means “dead-end marsh”. Vlei is the Afrikaans word for “marsh”, while “sossus” is Nama for “no return” or “dead end”. Sossusvlei owes this name to the fact that it is an endorheic drainage basin (i.e., a drainage basin without outflows) for the ephemeral Tsauchab River

Sossusvlei – Photo (Jeff Davis)

The Sossusvlei area belongs to a wider region of southern Namib extending over about 32.000 km²) between the rivers Koichab and Kuiseb. It’s characterized by high sand dunes of vivid pink-to-orange color, an indication of a high concentration of iron in the sand and consequent oxidation processes. The oldest dunes are those of a more intense reddish color. The dunes, in the Sossusvlei area, are among the highest in the world; many of them are above 200 metres, the highest being the one nicknamed Big Daddy, about 325 metres high. The highest dune, elsewhere in the Namib Desert, Dune 7, is about 388 metres high (source: Wikipedia).

The walk into the Sossusvlei is the first tests of my injured leg (foot in particular) and it’s not pleasant so, rather than walking around the salt pan I sit and watch which, in some ways is better since you get a birds eye view of the scale of the area in contrast with all the little figures walking around below.

Image Jeff Davis

The bigger challenge, however, is on the return where we stop to climb Dune 45 where even the idea of the view from the top is not sufficient to overcome the idea of a dragging painful foot up 145 metres of sand dune. I am joined in my idleness by Hannah.

Rie, initially, decides to stay also but suddenly changes her mind and then proceeds to run up a dune, that most can scarcely walk up, in order to catch up with the rest of our party. This simply reinforces her image as some sort of Viking. Fortunately, it seems there is no one she wishes to drag away by the hair, as was the mythological technique allegedly used by Viking raiding parties.

We return to camp where, we find, our camp ground has been invaded by a group of G-Spotters. Talk turns to what degrees of sabotage we should inflict on their tents, bus in response to them spurning Yvonne, etc but we refrain from taking revenge.

Gift watches the punters and reflects on”The black man’s burden”

The following day is the “longest” day. A hot bone jarring drive across the deserts to Swakopmund via Walvis Bay. The passengers are pummelled into a stupor by heat, a burning wind, the sound of the engine and the jolting of the bus. The discomfort is not assisted by the fact that I can no longer sit for long periods with my foot at ground level without intense pain and so everyone has to put up with my right foot poking over the top of their seat or resting on the arm of their chair.

We stop several times en route to take in the Mad Max type scenery and, in true tourist style, to take a picture of the sign announcing that we are crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. Hence I am able to capture the archetypal cliched shot of a group of 20 and 30 year olds, of the Instagram generation, staring longingly at a rusty battered sign in the middle of nowhere (with apologies to Ceci who is not really of the Instagram generation and who, I know, was just supervising the children).

The Insta generation proving they were in Namibia

En route to Swakopmund we also pass through Walvis Bay which had been planned as a 30 minute stop to take in the pink flamingos in the Walvis Bay lagoon and to pick up lunch. But I have been to Walvis Bay before en route to Cape Town by ship and I know that the Slowtown Coffee Roasters is the only decent cup of coffee within 1000 kilometres, leaving aside the fact that it sells a mean cheesecake.

Flamingo central

As anyone knows one should never stand between the Idiot Traveller and a good coffee/cheesecake, so I suggest a diversion to stop for good coffee and cake. Gift is reluctant. Apparently on previous trips he has made changes to the itinerary, to meet the requests of punters, only for some other whining bastard to complain about those changes. Hence he requires an unanimous agreement to divert.

There is no hesitation from the crew and especially not from Rie who sees her opportunity to consume sufficient calories to maintain her normal muscle mass.

Walvis Bay is a slightly bipolar town that doesn’t really know if it wants to be an industrial/port centre or a tourist town. It’s stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the South Atlantic on one side and by deserts on all other sides with the nearest town of any size being the Namibian capital Windhoek, 400 kilometres away across the Namib desert.

The curse of the cruise ship industry

It’s the major port for a large part of southern Africa including Botswana, Congo and Zambia but is also a tourist destination with the port having a cruise ship terminal. So it’s a mixture of very ugly practical buildings but with an entire marina, and surrounds, with seafood restaurants dedicated to the tourist trade, most of which is focused on visiting the surrounding deserts.

After our brief tourist stop to see pink flamingos, coffee and cake, we press on to Swakopmund, Namibia’s principal resort town. Like most of Namibia it has a strong German influence, so Marlou and Sonja feel right at home. Except of course we are not really sure if Marlou is German since her home town never existed.

We have our second non-camping stop and are housed in the cabins of the “Adventure Village ” and adjacent adventure travel centre through which we will book our activities of which there are many options including balloon rides, skydiving, quad biking, marine cruises, skydiving and sandboarding or, if you are Hannah, you can commune with parrots.

Five of us, Rie, Ceci, Nico, Jeff and I choose to go sandboarding. This is a great choice for me since I haven’t done anything remotely similar, apart from a bit of surfing, since 1980 when I ripped my ACL in two skiing, and, as well, I have a swollen foot to squeeze into a boarding boot.

In addition one has to climb some of the world’s highest dunes in the heat of the day and no one over the age of 40-odd seems to think it’s a good idea – it’s just me and mostly 20 year olds. But I am never one to be deterred by common sense.

By the time we have climbed the dunes about 4 times I am pretty much rooted and labouring with an increasingly sore foot. I hand over my board to the Danish Amazon to carry for me.

Rie is undeterred by carrying two boards and, it seems, doesn’t realise that it involves physical effort to climb up the dunes. I whine and moan about being too old and unfit but Rie, nicely, points out that half of the big group of Swedes, who are all about 40 years younger than me, gave up long before me. Which makes me feel better even if it doesn’t improve my sand boarding skills.

The Sandboarding video

We return to base. By the time we are due to go out for dinner I am hobbling like a 90 year old. Swakopmund marks, pretty much, the end of the desert section of our trip. Tomorrow we will have one more stop in the desert, at Brandburg, where we will visit the cave paintings and then it’s on to the game parks.

Part 1 of this trip blog can be found here:  Fear and Loathing (and a whole lot of love) on the Rainbow Bus – the Crew

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Fear and Loathing (and a whole lot of love) on the Rainbow Bus (Part 1)

PART 1 – THE CREW – this is the first part of a three posts about a 21 day trip across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

NOTE: this post is about the people on our trip…if that doesn’t interest you and you want to read about the places…wait for parts 2 and 3.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride! (Hunter S Thompson – author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

We were 11 strangers if you don’t count the two couples and the Lesotho Ladyboy group ¹, (namely: Hannah, Marlou, Jeff and Rie). 

On the Rainbow Bus 2

Then there were our guide, cook and driver (the three wise men). The three of them Gift, Bheki and Munya, were tasked with the mission of getting us safely across 5000 kilometres of Africa. One should be clear who was in charge, at all times, and it definitely wasn’t the punters²

 

Our first introduction is the 5 pm briefing on the day before we leave. I am 30 minutes late as my phone, for some reason known only to itself, has decided to revert to Antwerp time and is thus telling me that it is 3.30 when it is 5.30 pm. This explains why all the shops that should be open until five are closed at 3.30pm but apparently this fact didn’t alert me to the phone malfunction.

Consequently, I arrive half an hour late for the briefing, apologetic and hot. No one seems to care which is a good sign. We introduce ourselves and our status. For the purpose of the trip we are all single except for Cecelia (Ceci) and Nicolas (Nico) and Mike and Kerry. Gift does, however, try and persuade Marlou and Jeff, who are sitting next to each other, that they might be a couple. They both hastily decline the offer.

The group is diverse. The Lesotho Ladyboy Group are, themselves, diverse and are a self-selected group from our hostel, who got together to travel to Lesotho in a hire car. Under normal circumstances they wouldn’t necessarily have anything in common. 

First Hannah, also known by me as the Evil Princess. You may understand my relationship with Hannah by reading this book

Hannah is a twenty something year old from Bury St Edmunds in England. Being from Bury St Edmunds says a lot, of course. The website “I Live Here” describes Bury as “your idyllic, middle class, low crime rate, small minded, boring Suffolk town. Otherwise known as the ‘Bury Bubble.’ It is known as this because it is a town so protected in its middle class bubble wrap, the people that live here grow to become clones of each other, having the same aspirations, hobbies and careers. 

The inhabitants are described as “pretentious indie kids who all collectively wear the same clothes from Topman and listen to the same Mumford and Sons songs and go to Latitude or Reading Festival without fail each year. We would not, of course, describe Hannah that way for fear of an early death. On the other hand, Bury has recently been voted as ‘Happiest Place to live in the East of England’ by Rightmove, whatever Rightmove happens to be.

Bury St Edmunds – an exciting place to live

Then there are Jeff and Marlou. Jeff and Marlou are sort of clones except that, relatively speaking, Jeff is at nearly pensionable age whereas Marlou is just a baby, chronologically speaking. Both Jeff and Marlou are super cool, the differences being that Jeff is from the US and Marlou is from Bielefeld in Germany and, by definition, anyone from Europe is cooler than anyone from the US. 

Marlou’s disadvantage is that Bielefeld is sort of the German equivalent of Bury St Edmunds. So much so that she was forced to move to Switzerland. There is an added disadvantage that Bielefeld doesn’t apparently exist

City of Bielefeld offers €1m for proof it doesn't exist - BBC News
Bielefeld would also be as exciting as Bury except it doesn’t exist.

Marlou also has the advantage that she doesn’t realise she is super cool or, if she does, she manages to carry it off with such ‘sang froid’ that no one really notices the effort. 

Jeff, on the other hand, is cool but manages to be cool in a way that says to everyone “see I am cool”. He’s not pretentious about it but you can see certain signs, such as the fact that he is psychologically incapable of showing any interest in social media. He will generally only engage with anything that involves the internet (such as uploading photos) about two years after the event occurred. By which time everyone has lost interest. Which is cool.

Jeff, as the cool style-meister of the trip, invariably looks like he just stepped out of his dressing room. He is the only person I know who carries an iron with him on a camping trip in order to iron his silk pyjamas before bed. But he swears me to silence on this issue by threatening to record a Banhee wail and claim it was my snoring. 

Jeff, epitome of cool

Finally there is Rie, the fourth member of the Lesotho Ladyboys. Rie is Danish. No one really knows anything about Denmark, apart from knowing that Copenhagen exists, the fact that several thousands Danes get murdered every year on the “the Bridge” and that the Vikings came from there. This latter fact explains a lot about Rie.

Rie is principally responsible for consuming most of Africa’s food resources. She is a sort of Danish Amazon, covered in tattoos on one leg, who thinks nothing of eating the amount of food consumed during “La Grande Bouffe“, by herself, in one sitting. 

Rie, life imitates art

From the Lesotho Ladyboy Group we can ascend up to the higher echelons of the trip participants. We have Mike and Kerry and Nico and Ceci. This is of course always potentially dangerous since Mike and Kerry are British and Ceci and Nico are Argentinian. Combining long historical memories about the “Hand of God” (aka Maradona’s) victory in the 1986 world cup  and the Malvinas war can always be potentially dangerous. 

Kerry

Fortunately Nico and Ceci live, these days, in Canada, known for its relatively peaceful approach to world affairs and Ceci and Nico don’t really know, any longer, if they are Canadian or Argentinian. Mike and Kerry, on the other hand couldn’t be more archetypally British and so there is always a risk that they believe things that are typically British and absurd. Like thinking that to leaving the EU is a good idea or thinking they can win the World Cup again (1966 having been the last and only time for those who don’t know their soccer history).  Or that the best way to beat Coronavirus is by all going to Spain for the summer holidays and having group sex.

Then there are the three solo travellers, if we count the Ladyboys as a sort of group. That’s me, Yvonne and Sonja. 

Chris with the real (non-Jeff)epitomy of cool in the background

Yvonne is Canadian but lives with her husband in the Ukraine. Yvonne introduces herself as working in the oil industry and asks that she not be hated for that. Which is possibly not the way her PR Manager would suggest doing it. While it is true that she is going to be, almost single handedly, responsible for the end of the world we try not to hold that against her. And she is the ultimate team player – always pitching in to help out – mainly to replace me as I am forced to sit idly by (see – unable to wash up with injured foot. It’s a known medical condition). 

Yvonne is not supposed to be on our trip since she booked on G Adventures (forever to be known as G Spot Adventures by our trip). She is somewhat pissed off that she attempted to join another tour but was refused on the basis of being too old. It’s not too clear whether she failed to read the literature saying that around 30 was the upper age limit or whether, like myself, she imagines herself to still be around 25. Yvonne’s disappointment was probably tempered somewhat when we found ourselves sharing a camp with the G Spot bus which was entirely populated with a group of 20 year olds. We, on the other hand, are not too old but are perfectly aged like good wine. From Marlou, the baby, aged 22, to me aged 64. 

The much reviled G-Spot group tour bus

Sonja: Now Sonja has taken her life in her hands and leapt into the unknown having, allegedly, never done anything like this before and because her English is not as good as she would like it to be. Sonja is German and lives in Germany even though her Facebook profile says she lives in Alaska, Michigan. Sonja would be what we would call the “dark horse” of the trip, who comes across as a little naive and innocent but is far from it.

Of the punters, there are two ‘Johnny Come Lateleys’, who joined the tour in Windhoek. This is announced to us in Swakopmund. We receive the news with protests fearful it will disrupt the balance of the trip which has been largely sweetness and light. And that we will need to share our seats more often. As it turns out Mark and Kirsty, despite suffering the burden of being from the fallen Empire fit in well and are quickly accepted as part of our group.

Mark

Then there are the three Zimbabweans. At least I think they are all from Zimbabwe – at least they live there even if they are from somewhere else originally. Bheki is from EMakhandeni a suburb of Bulaweyo, while Gift is from Victoria Falls but lives in Cape Town. Then there is Munya who runs the kitchen and about whom I have little information other than he lives out bush somewhere in Zimbabwe even though originally he’s from Victoria Falls.

These are three wise men of the trip and they coming bringing all the necessary gifts, good food, good driving and good information, as well as good humour and company.

Gift runs the trip with an iron fist and everyone obeys, except possibly Bheki and Munya both of whom are their own masters. But the whitefellas obey orders, as they should, arising on time, doing their chores and, generally, being obedient. Bheki’s two roles are driving and flirting, where Munya, largely, just smiles benignly and keeps his counsel.

We leave Cape Town on a fine sunny day. Essentially the first day of a trip like this is a form of polyamorous  platonic flirting where everyone is trying to work out which if they can stand all the other people or if one or more of the punters will end up in a shallow grave somewhere in the Namibian desert.

Fortunately we find that there are no whining pains in the arse on our trip. However, the Evil Princess, Hannah, will, later, only just avoid an early death, since she chooses, to torment me for my incapacities, of which more in later parts of this trip blog

 

 

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