A day of adventures, well at least an evening of adventures, but back to the beginning. Both Killer and Phil were looking despondent, and could see their tips evaporating quickly if they couldn't find us some animals, so they decided to team up and go together. In business terms, the merger was a corporate disaster. After an hour and a half of trudging around in the wet and 'hearing' some jackals, so we were told, Phil announced that we were heading back to camp. Unfortunately, half way back he stopped and gravely told us that, because of the rain, we would have to wade our way across the lake. Great!
Finally made it back to camp where Shumba, our guide, tried to rescue the situation by serving us corn pancakes with maple syrup. It worked!
After a quick breakfast, we loaded the mokoros with all of our gear and rubbish, and were poled back to the truck landing. Whoever tries to tell you that things work on 'African time' has never been on a Kumuka tour. They've got us running from one thing to another.
The truck eventually turned up with the next camping group in the sausage machine, and we threw our stuff on the truck for the two hour ride back to camp. And there they were - giraffes on the side of the road just waiting to pose for a photo.
Straight back to camp where we were meant to have two hours to shower and repack, but our guides had misjudged the mood of the group who decided that we really needed internet and shopping time in town instead (the beer had run out), so we only had an hour to shower, change, cook, eat, clean and re-pack before we jumped on the bus and headed off. It's non-stop.
This time the internet cafes and shops were all buzzing, and we managed to upload a couple of photos before our internet time ran out. Most of the group headed off to the airport to do a flight over the delta, while we did some shopping to replenish the stocks. There had been mutterings from Shumba that he couldn't get into the camp that he wanted to, and we might have to travel later than expected, so knowing how things were likely to pan out with his organisation, we headed across the road to Nandos for a meal while a huge thunderstorm passed over. Not sure that the flights would have been fun in the rain and lightening, but we certainly had fun. After three days of tuna and powdered milk, Nandos was a slice of paradise, even down to the lemon and herb sauce.
Turns out that the eventual news was even worse than expected. Once the group re-assembled, and we set off, Shumba gravely announced that the campsite we were going to was 300km down the road, a five hour trip, and we wouldn't be there until 10:30, and by the way we wouldn't have time to stop for anything to eat. It's kind of the underlying story of the tour - tell us what is going to happen after it's too late to be organised.
For example, an hour further down the road we got to an internal quarantine checkpoint and Shumba asked us to get off the bus with our passport and two pairs of shoes. Just great for those of us who had them in our packs under the truck. A bit of warning would be great.
In typical African fashion, as we were leaving the Delta we needed to go through this aforesaid quarantine checkpoint to halt the spread of soil diseases and other pests. Fair enough. However, the checkpoint measures consisted of getting off the bus, walking over a towel presumably that had had disinfectant sprinkled on it last week, and then getting back on the bus, while down below under the truck our tents were full of sand which we brushed out later when we set up for the night, and our long pants which were covered in sand, soil and bits of the delta. Anyway, they tried.
An hour or so down the road, and after darkness had fallen, the truck screeched to a halt as an elephant calmly walked across the road. Now, in Australia we are used to kangaroos that bound across the road and can make a real mess, but one wandering grey elephant can really ruin your evening in Africa.
A further hour or so down the road the truck came to another screeching halt, and we all looked out expecting to see another elephant, but we couldn't see anything, anything at all actually. The headlights had blown. No problems said our driver. Probably just a fuse, and we've only got 50kms to go, and by the way can we borrow a torch? So for the last hour we motored down the road with our hazard lights flashing, and our guide hanging out the window using our torch to light the way. Luckily we didn't run across any more elephants - they were probably too busy laughing at us to get in the way.
Finally arrived at out campsite at 10:30, only for our guide and the campsite owner to have a full blown f'íng argument over the arrival time. Seems Africans look for any opportunity for a full on argument. Set up our tents in the dark, and had some tea. In a fit of pique, the campsite owner cut all lights to the site and toilet block which made it a fun night.
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