My uncle was talking about Okavango Delta (between Angola and Namibia) and I dug up an old email. Good memories. I miss times like this with my brother.
Subject: never buy mudbuster
Any outing in africa is bound to be an adventure, the same can be said for any with my brother Chris. We
just had quite the trip.
Executive Summary:
Destination: RSA, Botswana, Namibia. We gave zim a miss this time
KM: 8106 driven +350 towed.
Days: 14
Break ins: 1.5. The second one I was in the car and pulled out the pepper spray
Flat tires: 4; burst tires:1
Alternators replaced :3 Successfully;1
Spare parts in bots: 0
Water pumps blown: 1
Mirrors lost: 2 (1 dead vulture and playing chicken with donkeys, he won)
Stuck in sand: 3
Almost ran out of petrol : waay too freaking many times
Petrol stations without petrol: 9
Trees ran over: 2.5, the 0.5 one almost ran over us.
New dents: 1 (see above)
Unimogs attempted to be towed: 2, successfully :0
Smiles: infinite
What an awesome trip. My boek Chris does a sales trip (read goes and plays on his unimogs) through southern africa four or five times a year so I tagged along for the ride. And what a ride.
The fun started on the SA/ Nams border when our alternator broke, but no worries, we drove through to the Namib desert with this wonderful invention, the ‘mudbuster’ that makes a 2x4 go anywhere. In theory. My brother was supposed to be checking it out. No test trial on hard sand or anything (intelligent!), we head out to Dune Seven (biggest) and within 30s are buried. After hours of digging ourselves out (think desert midday summer) we finally get free and just had to see if it was a fluke accident. It wasn’t. Never buy mudbuster. We eventually got out by digging another crator and taking the stupid mudbuster chains off (think freezing desert night). Think pushstarting a car in a sand dune.
Windhoek was a godsend, with two flat tires fixed (pump not work cause no battery) and a new alternator we finally had enough power to get the windows up. A world of difference in rainy season. We then headed up to Etosha game reserve. Everyone told us to come back when it's drier (more animals around the water hole, more interaction (animals eating each other)). They have no idea what they are missing! We managed to see everything except elephants, but no worries, the mossies more than made up for it. Namibia’s air force was out in full colours. It’s on this trip that the full impact of malaria struck me: Who needs steroids when a simple dose of malaria makes the big 5 a big 6? These heat seeking devices move faster than the speed of light (hence are invisible), undeterred by clothing or ‘peaceful sleep’ (sic), to cause incredible damage. Consider the military applications! The possibilities are endless.
It’s the last part of the trip though that was the most spectacular. I guess I always associated the okavango delta and caprivi strip with the war & had no clue how incredible it was. Stunning stunning stunning. Papyrus lagoons, fluoro-green floodplains. Wow. A couple of Chris’ friends live on one of the islands which they share with an old female leopard, hippos, a 5m croc, some warthogs with severe psychiatric disorders, a billion bushbok and monkeys now decorated with paintballs by yours truly (buggers). And a green mamba that I almost had a heart attack finding. Cool thing: he taught us how to catch crocs (look ma, only hands) and Chris got one and it’s weird cause they get very docile as soon as their tail is underneath your armpit (though it had probably passed out: ))
Drive back was a disaster, bots [Botswana] roads are a joke, like a videogame trying to dodge the potholes, goats, donkeys and cows. To add to the challenge, I guess a petrol station ran out at some stage and someone discovered they could sell their ‘reserve supply’ at 5x the going rate. Good news travels and there is now a 1100km stretch with no working petrol station but hundreds of ‘just for you special price’ers.
Enterepreneurial africa. We did not advance to the next level of the game in the bots category. So it
was a pleasure to get back to RSA with it’s ‘never go below 160’ highways, till we burst our water pump and
I got to wait in 45’C car (AC broken) for him to hitch the 300km home and bring back our other truck to tow.
Enough. I’m off to enjoy my last three days in this fabulous petrofolous country. I hope you do the same
in yours!
Love tess
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