The Longweekender

4 days, 6 people, 2 cars, and 2000km of African highway. This entry practically wrote itself.

“Forgetting” to do any work last Thursday afternoon, we left Pretoria early, knowing that the inherent delays of African travel would eventually kill our head start. The destination was Chobe National Park in Botswana, on the country’s Northern frontier with Namibia.

The first roadblock was hit at the border. The South African immigration official, bless his soul, decided that I had overstayed my welcome in the country and that I was subject to a fine. It seems that on his time scale, my 3 month tourist visa ended after only 7 weeks, and when I politely pointed out to the bugger that he was a mental midget, he spent the next 30 minutes flipping through my passport with that unapproving eye of a government officer looking to cause undue trouble for no apparent reason. Finally he gave in and I went.

The next roadblock was hit, quite literally, an hour later. Botswana is a Hoof and Mouth Disease hotzone, and so the government has erected a series of plastic gates along the highways to prevent cattle from crossing between farms. Phalalo, driving the Fiat Uno, hit a gate at 100km/hr, shearing the car wipers off and rendering the barrier useless. It was pitch black, and the man who was supposed to open the gate at the sight of vehicle headlights was talking on his cell phone. It was a minor accident and no one was hurt, though later we received a 300 Rand fine for driving a car with no wipers. Ha!

Because Botswana has no backpacker infrastructure, we spent the first night camping in a parking lot. Up at dawn the morning after, we continued along, me at the wheel of the Datsun, driving without a license, until a cop pulled us over and asked for my license. TO MY PARENTS, BEFORE YOU FLY HERE AND KILL ME: I WAS THE ONLY ONE REMOTELY ALERT ENOUGH TO DRIVE, HAVING NOT DRANK THE PREVIOUS NIGHT DUE TO AN ILLNESS, AND IT WAS IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY. I spent 20 minutes making a huge scene about not being able to find my license (which incidentally is sitting in Edmonton), and the cop decided I was going to pay a 300 Pula ($50) fine. As I was pleading with her to let me off with a warning, a second cop came up to hand her an apple, which was dropped during the exchange. I picked it up, dusted it off and handed it to her. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow for a very long time, then smiled, finally telling us to beat it. Off we went, me in the back seat.

The drive through Botswana is spectacular. It’s winter now, so the landscape is barren and beautiful, with ochre and peach-toned grasses painted on calmly undulating hills that roll like waves, lapping gently at the mountains on the horizon. Tall, gangly Acacia trees line the highway, their branches looming out over the road, natural veneers offering momentary shade and protection to the road-wary motorist. On occasion a village will pop into view, its inhabitants moving in slow motion, women wrapped in traditional cloaks strolling about with sacks of oranges on their heads, their children and their goats in accompaniment. Brilliant.

Chobe National Park is an 11000 sq. km oasis of sandy grassland, home to 75000 elephant. There is no fence surrounding the property, so sightings of game like giraffe and warthog can be made even in the nearby towns. On our first afternoon we cruised down the river, gazing at buffalo and hippo, a feast for the eyes and for the ears, with more grunting than a Stallone film. Our Botswanan guide Willy expertly positioned the boat to allow us to watch a herd of elephant ford the river in single file, the smaller ones completely disappearing in the middle so that only a series of trunks could be seen, a network of periscopes extended towards the sky. At sunset, the sky burst into a conflagration of roses and all sat in silence as the day ended. All except Willy, who fidgeted restlessly – as an African, he had seen his fair share of Monet sunsets.

We followed up the cruise with a game drive at Chobe the next day. I won’t say much, since I’ve already discussed Kruger, though it’s worth noting that we watched triumph and tragedy unfold as a pack of lions stalked, chased, attacked and then devoured a sable antelope. My lasting memory of the spectacle will be a second sable, who had been walking with the victim in the minutes leading up to the slaughter, standing in remorseful silence not 10m from the kill, watching its friend get eaten. The lions, now satiated, paid it no attention. Having also got our fill of game, we moved on to Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe… whoa. Now there is a messed up country. I hardly spent 2 days in the place, yet I could already write a novella’s worth of tales detailing the myriad tumultuous events that have left the nation in a state of crippled destitution. But I shall save my talk for later, since I intend to return in a few months to experience Zimbabwe in a greater capacity. For now, let’s keep it to Vic Falls.

Victoria Falls! Tourist hotspot of Africa and Wonder of the World! It is here where David Livingstone first stumbled upon the Zambezi River crashing 108m over a gorge that now divides Zimbabwe and Zambia. Of course, I’ll hazard that some native Africans knew of the falls long before the Scottish missionary arrived there – why is it that things aren’t “discovered” until some white guy lays eyes on it? At any rate, Vic Falls lives up to the hype. The 20USD park fee is a bit steep, but the views are legendary, and this being Africa you can walk right up to the cliff edge and look through your feet to the bottom, with no pesky fence obscuring your line of sight.

One more dazzling feature of Vic Falls is the town market. Make no mistake; it’s entirely for tourists, with artists selling everything from stone carvings of tribal icons to 5ft high wooden giraffes. I bought a big, beautiful teak carving of a hippopotamus. What the Hell am I going to do with a big, beautiful teak carving of a hippopotamus? What makes this market a gem, however, is not the wares but the currency. Forget the Zim Dollar – it is an unmitigated catastrophe and isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Rand and USD are accepted, though most sellers are more interested in practical items – old T-shirts or shoes or even your sunscreen. Walk into the market wearing a bunch of old clothes and you could get your Xmas shopping done in 20 minutes, though you may leave the market completely naked. One guy, trying to sell me a nyami-nyami (Zambezi stone necklace from the Ndebele tribe), offered to follow me to my hostel so I could give him my socks. The fact that they were dirty and had a hole didn’t seem to deter him.

The drive back to Pretoria was a pleasant one, back though Botswana since Zimbabwe has no fuel. We all had a good laugh when we passed the gate Phalalo had driven through – there were 3 guys fixing it, and upon examination of our motorcade, one of them yelled “That’s the Guy!!!” We made it back to Pretoria after a 16 hour drive, all shook hands for successfully having not killed each other, and went to bed.