My whole life has been dogged by the fame of another travelling Burton: the explorer Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, KCMG FRGS, (1821–1890) who seemed to have got around a bit, especially in Africa, though not, as far as I know, to Namibia, probably because it did not exist until he was nearly 75. Fair enough, I guess. You might not know that he was also a bit of an expert on sexual behaviour, but we are not covering that subject in this blog, you (and the site moderator) will be pleased to know.
The plan is to kick off in what was the German colony of South-West Africa, since 1946 known as Namibia, so time to brush up on my Deutsch. We move on to northern Botswana and, God willing, end up at Vic Falls in Zimbabwe, to make up our own minds on whether it is more exciting than Iguassu and Niagara Falls.
Just a brief stocking-up stop for all those forgotten items we are unlikely to be able to replace when we reach the bundu. With the total Namibian population the size of Birmingham in a country four times larger than the UK, we know we cannot expect to find a local Tesco Express every evening.
A laid-back sort of place, South African in feel, with arcaded pavements to protect against both sun and torrential rainstorms, Windhoek, a city of 400,000 residents, is modernising fast. For some unknown reason, the local ladies do not like to be known as Wind Hoekers (perhaps because they have noisy digestive systems), but most do seem to be wearing T-shirts with wordy slogans all over them which does encourage the urge to read what they say, yet without causing offence. Several of the local languages are what are known as click languages, like Khosa in South Africa, because of the unusual (to Europeans) click that some words include. I am sure ‘click and collect’ will prove very popular when it arrives here.
The only real danger is getting caught with an animal carcass in the boot of one’s car (beef is the major export) as it is punishable along the same lines as for murder. As our boutique hotel is located in leafy hilly suburbs, the only animals we have seen (or rather heard) have been fierce-sounding guard dogs, the local must-have accessory, but I do not think they count as one of the ‘Big Five’.
Not many horses in Namibia but it might be kudu or oryx which is fine by me.
Quite a drive to reach Etosha, up towards the Angolan border, pushing 35˚C and storms pending, we were promised warthogs by the thousand; total sightings: one. The only other feature in this massive featureless part of the country were the termite hills, which make me grateful I only have to cope with the odd molehill on the lawn back home. At some points, they were so thick on the ground, it looked like the temple plains of Bagan in Burma.
We knew in advance that the recent arrival of the rains means that animals no longer need to congregate round the waterholes for handy viewing. However, it means we have had to work harder to find the game and birds that are here; we have to go to them instead of them coming to us.
So, let’s start with the masked weaver bird: can you believe that the colourful male bird builds ‘TEN’ nests and then asks the potential female partner to identify her choice. Now this is letting down our (male) side as clearly he should instead have built one home and lined up ten prospective females, because as we all know, if you go shopping with your wife and she asks which dress you prefer, it is bound to be the first one she tried. I am sure the weaver must have the same result. What a drongo; oh no, that’s a different species.
With time on my hands at present, I thought I would digress on my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder relating to collecting things. In the Prince Regent’s case, it was expensive valuable items; in my case: travel-related data and targets. I have completed intensive background research into my condition and established that it must have started with stamp collecting (all these exotic names, Dahomey, Suomi, Helvetia etc.), moving on to cigarette cards (footballers, film stars, Brooke Bond birds, flowers etc.), cub-badges (bush-craft, home economics, knitting – yes, really, anything for another badge). Then cigarette packets (Players, Woodbines Craven A gold, Craven A black etc.). On to I-spy challenges (50 points for witnessing a nun pushing a pram on a zebra crossing, probably only 25, now that an Italian nun has just had a baby), and for each completed book, a brightly coloured feather. I could have given Sitting Bull a run for his money.
On to bus numbers/types (RTLs, RTWs, GSs etc.), those bus tickets conductors used to issue from a machine like a xylophone that hung round their neck, train numbers of course, wherever two or more were gathered together, I was out there counting them. I should have been an accountant. On to girlfriends, by letters of the alphabet (J was always popular), by nationality (Black Russian – oh no, wrong category: that was cigarette packets). And of course, collections of computers, Buddha statues, cameras and KLM business-class model houses (dozens), watches (hundreds, all fakes) etc. In due course as horizons widened it became pubs (thousands), languages spoken (German, French, Italian, some Korean, Mandarin, Dutch and so on), airlines, airports, miles flown, suitcases lost and ultimately countries visited, so in short, don’t introduce your offspring to stamp collecting; it’s lethal.
I am currently looking at places I might like to end my days and the preferred option seems to be Mrauk-U in Burma, due to its famous temple of 80,000 Buddhas, where I shall be able to perambulate every day counting: 1,2,3, – 79,997, 79,998 etc. To summarise, my motto would be: I’ve started so I’ll finish, or die trying.
And so, on to today: well, there are 322 species of birds and over 100 mammals, so that’s the go-away bird, the spotted bee-catcher and on and on and on…
We are pleased to have a French travelling companion who lives in UK but comes from Nantes. Her mother’s sister still lives there, which meant, of course, I had to ask: ‘Is the Nantes aunt cordiale?’
I will deal in a future blog with the anonymous reader who thinks that my habit of counting countries indicates a severe case of ‘collectivitis’ or CCD (Compulsive Collecting Disorder) and enquires if I have history. Probably, yes, which is why I have an entry on a book called Dull Men of Great Britain published in 2015 by Penguin Random House.
I have been advised by the moderators of this travel site to stop messing about and concentrate on the daily activity instead, so finding ourselves tonight in a quite remote riverside resort, we are contemplating tomorrow’s plans to take to the river for wildlife spotting. Some readers have also enquired if my wife is still around, so I am pleased to confirm that she is alive and well, though a bit shaken to be told that we should not return to our bungalow accommodation a long way from the main building unless accompanied by an armed guard, as crocs and hippos do tend to emerge from the fast-flowing river by night. The bathroom being open to the elements of the surrounding bush and livestock did not help to pacify her anxiety about getting a good night’s sleep.
We are beginning to build up sightings of giraffe, zebra, antelope, jackal, buffalo, monkey, mongoose, hippo and baby (though a baby hippo is still pretty huge), two lions and countless exotic birds almost too many to list in full, but including ostrich, hornbills, rollers, kingfishers, bee-eaters, swifts, doves, bustards, crakes, plovers, raptors, herons, flamingos, storks shrikes, crows, swallows, warblers, larks, starlings, and weavers. Each of these categories has a dozen sub-species. It has quite revived my enthusiasm for birds (feathered). The two vehicles we use are designed to maximise viewing capabilities with a lift-up roof.
We are currently just into what is known as the Caprivi Strip, a narrow (20 or so miles wide) tongue of land separating Botswana and Angola and providing a short border with Zambia. It was established by the treaty of Berlin in 1878 to allow Germany to link up their western colony of South West Africa with their eastern territory in Tanganyika and is renowned for its heavy rainfall! There have been a few sharp showers but overall, we do not need to call in the armed forces to assist.
The lodge was great, but I did ask that they remove the detailed prints of the dung-beetle from above the breakfast cereals.
A real bonus is the improving exchange rate of the Namibian dollar linked to the Rand which has devalued by 25 percent in the last six months due to mine strikes. Consequently, a bottle of beer cost 75p or less, and a large glass of wine £1.15. What’s not to like. Cheers.
Life as a young (male) lion is initially very attractive: a wide choice of partners, meals brought to you by the missus who does the ’shopping (i.e. hunting) and you’re looked up to as the dominant member of the family group. But one day, you wake up and find that the next generation is vying for the top place and as an elder of the tribe, you become an outcast, kicked out, having to find your own dinner and you probably aren’t fit enough to catch it, so you end up having to put up with the odd human catch as we cannot outrun an impala. The final humiliation is that the humans shoot you as a rogue animal. Now as the eldest member of our group (and a Leo to boot), I could not help drawing certain parallels, so it is probably time to start that cordon bleu course.
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Botswana has proved to have much more abundant game than Namibia, at least for us, with herds of buffalo, elephants, quantities of hippos, baboons, crocs and giraffes, a lioness and a leopard, though less zebra. Crocs must make the dullest pet you could have as they remain inanimate for most of their existence, apart from when they bite your arm off, of course.
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After an expensive entry into Zimbabwe today, the road from the border to Victoria Falls stretched for a monotonous hour of nothing but bushes and trees; no turn-offs, no habitation, no road-signs, passing only five or six trucks in the opposite direction. Even the bird life was very limited.
Early days in Vic Falls but more to follow, God willing, of course. So tonight, it is ostrich or crocodile surprise for dinner, the look of surprise still on their faces.
Yes, I am delighted to confirm that I am now up with the oligarchs of the financial world with net assets of 250 million – no begging letters please, as my new-found wealth is consolidated in a single 250,000,000 Zim dollar bank note issued by the Bank of Zimbabwe as it happens. Oh, I’ve just been told it’s not enough for a cup of coffee. Fun while it lasted.
In line with everything else in Zim, entry to the world heritage site of Victoria Falls does not come cheap, unless you are a local. Anyway, you can’t come all this way and baulk at the last hurdle and, to be honest, it was worth every penny as the wet season is well under way, and the volume of water quite substantial, as was the spray of course and the noise. As we eat breakfast on the hotel’s terrace, the spray from the falls a few hundred yards away rises into the air as if the surrounding jungle is a nascent forest fire. The Falls clearly justifies its position as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We made our way around to where the railway bridge links Zambia and Zimbabwe, with the Victoria Falls Hotel in the background, to watch the youngsters bungee jumping off the bridge. I chicken out claiming inadequate insurance cover.
But is it better than Iguazu in Brazil? Probably not as thrilling as Iguazu in my humble opinion, but better than Niagara.
Suitably soaked, we made our way back through an irritating combination of pushy elephant-carving salesman and bolshy baboons. A word about these creatures (the baboons, not the salesmen): the males are huge, the young ones perched on their mums’ backs cute as hell, BUT the females display the most unpleasant extremities (and I don’t mean noses) that you can imagine. Let me put it this way, baboons were practising twerking long before Miley Cyrus. Still, the males seem bowled over, hence all the little’uns, so what do I know.
Hang on, just have to evict a warthog from our bedroom. No manners these young ones. I blame the parents.
No visit here is complete without a visit to the venerable sprawling white painted Edwardian Victoria Falls Hotel with its fine view of the railway bridge and the border with Zambia. Tea on the terrace is the thing to do, with cake stand and cut sandwiches and more staff than guests. Very civilised, very expensive, but someone has to do it. By the same token, it is said that the best view of the falls is free for birds but costs a bit (quite a bit) more for humans in helicopters. I can vouch for this, and moreover, lived to tell the tale. Just the bungee and microlite to go then.
Finally, while we have been fortunate to catch sight of thirty odd animals and over 150 bird species to date, one thing has eluded us, despite dire warnings back in the GP surgery: the mosquito. From the very first moment, the picture painted for us suggested monster creatures the size of golf balls with eyes on stalks and fangs to boot, threatening something worse than bubonic plague or equivalent. We were told to cover up flesh at all times, keep taking the (expensive) tablets, cover yourself in lotion etc., etc. What did we find: zilch, nada, diddly-squat. We smelled a rat when the three-year-old blond daughter of one of the lodge’s owners pranced around all night with bare arms and legs and no shoes, and I doubt she was taking malarone tablets. For the cost of those tablets, we could have had a weekend for two in Paris. Ah well, you live and learn.