Days 32-33 Two in the Bush

Days 32-33 Mariental/Bushman Country

We have grown weary.  Our lead dogsled has fallen into a 40-ft. crevasse and was unrecoverable due to my brave companion’s loss of several fingers from the frostbite.  We have run short of penguin spleen and have taken to eating our trusty companions, the sled dogs.  The blizzard has raged for 14 days without abatement.  My companion complains of snow blindness and scurvy.  But, the goal lies many miles ahead beyond the glacier and we must continue pressing on…

Oops.  Wrong journal. 

On the long drives, we have been listening to a fascinating audio book, Alone on the Ice, that recounts the chilling (pun intended) early explorations of Antarctica by crazy, courageous, dedicated Brits, Norwegians, and Aussies in the early 1900’s.  Is there an environment that contrasts more with our present desert bush?  I don’t think so. 

Rehoboth has a strip mall.  On a Sunday morning it seems to be THE place to be.  Mimi braves the Shoprite supermarket and stocks in some more of our road lunch fixin’s-cheese, crackers, chips, apples, and pears. 

The Lapa Lange lies 35 km outside of town down a rugged gravel road, this one a new denomination, the M-29.  Lots of nothingness.  We stop for a pee, with no need to find a bush.  Ain’t nobody comin’ either way. 

And then, as has been the norm, we enter the grand gates and behold, a green oasis with thatched cottages circling a large waterhole, a 360 deck in the center of another pond with koi, and a huge central lodge/restaurant/bar/lounge area, all Africaned-out. 

One of the three tame cheetahs and a Wildcat.  

Two days in a row we have had TV in the room, so we enjoy the Scotland v. USA Rugby match.  Our boys more than hold their own in the first half and lead 13-6.  But, experience wins the day as the Scots come back with uncountable tries in the second half and win the match.  I feel exactly like the young man, Johnny, back in Windhoek and make identical comments like, “We can hold our heads high!” and “We played them dead even for a half!” and “With a bit more training and fitness we can play with anyone in the world!”  Truly, if the sport ever caught on the US, we could dominate and it would be so much fun.  Oh well.  I think the NFL/NBA/MLB conglomerate won’t allow the upstart to get too far.  Shame. 

At dinner we get the history of the place from the manager.  The owner, formerly the owner of the largest Ostrich farm in the world, used to come out here and hunt…and party.  They would set up mattresses under a large thorn tree and make their campfire and pass the whiskey bottle as they told tall tales of the day’s hunt.  We are sitting in the exact spot of that tree, he says.  Piece by piece they have conceived and built this fantastic lodge out of zilch.  At that point, the owner walks in, sweating.  It seems his Land Rover broke down several km back and he had to walk the whole way.  He is not in a sociable mood.  Fine. 

We wake at 4:00 AM for the lunar eclipse.  I had diligently photographed the same phenomenon in Saudi a few years back and decided that that work would stand.  In other words, hell with the setting up, I’m too lazy.  I’ll just take a peek through the binoc’s and go back to bed.  Which we did.  It was cool, though, and the stars out here sparkled more than our daily bottle of sparkling water.

The waterhole by night

“We have several activities to offer you.  Game drives, visit the Bushman village, Bush Walks.”  A walk?  We’ll take it!  After all that sitting in the car, our leg muscles are decreasing as our waistlines are increasing.  The first several places we stayed had hikes that we took each morning, but the second half of the trip has placed us in areas where the wild game surrounds us, or the river’s edge lies just beneath us, and strolling down the path just hasn’t been in the cards. 

Dutifully, we pitch up (I love this expression, along with “rock up,” meaning simply to “roll up” or cruise up or arrive unexpectedly) at 7:55 for our 8:00 AM walk.  “They are on their way.”  OK. 

And then they rock up, our two guides, !kon and !kin,  or something beyond our comprehension and ability to reproduce.  Clicks unlike any click we have heard.   If you think of the “tsk, tsk, tsk,” that you make when you scold a naughty little kid, it’s something like that. The ! is used to represent clicks, for which we have, of course, no letters. 

Bo helping two San guys track a kudu

They are slender fellows.  Springbok hides for loincloths.  Quivers with arrows and a bow strapped over their shoulders, mirroring my own orange backpack with my weapon, the trusty Nikon.  Some beads, a headband made of kudu, and eland hide sandals complete the outfit.  Talk about adaptation to the environment.  But then, they have had 2,000 centuries or so to get it right. 

The younger of the two, !kon, has excellent English skills, which he learned from tourists, and acts as the guide, while his brother-in-law, !kin speaks only San.  The guys refer to themselves as San.  We asked them.  As we walk through the bush, he points out medicinal plants, fresh dung, kudu tracks (“this morning!”), how they make poison for their arrows, and then it gets exciting.

!kin points to some bushes in the distance.  At first I see nothing, and then the herd of white blesboks flickers behind some bush.  He crouches, picks up a pinch of red dust, and lets it fall to test the wind direction.  We head off at a different angle to the herd.  Mimi and I try to keep up and try, in vain, not to make so much damn noise.  Had this been a real hunt, I think we would have been banned and forced to grind maize in the village the rest of our lives.  We DO get pretty close, though, before the herd gets spooked and gallops away to our left in a cloud of dust. 

 

The guys are patient with us and Mimi’s steady flow of excellent questions.  They do still hunt for their food, culling the herds of springbok and kudu.  They can’t afford the school uniforms that are required for their children to attend school.  It would be $30 /child per year.  This obstacle exists all over Africa, and I can’t say that I understand what the big deal is over wearing a uniform.  When we pass a village school and the kids are all in yellow shirts and blue trousers/skirts, it does make for a cute beyond cute scene, but why?  It results in lots of kids being denied schooling, just for lack of money for uniforms.  I guess it’s a holdover from colonial times that an American used to droopy jeans, Nirvana t-shirts, and ball caps can’t quite comprehend. 

!kon asks whether we want to get near to the rhinos for a photo.  Excuse me?  Yes, we can go near to them, and as long as you do not act afraid, they will respect you.  Are you sure, !kon?  Just do not run.  If you run, it will be a problem.  OK, anything for a photo. 

Another test of the wind direction.  We approach from downwind.  I keep trying to psyche myself up, the Cowardly Lion seeking Courage.  We get what feels like touching distance away (the photos will tell the truth).  These are White Rhinos, from the Afrikaans word for wide, which was misinterpreted as white and has nothing to do with their color.  They are the gentler variety.  The Black Rhino being the more ornery. 

Don't try this at home, kids

Summoning all my nerve, I hide behind !kin, yeah right!  I couldn’t hide my pinkie behind this guy!  As we approach ever closer to the beasts.  The one, the male, gives a bit of a snort and a charge.  !kon aims his wee bow and arrow at him and stomps up the dust as he walks TOWARD it!  Mr. Rhino backs off.  I am impressed…and relieved. 

!kon says something like, “Lapa ho!”  Several repeats.  He explains that the rhinos can interpret this and will follow us like puppies to the lodge (lapa) and the watering hole.  I’m doubtful.  These are not, repeat, NOT tamed animals.  They are wild sonofabitches! 

But, for most of the way back to the lodge, like two puppies, the two rhinos follow the four of us humans at a safe distance of about 40 meters.  At some point, they hold back.  We continue on and go to visit the two adult rescue cheetahs in the pen.  There are also three cubs, kittens, they call them here, who roam around free on the grounds.  These three have been raised since birth with humans and the big manager says, “They think of me as their mum.” 

post-Bushwalk chillin'

We ask !kon how often he does this walk.  He says sometimes many times in a day.  He was trained as some kind of a social worker, and used to walk 70 km into the bush in a day and 70 km back the next.  Amazing.  He says that sometimes he guides a whole busload of tourists.  He cracks up, and so does !kin, as he explains with about 36 clicks, that with a group like that, “I look out into the bush and all I see is a long line of white!”  If he knew the word “honky,” I think he would have used it. 

We pose for a few photos at the end of our bush walk.  Mimi offers to buy something for the kids in the village.  “What would they like?”  “Cool drinks.”  Cool drinks are sodas,

Cream Soda choice of the San

Cokes, pops, whatever you call them.  And then, like a scene directly out of “The Gods Must Be Crazy” (which I will have to download back in the USA), !Kon throws back a cold Cream Soda.     

We opt for the evening game drive, our last for this trip.  With us are two very friendly German couples and one more guy, the baker from the lodge, temporary status, Willy, the madman.   Willy is a master baker, no pun intended, and a Rally Race mechanic.  He has done some of these insane Paris-Dakar, Tunisia-Mali, type races.  He speaks halting English, which doesn’t slow his storytelling to us and is quite a character.

The drive is pretty tame by our standards, but as I have said, there are no bad game drives.  We do see some rare black springbok, some rare white blesbok, some very close encounters with the rhinos from earlier in the day, this time in the vehicle, not crouched behind !kon, and the rescue adult cheetahs in their pen.  A great sunset accompanies our drinks.

Our final sundowners on Planet Namibia

In the morning, like rental horses heading for the stable, we point our noses toward the South African border and gallop our way south toward an overnighter in Springbok, on the SA side.