A long and dusty road

The next day was a long and dusty road. Our fearless leader had told us that we should sleep in. Not to worry he said, because we had a very short haul on Wednesday, about 250 miles on a beautiful paved road. Great! An easy drive on a long straight road and an early plunge into the pool followed by a sundowner river cruise with the flat dogs and the big sea cows. At this point we should have known that nothing is that easy. 

We left the lodge on time or a bit later and made elaborate plans to go through the roadblocks ahead, and again our plan appeared to be working until Peter approached the first one. He drove up to it, wildly gesticulating out of his window for those of us following to back off. Of course this wasn’t at all suspicious. Of course we couldn’t stop in sight of the guard house. Naturally they went up to him and asked if he had any passengers. Honest Abe that he is, he fessed up, said he chopped down the cherry tree and that his daughter was in the back. They told him to pull over. Roy had essentially been waved through but in the interest of solidarity he pulled in next to Peter, so they looked into his truck and lo and behold, there was Henry. I had Johnny hiding in my back seat, and as the guard came up to me, Johnny said in his best stage whisper “Can I get up yet?” Fortunately the guard was distracted by a crying kid who had come running up, and so when he asked me whether I had a passenger, I said no and he opened the gate. The cops here were conscientious and so while the rest of us waited a couple of miles up the road, Peter had to get written up, go to the bank, and then go to the police station to pay his fine. Oh well, it’s the price of carrying human cargo. We went the first 200 km, filled up, went the next 200, filled up again and then drove about another 70, the last 10 of which were on a dirt track leading to the lodge. Our short leg had taken us about 8 hours. 

The Lianshulu Lodge was terrific, much fancier than the previous night, with magnificent view over the Cuala River, this time into Botswana. The Caprivi Strip is just that, a strip of land about 20 km. wide and several hundred kms. long that belongs to Namibia and is a buffer between Botswana and Angola. After we had checked in and unpacked the wine, which at this point had had a daily cooking in the side locker of the truck, we took a river cruise on a pontoon boat.It was wonderful, serene and is absolutely the best thing to do in Africa. We drifted down river, drinking beer or sodas, eating biltong and droewors,  floating past a lot of hippos who were very nonchalant about our intrusion, past troops of baboons and vervet monkeys, past crocs who just squinted at us through their beady little eyes that peeked out just above the surface, and we saw dozens of species of birds; bee eaters, king fishers, fish eagles, kite, doves, heron, and many whose names I can't remember. The highlight for me was the lenshuan ( not sure I spelled this right), a mid size species of deer who live by the river edge and swim from one side to the other in search of better grazing without so much as a passport. Just like the USA.

On the way back we learned how deceptively reassuring the hippo were. One got angry that we were a bit too close and started chasing us down the river. It looked like a two ton dolphin with huge jaws rushing after you in giant bounds through the water.. Not a good thing. Fortunately our little engine that could really kicked into life and we beat a very hasty retreat.

We tied up at the dock just after sunset, went up and had a great meal and hung out in the night. Unbeatable. Now I had noticed some large fresh dollops of elephant dung very close to our room but hadn't really worried about it. After dinner that night I stayed in the lodge writing this blog, and was the last person there. The owner called Eugene to walk me back to the room, As we walked back along the dark paths between the trees, he told me that the elephants and the hippos had been very naughty recently, and in fact had been running amuck in the camp the prior night, hence the fresh droppings. We walked up to my room and opened the door and Andrew came in from the deck on the river side and said "Come look," Well outside our deck was a very large bull elephant happily destroying the vegetation looking for dinner. He threatened to start coming up the hill and Eugene who is no bigger than this elephants trunk told us not to worry. We asked him what he was going to do and he patronizingly explained that he was going to scare the jumbo away with his stick. At that he and his trusty twig in one hand and a huge knife in the other walked toward the beast shouting at it. And guess who turned tail and walked away? Not Eugene. We were saved by the tiniest, scrawniest guard in Namibia


The next morning was more of the same great food and spectacular views at breakfast before we hit the road. Waking up there, looking over the river in the morning light is mind blowing