Thursday 26 January 2012

Africa: Shocked rat jump starts holiday prep

For the next few weeks I'm blogging about our African trip. We travelled with our niece and nephew Tasha & Karoma Kimani - their company African Touch  specialises in 27-day trips through East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania finishing at Zanzibar) for 'people of a certain age'. Our adventure was a one-off through Namibia, Botswana to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Then a handful of us travelled - at speed - through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania to Karoma & Tasha's camping ground near Lake Nakuru in Kenya.



The farmer and I had no idea what overlanding and camping through Africa would bring, but we tried our best to prepare. When a rat killed itself and our living area lights by gnawing a cable, we wore headlamps in the evenings and scuttled around like glow worms. Then the electrician did repairs - and disconnected power to the bathroom. This kicked off renovations which meant showering elsewhere.
Thus prepared for ‘roughing it’, we visited Cape Town before flying to Windhoek in Namibia where we joined a trip with African Touch, owned by our niece Tasha and her Kenyan husband Karoma Kimani.
After Namibia, we were to check out Botswana and Victoria Falls, then a few of us planned to drive through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania to Kenya where Karoma and Tasha are establishing a camping ground (now finished and fabulous).
Headlamps and decamping for showers hadn’t prepared us for one of our first Cape Town sights -miles of shanties that compose the ‘township’ of Khayelitsha, populated by about a million people. Nor, after daylight suddenly snapped out, was I prepared to be led by a guard to our fortified lodge. It was along the road from the backpackers and not set prettily in its garden as I had invented.
We went through a locked gate, a locked wrought iron door, a locked door and a locked bedroom door before meeting a long-awaited bed - and a locked safe for valuables. I didn’t need to be warned twice not to walk anywhere at night.
Friends took us for a drive and to lunch where the farmer had his first African animal experience – he found springbok carpaccio tasty. 
During the next few days, we visited the wine country, rode the cable car up Table Mountain, jaunted to the Cape of Good Hope, and sauntered around the jazzed-up harbourside. We were charmed by baboons near the Cape, despite that they would have nicked my handbag had I not left it in the vehicle. Finding no food they’d likely have tossed it over a cliff.  
The Dutch/German influence was evident in the cutesy villages in the winelands where, to reintroduce zebra, wildebeest, springbok and Eland, the largest of the antelope, farmers graze them with cattle. At a cheetah park, Anatolian Shepherd dogs are being bred. They live with sheep and goat herds, frightening away endangered cheetahs and thus preventing farmers shooting or trapping them.
We walked to a shopping mall while I clutched my handbag as if it contained my entire blood supply. Of course we experienced not the faintest safety threat. The most aggressive assaults came from assertive shop assistants. “Try them on,” one snapped as I vacillated over track pants. I just wanted them to sleep in, having left my sweatpant/pyjamas fluttering on the line at home. Turning down bossy boots was a cheap thrill - until the only other contenders were in a pricey sporting shop.
My new trackies were so fleecy and heavy I felt sure I’d roast - but that turned out to be another expectation shot down in flames.

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