It started out as an idea to do something ahead of my 50th birthday in 2011. Visit the neighbours. My country’s neighbours. A solo trip.
Some of my friends have already reached the 50-years-old milestone and were complaining, again, that I just don’t seem to be getting there soon enough. I’m not sure what the issue is as age is just another number, is it not? Some of them have embraced this number with gracious acceptance, some have tried to hide behind smaller numbers, and for others 50 is just the number that follows 49.
After going to some of their 50th jubilee celebrations, listening to their remarks and thinking about milestones, I decided to make my 50th year one of my most memorable. Instead of turning 50 and then doing 50-type things, I thought I’d build up to my 50th birthday.
This involved some planning and preparation if I was to do it my way. Life and the Universe have a way of changing my plans so I’d need to be flexible. Camping is not my favourite accommodation, but I was going to have to do it as the budget was going to be less than shoestring. And for meals, I’d have to resort to eating tins of baked beans.
The decider test
As I’d never travelled on my own, I needed to ease myself into this whole solo adventure thing. I decided to test my mettle in a park I love in a rustic camp I’d not yet visited to assure myself I was self sufficient enough to do it into Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. So I booked into Kruger National Park.
I elected to stay in a rustic camp without electricity. When I arrived at my campsite at Tsendze I faced the daunting task of erecting my tent. I was petrified of making a hash of it all as I had a number of neighbours who looked like seasoned caravaners and campers.
To my great relief it took me about 40 minutes to put it up, arrange all the guy-ropes and hammer in all the tent pegs and set up my stretcher bed. I then took out my chair and sat down for a well-deserved beer.
Okay, I could do this. The adventure was finally underway and I travelled on to Botswana, awesome Victoria Falls until finally I reached Nambia’s Caprivi Strip.
The agony and the ecstasy
Toothache at 01h00 is awful. Toothache at 01h00 when an elephant is snacking on the trees between you and your painkillers is agony.
I spent a night at an unfenced camp called Bum Hill in the Caprivi, situated on the Kwando River. Each campsite has an east-facing lookout platform with individual site ablutions underneath. I had a particularly lovely river view, not as obscured by as many trees as the others, so decided to sleep on my stretcher under the stars.
The toothache woke me. I was about to leap off the stretcher and dash to my toiletry bag in my car when I heard the sounds of branches being ripped off a tree, very close by. An elephant. I waited for it to move on before I made my dash. But lo and behold, as the sound seemed to get a little further away, another elephant made itself heard.
My pain was becoming unbearable. I waited. Oh no, now one of them was drinking from the water next to my platform. I waited. And I waited. Now I was on the verge of tears. Then I could only hear one elephant browsing on the trees. I was desperate. Deep breath, it’s now or never.
I leapt off the stretcher and the floorboards creaked so loudly the sound could have woken the dead. I waited an eternity (probably half a second). I heard a branch creak. Hoping the rustling leaves around the elephant’s face would mask my noise, I almost vaulted down the wooden ladder, reached the car rear door, opened it, grabbed the toiletry bag and closed the door.
No, no, no! It wasn’t closed properly and the inside light stayed on. I heard nothing. I raced around and opened the driver’s door and leapt in, without closing the door fully. I switched off the interior light, then remembered I had emergency antibiotics in my medical kit. Best start them now in case this toothache was going somewhere serious.
So I jumped out of the car, trying to close the door as quietly as possible and raced up the ladder back onto my stretcher. I popped my pills and lay down, heart racing. The elephant was still browsing away nearby, seemingly unperturbed.
My racing heart slowed down and slowly, very slowly, the painkillers began working. Finally I fell asleep.
I was woken as day was breaking, my toothache now down to a very dull acceptable ache. I heard water being splashed around. Very noisy hippos, I thought. No, the noise lasted too long.
I got up and was treated to elephants swimming across the Kwando River as the sun was trying to make its way up to the horizon. The twilight was too low for photographs and I got back into bed to rather savour it all. In ecstasy.
I’m happy to report that I didn’t have any further nerve-wracking incidents with animals on the rest of the Baked Beans Jubilee adventure.
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