Zambian Airways

"Zambian Airways - changing the way Africa flies" - I couldn't help feeling that the slogan was somewhat ambiguous. In fact, there was nothing wrong with the way that our little twenty seater flew to Mfuwe. But the process of checking in and transferring was all quite innovative.

Domestic check-in in Livingstone was at the (only) gate, where a number of people helped themselves to luggage, tickets and departure tax, in no particular order, from whichever passengers they could reach. So while some American family was being checked in, my luggage was weighed, labelled, and lobbed out of the exit doors. I soon gave up worrying that I hadn't been checked in and decided just to go with the flow, and went to beg for my departure tax receipt to be returned by the official who'd swiped it from my hand.

We took off rather late due to the departure of the presidential jet bringing all air traffic to a standstill. Security was not so tight as to stop us wandering out of the departure gate onto the edge of the runway to wave him off, climbing a spare set of plane stairs to get a better view of the president and the singing, dancing, drumming that was his send-off.

Our plane touched down in Lusaka, where we had to get off, collect luggage, and check in again. The check-in was about six inches from the arrival shelf, so this was quite easy. No departure tax was payable this time as we were only in transit, so we sat down and relaxed. Mistake. It turned out that we had to go to the departure tax desk and not only show them our previous receipt from Livingstone, but also fill out a lengthy carbon-copied form, in order to be given a receipt for the zero Kwacha we'd paid in departure tax.

Having been at the end of the pointless paperwork queue, Alex and I legged it through the departure cubicle, I mean lounge, across the tarmac and onto the waiting plane. Our sweet hostess greeted us as if she hadn't said goodbye twenty minutes ago, and off we went.

Zambian airways - changing the way logic works

Oh Zambezi!

Today I took my love for the Zambezi one step further... ...but I'm ashamed to say I was such a chicken at the top, I even thought, "I don't think I can do this."

The moment I'd left the platform I was grinning from ear to ear, I was flying with the wind in my face and the beautiful wonderful river beneath me. It felt amazing.

A few photos, from the beginning:

Nothing can come closer to feeling like flying than that did. It was blissful. Even the repeat bounces were fun. Of course I'd be even happier if I'd not been so scared - a bit disappointed in myself there. I think my biggest fear was of being scared! But wow. It was good, so good. There was no fear as I flew, just flight.

And as it happened, there was a good deal on, where it only cost an extra ten dollars to do a "swing". Swinging doesn't sound so bad, but look at the swing:

It's from the same platform as the bungee, which you can see on the bridge picture - or maybe not, as I've reduced the picture sizes somewhat brutally. Anyway, the jumping platform is on top of the bridge, halfway across. Click on the pictures for a larger view.

The swing involved running off the platform, plummeting earthwards (no sensation of flying this time) until the rope takes your weight and you swing. The rope is anchored to a cable across the river, some 20 or 30 metres from the bridge and also rather lower, allowing, we reckoned, at least 75m of graceless freefall. The swinging was very pleasant too, and gave a very good view of not only the gorge but also passing bungee jumpers.

Spot the speck that's me!

Reaching the top of the slow haul upwards after the swing:

Alex is uploading some jumping video onto his blog - so when he's got it up there I'll post a link to his blog so you can get a better impression of what was going on.

Bungee stats: Height: 111 m, 4 seconds of freefall, Max speed 120 kmh

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Oh Zambezi!

Out of Order

I've been trying to catch up with writing here, so have been posting things out of order. So if anyone is still reading this, scroll down a bit to find older posts published after the newer ones. Will try to get photos sorted before leaving Livingstone, but as I am considering throwing myself off the Zambezi bridge with a rubber band around my ankles, I promise nothing.

The Mighty Zambezi

Rafting the Zambezi - it sounds so wild, so exotic and adventurous.

Just below Victoria falls, all that water, now flowing at maybe 6 million litres per second across the 1.7km width of the falls, is charging down a deep and narrow gorge. This was big water. We rode waves over two metres high in the rapids -capsized and took a roller-coaster of a chilly swim, survived moments when I was sure we were going over, when we disappeared completely into waves, tilted, but somehow popped out upright, and all in all had a damn good time. We jumped in to swim a grade 2 rapid, finding ourselves swirling in whirlpools, ducked by the waves, and feeling the power of the huge currents.

It wasn't as extreme as I'd expected though, maybe because it was more about big waves and churning water than rocks and drops.

The walk to the put-in was long and steep down the side of the gorge, so it's not only the shoulders that are aching today. On the way up, after a short climb, we clambered into what was essentially a glorified shopping trolley to be pulled up by a single cable along tram-tracks. The gradient was dizzying, specially taken in conjunction with the "as shown on Blue Peter" construction of the whole apparatus. The back-up brake was a pile of rocks at the bottom of the slope. I imagine we were meant to be reassured by the words "Totally Zambian" emblazoned on the side of the contraption. I wasn't sure whether the beers at the top were to celebrate surviving the rafting or the "train", so I thought it advisable to down one for each.

Sky over Victoria Falls

A night in the Kalahari

Part three of my 'Wild dog' safari was Windhoek to Livingstone. The route took us quickly out of Namibia and into Botswana, and across the (somewhat grassy) Kalahari desert. We camped, coldly, near Ghanzi, and the next day drove on to the Okavango Delta.

It was interesting to see a different part of the delta. This time we were at the upstream end, to the North-West, where there were rivers rather than just streams. We slept in a proper camp and just further in to the delta by mokoro for a day trip. Again, we poled through reedy channels of ever-decreasing size. On an island we walked, ate the fruit of the baobab tree, and failed to see any animals at all. Of course it was still a fabulous day out, and I even learnt a couple of new trees. And slowly, slowly, I'm getting the hang of a few more birds!

On our little truck for this tour, the average age is about 79, which is, well, interesting. Four elderly Americans, who are the absolute epitomy of everything you expect from elderly American tourists. And one English woman of indeterminable age, but definitely one of those people who was over 50 at birth. She has one of those deepish penetrating very british voices, posh pronunciation with absolutely no social grace, and always sounds rather slow. A problem not helped by her habit of throwing totally unrelated comments into conversations, repeating her inanities endlessly and always, always, asking questions that had just been answered. And interrupting. She also had an amusing habit of getting lost in campsites, and even when right by the fire being unable to find her own tent out of the six that we had there. And then there was the issue with showers. We all made do with luke warm, cold, or no showers, but Carol had to moan on a daily basis about how long it had been since she'd been able to wash her hair. And ask everybody how hot the shower was, how long it was likely to remain hot (is there some way I can tell whether a shower that had hot water an hour ago will still have some now? Why did she think I had this power?) . When our guide told us that Livingstone would be expensive, he said "For example a burger and chips is about eight dollars," and immediately Carol piped up with: "Well I don't want a burger." I could go on... Luckily all us youngsters found that we could dissipate our irritation by having a giggle about it instead.

The elderly Americans: Herb videos everything, Anda loves everything, Zoltan's game for everything - even whitewater rafting. Eva is the perfect homely grandmother type - and quite the sweetest person you could ever meet. She has an interesting history too, having fled Hungary as a child in 1948 and eventually reached the States via Austria and Germany. In fact, she even crossed the mountains into Germany on foot and recalls running down the hillside. You can draw your own Sound of Music parallels here. Once in the states she lived for some time in an orphanage until the family was all sorted out (I got a bit lost at this point in the story) but all in all an amazing life.

I pity whoever has to watch Herb's video of shakily shot animals with a wonderful commentary which seems to involve him barking, for example, "Impala!" but nothing else. At one point he picked up a seed from the ground and filmed it on the palm of his hand for over a minute. He was also obsessed with checking the temperature with his watch's thermometer, insisting that it was "6 below" on a morning when clearly the dribbles of water in cups and half inch of water in a metal kettle left out all night in camp had completely refused to freeze. When I pointed out the unfrozen evidence and the fact that it certainly didn't feel that cold, he grunted and prodded his watch repeatedly while waving it in my face. I was moved to suggest that his watch might not be 100% accurate...

Also on our truck are two nice German girls and a lovely American guy, Alex. The Germans seemed good fun, great company and quite a laugh, but we never persuaded them out to a bar. Alex and I have been on a bit of a nightlife mission, hitting campsite bars whenever there is one, but generally we are the only people there - but the nights were about to get a little more exciting, so lets get back to the story...

After the delta we crossed back into Namibia (details of placenames may follow on editing) and spent the next couple of days driving East, into the Caprivi strip. The National Parks in this area were great, lots of elephants and so on. Impala.... Somewhere along the way we had a really good sighting of a honey badger, there were lots of lilac breasted rollers around, kori bustards, ground hornbills, in fact too many birds to mention...

There was a rather grim visit to a tourist, I mean traditional, village, with the obligatory demonstrations of basket making and dancing performed by people who looked as if they'd rather be anywhere else. A far cry from the wonderful trip to the Himba village last week.

Then we hit the border again and went back to Botswana. This flitting in and out is getting heavy on passport space! We camped near Kesane, at the same campsite where a couple of months ago I'd stayed with the overlanders. And like last time I went on the sunset game cruise on the Chobe river, and again marvelled at elephants. This time we also saw a huge raft of hippos, lots of buffalo and now I'm a birding geek, there was even more to get excited about. We met some nice people on the boat from another overland truck, who happily were staying at our campsite. So at last, Alex and I walked into a bar full of people and had a lively night! Hurrah. And guess what? They're all here in Livingstone too.

So, from Kasane to Livingstone... Kasane is only minutes from the border. After being stamped out of Botswana, a very short drive took us to the Zambezi where we waited for a spot on the little ferries plodding back and forth across the river. One get stuck, but was refloated by moving the trucks around. On the other side of the river, it was chaos. Multi-direction traffic, some aiming to cross to Botswana, but mostly stationary, a few stuck in the mud, most waiting for processing at the border post. Boys wandered around selling hard-boiled eggs, it was dirty and dusty and utterly peaceful in a disorderly haphazard, chaotic way. We queued for an hour or so to get passports stamped and visas sorted, but I loved it all - I was back in Africa.

The old brit looked horrified, the Americans unflustered, and Alex and I perked up with excitement - Namibia and South Africa are just too neat and tidy! Proper Africa and the end of the organized tour in sight....

We had a quick trip to see the Victoria Falls, which was great as I hadn't seen the Zambian side at all last time, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time to take the path down to the Boiling Pot or to hang out just enjoying the view for a while.

The evening went rather downhill with our guide getting drunk. Once drunk, he became very pushy, trying to get us to change our evening plans for dinner in town to suit his plans for more drinking in the campsite. Once we'd escaped, locking our valuables in the truck which he had assured us would be safe in the campsite, we ended up at a cheesy overpriced tourist trap restaurant, with lots of dancing by people scantily clad in grass skirts and bits of zebra skin. Then our guides turned up there. When we realized that the truck was now parked on some roadside in town, things got less friendly. Eventually, we got our things out of the truck, the guides got very aggressive, but eventually drove off. We decided to have just one more drink then go back to camp as nobody wanted to wander around town with their valuables. Luckily it was just us four young folk (yes, I know, but all things are relative!) as the oldies hadn't come out with us. The restaurant staff were quite understanding as we ran in and out in varying states of alarm and anger, generally trying to leave one person inside so it didn't look as if we were doing a runner. We crept back to our camp with some trepidation, saw the truck had made it and the guides had presumably gone to bed - a big sigh of relief. Alex and I leave the trip here, supposedly tomorrow, so today we looked for alternative accommodation for tonight, but Livingstone is bursting at the seams. The nice overlanders have offered to squeeze us into their tents for the night. Nothing like a bit of drama...

Northern Namibia

Of the three legs of my WildDog tour, this one stands out as the best, by a mile. There was less driving, more seeing and doing, some wonderful places and best of all the most lively, fun-loving, friendly group of people to travel with.

But I've had enough of writing for now, so I'll try posting some photos instead.
Surprise, surprise - that didn't work. Will try again at some point. Maybe.

Southern Namibia

In Windhoek I joined a tour with Wild Dog, as short of renting a car, organized tours seem to be the only transport to godforsaken deserts and other places of interest in Namibia.

A long day's drive took us to a delightful campsite in Quiver Tree Forest. These unusual looking trees get their name not by quivering, but because the bushmen made their quivers by hollowing out lengths of branch.

The second day was another long drive, broken at lunch time by a short walk round a stretch of the rim of the Fish River Canyon. This is an amazing place, beautiful in its barrenness, its sheer size. Our time there was sadly far too short, but it would be wonderful to go back some time and do the five-day hike into and through the canyon itself. We camped that night by the Orange River, which marks the border between Namibia and South Africa. In the morning our route followed the river, offering wonderful views for those who could cope with hunching down to see out of the windows of our somewhat small and cramped minibus.

It was a relief to arrive at Aus, as there had by that point been far too much driving and not enough of anything else. We arrived early enough for an afternoon walk over rocky hills with vast views of more barren emptiness. I enjoyed walking with Mike, a rather sweet American pastry chef, then on my own, and best of all just being away from the group. I took my time coming back, admiring the effect of the sunset on the rockscape, then settled down for a beer by the campfire.

In Luderitz I pottered about while the others went on a boat trip, then we all went to Kolmanskop - a "ghost town". It was founded as a small town with the discovery of diamonds, but by 1956 was deserted. Most buildings have now been taken by the desert, dunes banked up against walls both inside and out. After a short and interesting guided tour, we were free to wander throughout the village. A gymnasium, skittle alley, bar and one house have all been kept in order, but what I enjoyed most was wandering around inside eerily empty houses, hostels, shops and the hospital, all full of sand, some of them still including odd pieces of furniture which made the whole thing even more strange and evocative. In some buildings I entered through the door, climbed a small dune and left through a high window.

Our next campsite was at Sesriem, where a small dry canyon was worth a brief visit, most of all for the opportunity to stretch the imagination far enough to imagine it full of water, here in the desert. Early the next morning we drove to Sossusvlei where we joined other sunrise tourists for a hike up Dune 45 - the designated sunrise dune. The challenge was to get a photo or two without footprints spoiling the line of the dune's spine, with one side golden with sun, the other darkly terracotta. This whole area is just how I'd imagine desert, dune after dune stretching and curving into the distance, the reddish sand glowing in the sunrise.

After breakfast at the foot of the dune, we drove to another spot where we began our walk to the Dead Vlei. Walking over dunes and cracked, baked river beds we seemed to be almost alone in the desert - a wonderful feeling. At Dead Vlei we were less alone, but it was stunning. The atmosphere pressed on you insistently. On the floor of the vlei, a flat, circular space surrounded by dunes, the wind seemed suddenly to still. In this theatre, dead trees reached up their crooked, pale fingers. Nothing else but red sand, blue sky.

Leaving South Africa

After Karongwe Anel drove Marli and I home, via all the scenic parts of the Blyde River Canyon. It was good to be travelling with them, prolonging ecoTraining by another day. The view of the Three Rondavels was stunning, the company was good, and the pancakes in Graskop were of course delicious.

It was good to be back in Graskop, much like going home. Edwin turned my tin of beans into a tasty dinner and even invited me to stay and help run the hostel. I was sorry to have to decline, but with a flight to and tour in Namibia already booked, it didn't seem practical. It was easy to while a few days there, cycling to Lisbon and Berlyn waterfalls, sorting out my Karongwe photos and just enjoying doing nothing for a change.

My plan had been to head to Nelspruit on Thursday, catch up with a gorgeous bloke I'd met for a beer, then fly out on Friday morning. Edwin's suggestion though was to hike a local hill on thursday, then he'd take me direct to the airport on Friday morning, which seemed like a perfect plan. Of course it meant forgoing the opportunity of meeting up with lovely man... but need to be realistic here - well out of my league! The hike was great, excellent views of the area and especially dramatic was where the earth seemed to end at the escarpment.

My flight to Jo'burg from Nelspruit was in a little 30 seater plane, with a fabulous no-nonsense stewardess:
"Hi, can everyone hear me? Good. Do you all know how to do up a seat-belt and breathe through an oxygen mask? Great. Let's go!"
She then showed the two of us at the front of the plane how to open the door in an emergency and asked if that was ok. The guy across the aisle from me said he didn't understand, so she turned to me and said:
"Ok, you'll have to do it - he doesn't speak English."
And off we went.

Spent a couple of hours in Jo'burg airport, discovering that you can't take duty free into Namibia from SA, and buying a thermal vest.

The flight from Jo'burg to Windhoek was only noteworthy in that we were served lunch by the most ridiculously camp man I have ever met. And he had an alarming pudding-bowl haircut.

Windhoek is tiny. Hard to believe it's a capital city. The backpackers was a bit iffy too, though they did do free pancakes and coffee for breakfast. And so to the south...

EcoTraining, Karongwe Game Reserve

Four weeks sounded like a long time, but it turned out to be very little time in relation to the amount there was to learn. This was an entry level course, leading to FGASA level one guide qualification and/or EcoTraining’s own certificate in field guiding.

Days consisted of walks, drives, lectures, study (or volleyball) time and meals. On walks we learnt to identify trees (at least 33 of them), grasses (20!), animal tracks and dung, and, in theory, birds. I say ‘in theory’ because personally I struggled with this. Trees, even though most of them were mere shrubs, are somewhat larger and less likely to fly off, giving one a bit more of a sporting chance. On drives, we learnt about whatever was around, including more tracks and birds, while trying to find some elusive game. Learning manoeuvre the Landrover, brief our ‘guests’ and generally be a guide gave us all plenty of opportunities for amusing mistakes.



On our first morning, we came across a giraffe with a newborn calf, its umbilical chord still hanging long and fresh as it pottered about. That afternoon we tracked lions on foot and with the help of some vultures, found them. When the adult male gave us a verbal warning we slowly backed off, still watching, the sense of wonder and adrenaline adding up to a true feeling of awe.



Another highlight was watching a cheetah feeding on an impala. This cheetah had been hand-reared as a cub, so although fully rehabilitated into the wild, she was comfortable letting us come much closer to her than you would normally be able to. She was beautiful to watch. We saw how she had separated the stomach and intestines from the rest of the carcass, which she was eating. The stomach parts are eaten last, as their smell will attract more scavengers. The cheetah’s belly looked huge, so full of meat, and her face and jaws showed only the smallest traces of blood – such a tidy eater! The next morning we returned to the same spot and found her still there, finishing her last round of the meal, having managed not to lose her kill to the hyenas or anyone else during the night. We must have stayed with her for nearly an hour and even then it was hard to turn and walk away.

One morning as we set off on the vehicle, a hyena came walking towards us on the road, carrying what looked like a leg – of what, we weren’t sure. Her stomach showed that she’d already eaten well, and her teats that she had cubs. Clearly she was returning to her den to feed the cubs.

On drives when we saw nothing much, we still learnt plenty and this is what made the whole experience for me. By day, we followed tracks, by night we used a spotlight to search for the red reflection of nocturnal eyes. Our night-sightings were mostly bush babies, civets, jackals and hyena. One group saw a pangolin and at dusk one day we saw a beautiful honey-badger. And then there were the ‘near leopards’. For example, Rob’s:
“It’s a leopard. I don’t believe it. It’s a bloody leopard!” (a civet)
and Phil’s:
“Woh. Woh wohh wohh wohh wohh! “ (a bush)
As you may have realized, Leopards were our most sought-after and elusive animal. Sadly, we never did see one, although one ran in front of the vehicle as Theuns and Lizzie set off to pick up food one day.

There were impala aplenty, regular kudu, bushbuck, warthogs, giraffe and hippos. Occasional white rhino, elephants, crocodiles and lions. And of course birds. Did I mention the birds?

Sometime during the second week I became aware that when I closed my eyes, I saw trees. Well, leaves really. We seemed to spend a lot of time learning, then being tested on, trees. Notebooks allowed, tests were still tense with nervous excitement (well, nearly). Theun’s method involved lengthy lists of trees (“was this one over here number eight?”) whose names had to be written down – no fun on cold mornings when the fingers were too cold to hold the pen that had frozen and wouldn’t write anyway. With Rob the angst was dished up differently – whisper the tree and be sent to stand here or there depending on what you had said. Once everyone had answered, one group would be told they’d been right. And just to mess with our minds, Rob liked to send one person who was right to stand all alone, even when they were right, along with the others.

The same range of methods were also applied to learning tracks, poos and grasses. The whole business of tracking was fascinating, but not easy. Middens and scrape marks weren’t too bad, nor was digging your fingers into rhino dung to see whether it was still warm. And I’m not sure that an impala dung spitting contest was strictly necessary, but I imagine that after that we were all pretty sure what an impala pellet looked like.

Our lectures ranged from Ecology, Geology and Birds to the inner workings of a Landrover, by way of Mammals, Tracking and Conservation Management… the list goes on. One day we had firearm theory, which reminded me of “Today we have naming of parts” – who wrote that? The shooting was more fun, especially as Doreen, who’d never held a gun before, turned out to be the best shot in the group, earning herself the title of ‘silent assassin’.

Then there were the tests. For EcoTraining there were three tests, spread through the four weeks. In the final week there was also a lengthy field test which involved naming trees, listing their uses, naming grasses, tracks, poo and even rocks. And of course bird calls (“what?”) and birds (“where?”). Twice we had to give presentations to the rest of the group on subjects we’d chosen and researched, and of course this too was assessed. The much-hyped FGASA exam was almost a relief compared to Rob’s tests, being slightly easier and very much shorter. This test had a 75% pass mark, which if achieved qualified one for a FGASA practical assessment. This also doubled as EcoTraining’s practical, but those unfortunate enough to have just missed the 75% had to do a purely EcoTraining practical, which turned out too be much harder as well as more nerve-wracking, as it came in the form of a one-on-one with Rob. On FGASA drives one got a vehicle full of fellow students posing as guests, with the assessor sitting in the back corner. I think we were all agreed that it made a huge difference not only having ‘guests’ to talk to, but also knowing that they were all rooting for you. More on the assessment drive later…


The Camp

A normal day started with a six o’clock wake up, a quick cup of tea and then a three hour walk or drive. On returning to camp we had a huge hearty breakfast, followed by a lecture. After this was study time, volleyball or relaxation, followed by tea at three o’clock. Then there was either a two hour walk or a three and a half hour drive, followed by dinner and campfire and more study or relaxation time.

There were twenty students on the course, with two and a half instructors (one left halfway through, but Rob and Garth managed to put up with us to the end), so we were split into two or three groups for walks and drives. We had a good mixture of ages and of foreigners and South Africans, exam-takers and just-here-for-fun folk. There was no-one not to like and we all got on pretty well. Evenings round the campfire were always fun, not only thanks to Phil’s inexhaustible humour and Garth’s wicked joke-telling, but also because there were just so many interesting people.

Accommodation was in large tents – with real beds – but after a week I moved out to sleep on the deck. There were three decks, built around a huge central fireplace and a fourth building housing showers and the kitchen, and Rob’s place above. One deck was our classroom/dining room and the other two were for sleeping. Although colder than a tent, it was a great place to sleep, offering night-time wildlife viewing opportunities as well as proximity to essential facilities. Hyenas were frequent night visitors to the camp, sometimes running off with bags or clothing that had been left around. Other animals seemed quite happy to wander close by, so late night loo trips always had an edge of anticipation to them.


The Sleep-out

One night we slept out in the reserve, beneath the stars. Ignoring all the advice they’d given us during the bushcamping lecture, our instructors (sorry, trainers,) took us to a carefully selected site in a riverbed, where we built a huge fire. Leona dug us a terrifying toilet, dinner was cooked on the fire and sleeping bags were rolled out. We took turns to keep watch through the night on instructions not to wake up the instructors for anything non life-threatening – “You can scare off hyenas yourselves”. I was lucky enough to draw an early watch, the only difficulty being identifying and learning to ignore each new grunting or snoring sound as another person fell asleep. After handing over our watch, I snuggled down to enjoy the show. I didn’t want to sleep – it seemed such a waste to lie sleeping with such a beautiful wonderful night all around me. I watched the enormous constellation of Scorpio slowly arc overhead, in between gazing in wonder at the Milky Way and rolling over occasionally to lose my thoughts in the fire. In the morning, drinking tea by the fire, I ached with the joy of being there and the sadness that this was not my real life.

The highs and lows

The highs were many – every drive, walk, lecture, every starry night and evening fire, every cold morning had something to make me pause and wonder, smile. The low was knowing that this was only some sort of dream – what are my chances of ever living this life? And how could I ever know enough? Be good enough? There were times of huge frustration and disappointment in myself. I wasn’t going to do the practical – didn’t think I could – but after being a guest on other people’s assessment drives, I decided to give it a go. So if nothing else, I overcame my fear of failure enough to try. That should give me some satisfaction, but it doesn’t. I passed exams and assessments, but on a personal level I didn’t pass a thing. Rob asked me if I’d ever believed in myself, and I thought no, but only later did I realize or remember how I used to be, just a couple of years ago. Although there should have been little time for it, there was a lot of opportunity for introspection and reflection. But of course no answer to the big question – can I ever be the person I want to be?

On a cheerier note: the ultimate warm fuzzy feeling was Rhodes putting his arms around me and saying "I'm proud of you".

Also warm and fuzzy - but this time, literally - was Rob pulling my beanie down over my face every time he passed by.

Other things that make me smile to remember:

• Everyone whistling the French national anthem as Alex drove us off into the night (and a rock),
• Carole and her obsession with Amarula
• Sarah hopping up to the vehicle in her sleeping bag - and getting in,
• The study group that disintegrated into a rowdy quiz-show,
• Alex's presentation on the 'orny plates of the pangolin (imaginez s.v.p. un accent francais tres fort)
• Leona telling me I should be a safari,
• Phil trying not to feed his legs to a lion, and trying not to look worried.
• Actually, Phil at all times.
• The night drive where we spent ages star-gazing with Garth
• Andi singing "hey mr karongwe" (actually, I'm not convinced, but it was funny at the time)
• The lion chasing the vehicle, Garth saying "Stop!" then seeing the lion and changing his mind, "Go!Go!"
• Michael identifying a grey heron as a black-headed oriole, without a moment's doubt, a hint of a smile, or any embarrassment. Calmly confident, I'd say.
• All those visions of virility on the volleyball court (eat your heart out, Denise)
• Matt singing
• Andi and Äneri (no further comment - minors read this)
• Carl's obsession with the black mamba
• What was Sarah carving from that piece of wood?
• Dorinne's giggle, and jokes, and animal spotting
• The flying spaghetti monster
• Cliff and Phil and Matt, getting me through that drive...

no doubt more will follow as I remember

The assessment drive
(coming soon!)