Well that certainly is true! I find the people who have
never been someplace are usually the ones who influence others to go or not to
go there. I have decided that my guests will have enough to work with to see if
they want to come and experience the wild up close and personal with me.
Africa is simply amazing! I want to recount the first
experience I had walking in the bush in South Africa. It was last year in
February and I was all of 3 weeks here in the ‘wild’. Living in a campsite in a
tent; it was off the ground on a deck of wood but still a tent.
There was a plan to go walk in the bush up a gorge where the
river flowed through and see some birdlife and just absorb nature. Sounded nice
and peaceful and naturally everyone was expected to go. So yours truly tagged
along with the crowd with a back pack
which had a water bladder and a pocket full of biltong (dried meat) in case I
got peckish and a pair of Reebok leather boots for hiking.
We got to the point of starting by open Landrover and
stepped off to have a ciggy and get our legs stretched. I noticed to my dismay
the grass was well over knee high! We gonna walk through that?? Yeow! I rather queasily asked the guide a tentative
question? Is it through there that we go? Oh yeah came the casual reply, we go
down through the grass to the river edge and walk up the river bank.
Gulp….. Yeow…. I was sweating and could feel the cold clammy
knots of paranoia fueled by imagination tightening in my stomach. Gritted my
teeth and took my place in the line. Walking through 3 feet high grass in the
African bush was not exactly the way I planned to end my life, and yet here I
was doing it. Madness…. I thought to myself..... maybe the gaboon adders were away
for a weekend with the puff adders and the pythons, the leeches and scorpions
were with them for company.
On and on we went and then hit the river……. A complimentary
name for a stream 3 meters wide in most places and 20-45 cm deep in most
places. The boulder strewn stream bed was making the water ripple and gurgle
its way down from the Waterberg range and its icy freshness was a delight to
feel and yet it was all lost on me. I had leeches and slippery algae on the
mind along with the all too fresh memory of falling on steps in the rain and
being laid up in bed for weeks.
After we had crossed back and forth twice in trying to
keep to the ‘bank’ of the stream, a name for a strip of rock 60cm wide on one
side or a meter or two wide leaf litter strewn area with hard small stones
underneath on the other, the guide stopped. We had a breather and then I
watched aghast as he started taking his shoes
off…..NONONONONONONOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! THIS IS AFRICA!!!!!! I moaned. Every
imaginable ugly poisonous godawful creepy crawly in existence lives in the leaf
litter here. Doesn’t anyone realize this!!!!! Nooooooo……
My heart was pounding and mouth was dry and it seemed that
time stood still while my stomach churned at the thought of taking my shoes off
and walking in 3 inches of rotting vegetation, across hard slippery rocks and a
freezing stream full of nameless horrors.
The shame of hurt pride prevailed over the ignominy of
ridicule and I started taking my shoes off. How were the others taking it??? I
looked around hoping to find a friendly paranoid face but everyone seemed
completely in sync with insanity of taking shoes off in the ‘natural habitat’
of creepy crawlies anonymous. These people are certifiably nuts I thought to
myself as I tied the laces of my beautiful shoes together and slung them around
my neck. All I could think was “ I am gonna die…. I am gonna die….. I am gonna
die…..”
We crossed and re-crossed the stream several times. Just
great to have wet feet and walk in the mud so the leaf litter can attach itself to your feet squelch
between your toes and poke you in places you wish you had never exposed.
I was taking pix and videos so at my requiem mass and the
wake held in my memory there would be record of the place where I died and the
ashes could be spread around in the correct location. Part of me however was
lightening up. Everyone walked in single file so I figured it would be a very
sleepy goddamn gaboon viper that would bite the 7th guy in line. The
thought then came that maybe it was a patient one that had just had enough of
humans tramping through its living room. It did no good to the heart rate I can
tell you that.
Anyway, we finally, thank God, ended the walk at the edge of
a fairly large pool where it appeared that people wanted to actually enter the
forbidden pool of creepy crawly heaven. By this time the mind and the feet were
numb with terror.
As I sat down and put my bag down and sipped on some water
and ate my jerky I looked around at the stupendous beauty of where we were. I
also looked at the videos and pix I had taken to be placed In memoriam. Stunning does
not begin to describe the beauty of the Bushmens gorge where we were sitting.
The stream, the pool, the kingfisher, the euphorbias growing along the cliff
face, all added up to the idyllic world I had been seeking all along and which
was the reason for me being in Africa in the first place. It was the place
where your soul gets rejuvenated and gloriously laid.
Thus refreshed I joined that gang in the beautiful rock pool
and body-surfed down the little rapids at the entrance to the pool. Glorious!
The inevitable time to turn back to the car arrived and I
decided that whatever happens no more bare feet and so put my shoes back on.
Walking back somehow seemed shorter somehow and when we met up with an elephant
it was just the cherry on top.
Lesson was learned though, to trust the guide when I got
home and found my beautiful 100$ boot soles were separated from the uppers in
so many places so as to render them unusable.
But nothing can beat the beauty of the Bushman’s gorge and
the memory of my initiation to the African wilds.
Pix/vids to come!
Pix/vids to come!
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