Lightning shows, close encounters of the elephant kind and near-drownings...

Well, where do I start? Feels like December is so far away already!! Well, I’ll start with Savanski’s visit. Sav popped by in mid-December for a visit before Christmas on her way to South Africa. Was great having the little memsahib around. Not sure she has quite got her head around quarry attire yet though.. Zack point blank banned her from his quarry section until she had changed into something more suitable – hotpants and a strappy tummy top appear don’t appear in the dress code for some reason... He made her wear a hard-hat too but drew the line and steel-cap boots luckily for her. Spent a very special night in Nyatana - just Dad and his 2 girls (me and Sav). Took Fussa – the staffie pup we were baby-sitting for her first swim in the river (she was utterly unimpressed) and she spent most of the afternoon furiously digging up the river bed – and even found a half eaten snake, nutritious! At least we know her nose works.

We just all lay in the water while the water rushed by, eating mangos. Was just lovely. Bought me right back to when I was about 4 when we used to bath in the very same river when while my Dad was still building our house on his first marble mine. Did keep one wary eye out for crocodilios but we were fine. (I should have been keeping one wary eye out for other dangerous biting creatures however – but failed... to my detriment! Story to follow..)

Then we went for a long walk over about 17 hundred mountains to find a secret spring that comes out the mountain and feeds into the river. Dad charged on and I had to stop about every hundred metres for breath! I just kept pretending I was stopping to look at the view.. Wowzaz I need to step it up to keep up with all this bush-wacking malarkey! We followed an elephant path all through the hills til we found the spring and also a place where the rocks seep salt which is what the ellies come for. I nearly licked it myself I’d lost so much salt through sweating half my bodyweight (I wish) out on the way. Saw a tree I have never seen before which has flowers that look exactly like maroon orchids! So stunning! What wasn’t so stunning was that I must have picked up a little tick on that walk from the grass... When I got home then next day I found one on the back of my leg which I pulled off. Over the next few days it turned into a huge red lump and then when I was out at the quarry one day I woke up and all my lymph nodes up my thigh and in my groin (sorry!) had swollen up and I had the most ferocious headache. I still just didn’t make the connection – it was only when I was helping Damo cook dinner for the guys that night that it all fell apart and I burst into tears over a chopping board of bacon cos I was so weak I couldn’t even cut the bacon! Yes really! It was a pathetic sight!!! Anyway, drove into Harare the next day to see the doctor (stopped on the road 3 times for a little cry... cos it was hurting my arms to turn... yes really..) and she put me on medication for tickbite fever and also malaria just in case cos the malaria season is so rife at the moment. Talk about an onslaught – the malaria medication is hardcore!! Anyway, I slept for three days and was right as rain afterwards but will never underestimate those little buggers again. Tricksy little fellows!

Then we had Christmas – Damo did a Jamaican ham (very Christmassy!) with rum and spices and I did a leg of lamb. We ate on the veranda outside with lots of champagne and stuffed ourselves to oblivion... Damo got some very exciting presents like a COOLER-BOX for work...(woop-woop!), some flip-flops... LUCKY boy! Ha ha ha...

We left early the next morning for the first leg of our much anticipated ROAD-TRIP! (I have added a map above showing our route and some key points!!!) We left early morning and got to Lake Kariba at lunchtime and spent 3 nights on the houseboat. As usual, Africa was showing off for Damien... we had the most extravagant lightning show and thunderstorm on the second night. Vegas had nothing on us that night! We sat on the top deck of the houseboat with our beers just taking in these lightning forks going across the sky with 10 or 15 forks at a time! Unreal! The flashes were so sudden that it would burn the entire surroundings to your retina and for the next ten seconds you could still see the water and the island in perfect detail!! And it went on for over an hour. The thunder was like nothing I have ever heard – huge, deep earth-quaking rumbles that reverberated around your lungs. Spectacular. We went to bed on the top deck as usual. The top deck has a roof but no sides and we usually make our beds up there and hang up mozzi nets and sleep in the open which is just stunning as you get to wake up to a beautiful sunrise reflecting off the lake and it is much, much cooler than in the bedrooms downstairs. Well it turned out to be MUCH cooler that night! We woke up in a tremendous downpour which, because the boat was at a bit of an angle being moored to an island, rushed down the deck on us like a tidal wave! We were drenched before we even woke up! It is quite a sight seeing people trying to climb out of a wet mosquito net, quickly, half asleep (and naked as the case was for some who shall remain nameless..).

We were similarly spoilt on our last day. We went to visit some friends for a braai who were staying at lodges on the mainland. As we arrived they ushered us in really hastily shushing us all the way and we walked through to see four elephant practically climbing through their lounge windows! They were right up against their veranda and even leaned in and drank some water out their pool! It was the closest I have ever been to elephants in the wild and it was a breath-taking, humbling experience. There was one monster male who I snuck outside and round the back of the house to photograph. He was just eating leaves at a leisurely pace looking straight at us totally unflinchingly. Just this huge unblinking ancient eye. Everyone was just watching them in silence for about half an hour. I got some incredible shots and it jetted me back to my childhood dreams of becoming a National Geographic photographer! Unfortunately when you are behind the lens it forms a kind of imagined barrier between you and anything dangerous you might be taking photos of so you feel totally impervious to the outside world! Damien had to in the end physically pick me up (I was still focusing!) and carry be back inside when they got too close!! Funnily enough it’s only when you see these animals next to human object that you realise their true scale – they are ginormous! It was kind of sad seeing them so close to humans – they must be used to having us around in this area. I have some horrible shots of the male digging in a rubbish bin and then kicking it around in a temper when he didn’t find anything sufficiently satisfying.. We went back to the boat that night (which was moored on the shore) on a high, and then spent the whole night being serenaded by lovesick hippos calling to eachother from either side of our boat – it is such a comforting sound!

Exerpt from Damo:

“We arrive expectant of a drunken fun but we didn’t expect to find 4 elephants in their back garden eating their trees, honestly we were standing 3 feet away from the ellies with only a small low fence separating us - AMAZING, I turn to look for Celia but she’s not there and after 30 seconds of frantic searching I find her round the side of the raised area with her camera lense nearly up the huge animal’s backside, that girl is lethal with that thing but she got some exceptional photos and is definitely the designating African trip photographer going forward.”

Bless him. He lies to keep me happy! And I am. : )

Damo also caught his first TWO fish on this trip – one bream and one tigerfish. He was most upset when Dad filleted it up to use for bait! (It was a little tiddler!) Neither my Dad or I caught a thing though so good on him!!

We packed up on the next morning and started early for Zambia. We crossed the Zimbabwe/Zambia border by driving over the Kariba Dam Wall which was a first for me. The water was also higher than I have ever seen it. Our border crossing went smoothly for African standards – they all did on this trip actually! I liked Zambia immediately. It has a wonderful aura of hope around it. It is full of chirpy signs against corruption and various other sins and promoting good behaviour and love your neighbour type stuff. Their citizens seem to be very considerate about all these things! The bush was much thicker than I expected and the way they build their mud huts is different to our Zimbabwean way. We do the circular ring of branches in the ground, then cover with mud and then thatch – theirs are square mostly and the vertical sticks are very visible through the mud so it almost looks like they only ‘plaster’ the inside? Anyway. I liked the place.

We crossed the Zambian/Namibian border a few hours later after crossing through Livingston which had a lot of the South African brand names and shops and seemed a lot richer, probably due to its proximity to the Falls. We passed a mall with Woolworths, Steers, Nandos, Subway, Edgars, etc... I expected the vegetation to change as soon as we crossed the border into Namibia, which of course it didn’t! The Caprivi strip looks much like Vic Falls in terms of vegetation (thick scrubby green bush). We eventually got to our stop-over point (Poppa Falls) at about 9pm. Slightly ratty (they screwed up our booking) and pretty tired, we had a delicious steak and chips rushed out last minute by the kind chef and went to our lodge. This was totally surreal for me! The lodges were proper almost Swiss-style log cabins nestled in a bit of pine forest! All wood on the inside, outside everywhere, furniture – everything! We even had a wooden kettle!! OK, we didn’t.. Damo had a bush wee next to a (imagined) hippo... Dad snored (like a real hippo) all night and before we knew it we were off again on the last leg of our journey to the coast.

The drive was reasonably uneventful and the surroundings gradually turned from think green bush to a bit balder and a bit browner, to very craggy sharp looking red and brown mountains and dry scraggy bush to pure golden sand as we drove into Swakop at about 7pm that night. On our way we passed all sorts of quirky sounding towns – I love the Namibian names – Omaruru, Usakos, Otjiwarongo, Gobabis, Okahanja – there is even a place called Gross Barman! (We’ve all met a few of those hey?!)

Rocked into Swakop and checked into our hotel – a very old, quaint German hotel. We were right in the centre of town which was great cos you could walk everywhere. Pretty rare in Africa! Had a wonderful New Year’s party on the beach. There is a huge rustic wooden beach bar (called Beach Bar funnily enough..) that hosts a party and everyone parks their pick-ups all along the beach and sets up little windbreaks and tents and fires and parties all night that way. It was fabulous! Then at midnight they light a huge (about the height of a three storey building?) bonfire and it’s all a bit dangerous, but fun! It fell over again this year, like it always does! We spent the rest of our trip exploring Swakopmund, shopping for clothes and books (heaven!) and eating enough seafood to satisfy a grown walrus on a daily basis! (Ocean Basket ROCKS!!) Mmmmmm... craaayfish, dribble, dribble.... We also went to see the crystal gallery which houses the largest crystal in the world (taller than Damo, wider than Pavarotti, or should I say than he used to be...). Dad left us after a few days to fly to Cape Town then onto the States to do some special training for his flying in an assimilator they have there (yes, I know, it is starting to sound dodgy – is my Dad in some secret airforce???) The rest was spent with family before we hit the road again for Vic Falls. Zack and I took turns driving and I am not embarrassed to say we had pies and ice-cream for breakfast. (I love you Zack!) We stopped off at Katimo Mulilo in Namibia and hit the Namibia/Botswana border first thing the next morning. We found a fabulous old hollow baobab tree at the Botswana/Zimbabwe border which I hopped into for a picture only to be attached en masse by a whole tribe of matabele ants – and promptly hopped out and hopped around a lot more - Damo has some good shots of me running and screaming and plucking at myself hysterically.. Not the coolest way to act at a border-post.

At last back in Zim and we soon hit Victoria Falls town. Our lodges (thanks Ang!) were just perfect – little self catering lodges set in a huge campsite with a great restaurant (‘In-da-Belly’ – a play on words for the local tribe in those parts – the ‘Ndebele’) and a lovely pool and deck area with satellite TV up on screens in the open bar. Just perfect! We had warthog steak rolls for lunch (I recommend them!) and took a walk to see the bridge in the afternoon which is where they do the bungee jumping from. It was pretty wobbly. I truly don’t know how I ever did that bungy all those years ago. I must have been drugged. It looks downright RECKLESS now! We decided on the bridge that we would definitely like to go rafting so rushed off to book for the next day.

Rafting was superb. It is probably best described in Damo’s words (I have taken an excerpts from one of his emails):

DAMO:

“We decided on white water rafting down the Zambezi and I still think Celia is getting over the shock that I agreed to this as I’m far more of a land lover, or more like I stepped on some sea weed when I was 7 and since then I hate getting in to water where I can’t see the bottom (yes, I am a 31 year old man!).

So we climbed down 750 feet through bush, mud and water falls and come out on to the most stunning little beach and mountain area ever. The water was very inviting after the climb down. After going through various drills we set of down the Zambezi with our guide whose nickname was a confidence booster in itself, Titanic!!!!

As we float along nice and easy he talks us through what rapid is up ahead and what grade the rapid is ranging from 1 – 5, and 5 being the strongest/most violent/most powerful/most DANGEROUS (I think you get the picture). First rapid was a breeze - a nice, gentle nerve-settler and then we move closer to rapid number 2 of which there are 3 routes A, B and C - with B being a 5. As he closes his mouth from asking the question - do we want to go hard or soft, there is a banshee style screech from my right “ I WANT TO GO HARD, I WANT TO TOUCH THE BOTTOM”, as I turned to look at my usually angelic fiancé to see her eyes on fire… The rest of the group, in fear of being impaled by her oar, agree - so we’re on, certain death it is.

We fly down and hit the rapid we turns the boat over like you would flip a 10 pence piece, now they do say that time goes very quickly when you’re under water, well it felt like I was trapped under the boat for hours, and to add panic to the situation I can hear the guy doing head count because luckily I was trapped where the seats were so I had some breathing space. Once I’d got my bearings and realised that I hadn’t miraculously grown gills, I had to then figure out how I was not only going to get my rhinoceros sized head under the side of the raft to daylight again, but also do it wearing a life jacket, buoyancy was against me for those couple of minutes.

On the second attempt I was free and in open air again floating down the Zambezi feeling very relieved, a little bit emotional but glad to be breathing, but once again the banshee returned with a different screech that resembled my name… At least I know she cares about me and she also did a sterling job of scaring any surrounding wildlife.

The whole rafting experience was the best activity I’ve ever done, there were pockets where we could jump out and float with the boat, there were other areas that we could get out and swim ahead of the raft and also jump in off the cliffs, it only dawns on you after a while that crocodiles live in that river but I figured my luck was in. After a very fun but tiring trip you’re then hit with the 750 foot climb back to the top. Holy Moses that was a killer and I’m sure the only thing that kept me from throwing myself off the mountain and ending it all was the promise of cold beer at the top.”

Needless to say it was pretty rough and while I love water and am a pretty strong swimmer, even I had some panicky episodes. Damo was a true trooper considering he is not as fond of water as most. And the banshee thing is not an exaggeration – I thought he had drowned cos I couldn’t see him for ages! I was nearly sick down my lifejacket.. Anyway, the walk out of the gorge was the worst – about half an hour solid uphill windy stairs cut out of the rock. A cold coke has never tasted so nice when we got to the top. I mean NEVER! We hit the casino that night at The Kingdom hotel and I won LOADS (OK, $60....) and the boys were pretty much begging me to go home they were so tired.. (Yes you were...). We went to The Boma restaurant the next night which I just LOVED! It is on the grounds of the hotel I used to audit about 10 years ago – the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge. It is an African themed restaurant and a full on experience, not just a meal. When you arrive they tie traditional kangas (African wraps) around you and paint some traditional marks on your face and in you go to this huge open air thatched area. They come round with special bowls to wash your hands before you eat as it done traditionally then they offer some Zimbabwean brew – Chibuku – in a tin cup (with traditional floaty bits) and the evening begins! The main mean is a huge buffet with meat being cooked on a braai on request at the front – the normal ones, plus warthog, kudu, eland, tilapia etc. – whatever you like. You can also try kapenta (tiny dried fish) and mopani worms (yes those big fat white ones...YU-UM!!). About an hour in some amazing Ndebele dancers do a show and towards the end of the evening a group of African drummers does a show then everyone gets their own African drum and the main man teaches you all some songs and everyone plays along... It was less excrutiating than it sounds as everyone is three sheets to the wind by then and REALLY joins in! Even me... stick-in-the-mud-Smit. Throughout the meal you also get visited by face-painters and traditional story-tellers and afterwards you can have your fortune told by a proper witchdoctor outside who throws the bones... I was too scared.. We had our faces painted – Zack got some dog paw prints which was a coincidence as that is our logo at the quarry, I got a gecko, which wasn’t a coincidence about anything, and Damo, poor Damo - Damo got Mickey Mouse on acid! We think it was supposed to be a jackal but it was pretty terrifying – he could make it growl by moving his eyebrows up and down. Very amusing!

All that was really left after that was the drive home which we did via Bulawayo. We passed Heany Junction on the way which is a small Railway station with a lone house built next to it, and in that house I was actually born – my Dad delivered me there! It was quite strange – I felt like I should know it immediately but I didn’t. Was nice to see it though, so I can picture it now. Special!

Other than that it has been business as usual since getting back. Oh, I had my 30^th... didn’t wake up with wrinkles or a moustache so I think we are doing OK with our thirties so far... Just had a small tea party at the house (OK - champagne party) while I wait for Dad to get home so we can have a proper celebration. (I’m sure he will be able to fit the rally car on the plane somehow...)

We are making good progress with our carbon credits and we have a trading house in London looking for buyers on our behalf. The great news is that they were so impressed with our documentation that they have asked us to help them do the documentation for some of their other projects in the future. BONUS!! We’ve not put anything in writing yet but it was good for our little Zimbabwean egos to see that we are doing a good job – enough to impress Europe anyway. I will keep you all informed. I am also spending some time out at Nyatana in the next few weeks so will be able to give you an update as to our movements on the ground there.

Anyway, that’s about it for now – it is Damo’s birthday on the 9^th everyone – send him kisses and prezzies! Oh and our shipping arrives tomorrow hopefully! (Have a said this in every blog???) After 4 months this could be it – I can actually wear a different pair of jeans!! And Damo can start making soufflés again – YYAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!

Until next month...

Oooops... just realised I forgot the best news of all – Damien got his work permit – ON CHRISTMAS EVE!! Was very last much by the skin of our teeth before our trip and he had to rush off at the last minute at get a chest X-ray for TB at the local hospital – I watched him visibly blanche when they asked him to do this. He was very quiet all the way there but I (and I think he..) was pleasantly surprised – everything was very clean and efficient. Whew!