| We stop for lunch shortly after entering Mozambique. Much joking about land mines (we fortunately didn't find any...) |
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I find that I've become the default wood carrier. Joy collected the left over firewood at Shingwedzi, and with lots of space on the roofrack it makes sense that I carry it. I'm sure we'll get to a point where we need wood -- for now there are plenty of dead trees lying around.
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1600, Bush Camp #1: We stop in a dry river bed, round ourselves up
into a sort of a laager, and unpack chairs and beer.
This is where I realise that it would have been really nice to have had enough water along for a hot shower -- make a mental note to fill up at the first river we cross. Terry and I stroll down to the river -- quite a long way, to get to see the river, we don't bother going all the way down to the water. |
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A bit of rain during the night upsets John and Joy who didn't put their flysheet over the tent -- and Pim who has to close the sunroof in the middle of the night.
Toasted rolls with tomato and cheese for breakfast. Orange juice. Coffee. It's Hell In Africa.
| We saw lots of really large baobab trees, but this is the first one I found where the light was on the right side for a picture. |
We enter the game reserve at 1005.
We get to cross a river and I collect about half a can of not-so-clean water. A cap of Milton, and it's good enough for a shower.
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Bush Camp #2 :
At 1600 we pull off the road into a secluded spot. I back into the
bushes and have a hot shower. Lekkerrrrrr!
Early the next morning, a Land-Rover with a bunch of guys on the back comes past. They're clearing land mines about 4km thattaway... |
| Breakfast is a humoungous fry-up by Pim. Six eggs, a packet of bacon, there goes my diet. Orange juice, as always, and coffee. |
We start driving at 0820 (this continued for the rest of the trip, start at 0830-ish, stop at 1600, if at all possible). 15 Degrees, so I start with a T shirt, jersey and jacket and remove as required.
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At 1210 we reach the southern border of the park, and cross over the
dam wall. At our lunch stop just out of town I hurriedly slap together
dough for a bread.
Bread Recipe Ingredients: all amounts non-critical
30 gr yeast (i.e. one packet) Mix half the water with yeast and sugar, to make sure that the yeast is still OK. It should start bubbling fairly quickly. Make dough using the yeast mix, then the honey and the rest of the water. If it gets sticky it's too wet, add flour. Knead the dough until it's nice and pliable. Allow the yeast to rise, then knead it again. Oil the pot, dump the yeast in the pot, wait for it to rise until it fills the pot, stick it on the fire (this is the tricky bit :-) Trick : When the coals look ready, move the fire. Put the pot on the warm ground where the fire was. Then put coals around and on top. Because the fire is still close to the pot, turn the pot at least every 15 minutes, about 90 to 120 degrees every time. The bread is done when you can stick a skewer in and it comes out clean. Start checking after an hour or so but don't be too worried before the end of the second hour. |
We had to drive almost all the way through Chokwe to reach the petrol station. I put in 113000 Mt worth of fuel, 62 litres. Pim and I later learnt that we share our liking of the attendant. Cute girl. I hope Pim got a photo, I didn't.
| The locals tell us that the bridge over the river is a much better idea than the ferry, so we head back into town, up the road, and over the bridge. By now it was getting late, and we needed a place to camp. |
Bush Camp #3 : We eventually ended up camped quite close to a village, a bush camp with a signal, so I SMS home. Of course, there's no loose firewood to be had close to a village, so the wood I've been carrying comes in handy. And I still have a bag of charcoal if we really need it...
Some guys on a bakkie came round to check up on us, see whether we're good or bad guys. Very friendly, once they figured out that we were in fact good guys :-)
And the bread came out quite nice, after almost lifting the lid off the pot because I left it in there for so long. Supper was sirloin steak, potato in foil, onion in foil. And bread, of course.