CAMP LIFE & GOING ON SAFARI…

The camp is buzzing this evening the boys are off for sunday night in Nantumbo, the local town where they can have a few drinks, no doubt a few girls and crash for the night  - this is all on the proviso  that they are back and ready for work in the morning. In the background is the music from the kitchen, I think they have the same three songs playing over and over day after day – but its OK the place is very relaxed.

This morning I had booked 2 game scouts (with guns) and a vehicle so we could do our own safari;  I have not yet seen elephant or hippo or lion or much wildlife at all.  So we had organised a walk to a hippo pool where wildlife abound.  It was supposed to be about a 4km walk from a “main” track in and out.

An early start, and for once people were on time.   But we weren’t aware that our human GPS and game scout Nyegela had changed the route to maximise our chances of seeing game; from the 4km walk, into a 15km round trip comprising of 6km walk to a (different) hippo pool, 4 km to the river, 1km down river and then 6km back to the vehicle . We only found this out when we arrived at the new starting spot and the whities weren’t organised for this were they, no GPS, no radio and only limited water – hey are we stupid or what? 5 km off the beaten track facing a 15km walk in the African bush and 3 basic survival elements missing!! But we had the trusty Nyegela, or was he?

It’s interesting how the mood changed through the walk from bravado and apprehension (discussion like “hey Cameron if you’re being mauled by a lion do you want us to shoot the lion or yourself?” and "Any messages for your parents” and Cameron “ do you know the lions will go for the meaty ones first not the old skinny sinewy one!”); then and anticipation and excitement sets in forgetting the danger and then back to apprehension again, will the human GPS find his way back to the car? Has he got us completely lost and how do we get out of here?

 Well with this build up I’ll put you out your misery.  It was an awesome walk it was all of 15Km – 4.5 hours of tramping through undulating to hilly terrain. Sometimes in thick grassland where you can’t see above or through it, sometimes in quite heavily wooded areas.  In places in the valleys it was almost jungle like; in mud, hacking our way through almost tropical vegetation.  I saw literally tons of elephant and hippo poo, even porcupine poo, and saw millions of animal foot, paw, hoof prints from zebra, lion, hyena, sable, hippo and elephant, with some of the bigger prints you could loose half a leg into… but all I saw in terms of wildlife was one squirrel!  I was told this evening that the wildlife here is really wild and at the sound of a human disappear.

In contrast to the Australian bush which is absolutely alive with birds and insects but not so Africa. The bush is almost silent, few birds and few insects but stunning the same.  I showed Nyegela my iphone videos of Chambers Gulley kangaroos and koalas he was almost in hysterics laughing at them.

The other evening I spied a well worn track and behind a tree I found 2 empty diesel containers.  Diesel is a cash commodity and one of my jobs is to try to keep this sort of petty pilfering under control,  apparently we lost nearly $120K’s worth of fuel last year. I was also passed by a vehicle heading into town improper use of company vehicles is the other key abuse that I’m meant to keep my eye on.

Camp food and Tanzanian food generally is very bland and quite boring, this has been a huge disappointment for me as I thought this far-off exotic place might have had some exciting influences, though I guess with a German and English history that was probably being optimistic.  There is little variation between rice, roast meat, red sauce, potatoes and vegies, for lunch and dinner.  At lunch you usually get last nights left over meat served up on pizza or something.  No curries, but a little bit of fish. I have just passed my 1.5 weeks mark and food is on my mind quite a lot – a fresh salad is at the top of the list.

Looks like I’m moving on from Uranex. Unfortunately the company is tightly managing its cash and it is cutting back all over the place.  I was suspicious that heads would roll despite assurances that I was safe but am now advised that my services will be no longer required beyond October. I anticipated this so it looks like I have picked up another job with an Australian company looking at coal in Kyrgyzstan so I will head there after the European vacation.

  

For the geographically challenged Kyrgyzstan (see http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/kyrgyzstan-map/)

 is a land locked country which was one of the USSR states and shares a border with China to the east, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the south and west and Kazakhstan to the north. Apparently very mountainous, politically stable but my worst fear is the cold, -25 degrees C in winter with the weather rolling in from Mongolia. So this adventure will mean more blogging if you can bare it.