Bureacracy Sucks!!!

Day 6 Thursday March 6th 2008
Island Safari Lodge, Maun, to Moremi Game Reserve

Up early to go to the loo - such a pleasure not to have to squat over a hole! ;o) Another hot shower, just because I can! Bliss!

We packed up after tea and rusks and drove through Maun. The roads, although tarred, are a mess of donkeys, goats, horses and cattle. They don't seem to belong to anyone, just roam freely. Even in the middle of nowhere, along the freeways between towns, grazing, snoozing, just being donkeys, goats... etc. Here in Maun we saw many dogs running around and my soft animal-lover heart just broke at the state of them. Most of them were skinny, some were mangy, all were very nervous of humans. I saw one dog tearing at the carcass of a donkey, stopping to bark at a herd of goats (obviously afraid they were encroaching on his breakfast), before returning to rip desperately at the flesh. He ate like he knew he had only moments before he would be chased away and had to grab whatever food he could. Horrible!

The road to the gate is in relatively good condition, we passed graders working on it, and we drove into a major construction site at the gate. They are building a new, very impressive, gate house and the approach is a mess. The paperwork was long, again, and there was no water so we couldn't use the loo. The booking office had not warned us of this when we booked, a comment at the end of their email would have sufficed. Anyway, Simon chatted with a couple of the rangers about the condition of the roads while I filled in all the documents and waited (im)patiently for the sentry to finish the paperwork.

We were advised to take the Xakanaxa route as the Third Bridge road, as well as the road from North Gate to Xakanaxa were impassable due to the rains. We found the road to be mostly sandy, with lots of muddy dips. Some of the dips were very muddy, some were fairly deep, but Simon's driving was excellent. He really is very talented at off-road driving, safe, but confident. A huge comfort to those of my family who were worried about me.

The foliage was extremely high and lush, obviously due to the heavy rains, and our view was obstructed. We were only able to see animals that were close to, or in, the road. However, we did enjoy this fabulous flower arrangement. All around us, stretching as far as the eye could see were these beautiful yellow flowers.

The only animals we saw along the drive were elephant and impala. With water in abundance, the animals had no need to wander to water holes or close to human occupation. We had expected that we might not see many animals, so it was great to come across a large herd of elephant and another smaller herd of impala so soon on entering the reserve. Little did we know these would be the only animals we would see here! (Barring one hippo, glimpsed briefly.)






























I had read in one of the blogs about the poor condition of the bridges in Moremi, so was a little nervous as we approached Fourth Bridge. The water in the roads was getting progressively deeper, and the pools were larger and longer. We became more nervous about driving through them and, eventually, Simon decided we would have to inspect the water depth and the road condition before we drove through.

We were feeling slightly better having gotten safely through a couple of these longer, deeper pools when we got to Fourth Bridge. I was so nervous about crossing that I had my head out of the window, watching the logs beneath the truck, I forgot to take photos! However, we made it safely across and no logs collapsed beneath us. Phew! Then we saw the real hazard. Ahead of us were two tracks, one left, one right, both full of water. We were stopped in about a foot of water and needed to decide which track to go through. There was no option to go around, we were in the middle of a river!

Simon put the truck into gear and drove into the water. It got deeper. And deeper. And deeper. White-knuckled hands clenched the steering, and I hung onto the hand rail of the passenger door and willed the truck forward with all my might. The water was above the wheels, almost up to the wheel arch, and the truck started to sputter! NO! If we stopped now, we would have to climb out of the windows and wade around waist deep in water that was home to crocodiles and hippos. No ways! I told Simon to put his foot down - and he was in full agreement! The truck roared and we heaved out of the water on the other side like some prehistoric monster.

We stopped for a bit to catch our breath. I was shaking. Simon was breathing hard, I bet he was shaking too. That was a bit too close for comfort!

We drove on to Third Bridge. By now my heart was in my mouth. What if it was worse than Fourth Bridge? I didn't know if I had the courage to go through that again! We approached the bridge and looked at the water ahead of us. Simon put the truck into low range, took a firm grip on the steering wheel, and drove straight through. Hooray! It wasn't as bad as Fourth Bridge, and our relief was tangible.

Now only a short drive from our campsite, we were looking forward to relaxing, setting up camp, and possibly having a stiff drink! Imagine our horror when we got to the camping area to discover it was a full-blown construction site!

There were people everywhere, trucks, cement mixers, a full tent-town to house everyone and piles of bricks, sand and mess. There was absolutely no way we could camp here! To make things worse, the minute we stopped, a large black fly landed on my leg and bit me. Hard!

I asked Simon if we could rather go to Xakanaxa and see if the camp site there was any better. If we stayed, not only would we have to contend with the construction workers, but we would still have Fourth Bridge to contend with tomorrow, and it looked like rain tonight. This was the deciding factor, and we retraced our steps over Third Bridge.

However, Simon was not keen to attempt the river crossing at Fourth Bridge again and decided to follow the GPS which showed a Tracks 4 Africa route that bypassed Fourth Bridge entirely. At first we followed the tree line for a while, then Simon turned off into the pan. The track he was following got fainter and fainter, and then the GPSr lost the signal! We were driving into the pan and deeper into water! Again.

Once more I was so caught up in the situation, I completely forgot to take photos. I had my head out the window again, watching the ground as we drove through water a foot deep and getting deeper. Trying very hard not to shriek, I pointed out to Simon that we were driving further into the pan and should he perhaps not HEAD FOR THE TREES! He did.

But our fun was not over yet. Oh no. For the trees were on a raised area of ground, in front of which was ... a river bed. Yup, you guessed it. We ended up driving through deeper water than we would have if we had gone over Fourth Bridge again. The water was splashing up the sides of the truck, over the headlights. Simon was yelling it was going to get stuck, I was yelling put your foot down, the truck was growling and revving, and we made it.

Never ever again. Nope. FAR too much excitement for me, thank you very much! I shall sit out the next one. Until we go next year. ;o)

We got out onto the high ground and stopped the truck to have a look. Don't you just love this marvellous track? Yup, that's what we drove through. Looks like a little wet, grassy marshland. No big deal. Uh huh. My heart was racing, my hands were clammy, my mouth was dry. I have no idea how Simon felt, but I was definitely ready to go back to the Central Kalahari!

The drive to the Xakanaxa camp grounds was uneventful after that and, although they were also doing construction work here, it was minor and not really in our way. We were able to camp in a good spot with large bushes obscuring us from the construction area. After the excitement of the day, all we wanted was to settle down and have a quiet dinner and an early night!