Now you will find many parts of
Africa to be
"nice and easy"
But I, still love it
"nice and rough!!" just like Tina Turner says !
I
love the heat of the hot sand touching my feet and toes. It is a complete
different feeling from the sand of a beach. The earth in Africa tells you a lot
of things and stories. Through your naked feet you get the power of Africa into
your veins and it flows into your body to let you feel nice and rough.
Sand
in Africa is never sticky. It just hang on your body or clothes. At dawn you
just shake your shirt up a bit in the air and it is ready for the next day
I
always stop and make my destination of the day to be around 4pm.
I
set up fire so to have some good and thick layer of ash and coal for later to
bake. I put a pot of water to prepare
myself a nice cup of tea. I also use broth to drink should I have trekked that
day.
Something
nice and hot slides down your chest nicely and there is nothing that quench
your thirst more.
I
like to prepare interesting cocktail snacks to have it ready at sundown. The
air starts becoming cooler, but not all at once. Did you ever noticed that air
starts getting cooler in specific places before the whole of it gets to the
same temperature?
It
is a nice exercise when you are walking into a dry riverbed. Well, that is one
of the places where you immediately spot a string of cool air flowing following
the course of the river. Sand gets cooler in the middle and at the very side of
the edges.
But
if you are surrounded by rocky domes, like, for example, in Damaraland or NiassaNP you will feel the warmth of the rock protecting you and still giving
you that warmth.
The
ground was a pale camel color before, it was almost orange when I stopped. It
is rather dark beigesh/brownish now that the sun is showing its last red and
still warm rays.
The
air smells different. It is like you could actually smell the wild of the skin
of any animal, maybe a few gazelles, oryx or zebra wondering around.
Cooking
on stones is wonderful. Those shiny pots become pitch-black. I think, it
gives you a perfect idea of how much the fire will works on them. Brushing all
that smoke away also does help you remember.
When
you first camp your food is very simple. But the more you do it, the more it
becomes wild. Sometimes I stop for more than three days in the same place, I
dig out a big hole in the ground to make it an oven and bake stuffed chicken,
baked potatoes and wrapped bananas! Sometimes, if I am in the mood, I bake
bread and pizza. I enjoyed each day out in the bush and especially my Italian
clients get very happy and joyful!
I
unfold my bed only at the last moment before going to sleep, not to give
shelter to too many scorpions to enter my den.
Roll down my plastic carpet and roll over my duvet. Then cuddle into it
and I feel folded away. If it is hot, I just lay down on top of the
"bed" and look up at the stars. I tried once to count them! I know it
is impossible but, that night, I gave it a try to see, in that small stretch
of the universe on top of me, how many were there watching me.
When
you concentrate it is easy to see a falling star.
Also
on the Zambezi River there is a ferry-boat that takes you for a cruise, just
like Proud Mary, though only for a very short stretch, sometimes not so
worth it.
Nowadays
it is difficult to find harsh places. I know some of them that will always give
me that remote feeling to be out of this world. Travel industries have set up
beautiful lodges, but some of them still give you that rough feeling. The wood of the beams is harsh
and dry, the chairs not all the same kind, no platform under your tent, but
only canvas stitched up on the ground. The veranda being the rest of the
plastic floor of the tent stretched out a bit more for you to lay down on a big
cushion.
I
had lions many times sleeping against my canvas tent, on the outside, of
course! Elephants come and grab the pods hanging from branches of the acacia
tree above my tent. You always wonder why, have they to get those,
couldn't they just get others for that night, seeing that the place has
"guests" ? Then you hear
hippos and bufalos wondering among our tents.
It
is nice and rough!
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