Into the wild, Part 2. – 8 June 2008

Today was really just more of the same. There was one fairly close encounter with a lone bull that was enough to get my adrenalin pumping and leave me with my heart pretty near to popping out of my throat… It was standing fairly innocently on the side of the road 100m ahead of us. Unperturbed, my father and Gareth cycle on towards it, leaving Matt to deal with a near hysterical yours truly! Si, completely unconcerned that his daughter was in a state of near panic and the distance between him and her rapidly widening, proceeded to have a battle of wills with this beautiful old lone bull. It turned out well, and dad still maintains that we were never in danger. It felt somewhat different at the time.

We are staying at Nata Lodge tonight and are being looked after by the manager James – what a hero! He basically gave us the accommodation for free on the basis that he wanted to. He also told us a small tale about a lone Canadian cyclist that was apparently a zoo keeper by profession that had spent a night in the bush and had had an encounter with lion. He spent the night running out of his tent, banging some pots and pans together to make a racket, and then diving into his tent again. Seems his campsite was within 50km of where we slept last night.

Hectic.

In Ethiopia, Tanzania, Sudan… in fact in any remote African town where we’d stop for dinner, one of the boys would put their arm around the host and ask if it would be possible to see the kitchen. Par for the course, whenever we get to any form of restaurant, we ask if we can take a quick look in the kitchen. This is a health necessity in most places and one can quickly guage what it is that should be ordered.

The same happened tonight at the very comfortable Nata Lodge and I am having premonitions of the guys doing the same in some swanky Johannesburg restaurant. We are in serious African travelling mentality and are going to have to do some serious acclimatizing! 953km to Joburg. That is the first time I have heard the distance to a South African city being quoted. Not long now.