Trekking The Mountain Gorillas

The guide spotted the problem straight away. “You’re older than the rest,” he said bluntly, not meaning to offend, just looking out for me, when he suggested I join the “easier” trek.

So even though I opted for the shorter, flatter trek, as opposed to the longer, steeper climb, I almost died! That’s a little dramatic! Okay, my heart and lungs almost exploded! My thigh muscles were on fire! (Still too dramatic?)

We climb and climb and climb as we set out in the “impenetrable” lush rainforest of the Bwindi/Mgahinga National Park in Kisoro, Uganda. Straight away I am panting and puffing, struggling to breathe, my heart racing, drenched in sweat, my tee shirt soaked, my glasses fogging up, as I lean on the long walking stick for support, my backpack weighing heavy, trailing behind my fellow hikers.

I have seriously overestimated my fitness level. I’m used to walking the dogs in the flat woodlands near our home in rural Kent or strolling around National Trust gardens. But this uphill hiking is shocking my system into overdrive!

A seven-man support team; four guides, one porter and two police guards with rifles to fire shots to scare off elephants, if we should stumble across them, accompany our small group of four trekkers from the Absolute Africa tour. The men are so patient, kind and helpful in guiding us on this quest to see the Mountain Gorillas in their natural habitat.

We started this once-in-a-lifetime day at 5 am. A quick breakfast at 5.30, we set out at 6 am for a two hour drive through the most idyllic beautiful country of velvet hills, a brown and green patchwork of intricate hillside farming with fields of bananas, potatoes, yams, wheat, maize, corn, string beans on bunches of sticks and bushes of flowering peas carved into the steep inclines.

We drive through flourishing villages, alive with morning activity, men and women off to work, smiling and waving, and children resplendent in their school uniforms rushing at the van, laughing and squealing. My heart expands with joy and pure bliss to experience such warmth and friendship as we sneak a glimpse into the lives of these hardy, peaceful, mountain people.    

These fertile hills and valleys of rich soil grow the food basket of southern Uganda, a region which in recent years has also come to embrace eco-tourism with an array of delightful lodges for visitors from around the world who come to view the magnificent mountain gorillas up close and personal. The new conservation industry provides purposeful employment for the locals, keeping their youth at home in this natural paradise, rather than seeking work in far-off cities.        

We climb forever (or so it seems to me) after numerous stops for me to catch my breath, before our lead guide, Onesmus tells us we are about to descend into the valley. We ease ourselves downward through slippery, muddy tracks finding footholds on rocks.

 I take off my foggy glasses and everything becomes a blur. I drop my watch and step in a squelchy puddle, my brand new hiking boots are covered in mud. Onesmus is holding my hand to stop me from falling. He’s graciously taken my heavy water bottle and backpack.

I am using my walking stick to keep steady and the gloves allow me to grab the branches and bushes as we go deeper into the valley in search of the family of eight gorillas foraging there. One guide is using a machete to clear a path.  Luckily none of us has been stung by fire ants or stinging nettles!

And on the bright side, the weather in the rainforest is perfect for trekking today. Many people brave this trek in drizzle or even torrential downpours. But my big green raincoat is still tucked away in my backpack and the humid air is not unbearably hot and steamy.   

Suddenly we hear a deep guttural roar and Onesmus says it’s the Silverback. We are close. It’s unbelievable! Is this possible? Our little group of tourists, a couple from Scotland, a young woman from Australia and me from the UK, are about to witness the endangered Mountain Gorilla, the largest of all the apes, in the wild.

We see the massive Silverback. He’s drinking from a stream and a cheeky juvenile is playing nearby. And then a mother carrying her baby joins him. Onesmus says the male baby is one year old and still suckling from mum.

We watch in awe, just metres away. The Big Guy is cool. He’s seen curious humans before and as long as we stay a respectable distance from his family he will tolerate us, without threatening displays.

They move to a shady spot to sit and munch on branches and leaves. The adults are so relaxed that, as their fibrous meals hit their big bellies, they release long slow farts! We all giggle at this surprising, comical sound!

The others have zoom lenses and are capturing brilliant close-ups but I am using my Iphone and snapping a few good poses as these magnificent gorillas look into the camera with their deep, soulful eyes.

We can hear the juvenile whimpering in the bushes. Onesmus explains that his mother has just weaned him as he’s now four years old and he is protesting. He wants to feed from her. It will take some time before he accepts he’s now destined for a 98 per cent herbivorous diet of branches and leaves, with a few fire ants and insects thrown in for a little protein boost!

The baby decides to climb up the tree, exploring the top branches, practising his gymnastics and stretching his long arms to swing through the branches, but he misjudges and falls right in his mother’s lap! We gasp as he lands with a thud. He sits up, unhurt, but I swear he looks a little embarrassed!

And then mum leans across to groom the Silverback, carefully picking off fleas and nits. This is such an intimate social behaviour to witness. Apparently such a favour is reciprocal as Onesmus explains, the Big Guy will also groom her and delight in eating the bugs he finds!

Before we set off on the trek, we enjoyed a talk about the Mountain Gorillas in one of the National Park’s immaculate huts and learnt that there are only three apes on Planet Earth; gorillas, chimpanzees and humans!

The gorillas’ social behaviour, bonding to the family group and devoted parenting seem to be so close to our own. In fact we share 97 per cent of our genetics with our ‘grand cousins’.

Tragically, the Mountain Gorilla, the largest of the apes, was pushed to the edge of extinction through hunting for food and trophies. In 1991, this 331 square kilometre National Park, a World Heritage Site, began to work desperately to increase the numbers.

The park is home to more than half of the remaining gorilla population, with others living in reserves in neighbouring Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Onesmus explained that the National Park was gazetted in 1991 and tourism started in 1993. In 1996, the gorilla numbers were as low as 320 and when they were counted in 2011, the number had risen to 400.

The gorillas are slow breeders. Each female starts to have babies at the age of eight, usually only one baby, occasionally twins. The baby breastfeeds for four years before she weans the youngster and gets pregnant again.

The males mature and grow their trademark silver hair on their mighty backs around the age of four, when they start to mate. A dominant Alpha Male will head up each family group. The gorillas live for 45 to 50 years.

How fascinating to learn about these wonderful great apes and to know that dedicated conservation work and responsible eco-tourism is succeeding in saving the endangered species. The money we paid for the trek goes towards the vital conservation work.

I can’t believe I survived the return trek, clawing my way up through the thick overgrown valley, helped by the attentive and patient guides, one gripping my hand, the other pushing my fat behind! Once we hit the home stretch we stopped for a lunch - stale cheese sandwiches, a fistful of crisps and swig of water for me!

Our Gorilla Trek was four and a half hours and cost £460 and worth every penny and every aching muscle. 

Recovering from Tragedy in Rwanda

The scale of the massacre is beyond comprehension. Over one million men, women and children were murdered during 100 days of horror. And what’s even harder to grasp, the atrocities didn't happen centuries ago, they happened in recent history, just 22 years ago, in 1994.

Rwanda is a peaceful, gentle country, nursing deep wounds, steeped in grief and immense sadness, trying to recover with a spirit of resilience and hope while remembering and honouring multitudes of innocent victims.

Visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial is a harrowing experience but a necessary act of homage to pay respect to those who suffered such brutality and try to understand the descent into human depravity.

Almost everyone in the vibrant city of Kigali today lives with the painful legacy of losing family members; mothers grieve for their precious children, children, left orphaned, grieve for parents who were not there to guide them growing up.

I met a beautiful young man working in the hostel. His cheerful dreadlocks and radiant smile belie a burden of pain. When we get talking about his hopes and dreams, he tells me his father was killed in the genocide. He was just a toddler. He’s grown up with his traumatised mother and little brother. He says he must always remember his father but wants to move on with his life too, free from the horrendous nightmare of how his father died an agonising death.  

The killing spree began in April 1994. Terrified little children, screaming women and heroic men defending their families were bludgeoned to death, hacked with machetes, mutilated, maimed, tortured and raped in acts of unimaginable cruelty.

The relentless killing was perpetrated systematically: 10,000 victims a day, 400 each hour, seven each minute, for over three months of madness. Mangled bodies strewn in pools of blood piled high in streets filled with the sickening stench of death and decay.

Why? The Hutu clan turned on the Tutsi clan, determined to exterminate the ‘cockroaches’ they condemned as sub-human, inferior and a threat to their power. But this insanity did not happen instantly; the murderous rampage by extremists was the culmination of years of calculated propaganda and indoctrination of hatred against the Tutsis.

The Belgian Colonists sowed the seeds of sinister divisions in the peace-loving society of Rwanda as early as 1923 when they occupied the country after World War One. The colonial masters introduced identity cards in 1932 that categorised the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa clans based on fabricated racial and ethnic distinctions. The Catholic church was complicit, encouraging Hutu leaders to draft a malicious, racist “Hutu Manifesto” in the 1950s, fuelling hatred for the Tutsi people.

With independence from colonial rule in 1962, the new independent Hutu government was determined to continue the persecution of the Tutsi and 700,000 Tutsi people were exiled between 1959 and 1973.

Some militant refugees formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and invaded Rwanda in 1990, unleashing civil war. In 1993 the Rwandan government and the RPF signed the Arusha Peace Accords and French troops were deployed to keep the peace.

French Arms

President Habyarimana and his political allies wanted the peace agreement to fail and entered a $12 million arms deal with a French company, with a loan guaranteed by the French government.

The persecution of the Tutsi intensified by the 1990s with men and women jailed and tortured and waves of sporadic massacres of villagers erupting throughout the country.

As the tension mounted the United Nations and world governments stood back as apathetic bystanders and did nothing to de-escalate the hatred and prevent the genocide.

On April 6, 1994, when President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, killing him and the President of Burinda, the Tutsi were blamed and death squads began their pre-planned systematic shootings. The murderous rampage continued for 100 apocalyptic days until the RPF mobilised troops to stop the genocide.

Human beings are alarmingly susceptible to propaganda. Once soldiers suspend empathy and compassion and convince themselves their enemy is not human but a vile object to be destroyed, they unleash a capacity for cruelty and perverse atrocities. 

Throughout history maniacal tyrants, through a process of brainwashing that dehumanises and objectifies other human beings, have convinced susceptible, gullible soldiers to carry out genocide and ‘racial cleansing’. The gangs of crazed ‘genocidaraires’ in 1994 believed they were performing a public service by exterminating vermin, not mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and children just like their own.

Graphic Records

 The graphic displays inside the hushed, sombre rooms of the Kigali Genocide Memorial are shocking, disturbing and poignant. The most touching display, that brings spontaneous tears of sorrow, is the Children’s Room full of powerful photographs of child victims. Their smiling faces exude fun and innocence as they beam at you while you read stories of their unique personalities and short lives.

The Memorial is devoted to honouring the victims as real people, not just statistics, and providing family members with a place to visit to remember their loved ones and a way for visitors from other countries to stand in solidarity with the people of Rwanda.

More than 250,000 people are buried in the beautiful gardens of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which opened in 2004, on the 10^th anniversary of the nation’s tragedy.

Most important is the section dedicated to the legacy of the genocide. 80 per cent of this generation of Rwanda’s children lost at least one parent. The genocide created hundreds of thousands of orphans and over 100,000 widows and widowers.

Thousands of women were brutally raped and mutilated and infected with HIV/AIDS. Many died of the disease but today survivors are being treated with anti-retroviral medication.

 

Shattered families have struggled to rebuild their lives. Rwanda is a nation still healing from trauma, a fragile, grief-stricken country seeking to live in peace with hope, tolerance, compassion and understanding for the best and worse of human nature.

Visit www.kgm.rw to support the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the families of victims.

People seeking help and support can contact SURF - Survivors Fund, Supporting Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide 

Sharing My Good Luck

The countryside changes instantly when we cross the border from Tanzania into picturesque Rwanda – the Land of A Thousand Hills. Sloping farmlands are dotted with vibrant villages and acres of banana fronds flapping in the breeze.

We set up the tables right on the road next to the bus for a quick lunch. When I look up from making a cheese sandwich I am surrounded by a mob of grinning boys.

“What do you cheeky boys want?” I ask. They giggle and signal “food” by touching their fingers to their mouths.

“Okay, how many of you are there?” I ask, wondering how I’m going to pull off this impromptu catering exercise.

I count shiny heads out loud: “One, two, three…through to 10. No wait, there’s more…11, 12, 13…. Little black faces and outstretched hands are multiplying before my eyes!

I reach into my food bag, with comical echoes of Jesus feeding the multitudes, and break open several packets of biscuits and press one biscuit into each little hand. I share my cheese sandwich. I find a packet of almonds and some crisps and a few bananas. The jostling boys are giggling with delight.

I glance across the road to see a crowd of curious local women gathering and I worry that the mothers are cross with their sons for begging. When I smile and wave, they rush across the road and also line up for food! I give one woman a jar of mayonnaise, another a jar of peanut butter, a carton of milk, a block of chocolate…everything I have! Some of my friends join in and give what they have; an avocado, some bread, a bottle of juice! The women are delighted by this spontaneous encounter with a busload of white tourists!

I know hand-outs will not solve global hunger and poverty in any sustainable way. I just wanted to share my lunch. It would be rude not to!   

Hiking Boots 

I believe in sharing what I have. My new hiking boots were covered in mud after the gruelling gorilla trek in Kisoro, southern Uganda. Contemplating how I would carry them back to Nairobi, I hit on a brainwave! I would give them to the young guide who treks the mountainous region every day. He would get much more use from them than me and besides, in my consumer world back home in the UK, I can jump on Amazon and order a new pair any time I fancy.     

On a roll, I give him my snazzy Velcro sandals, a hoodie, my sleeping bag and cushion, my towel and backpack. I am relieved to lighten my load of bulky items and my young friend is rapt with his unexpected bonanza of useful gear. Somehow this act of sharing has formed a bond between us and I know I will stay in contact with Godfrey, who is devoted to supporting the needy in his community.

I am also a generous tipper. I have travelled East Africa, peeling off notes in various local currencies to tip helpful service staff, drivers and tourism workers. The extra money I press in their hands is a small amount to me but makes a huge difference to people working hard for low pay to support their children and extended families. My generosity is a way of blessing people and showing kindness.

Cynics accuse “do-gooders” like me of selfish motives; they sneer down their noses thinking I give to make myself “feel good”. Yes, I admit, I do feel good in the act of giving. I really enjoy the buzz of seeing someone’s face light up! Giving fills my heart with pure joy, love and empathy.

By a happy accident of fate, I was born in the developed world and have enjoyed opportunities to make money and have a high standard of living. I am not intrinsically better than the billions of people who live in poor countries. I do not possess superior skills or abilities. In fact the people I’ve met in East Africa are much smarter than me, having mastered several languages and cultivated the ingenuity to survive and thrive in extremely tough conditions. 

I believe resources are not mine to grasp with tight-fisted entitlement. The resources of the planet are meant to be shared. And so I share what I have and enjoy giving whenever I can. We are one world, one humanity, one big global family.

Game Drives on the Serengeti and the Joys and Challenges of Camping

Returning from the Masai Mara plains to the Big Smoke of Nairobi, after a harrowing nine hours on the road, culminating in a delirious karaoke session of Bless The Rain Down in Africa and Lion Sleeps Tonight and, too exhausted to put up tents, we all opt for an upgrade to a hostel. Sunday dawns and we pick up three extra passengers, Steve, a meteorologist from London and Pam and Michael, a thrill-seeking couple from Scotland doing a world trip!

After travelling across the border to the bustling city of Arusha in Tanzania, on Day Five of our Absolute Africa tour, we pick up five Canadian lads who have just climbed Kilimanjaro who regale us with tales of hiking the famous mountain. When we arrive at the camping ground, a dramatic change occurs!

We switch vehicles from the big yellow bus, our mobile lounge room, to a smaller safari vehicle with canvas roll-up windows. We change crew from our happy-go-lucky tour leader, Edmund with his cheerful motto “Let’s make a plan” and our pensive driver Stephen to a new commander-in-chief, Joe, a stocky, athletic guy with a direct approach and “No guarantees” (about hot showers) and our new driver Patrick, with his beaming smile and relaxed Reggae style! 

And we combine with another tour group to become 17 passengers in total.

 The transition is a mild shock that night at the Arusha campsite when three tour groups converge and our small team is assigned to cook for 29 famished travellers! (an additional 12 are heading in another direction).

A Camp Feast

Edmund and I rise to the challenge to become Camp Cooks Extraordinaire and swing into action with Merethe and Julio pitching in with gusto. I’ve never chopped up so much coleslaw in my life! Other helpers peel a giant mound of potatoes for mash and enough carrots and beans to feed an army and Edmund makes a mountain of rice and chicken. What a feast!

Monday morning, we meet our new travelling companions, Nathan and Priya, a charming Indian couple on an exciting world trip, Rachel and Paul, high flyers from London, Barry, a burly Aussie, Yan from Canada, Hannah and Olga from California and Danielle, a Aussie nurse who’s been on the tour since Cape Town.

Joe announces we have a roster for cooking, clean-up, security and truck duty. We need to go shopping for food supplies before we hit the road so my team and I frantically search the aisles for Mexican ingredients. When we can’t find tortillas we improvise with Indian chapattis and grab bags of cassava chips instead of corn chips for nachos! With mincemeat, red kidney beans, tomato paste, chilli and a massive bag of avocadoes, we’re good to go.

Finally we set off through the rolling countryside of Tanzania, passing through little townships, waving back at happy, laughing children, heading for the Ngorongoro Crater, to experience a unique game drive in this spectacular volcanic caldera formed three million years ago, which offers an ideal, protected eco-system to many species.

The term ‘game drive’ originated when hunters with their sinister guns would go out in search of  ‘game’ to shoot and kill. Thankfully these days most people just want to shoot these beautiful animals with their camera.

The landscape of the crater is eerie, like another planet! In our jeep, we spot three lions and three lionesses eating a warthog surrounded by opportunistic hyenas and a jackal, hoping to steal some fresh meat and later in the tranquil jade green lake, we marvel at the sight of a school of basking hippos, while a solitary elephant forms a magnificent silhouette against a mountain backdrop.

Incoming Rain

Day Seven, on the road to Serengeti is abysmal. We bounce along rough roads for endless miles when the sky opens up and pours with rain so heavy that water is pelting through the canvas sides. We all sit in the vehicle in our raincoats trying to squint through the haze and spot animals but they have all gone into hiding and our game drive is a washout! 

Tired and hungry and keen to get to our camping ground, a tanker accident on the track blocks our way for an hour.

When we finally set up our tents in the pitch dark, everyone is ravenous and tonight is our turn to make our Mexican feast. So we crack on and finally feed the hungry hoards our African-Indian-Mexican fusion capped off with Julio’s delicious guacamole! I crawl into my sleeping bag, exhausted.

Elephants At Breakfast

After the rain, we wake up to a sparkling, perfect morning with elephants grazing near our campsite! What a promising way to start the day, which turns out to be magical – safari gold! The animals are out in force, grazing on fresh, moist grass and prancing and playful as we drive across the famous Serengeti; a national reserve, Joes tells us, is 14,763 square kilometres and as big as Holland!

We sight an abundance of zebras, gangling giraffes munching n treetops and a herd of old cape buffalo carrying cheeky yellow billed ox peckers on their backs!

Joe is in his element sharing his knowledge of wildlife and tells how the old, “bachelor buffaloes” hang out together, when past their prime, they are rejected by the fit, young herd.

We are all so exuberant today to be in true safari-mode with zoom lenses at the ready. The Serengeti boasts a population of 5000 lions and we are itching to spot the big cats.

Then it happens. Dozens of jeeps are stopped on the track with eager tourists glued to cameras poking out the rooftops and windows captivated by some unfolding drama. The frantic scene is like the paparazzi of the animal world with the Big Cats the sought-after celebrities.

Mother Lion Reprimands Cub

As we draw closer, we see a female lion pacing the road while two other lionesses guard five feisty cubs sitting obediently on a log. 

We see Mum drag her kill, a small gazelle, under a tree, where a leopard is draped in the overhead branches. She calls to the cubs with a low growl and four of them come scampering for lunch and settle in to eat while she keeps watch. She calls again to the tardy cub who bounces towards his mother and she gives him a good swipe on the head and roars, reprimanding him, as if 

to say” “Come when I call!” The other two females continue to keep watch while all the cubs feed.

What an extraordinary and thrilling drama to see played out in nature! I have to pinch myself! We are privileged to witness this little scenario happening in real-life, not sitting on the sofa watching a TV wildlife show!

Joes explains that female lions live and hunt together caring for a collection of cubs that can belong to the different mothers while male lions usually leave the pride after mating and roam around as solitary hunters or team up with other males.

We stop at the Serengeti tourist centre for lunch. Then five minutes before the bus is about to leave, Julio and I behave like naughty children running off to buy souvenirs and delay our departure, much to everyone’s disapproval.

The Leopard Encounter

I am standing at the front of the bus when we approach a few vehicles stopped on the track with binoculars and cameras glued to a small bush. I spot her first! A leopard! She is motionless, transfixed, staring at something in the distance. Everyone is lined up along at the open windows to see what’s happening. In a flash she pounces and strikes the helpless gazelle in the neck. We are gasp and shriek! Oh My God! We just witnessed a kill - the Serengeti’s ultimate thrill! I feel sorry for the gazelle, which had obviously wandered off from the safety of the herd. Isolated and vulnerable, he was easy prey for the lightening fast wild cat.

Now the leopard is poised clutching the gazelle in her powerful jaws as our cameras click this incredible image but she is shy and nervous about the human audience so drags the dead gazelle under a bush to eat in peace. 

I admit it was irresponsible to hold up the bus buying souvenirs, but I like to think the fateful delay led us to seeing the leopard kill! If we’d been 20 minutes earlier on that road we would have missed this thrilling spectacle!

A Serengeti Thunderstorm

We arrive at the rustic Bush Camp, with its rusty iron toilet and shower block and rickety old shelter shed in the early afternoon, delighted to have time to wash our dirty clothes and hang them out in the sweltering sun.

The hot sun is like a sauna and we strip down to shorts, singlets and sunnies for cool drinks. Some opt for invigorating cold showers, others are hard at work scrubbing clothes in plastic dishes.

A small group heads off for a guided nature walk and others stroll to the nearby luxury lodge for drinks on the deck.

But the idyllic interlude is short-lived. Gunmetal clouds are gathering overhead. We grab the clothes from the lines and relocate them under the shelter and Joe is going around securing all the tents with pegs. I zip up the front of our tent and flee to the dilapidated shelter. And then it happens.

The rain teems down with frightening force, coming in sideways under the shelter. The strung-up laundry is flapped around and saturated. Three camp rangers seek cover but they are unfazed by the familiar torrential rain. We watch wide-eyed as the camping ground is rapidly submerged under a foot of water. 

The nature walkers return to join us in the shelter, two girls have sought refuge in the bus, Joe and Patrick are waiting out the storm in the cabin and the rest of our travellers are watching the show at the Lodge.

The deluge, thunder and distant lightning lasts for an hour and abruptly stops. I realise I forgot to zip up the back window of our tent and discover that one of the mattresses is soaked. Staring at the prospect of sloshing around in a waterlogged camp and sleeping in a wet tent, in a moment of panic, I want an upgrade to the safety of the luxury lodge! But lovely Patrick gives us a fresh mattress and the water miraculously recedes.

That night the cooking team, Priya, Yan, Danielle and Merethe cook up a scrumptious feast of stir fry veggies and chicken and we have a sing along in the rusty old shelter. After the storm, all is well in the camp again. 

The Challenges of Camping

*Taking cold showers

*“Drying” myself with a smelly, damp towel

*Running out of clean undies!

*Finding something to wear from a bag full of filthy clothes

*Obsessing over rummaging through my bags and sorting out stuff

*Giving up make-up

*Dirty fingernails

*Gashing my thumb on the truck’s metal locker, and being covered in a colourful assortment of bruises and cuts

*Getting sick from driving for hours on bumpy roads

*Catching my hair on the zip of the tent (every time!)  

*Putting up the tent in the dark and putting down the tent in the dark before breakfast at 6 am.

*Wishing I had a head torch

*Stopping the bus on a dusty track for us girls to squat behind a bush while the guys go on the other side

*African toilets (say no more!)

*Hearing scary heavy rain on the tent!

*Scrambling to find my hiking boots and raincoat

*Wishing I’d brought my Canon camera and zoom lens for better close-ups of wildlife

The Joys of Camping

*Cooking outdoors on an open fire for hungry travellers

*Sitting around a campfire, gazing at the mesmerising flames, with the smell of smoke in the crisp night air

*A chorus of bird song at dusk

*Looking up at a vast African night sky ablaze with sparkling stars

*Finding zebras and elephants outside our tent

*The smell of the rain

*The relief of having brought a raincoat only yesterday!

*Climbing into a sleeping bag

*Lying snug inside and listening to gentle rain on the tent

*Making deep friendships by experiencing real adventures together

*The private bliss of riding along in the back of the bus, watching spectacular scenery roll by, waving at happy children, while listening to my favourite music through earplugs, snuggling next to my buddies.   

Game driving is exhilarating and addictive. I’ve developed a taste for seeing animals in the wild and a taste for camping, tents and campfires. The joys of this adventurous outdoor lifestyle far outweigh the challenges.