Anyway, this post isn’t going to be about the amazing sights that we saw or the array of animals that paraded in front of our vehicles (nothing says Safari like chasing Guinea Fowl down a road for 2 kilometers because they’re too stupid to run sideways) but is instead going to focus on a tragedy that befell me over the course of the last week. Ideally I will be able to end the post on a positive note with a few observations that I had while riding around for 8-10 hours each day, but if I am consumed with grief I may have to save the positive messages for another time.
This tragic event of which I have been writing, which may arguably be the worst single event to occur to anyone while on the safari, went something like this: It was the morning of the first full day in Northern Botswana and we’re driving from the lodge we were staying at to the part of the Delta that we would be boating through. I’m riding in the far right seat of the open-sided safari truck with the wind blowing my hair around, grinning like I was a 5th grader who had been picked first for a sports team at recess (or what I imagine I would have grinned like, I was never picked first…) After we get off the main road, I start leaning out of the truck and snapping pictures of the most everyday and commonplace things, as though I’m the first person to ever see a donkey on the side of the road in rural Northern Botswana. To give you a sense of how ridiculous that is, apparently Maun is the Donkey Capital of Africa or something like that. It’s true, I saw it on a T-Shirt. Actually maybe someone else saw it on a tshirt and told me about it. Point is, there are lots of donkeys.
Anyway, we get to the loading area, jump out, roll up our pants, take off our shoes, and wade into dugout canoes which will be poled along by Mokoro villagers. For whatever reason, one of the bigger Mokoro polers decides that the other ACM guy (Antonio) and I would be “floating” with him. I’m putting floating in quotation marks because it took us 3 tries to find a canoe that would hold all of us without leaking too much and when we finally found one and loaded up, the sides were about ¼ inch above the water. This meant that every time our guide poled us along, both my leg (which was almost hanging off the side of the boat because the canoe was a bit small) and my opposite arm (which was not hanging out of the boat in any way) would get soaked as we rocked back and forth. I’m certainly not complaining as it was a beautiful scorching day and any exposure to cool water was much appreciated. The entire scene looked like it should be in a tourist magazine: Our Mokoro guide standing in rolled up pants and an open shirt poling us along. Antonio in the front of the canoe hunched over a bit because he didn’t have much to lean back but still looking around at how beautiful the scenery was. And me, in the middle, swearing under my breath as I frantically tried to fix my camera. See, sometime between getting into the first canoe, taking a picture of a few water lilies floating next to me, and getting into the last canoe and pushing off, my camera died. The initial diagnosis (given by Dr. Jones and confirmed by Dr. Skarica) was dirt or dust preventing the lens from opening and closing properly and, after several minutes of unsuccessful CLR (Camera Lens Resuscitation) performed by both medics at the scene (remember this is in a very low floating and easily tip-able canoe), we decided it needed to be transported to dry land in order to be operated on. I forced myself to enjoy the rest of the hour long boat ride through beautiful reed-bordered, water lily-filled river pathways but in the silence of the river, broken only by the swish of the pole through the water and the occasional bird call, I found myself trying to find new ways to save my camera. Upon reaching land I quickly found a spot to set up an emergency operating room and did everything possible to save the young, unnamed camera. Unfortunately, all my efforts were unsuccessful and my camera was pronounced dead at 12:07 PM, Sunday Morning, February 28th at an unnamed campground in the Okavango Delta, the cause of death was determined to be a “System Focus (ERROR)” that was discovered upon autopsy.
This was the last photo taken by my camera.Needless to say this development severely limited my capacity for original photos from the rest of the week. I am currently doing my best to make deals with other ACM students who took lots of photos and who might be willing to let me steal some of their pictures. I’ll keep you updated and do my best to return with a plethora of pictures from the entire trip, regardless of whether or not they were mine. If nothing else it does mean that I might actually be in a couple of the pictures instead of having the pictures of everybody else since I’m a bit awkward about asking people to take pictures with my camera. After my initial grief and the mourning period appropriate to a new electronic device (2 days if at home or a familiar environment, 2 hours if on a memorable vacation), I did pull myself together and get over this sad event. In many ways not having a camera allowed me to focus instead on really observing the animals or other things that we saw, being entirely there rather than separating myself from the environment and putting a camera lens between myself and the place.
Okay, this has gotten ridiculously long but I don’t feel as though I should edit anything out. I’ll conclude with this rather odd comparison: A Safari is like a fishing trip. You get up really really early, drive for a while, and then wait. While fishing you get to either boat around or relax on a dock or the shore and wait for the fish to come to you. While on safari, the driver is a bit more active but the passengers are sitting in the truck waiting for to see some “action.” The “action” is often as small as getting a glimpse of a jackal or some animal running away from the truck or as large as seeing a pair of Gemsbok (antelope-y things) chase eachother around. We never did see any animals being eaten or getting chased by a predator. It was mostly lots of large herds of grazers who were calmly eating as we stopped and stared at them. Often they would stop and stare back. And then we would drive on.
Final thought: The Okavango Delta and the Central Kalahari are two of the most breathtakingly beautiful places that I have ever been. Regardless of the animals that we saw, just being out in the middle of nowhere, hours away from any form of civilization that we didn’t bring with us, was an ideal break and something that I want to try to replicate in the future, though in a new place and with new people.
Morgan
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