Water!

"After months of want and hunger , we suddenly found ourselves able to have meals fit for the gods, and with appetites the gods might have envied at"

(Ernest Shackleton)

The thing with the Kalahari is it's big and it's hot. I've found it harder to keep up with the blog because pretty much all i've been doing is riding and sleeping and sometimes eating (though not often enough) but I've come a long way and now im in the Okavango. This is a true dream come true. It's amazing to be here. I've always wanted to come. When i was a boy one of my favourite holidays was to the Camargue delta in Southern France and this is a little like that (only sadly just for two nights and a day). Right now I'm lying in bed just listening to the animal mayhem going on outside. I think the only place I've ever been thats louder (in terms of animals) might have been a primate research station Ian and I stayed a few days at in the Ghanaian Rainforest. It's very cool. I've just been outside and there's a fairly large toad sitting beside a termite hole just slurpping them up as they come out.

I'm on a kind of long spit beside the river with water flowing both sides, this year is the biggest flood they've had in twenty two years. Lake Ngama (next to Sehitwa where i stayed last night) had apparently reverted to acacia woodland until this year.

The river comes right upto the lodge I'm staying at. The stretch here is called hippo pool, but nil spotted for the 'Beasties so far' . Apparently there's a two and a half metre croc in there whch can often be seen basking in the mornings. Hopefully i'll spot it tomorrow. It really is a lovely spot. Next to the thatched bar is a huge fig tree which, as is always the case with tropical fig trees, very popular with the local birds (Ivo you would love it here). Across the cool lawn (which feels great to walk across barefoot after almost two weeks of hot desert sand, is the jetty where the boats used to access the inner delta are tied up.

I still can't quite believe how much water there is all of a sudden!

THis morning I woke late and took ages packing. I was playing maps with the Sehitwa police (maps is becoming one of my favourite games, might even start drawing some soon) I cooked up some coffee and sweet porridge and gradually but painfully slowly my kit osmosed back into my panniers.

Immediately I'd set out I was into a strong head wind, my punishment for being late out I guess. Serves me right. Still, only one hundred kilometers today, even is i go really slowly i'll be in well before nightfall.

The medium mopane woodland continued the same as it had since I'd crossed the Kuke fence. There were now more dirt tracks off to dwellings in the trees. I rarely actually saw the huts themselves, but the owners seem to indicate thier address by attaching something to a stick or to a low hanging branch. Some are just half jerry cans, mineral water bottles or strips of cloth. Others are a little more interesting. I've seen a tin bath, quite a few car doors and many animal body parts, mostly skulls. Whether these are designed to indicate what one can expect to encounter at each address (like a bath at the tin tub house) I don't know, but if so I'm glad I was not invited in the the house of the horned human skeleton!

I'm starting to learn to detect more smells at I go along too. Provided the wind is going the right way (which sadly it is.. straight in to my face) I usually have good warning of large dead animals, smell a like sweet biltong. The smell I've been surprised to be able to pick up though is water. I'd guess it's not actually water i'm smelling just the relative dampness of the air. Consequently it came as little surprise, but no little pleasure to encounter my first river since the ocean... over a thousand kilometers back!

I dismounted and sat beside the river's edge eating crisps and water and saw dragonflies and damsel flies for the first time since England. It was lovely listening to the water flowing past. Then I realised there was a not unreasonable chance there would be crocs here so i quickly scrambled back up the bank and got on my bike again.

I contined my battle with the wind until I stopped again at a nice spot for cold drinks anout 15 km before Maun. It was great sitting in the shade chatting with local kids (playing maps) and watching the tourists whizzing by in their white 4x4s, they were missing out.

BAck on the road I was quickly into Maun and had to sort some things out with my bank. They are being particularly sh*t about random countries. I may explain later.

I finally made it to the Old Bridge Backpackers by four pm. As i've already described it is a lovely spot. I spent a good hour when I first arrived just chatting at the bar (In my salt stained clothes and kit laden bike I was unquestionably CO Tom, Tommy, Hill you would have loved it). The bar at the Old Bridge seems to be the place the old guides of the Okavango hang out of an evening. I showed them my maps there was much drawing of directions in my notebook, suggestions of places to go further down the road and heated discussions about which bits of road had now been tarmaced and which hadn't. Eventually I had to leave I was five days overdue with an appointment with the shower.

I ate load (two dinners and a desert and ordered two packed lunches for the following day) I was still hungry (I ended up waking in the night and eating a whole bag of nuts)

I'll be travelling by canoe tomorrow, Makes a change.