Strip Pan Wrinkle

by David Fletcher

  So, not a great outcome for the Germans. They had not only upset the locals, but, of far more importance to them, their plans for the use of the Caprivi Strip had been frustrated by those perfidious Brits. Yes, their entire motivation for acquiring this stretch of real estate was to give them access from their South-West possession to the Zambezi River, and to provide them with a link to (German) Tanganyika and ultimately to the Indian Ocean. Good idea, but unfortunately (for them), Britain’s colonisation of Rhodesia stopped them well upstream of Victoria Falls, which proved a not insignificant barrier to navigation on the Zambezi. They were stuffed. And one only hopes that all those Lozi heard about the collapse of their grand scheme and had a jolly good laugh at their expense. Brian knew he would have laughed his socks off.

  But this was no good. He was slipping into thoughts of how the Caprivi Strip originated, when all his thoughts should have been on the unexpected appearance of an elephant. And this was a serious consideration. He was now into that part of the Strip that is only thirty-two kilometres wide, hardly wide enough to accommodate an elephant and a Land Cruiser side by side. Although, there again, the current elephant-related dangers in this spindle of land are nothing like they were a few years ago. Because then, due to a spill-over from the conflict in Angola, there were the sorts of threats in this region that demanded the use of obligatory armed convoys along the road, to say nothing of the need to drive around any elephant dung on the road – as it was quite likely to have been fortified with explosives by the local guerrillas…

  Brian was still musing on this execrable use of excrement when he finally entered the settlement of Divundu, which was very close to the end of their journey. He then switched to a consideration of what he and his partner had achieved. They hadn’t hit any elephants (or goats or cows or people), they had avoided any forgotten explosives, and they had safely clocked up a thousand kilometres from their start point in Windhoek. So Brian now thought that they both deserved a drink and, as with their first day on the road, he knew full well that this drink would be forthcoming as soon as they arrived at their next lodge. So, stopping in Divundu only long enough to refuel and to take in the untidiness and generally litter-strewn nature of the place, he was soon off again to drive just a few kilometres south down the road towards Botswana and to lodge number two, a lodge that went by the name of the “Nunda Safari Lodge” and that sat on the banks of the Kavango River.

  Frankly, it didn’t look too promising. Divundu, which is principally a road junction with a fuel station and some roadworks, leaks down this southern side road – along with its attendant litter and rubbish. Brian was finding it difficult to see what sort of lodge could exist in this sort of situation. But there it was, at the side of the road, a sign announcing the entrance to the lodge and a sand-track off the road that led to the lodge itself. Brian turned onto this track and drove slowly down, scanning the track ahead for the appearance of any suspicious-looking poo. But there was none, and he was soon approaching the gates of the lodge – and the lodge’s “greeter”.

  This was a sunny little man who, as soon as he’d opened the gate, came to Brian’s side of the Land Cruiser and didn’t just welcome his new guests, but thanked them as well. He thanked them for coming, he thanked them for choosing the Nunda Safari Lodge as opposed to any other – and for helping the local community by making this choice – and for colonising Rhodesia and so spoiling the plans of those horrible colonial Germans. No, on reflection, Brian didn’t think he’d thanked him for the Rhodesia bit, but at the time he’d been so overcome by this outpouring of gratitude that he’d become quite confused. After all, in England, you consider yourself lucky if, in any hostelry, the welcome routine runs to a smile, never mind a thank you. And it’s very rarely followed by a view of two hippopotamuses…

  Brian and his wife had now checked in and were having that much-needed drink. They were doing this on the lodge’s deck overlooking that Kavango River, and in this river were a pair of hippos. It was all very charming. So too was the lodge, albeit it was a little old-fashioned and it certainly lacked the “chic-ness” of Mushara. The main building was the usual agglomeration of bar, lounge and dining room, all under a traditional thatched roof, but it was a bit fussy and a bit uninspired. In fact, with its wall-mounted oversized telly near the bar, if one ignored the view of the river, the thatched ceiling and the intense heat, one could just about imagine one was in a Wetherspoon’s pub. Or at least Brian could.

  The chalet was a little better. It too had a river aspect – and a shaded deck – and it was surrounded by a pretty little garden. It was also spacious, with a generous open-sided bathroom, and it had two single beds around which was one huge and already-deployed mosquito net. Brian was gratified by the presence of this formidable protection, but at the same time concerned by what the need for this protection might mean in terms of the incidence of biting insects. It would definitely be long trousers and multiple socks again this evening…

  But that was a couple of hours away, and before then there was another drink to deal with and the coming to terms with the ambient temperature. It was hotter than ever, and so much so that Brian’s perspiration was in full flow when all he was doing was lifting a glass to his lips. Maybe it would be cooler later on.

  It was. But only a little. So when he and his wife reported back to the bar for a pre-dinner tipple, the bar was being cooled by one of those fans that blows a mist of water into the air, and that he had never in his life seen in a Wetherspoon’s pub. This did help, but real relief only arrived when the sun had finally left the sky and Brian’s second drink had settled in his stomach. And then it was time for dinner.

  This was shared with a handful of other couples (at separate tables) and two groups of travellers. One of these groups was French, and had the appearance of one of those extended French families that are usually featured in French films about what they get up to on French holidays. You know, they are staying at a rambling French mansion somewhere near Nice, and if it’s not infidelity on the part of the grown-ups, it’s troublesome teenage sex amongst the children… And then the other group was British and comprised what could have been a bevy of overweight retired (female) teachers, a couple of elderly gigolos they’d brought along with them (and who seemed more interested in their food than in their lady clients) and a couple of guides. Indeed, it was one of these guides who had planted that gigolo idea in Brian’s head, as his footwear this evening was a pair of black and white patent leather shoes. They looked extremely incongruous when compared with his casual safari attire. But maybe he was making a statement – about the integration of black and white people and how they complemented each other, especially when they were shiny. Or maybe he wasn’t.

  Anyway, the food was a bit pub-ish as well, and it wasn’t long before Brian and Sandra had left the Frenchies to their sexual indiscretions and the Brits to their potential peccadilloes. And, if there were any Germans at those other tables, to their contemplation of what might have been if only the Brits hadn’t gone and screwed it all up with Rhodesia…

  4.

  To secure a safari in the Nunda Safari Lodge, one had to pay for it. This was a little unusual, as at most of the other lodges in which Brian and Sandra had stayed in the past, drives were included along with the food and booze. But those lodges, thought Brian, weren’t in the J D Wetherspoon Group and didn’t have the misfortune of being within walking distance of Divundu.

  Yes, when Jonny, their guide, drove his safari Land Rover out of the lodge and back onto the road, the litter was still there, and there was more of it as he drove further south. It seemed that this road to Botswana had spawned a bit of ribbon development (especially between the road and the Kavango River on the left) and the cast-offs and rubbish from this development were everywhere around. This was a pretty shabby sort of area, and it made Brian wonder what its residents thought of the world beyond Divundu and this world’s often rather more salubrious condition. For amongst all the simple mud huts at th
e side of the road were shiny white satellite dishes. That outside-Divundu world was being beamed in here all the time. Even more intriguing, that beaming in of the outside world will have inevitably included scenes from Windhoek and scenes of the national politicians there in their fine clothes and their fine cars. So what did these local guys think about that? And did any of those politicians make the one thousand kilometre journey here to find out the answer? Brian doubted they did, other than when elections were coming up and they’d dreamt up a new batch of promises…

  Brian had done it again. Here he was on the start of a safari drive, and all he could do was censure the local population for being too poor to afford a rubbish service and, possibly worse, impugn the motives and the honesty of the country’s hardworking politicians. It just wasn’t right. And for all he knew, it was these same politicians who had installed these satellite dishes – as well as surfacing this little-used road to Botswana. Well, for a couple of miles anyway…

  Yes, the tarmac had just disappeared, and Jonny’s Land Rover was now rattling down a wide gravel road with, in its wake, a gigantic cloud of dust. This wasn’t a problem for its three occupants, as the gravel road was very well graded and the ride was relatively smooth. But, of course, that was only the case for as long as the road ahead remained clear. Inevitably, it didn’t indefinitely. And, although infrequent, there were soon meetings with other vehicles coming the other way, each with its own gigantic cloud of dust. And in a safari Land Rover, an open vehicle with a canvas roof, there are no windows to wind up. Consequently… Brian decided that safari vehicles are great for safari drives, but not for driving to these drives on gravel roads where one meets fast-moving vehicles. They should have used their Land Cruiser.

  Things improved when they finally reached the gates of the Mahango Game Reserve. This is a protected area of Namibia just to the north of its border with Botswana and it was their destination for the morning. This meant that after an obligatory visit to the gate-house to pay an entrance fee, Jonny was now at liberty to turn off the road and drive slowly through the reserve, where instead of approaching vehicles there should now be a collection of all-too-often-receding animals and birds.

  Well, maybe it was the care that Jonny was taking with his driving – or the already stunningly high temperature – but many of the animals and birds forgot to recede even a little. So, within a remarkably short time, Brian and Sandra had been treated to some very close views of common impala (as opposed to Etosha’s black-faced impala), waterbuck, red lechwe and buffalo. There were also close encounters with southern long-tailed starlings, violet wood hoopoes, spur-winged geese and a selection of other birds. This was proving to be a very rewarding expedition and it soon got even better when Jonny stopped near an ancient baobab from which there was a view of the Kavango River and its surrounding marshes. For here there were hundreds of different water birds together with oodles of hippos, dozens of baboons and many more of those waterbuck and red lechwe (two of Africa’s most handsome antelopes).

  The baobab wasn’t bad either. Reckoned to be over fifteen hundred years old, it was as elegant as it was huge (its mass must have been the timber equivalent of a thousand Eric Pickles). It was also apparently of use to the locals. Jonny said that they took a little of its bark to mix with oil and then they fed the resulting paste to their newborn, not to make them like Eric Pickles, but to make them strong. Brian couldn’t find too much fault in this. The tree was so huge and had so much bark that he doubted the locals would ever produce enough new babies to do it serious harm. They also, of course, revered it, and would not wittingly ever do it damage. And not surprising really. Baobabs of any size are impressive. But old chaps like this monster are just awesome – as well as being the stuff of legends…

  Yes, baobabs are special, and have a special place in the world of myths and legends, and most of these myths and legends concern the fact that a baobab is often seen as a tree that grows upside down.

  The simplest of all these old stories is that the baobab fell from the sky – upside down – and then stayed in this upside-down configuration as it continued to grow. Mildly interesting but not so imaginative as another legend that is based on the idea that when God created the world he gave a tree to each animal, and the hyena ended up with the baobab. He wasn’t pleased and immediately threw it down in disgust – with the tree landing upside down. And so its remarkable shape. Then there is another legend that is more imaginative still…

  This one says that the first baobab sprouted beside a small lake, and as it grew taller and looked about it, it couldn’t help noticing that all the other trees had straight and handsome trunks, beautiful leaves and even more beautiful blossoms. Then one day the wind died down, the surface of the lake became smooth and mirror like, and the baobab finally got to see what it looked like itself. It was grossly fat, its bark was like the wrinkled hide of an old elephant, its leaves were tiny and insignificant and its blossoms lacked colour. Well, to cut a long legend short, there then followed a strongly-worded complaint to the tree’s creator and a protracted debate on all its perceived shortcomings – until the creator decided that he’d had enough, and brought matters to a conclusion by grabbing the baobab by the trunk, yanking it out of the ground, turning it over and then replanting it upside down. And from that day on, the baobab has been unable to see its reflection or make a complaint. Instead, for thousands of years, it has worked in silence, paying off its ancient transgression by doing good deeds for people. Which is why, all over Africa, people see the baobab as something very special – and very helpful. It is regarded with great affection.

  However… what all these legends fail to recognise, even if they quite rightly confer the tree with a loveable nature, is that, far from being some sort of ugly duckling, the baobab is one of the world’s most exquisite trees. It’s not just a big tree; it’s a truly beautiful tree. How could something with so much ravishingly sculptured woodwork be other than gorgeous? And then there is something else about the baobab that all these legends fail to address, and that is its likely purpose. Because it was quite possible (or so Brian believed) that the baobab wasn’t just a tree, but that it was also a sentinel, a literal plant on this planet, put here by aliens to record over the centuries what we are getting up to. Yes, one only had to look at these remarkable trees(?) to see that they appeared to stand apart from all other trees and all other life, just observing and maybe just storing in their massive insides all the information that the aliens will need when they visit us in the future. Like a sort of woody GCHQ, each baobab on the planet was eavesdropping on our lives and storing away all the information gleaned for their alien creators…

  As soon as Brian had recounted this latest theory to Sandra, he noticed that she approached Jonny and whispered in his ear. Shortly thereafter, they were returning to the lodge, where Sandra was unusually eager to get him to the bar and get him to drink a beer. Maybe she was concerned about the temperature and its effect on her husband’s state of hydration and his general wellbeing. And it was hot. According to the thermometer outside the lodge’s entrance, it was actually 43˚C. Which is very hot indeed. Anyway, Brian was more than ready for a drink and didn’t put up a fight. In fact, he had another drink directly after he’d finished his first.

  It had been a good morning. And now it would be a good afternoon, because it was far too hot to do anything other than be as inert as possible back at their chalet. They both managed this quite well, and Brian even managed a little doze for a while. So that by early evening they were ready to engage with the lodge’s catering facilities one more time and, to start with, by sampling its gin and tonics on its expansive outside deck.

  It had to be expansive because tonight (and presumably on many other nights) it had to accommodate not just the lodge’s guests but also a troupe of African dancers. Well, that is to say, dancers who were African – and no more than twelve years old. They were from a local school and they were here to perform some local dance numbers – in
suitably African dress. Albeit Brian couldn’t get out of his mind that their bead skirts were just smaller versions of the bead curtain he’d left back in Britain and which kept the flies out of the conservatory in summer. But that was just Brian, and any decent-minded guest with an ounce of courtesy in his or her makeup would simply have seen the performance for what it was: a polished and enthusiastic demonstration of the local culture, and a demanding exercise, well deserving of the contributions that were collected at its close.

  Then it was dinner. The retired teachers and their gigolos and guides were still there at their table, but the French degenerates had disappeared, probably to somewhere near Nice. And the food hadn’t got any better.

  So the day ended. But not before Brian and Sandra checked the thermometer outside the lodge entrance on their way to their chalet and, in doing so, noticed a sign there. It read: ‘This is Land Rover territory. On a quiet night you can hear the Toyota Land Cruisers rusting away in the dark.’ Brian and Sandra were amused, even though they were driving a Land Cruiser themselves, and even though it was on a Land Rover this morning that they’d each had to ingest five ounces of Namibian dust. They were also fascinated – to discover whether this Land Rover/Land Cruiser rivalry would be encountered anywhere else on their circumnavigation.

  And had Brian thought about it, he could probably have learnt the answer to this particular question by asking that baobab up the road…

  5.

  When one enters the Mahango Game Reserve, just down the road from the Nunda Safari Lodge, one does one of two things. One either pays an entrance fee in an upstairs office of the reserve’s gate-house – when one is entering to observe game – or, if one is simply driving through to Botswana (as Brian and Sandra were doing), one simply records one’s vehicle details in a book. (And this book is quite well hidden behind a fence of stakes just outside the gate-house.) Now, it appears that these dual procedures, unbeknownst to Brian and Sandra, constitute a package of knowledge that all human beings are born with. And should any of these human beings turn up at the reserve’s entrance, they not only already know what to do but, if they are simply driving through, they even know the whereabouts of the concealed book.