The moon is still hanging in the now blue and red coloured sky. A grey, sandy track leads us out of Grootfontein, heading east. Dust blows up on both sides of the car and is carried away by the wind. Helga is driving. Her narrow fingers hold on tight to the steering wheel. I look at her and see a strong woman. A woman who has been traveling on my side for the past two years. Travel days filled with meeting new people and handling new situations.
The grey road keeps getting rougher, the uneven soil is now covered with sharp stones. Helga’s face tightens and I can see the muscles in her arms. Then suddenly, I can hear her holding her breath while she tries to keep the car straight. We can hear a loud “whhooosshh” coming from underneath the car. For a second I get a puzzled look from her before she turns her gaze onto the road again. “ Flat tyre!” I shout, “ Don’t break, let it roll out and find a flat, solid piece of ground to park”. A few seconds later we’re standing still and the car is leaning a lot to the left since it is parked on the side of the road. My door swings open easily while Helga has trouble opening hers due to the angle we are in. By now, it is very hot outside, We’re still in the middle of the road and hurry to get the safety triangles on it to warn oncoming traffic. I get the jack out of the back of the car, lift the car to get the flat tyre of the ground and level the car. We lift our spare tyre off the roof and replace the broken one fairly quick. By the time we get back in the car it is late in the afternoon. We stop under a Baobab tree that gives enough shade, put some coffee up on our old fuel stove and take a look at the map. Due to the flat tyre, we won’t be able to reach our planned destination, so we decide to find a suitable camping spot on the way. A zigzagging track leads us to an old farmhouse. It gives a rather forlorn impression. The fences have been trampled by cattle and the goats, dogs and chickens roam freely over the property. A large, black man, is leaning over a part of the fence that is still standing. Deep creases on his face show us his hard, but not yet long life. I shake his hand and I can feel the rawness of his callused hand, like a bear claw. I ask him if it is possible to camp on his terrain for the night. He nods and points at a corner far away from the house. Relieved we pitch up the tent before the sun sets. The next morning I walk to his house with a large bag of beans. He happily takes them and tells me about the previous, white, owner of the property who died. He and his brother now live here and try to run it. “We barely manage, but we are still happy”, he tells me. We drive on towards Tsumkwe. A long, winding and unsealed road leads us through the land of the San, a local tribe. They are also known as the bush-men. The San, which means foragers, is a collective name for a several tribes in Southern Africa. They consist of small communities of hunters and gatherers of edible plants. The tribes live in small huts made out of clay and grass. Next to the San, this area is also know for its Boabab trees. We’ve seen them for the first time in Australia. These trees will grow to be between 5 and 25 meters high and can have a extraordinary wide trunk. The tree holds water in these trunks during the wet season to survive the dry season. Because of its form, it kind of looks like the tree is up side down. An old legend says that the tree was thrown out of heaven as a punishment from the Gods and it landed upside down. They can get very old and will live through generations. Elephants eat the soft bark from the African Baobab and the baboons eat the fruits.
From Tsumkwe we drive towards Khaudum National Park. We have to adjust our tyre pressure in order to get through the long stretches of soft sand. Khaudum NP is a park in the Kalahari desert in the east of Namibia along the border with Botswana. In this remote spot the elephants, lions and hyenas truly live freely. We camp just inside the park in an open area among the trees. As soon as it gets dark we find our torches to get a good look around. We stay close to the campfire and burn our trash to prevent animals from being attracted to our scraps. The next morning we drive through the park. We take the most eastern route that follows the border with Botswana. The waterholes in the park are the main spots of animal activity in Khaudum. Contrary to parks like Etosha and Addo, the animals are clearly not used to vehicles passing through their territory. We have to be careful when we meet a group of male elephants. Males are abandoned by the group of females when they hit puberty. The males then form their own group usually led by a dominant, older male. Some of the males turn their heads towards us and start flapping their ears in a threatening way. They are clearly not happy to see us. Male elephants can be between 3500 and 5500 kilograms and don’t recoil for anything.We back up slowly to create a greater distance between us and the elephants until we notice they’re more relaxed. When the road is free again, we continue driving. It is a beautiful drive, but a very strenuous one. Navigating is difficult since not all the road are clearly marked on the map. The environment is changing constantly: loose sand, stones and thick vegetation. Heavy trucks have been driving on the same road as us and left their deep tracks for us to get through. We end up camping just outside the park. The next morning we start where we left off the night before. The soft tyres plough through the soft sand again. We are leaning very much to the right since only one of our tyres can follow the deep tracks from the 6×6 trucks, their tyres are too far apart for us to drive through both at the same time. Eventually we reach the tarmac of the B8 which leads us onto the Caprivi strip. We drive off the main road when we pass Mudumu NP. A long track full of potholes takes us to a small police office. Three heavily armed officers come walking our way when we park next it. They tell us that we are allowed to camp and that they are there to prevent poaching. They carry heavy arms, but have no cars to drive around in, which seems odd. We continue on the track until we are stopped by a few logs on the road. We find a way around them and very slowly we continue. Another roadblock, we both get out and pull them away to create a narrow passage. We can see the water of the Delta when we drive on. A group of hippos are standing next to the waterline. Very quietly we remove the last road block en drive around the obstacles. We are now driving next to the water and we see dozens of hippos in and around the water. Without trying to disturb them we drive towards our camping spot for the night. From our spot next to the water we can see multiple eyes being reflected in the lights we use to shine around. The darker it gets, the closer the animal sounds seem to get. When it is completely dark we look up and it almost seems as if the stars are closer to us than normal. We enjoy the cool evening, but we have a hard time getting used to all the animal activity around us. We build a large fire with some dead trees to chase away the cold, to braai our meat and light up our camp.
It is early morning when we leave the campground and start driving north, towards Lake Malawi. When we reach Liwonde we look for some shade and have a look at our map. In concentration we are studying the map as to which route to take. South, to visit the mountain, North to the small lake just before Liwonde National Park or Lake Malawi. In my head I follow the different coloured lines on the paper before me.
The squaking of brakes pulls us out of our concentration. We both look over our schoulders towards the main road. Through the rows of trees we can just see a truck parked on the side of the road. It takes a few minutes before the smell of burned rubber reaches us at the restaurant. At that moment we know something is wrong. It is quiet, an eery silence hangs in the air when we reach the main road. A group of people has gathered on the side of the road and they stand very still, faces staring towards the asphalt. I approach them very slowly, but no one seems to notice me. Looking at the asphalt myself it tells me what has just happened. A middle aged man on a bicycle was hit and probably run over by the truck that is now parked on the side of the road. It wouldn’t have made a difference if there had been immediate help, as far as I can tell, it would have been too late anyway. A man in a grey uniform drapes a piece of fabric over the body with the help of some bystanders. A human life sometimes ends in seconds. It’s not something we are very familiar with, but this shakes us up very much. We both think back to a couple of weeks earlier when we witnessed another fatal road accident. We navigate around the main road and without talking about it we drive towards the lake where we find a nice spot at the beach. A few local guys are busy to get a trawl in on the shore line. They walk in a line and when they reach the end of the rope, they walk to the front again. It looks like a tough job and I can use the distraction. The men seem very pleased when I decide to join the rope pulling to get the heavy trawl out of the water. In the tent that night, the wind picks up so strongly that we decide to pack everything up in the middle of the night. We drive our car away from underneath the trees that sway dangerously, while dropping branches and fruits, and find shelter behind a building. We sleep in the car on the front and back seats the for remaining few hours. Very stiff from a bad night sleep and without having to pack anything up, we leave early. A small track leads us to Monkey Bay. Monkey Bay and Cape McClear are popular tourist destinations because of the unique bay that has a sunset over the lake.We find a beautiful campsite underneath a mango tree and swim with hundreds of tiny coloured fish called cichlids. In the evening we see small groups of men walking towards the lake where they scrub themselfves until they are almost white, from the soap obviously.
When we leave the Cape we run into a checkpoint very quickly. A young police officer stops us and sticks his head in through the car window. We talk a bit about nothing before he asks: “ and, what are you giving me? I can see you have 4 hats hanging in the car, you don’t need 4 hats, you can give me one.” I am taken a back by his straightforward approach and try to explain to him that we do need all those hats. I offer him a cigarette and after he tries to get a hat some more he gives up, takes another drag from his cigarette and lets us go. 24 September 2016I walk through the small alley of the village we just arrived in on my flimsy flipflops. In my pockets I have nothing more than a few kwachas. School has just finished and the children are hanging around the low school building and draw figures in the sand with their sticks. I kick the powdery black sand up with every step I take and I can see my feet turning the same colour very quickly. The further I walk, the more the houses are packed together and finally I walk into a tiny alley. It is clear that the residents have tried to create shade by putting pieces of colourful cloth and plastic in between the two rows of houses that flap loudly when the wind gets under them. It’s late in the afternoon and I’m looking for dinner ingredients. The houses, made of clay and home made bricks have little openings, where I can see their variety of goods. I take my time navigating slowly through the market until I reach a place where they sell vegetables. I buy a few tomatoes, a cabbage and some onions which they sell me for a Mzungu price (the Malawian word for white person). With everything loaded up in my backpack I easily find my way back to the place we are camping at.
Lake of Stars Festival
29 September 2016 It is early morning and we can see that it is getting busier along side the road. Little stalls, made out of bamboo are being built in quick succession next to each other. A long narrow beam blocks off the road. A lot of people squeeze past it, while others shout out instructions over the handheld devices. It is a day before the festival starts, but it is already very busy at the Chinteche Inn. We try to get our car on the festival itself, but that request is denied and we are only allowed on foot. Right behind each other we walk through the gate and immediately we can feel the festival vibe descending down upon us like a warm blanket on a cold winter day. After walking around for a bit, we find out where the central nerve system of the festival is located and before we know it we’re put to work and find ourselves behind one of the festival bars. For three days we enjoy the live bands and relaxed vibe, while also volunteering by selling the drink vouchers.
Lake of stars:
Lake of Stars Festival is an annual three-day international festival held on the shores of Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa. The festival was started in 2004 and continues attracts over 3,000 attendees with musical acts from Africa some international known artists. The majority of Lake of Stars staff are volunteers and the majority of performers get little to no pay. Over $1.5 million is generated by the festival for the local economy.
It’s 5.30 in the morning when I pull down the zipper of the rooftop tent. A noisy, rattling sound follows, one of the main irritations of campers: tent zippers. It is a loud and unavoidable sound in the early morning. It is still dark and cold. I am wearing the same clothes as last night, and if I wouldn’t have had a down sleeping bag, I would’ve slept in them. Africa can be cold! In the evening it cools down from 30-40 degrees Celsius to about 5 degrees…We don’t speak to each other, in our routine we pack up the tent and throw the last things in the back of the car. The heater in the car blows hot air into the cabin. This seldom happens. I cannot remember the last time we had the heater on. We drive down a sandy drive way and onto the tar road. The car slowly heats up and our lights light up the road ahead. We are only one hour away from sunrise and on our way to the largest National Park in Namibia, Etosha. Just after sunrise we drive through the entrance of Etosha National Park. The tarmac disappears and we continue through sand and dust. Sand and dust is clearly the main soil here in Namibia. I’ve never tried to cover up all the cracks of car with tape before to prevent the dust from getting in. And also, I’ve never before wondered about the amount of dust cars can launch into the air by just driving. As the oncoming car, all you can do is wait until most of it has blown away. While I’m sitting in the car I get the feeling that something is looking at us. I slow down to get the chance to look around. Nothing….I turn my gaze back onto the road and speed up again. As soon as we’re back on our previous speed I get the same feeling again. I slow down again and look around. At that moment a large black rhino steps from the shadows of a fallen tree. My heart starts to beat faster and we are both leaning out of the car windows to get a good look at this magnificent animal: 2,5 tons of muscle, packed in a thick, almost impenetrable harness with a beautiful horn who waits for the temperatures to cool down in the shadow of a tree. That night we set up camp near one of waterholes. A large part of the evening we are hidden away near the waterhole and looking at all the different animals who tentatively stop by to have a drink after a hot day. I’m startled when a honey badger starts to make a racket just behind me while I was quietly watching the animals at the waterhole. The badger is not scared at all, but cautious nonetheless. He has four paws with large claws and it almost looks like they are too far from its body. It walks towards me when I point my head torch towards it. I jump sideways while it walks straight past me following a rocky track. It is a beautiful animal, black with a white belly. Their skin is very loose and when they are caught by a predator they are able to turn their bodies 360 degrees and counter attack. Their teeth are razor sharp and they have exceptional strength in their claws. The honey badger is the only animal who is resistant against snake poison. When it is bitten, it will simply go into a coma which it will get out of after a few hours.
Malawi, our 6th country in Southern Africa. We fill up our tanks with fuel (220 liter) and do some grocery shopping before we hit the border with Malawi. Africa is dry and the last few years it has suffered from extreme draught. We heard that it hit Malawi pretty bad a few years back with severe food shortages due to failed crops. Because of problems with import and political instability Malawi has also known periods of fuel shortages. Since we have two tanks and our jerrycans we can drive around for 1600 km before we have to fill up again.In the supermarket Rinus gets into a conflict with some of the locals. Usually the lines for the cash registers are pretty long here in Africa and you would say that after 8 months here we would be used to these lines… Well, no, and especially Rinus has a hard time dealing with it!In some supermarkets, we find out, the trick is to put something on the counter as soon as you walk in. After that, you leisurely fill up your cart, trolley or arms with all the other groceries. Then you walk to the counter, where that one item is still waiting for you. Finally, you skip the line, get in front, since you were obviously there before and “forgot” some more items. People from Africa seem to accept this, they’re friendly and used to wait in line for long periods. Well, Rinus isn’t. He is like a terrier who bites down on his place in the line and will gladly tell everyone in the in the supermarket multiple times how the principle of a proper cue works. When we get to the car, I’m glad our tyres didn’t get slashed in the meantime..It turns out to be a public holiday in Zambia which we find out when we are about to cross the border. All the employees are lazily hanging around in their office, watching the inauguration of the president on a small tv while eating a fresh load of bananas. I stick my head through the small opening in the window to let them know that there are people here waiting to be helped. Eventually, the least lazy officer walks towards us. With his fingers full of banana, which ends up on our passports, he stamps us out of Zambia and we continue to the Malawi side. We fight our way through a thick layer of money changers and get to our car to drive to Malawi.Malawi doesn’t have a public holiday, but they’re not very keen on working either. Fortunately, we are expert border crossers by now, so 45 minutes later we are in Malawi. Our first impression: Malawi is poor, poorer than the other countries we’ve travelled through. We also notice that there are more mosques and muslims to be seen. Here in Malawi, it seems that everyone has a business in something and they will always tell you all about it. As soon as we leave the car they will try to sell you their goods. When we stay in the car they will call you from a distance, or tap your window. When we drive past they still shout out to us from the other side of the street to get our attention.This is all different to the Africa we came from where people tend to display their goods and wait for us to stop by instead of actively walking up and selling it to us. The capital, Lilongwe: we appear to be in a cocktail of raw blues, a sultry but humid heat, covering us in a blanket of exhaust fumes. My feet, worn in flip flops, get very dirty when I walk from our city campsite on the hill down towards the centre. Cyclists come towards me, tense faces to get the old bicycles up the hill.I hear someone walking behind me and step up my pace as much as the humidity allows me. Not enough, I am soon joined by a young man who introduces himself to me. He tells me he goes to school to be a carpenter. Also, he informs me that he grew up in a large family and that his parents don’t live in the city.Even though I was not really waiting for this conversation and I need all my concentration to keep my feet on the small path in front of me, I am answering his questions obligingly.It doesn’t take very long for him to begin his selling pitch. It’s a way of approaching that apparently works for western tourists: Introduce yourself, tell them where you come from, about you siblings, your education and then try to sell your goods when they take a pity on you. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t work with me. I get some cash from the machine and with a wad of money the size of a phonebook I start to walk back up to the campsite. I get the same story as before, but this time from an elderly man who I think has long since passed the “going to school” age. Around him I can smell a very pungent body odor, which makes it hard for me to breath the already hot city air. I wonder why he walks up the hill at this time a day, while his younger and smarter colleague walks down… The next morning we meet a young wood craftsman who makes miniature cars. We give a few photos of our Landcruiser and he begins very enthusiastically to build ours. It’s late in the afternoon when we finally leave the city. We get in line behind a long cue of beaten up cars and while dodging the potholes, we get out of the city as fast as we can. Our camp for the night is at a small pottery in Dedza, a small village south of Lilongwe. At night there is a lot of noise and we have a hard time figuring out if it’s a fight or a party. I decide to get out of the tent and make some noise myself by beating against the fence with a stick or something. It’s a full moon and it lights up the whole area, but even so, I still see no one. I climb back into the tent and put in some earplugs before going back to sleep. The next morning the owner of the pottery tells me that the noise had to do with a chicken theft from one of the neighboring houses. The person who lives right behind the campsite had something to do with the theft and the people from the village had decided to tell him, that night, that he will not get away with this the next time. We had just decided to tell him we were moving on, but after hearing this story we decide to stay another day since it will probably be a lot more quiet this time.
A long, narrow sandy track leads us through low bushes. Around us we can see small huts, built from thin branches put together tightly and fixed in the ground. The roof is made of a combination of dried grass and clay. Next to the huts we see women who almost have the same colour as the brown huts and disappear in their surroundings. They put a combination of mud, animal grease and plants on their skin to prevent themselves from getting burned by the scorching sun.
We are on our way to the Omuhonga Primary school, a local school where children can go to school when their parents allow it. A small road leads us there and we can distinguish a few buildings. The sun is about to set and luckily it starts to cool down. People are moving around and move from the shadow into places to catch the last sun. We drive onto the school premises and park our cars in front of the main building. It is a stone building in a U-shape, painted white, with red window frames and a motivating text on one of the walls.School hours are over, but most of the teachers are still there. Most of them grew up in the area and belong to one of the tribes represented in the area. The only difference is that they now wear western clothes instead of the traditional garb. Minutes after our arrival the children start gathering at the middle of a field, as if they were being called by a bell. In the middle of this field is a giant pot cooking on a fire. It is filled with white porridge and we can see the bubbles on the surface. An elderly woman with a long apron stands next to the pot and tries to stir the heavy mass with a long wooden ladle. The children start to form long rows. The children who haven’t yet queued up are still looking around for plates, which are scattered around the schoolyard as if they are Easter eggs. Not everyone seems successful. When the plates are all taken, the less fortunate have to make do with cups, containers or lids. Finally, when everyone is in line, the scooping up of the porridge begins. The older children help with doing this. With a plate the porridge is scooped out of the steel pot and handed out in even portions. The whole process is very smooth and without talking dinner is being served. We are watching this on the sidelines with our strange cars in the background, but except for some curious glances no really pays attention. One of the teachers stands next to us and explains that this is the meal the children get every day. Most of these kids stay in the hostel that belongs to the school, because they live too far away to walk there every day. One meal in the morning (11am) is paid for by the government, a second meal (6pm) is paid for by an international organization that supports education in third world countries. You cannot study on an empty stomach! What they are getting is the same everyday: corn porridge. The students all spread out over the school’s property to eat and the only thing left behind is a dust cloud and some older boys fighting over who gets the last out of the pot. The teacher tells us that the last of the porridge is always burned and it is the most popular among the kids. We walk away from the school and we see several small groups of kids sitting on the ground. With their fingers they scoop up the porridge. We get a spot assigned to camp behind the school and set up our tents.
It is 5am when we wake up from all the noise around our tent. I don’t really want to, but I open my eyes and look through the fly screen to see what is going on. The sun has just come up and it is still pretty cool while everything has an orange glow. The most beautiful time of the day! A little distance away from our camp a few children stop shortly in their tracks to have a look at these odd cars in the middle of the school’s property. They hurry on after this and walk to the water trough at the other end of the property. This waterpump and trough are donated by an Icelandic organization. It was built to get water for the Himba people and their cattle who used to be a nomadic tribe so that they could be sure of water.Throughout the years the Himba’s established villages and stayed more in one place and with that there also cam a school. The entire population and kettle around this water point are now dependend on this source, for as long as there is no water elsewhere. They built a 12.000 liter watertank on a steel frame and the pump is running due to 4 solarpanels. The tank doesn’t get any chance to fill up during the day, and as soon as the sun comes up, the first people are already waiting for the water. The school is now trying to get the funds for a second watertank, because the amount of people has outgrown the capacity of just one tank.
When the students want to participate in the school’s program it is expected of them that they are clean. When you want to wash yourself with the first fresh water of the day, you have to be an early bird. This is the reason we heard the commotion around our tent this morning. At 6.40am lessons start and this is announced by a loud bell summoning all the children. At the moment we hear this bell we are all already wide awake and not all of us voluntarily. It quiets down quickly after the lessons start and we have our breakfast. During this we talk about the food the children get here and how it is always the same. We decide to see what we have with us that we can give and maybe give a little bit of variation to the diet. We come up with pasta, sugar, potatoes, flour and rice. I am on my way to the principal to donate the food and I can see the students look at me from behind their desks through the open windows.The principal is very happy with the food we bring him. He tells us that a lot of his staff are not qualified teachers and as soon as he hears that Helga and I are he asks if the four of us would be so kind to think of something to do that afternoon, entertaining 200 kids. He says that the children learn more from a few hours with us than they do during their normal school lessons. The amount of children scares us a bit, but we agree to do it and start planning right away. We decide to do four different activities in which groups of kids rotate until they’ve all done them. We are going to be doing bottle-soccer (without bottles, but with a pile of stones), dancing, slacklining & Boule and drawing. Communicating is sometimes difficult, but the the aid of the teachers we manage to make our activities work.
At the end of the day, we are all exhausted. The school organizes some singing and dancing for us by the students as a thank you and we enjoy this very much. After the activities the children are now less shy and curiosity has definitely won. We are surrounded by curious kids until well after sunset and when they go, we are glad for the peace and quiet.
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A seemingly endless looking dirt road takes us through small villages where the people walk outside to wave at us. We are far away from civilization, but somehow there are people everywhere. Small huts made out of clay with thatched roofs are all around. The road gets a bit rougher the more we drive inland and away from the main road. It’s a full moon. We can see the sun set and the bright full moon makes his appearance. Too bad they are always opposite each other, otherwise it would’ve been a great photographic shot, I think to myself. Nowhere on my travels have the sunrises and sunsets been as impressive as they are in Africa. When the view is open enough we always try to position the tent so we wake up while watching the sun rise. We always try to camp somewhere before the sun sets and when it does we get the camera out to capture it while enjoying a big mug of cold ginger tea. This ginger tea is Rinus’ favourite and the recipe is Rooibos tea, ginger, lemon juice and honey. It’s very refreshing and Rinus believes that the more ginger you put in there, the more healing the tea becomes. He’s almost getting as superstitious and the locals here.
Today we are having a hard time finding a good spot. The bush is very dense and every livable space has small villages. In the end we decide to ask at one of the small huts if we can spend the night at the open field nearby. With African people, the rules for land are different. You use it, but you don’t own it. When we ask to pitch up our tent on their land, they look quizzically at us. When they do understand our question they still don’t know why you came to ask permission in the first place. Helga and I always love to camp with the locals, they only downside being that you often attract a lot of attention. And that is not always something you feel up to after a very busy day on the road. We timed our arrival just before dark and the local people don’t usually venture far from their homes in the dark because they have no flashlights. It seemed like a good idea, but there is one thing we missed: the full moon. Until very late at night we can hear people singing and dancing around us. From the sounds we recognize a group of young men and even younger females. The women sing, marching in small groups with rotating lead singers. The man react to their singing with yells of oooohs and aaaahs, somewhat rhythmic, but not always in tune. Tired from our sleep deprived night we pack up, make a (very Dutch) peanut butter sandwich and get in the car before the sun comes up. We know that is we linger any longer everyone will come out to see us and it will be hours before we get to leave. We drive out of the small village, over the hill and into the next settlement. Slowly, we see everything around us come alive. Children walk around in colourful clothes, dogs find their favourite spots in the sun and there’s a flurry of chickens running around. The first signs of fires being started give out a homely feel to it all. Around midday we arrive at the National Park.South Luangwa National Park in the east of Zambia is the most southern situated out of the three national parks down the Luangwa River. There are large populations of Thornicrofts giraffe,elephant and African Buffalo. In the river you can find large groups of crocodiles and hippos. In 1938 the area was already proclaimed a park to protect it and it 1972 it officially became a National Park and is now covers 9050m2. We introduce ourselves at the campsite and are being invited to attend one of the morning game drives. A very knowledgable ranger takes us along and gives us a lot of useful information.
Just after sunrise we drive through the entrance of Etosha National Park. The tarmac disappears and we continue through sand and dust. Sand and dust is clearly the main soil here in Namibia. I’ve never tried to cover up all the cracks of car with tape before to prevent the dust from getting in. And also, I’ve never before wondered about the amount of dust cars can launch into the air by just driving. As the oncoming car, all you can do is wait until most of it has blown away. 
While I’m sitting in the car I get the feeling that something is looking at us. I slow down to get the chance to look around. Nothing….I turn my gaze back onto the road and speed up again. As soon as we’re back on our previous speed I get the same feeling again. I slow down again and look around. At that moment a large black rhino steps from the shadows of a fallen tree. My heart starts to beat faster and we are both leaning out of the car windows to get a good look at this magnificent animal: 2,5 tons of muscle, packed in a thick, almost impenetrable harness with a beautiful horn who waits for the temperatures to cool down in the shadow of a tree. That night we set up camp near one of waterholes. A large part of the evening we are hidden away near the waterhole and looking at all the different animals who tentatively stop by to have a drink after a hot day. I’m startled when a honey badger starts to make a racket just behind me while I was quietly watching the animals at the waterhole. The badger is not scared at all, but cautious nonetheless. He has four paws with large claws and it almost looks like they are too far from its body. It walks towards me when I point my head torch towards it. I jump sideways while it walks straight past me following a rocky track. It is a beautiful animal, black with a white belly. Their skin is very loose and when they are caught by a predator they are able to turn their bodies 360 degrees and counter attack. Their teeth are razor sharp and they have exceptional strength in their claws. The honey badger is the only animal who is resistant against snake poison. When it is bitten, it will simply go into a coma which it will get out of after a few hours. 
