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Overland and Over Here
There have been many certainties on our trip to date.
Getting up before Angela every day is one certainty, being asked for spare brake oil by national parks staff is another (no idea why they want brake oil, they don't usually have vehicles!)
However, the certainty I will dwell on today is that of encountering "Overlanders". First a definition. Overlanders are people, usually zit faced emotionally challenged ex teenagers surgically attached to their I-Pods, who cram in to a variety of trucks and buses of dubious mechanical soundness, to do the "real Africa" trip as a last fling before becoming capitalist wage slaves.
Being young and being "overlanders" they do of course occupy the moral high ground in terms of ethical low impact tourism, and believe they are exploring the real Africa, unlike the rest of us mere holidaymakers.
It is ironic therefore that, thanks to the distances they have to cover, most of them see Africa through a cloud of road dust, assuming of course that they have recovered enough from the previous night's drinking session to be able to prise open their bloodshot eyes.
The overlander truck inevitably arrives just as the park gates close, and hurtles in to the campsite to catch the last 3 minutes of daylight. Like worker ants the human cargo stream out and begin to set up individual dome tents, working around and over existing obstacles, such as your trailer, car and braai area and personal space. Within minutes the sounds of the wilds are replaced by the sound of debates about whose turn it is to do the food prep, and how many Castle lagers Toby now owes the beer kitty.
If you are very lucky most of them will have had a heavy session at a bar the previous night and will go to bed early. If you are unlucky they will start the drinking games before dinner, led invariably by "Digger" the affable Aussie, who may have a pint of blood left in his alcohol system and is only able to stand thanks to a ready supply of "dagga" (weed).
Your best hope for a night's sleep is that their schedule for the next day includes a "tribal cultural experience", a 600 kilometre drive to the next park, 2 game drives in that park and a wacky death defying leap off something quite vertical with only a bit of string tied round the reproductive organs to keep them from head butting mother earth at 160kph.
It is of course a trade off. The above schedule requires a 4.30am wake up, and as you would expect that means a variety of hilarious alarm tones emanating from their mobile phones between 4am to 5am. Would you prefer to lie in bed at night listening to the hilarious story of Joss losing his shorts whilst dangling over the Victoria Falls or do you wake up at 5am to the noise of large pots and pans being lobbed 25 metres in to a metal pannier on the truck, as still inebriated future corporals of industry struggle to pack four collapsible poles and a piece of canvas in to a small bag? The joy of hearing them depart is twinged with sadness that it will start all over again that night.
I should at this stage admit that Angela & I did consider one of these trips in the 1980s. I took the brochure in to work and my colleague and very good friend David Lewis borrowed it, sold his house and went off round the world on a combination of these trips. It was life changing for David; he married a girl from Vanuatu (one of those Pacific island dots north of New Zealand) and now earns tons of money (courtesy of the UK taxpayer) working as a flavour enhancer in cannibal cooking pots in Papua New Guinea.
David's descriptions of his trip remain vivid in our memory and fuelled our enthusiasm to go to Africa in the first place. I think he would be saddened to see how overlanding has gone from enthusiastic adventurers exploring the continent to a multi million pound package holiday business run by international companies.
In Etosha we counted 10 overland trucks in the Okaukuejo campsite, at around 18-20 people per truck that is a severe strain on the 4 showers available for each sex. You may well be thinking they have as much right to be there as us. They have except that they don't pay for it.
Far from being low impact tourists, they are actually high impact minimal return tourists. They pay reduced camping fees but they overload the facilities. Research at Etosha has shown that they buy nearly all of their food, alcohol and gear in South Africa (cheaper) so the local economy gets very little benefit.
When you factor in the damage these trucks do to the gravel, sand and mud roads they are actually becoming a nuisance. Have a look at some of the photos in the "Overlanders" album to see what it is like at a waterhole when you get a couple of trucks at once, they destroy your game viewing experience!
Perhaps the answer lies with the way Botswana deals with overlanders in Moremi Game Reserve. They are allowed in, but the truck stays behind and they have to decant to smaller 8-10 person safari vehicles. They then camp in the bush at special reserved campsites in lovely locations, and well away from the public campsites. They get a better game viewing experience and the rest of us get a better night's sleep!
You have to admire the Germans though. They have taken the concept of an overland truck and turned it in to a mobile hotel! In Etosha we watched amazed as the Rollende Hotel truck and trailer pulled in and occupied 28 car parking spaces at once. The truck is an air-conditioned luxury coach with spacious seating and tables, the trailer is the size of a normal overland truck and includes showers, toilets, a pull out kitchen and individual sleeping pods with your own window!
Now you can sleep in the comfort of your own coffin, assuming that the people wedged above, below and on each side of you are not gastrically challenged or heavy snorers! If you are particularly careful you could probably do the whole holiday without having to set foot in the dusty disease ridden grime of Africa itself. The logical development is to leave the Rollende Hotel permanently parked up in Munich and show a variety of African wildlife documentaries on a large screen opposite the sleeping pod windows. Truly minimal impact tourism!
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