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Emily's Trip
hello again...
ok today was the ultimate delta experience but mokor and foot. i tell ya that was a fun but hard day in some respects:
we set off at 9 having had a really nice breakfast including the typical english, cereal and fruit salad... mmmmm!!! it was a 30min drive to the mokoros where we met out "polers". there were 2 people per mokoro, i was sharing with trond and our ploer happened to be the main tour guide and called Helpa :o). they put lovely green cushioned seats in so you didnt get a sore arse which was very considerate!
so we headed off... the poles they used had two prongs on the end a bit like a fork minus 1! the way these guys know their way around the delta was just incredible it really was: to me it so totally seemed all the same; a very beautiful area but without any distinctive features. at some points it really did seem as though we were sailing through reeds with them just parting like that while you pushed on through. was a weird experience lets put it that way...
in the open areas there were lots of waterlillies and sometimes there were reedy type things probably taller than we would have been were we standing up! the weather at this point had turned divine, i was just lying back enjoying the sun and the smooth motion of the mokoro... was BLISS!!!
we arrived at this island where we pulled up. this was obviously where we were going to take our bushwalk and have our lunch.
it was helpa who took us round on the walk. again it was baffling how well he knew the 18 sq km... to the rest of us it was a lot of sparse grassland (sometimes as tall as us if not taller!) amd sandy ground and trees. helpa knew EVERY single tree shrub, berry, track etc. we saw tracks of an elephant and buffalo and elephant and buffalo s*** (his words not mine!!!) i tell you - my god that elephant print - quite something!!! it was perfectly round and HUUUUUUUUGE!!! i promise i could've fit 4 of my feet in there if i rounded the corners, and the dung - wooo - each piece was the size of a football, i swear!!! (and its not just one ball).
oooooooooo how could i forget... in the mokoro's we went to an (apparently) carea of lake called "hippo lake" and it lived up to its name - we saw 2 :o)
they look like the laziest animals ever... just loung around doing the equivalent of zilch/nada/nowt!!
on the 1st half of the walk we saw 1 or 2 nellies but it was a bit like yeah whatever we saw some waaay better on the truck!!! bit it was a bit cool never the less. apparently one of two kudu were seen jumping over a fence but i missed it and frankly i dont give a damn - how stubburn am i?!?! so yeh more walking around seeing the odd thing, getting really hot/sunburnt, being amazed at how helpa was si knowledgeable and just being in that area...
oooooooo i saw a warthogs arse and some fresh burralo dung - wooo huh lol!!!
onto lunch - many of us really needed the toilet by this point and of course there was absolutely no where to go so we all had to resort to the "manoevre i havent done since i was 10 - squat and drop" lol. :oS ugh! for lunch there was a minty pasta salad which was really good (they have a weird kinda pasta here which is like a cross between a penne and a macaroni - but hey i wont go into that lol). there was also jacket potatoes stuffed with mushrooms and cheese and baked beans with muffins for pud... was really good - what we needed!
post lunch we went on another walk but because it was now the heat of the day all the animals had b*****ed off so after an hour and a half we headed back to the mokoro's, gad another blissful uneventful journey UNTIL....
About 2 mins from the end when trond helpa and myself were already there at the shore i looked back and saw jon in one boat and patrick in the other. I pissed myself with laughter when he lost his balance and fell whack into the water!!! I laughed sooo hard - especially when jon then very swiftly sat down again lol. So yeh a s,all drive back and a rest before supper which this time was beef stwe with pasta and a veg called oh so pleasently "rape". Was all pretty good again although they could've made the meet slightly more tender ;o) lol.
It was then retire to bed for me, was shattered after all that walking...
Tomorrow's another ball!!!
Talk soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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