Some observations on living under canvas Part 2 P - Pitch Your territory in camp. Easy in Royal Natal, they are marked out and allocated on booking. Chaotic in Kruger as there is no allocation and no discernible pitch areas anyway. This leads to the equivalent of Germans reserving pool loungers with their towels, everyone arrives and chucks their tents, mattresses, braai and children as widely as possible. Q - Queues Fortunately the shop queues were behind us, thanks to our chip & pin credit cards being difficult to read here. The record for overcharging us (by swiping the card too many times) is a restaurant in Wakkerstroom that charged us four times for one dinner. R - Ralphie the Ranger Angela's nickname for Yours Truly, think Tarzan, Lawrence of Arabia, the brains of Stephen Hawkins and the looks of Brad Pitt. S - Snoring Angela's snoring has already been mentioned in dispatches. My concern is that when we go somewhere remote with no fences, her snoring might attract amorous animals with teeth T - Toilet Paper The most frightening thing we've encountered in Africa, single ply toilet paper. The only advice we can offer is to keep your fingernails short, and never chew them. U - Useless Citronella candles do not stop insects or mozzies. V - Vervets We naturally assumed that biting insects would be the main natural hazard but the Vervet monkeys (and baboons) have proved a major nuisance. Thanks to people feeding them they've lost their fear of humans in all the parks we visited and they raid tents with impunity, running off with anything from fruit to biscuits to cartons of milk. Someone needs to warn them about their high cholesterol, fat and sugar diet! W- Weather When I watched Tarzan films as a kid, Johnny Weismuller was charging around the jungle in a loincloth. I'd like to see him try that in the Africa we've encountered. First off he'd get 4 inch Acacia thorns straight through his feet, and secondly he'd died of exposure overnight when the temp drops from 32 C to a mere 2 C or lower. The cold nights may also explain why the male Vervet monkeys have blue balls (seriously they are blue!) X - X-Rated It must be the outdoor life or those Brad Pitt looks, but I have to fight Angela off. Y - Why???? Why do noisy kids surround us every day? On our next trip we will leave empty whisky bottles around our pitch and put up a "Beware of the Lion" sign. Z - Zebra They look permanently bloated due to parasitic activity in their stomachs. Slip that fact in to your next dinner party conversation.