Overland Africa: The Truck, Camping, Cooking, and Basic Facilities

I've just gotten back from a month in southern Africa. My plan was to blog along the way, but the reality was such an activity and fun packed month that I barely had a chance to jot down thoughts let alone write out blog entries. There was also pretty spotty "African WiFi," so that I rarely had a strong enough signal to post anything. So instead of a chronological account, I'm going to post retrospectively by theme. First up, the truck, camping, cooking, and basic facilities.

For our overland trip, 13 of us plus a tour leader, a cook, and a driver rode in a truck (not a bus or a van) for 3 weeks through 4 countries. Any time anyone referred to our vehicle as a bus, our leader, Patrick, would say, "what bus?" They are very emphatic about the fact it is a truck. Unlike what I'd thought, the outside lockers are for camping, cooking, and cleaning equipment. In the back of the truck, there is a wall of lockers for all of the participants to keep their stuff, using their own locks. It turned out the lockers were a little bigger than advertised, so I had some extra space, which was nice.
When we got onto the truck the first day, some of us staked out spots which would be ours throughout the trip. Other people preferred to float around, switching seats each day. Because we were only 13, and the truck is built to hold up to 22 participants, most of us had double seats to ourselves. The seats in the middle of the truck have a table in the middle, like on some trains.

Some of the driving days were up to almost 10 hours (including stops), and some were pretty quick. We all got used to the drives, whatever the length, creating our routines. For me, the morning was nap time (since we usually started the day between 6 and 7:30am, sometimes earlier), and then around 10 or 10:30am, most of us had a mid-morning snack. Lunch would be around 1pm, and depending on the drive, we might be doing a quick roadside stop, or we might have gotten to our destination for the night. If we were driving on, there might be an afternoon stop in a town somewhere to stock up on provisions (snacks, water, wine or beer), and then afternoon snack time would be around 4:30pm. In the back of the truck, we had a cooler to keep things we bought, but which was usually completely packed with wine and beer. We would try to squeeze in at least one large water bottle to share.

During the course of the day, we sometimes had real rest stops, like in small towns, but not always. There were often long distances between stops, and requesting a "bush toilet" stop became common. I held out for a long time on this, but at a certain point, you just need to pee, and you get used to finding a bush to squat behind, using some tissue, and coming back to the truck for hand sanitizer. In the beginning, everyone walked pretty far away and tried to find a totally isolated spot. By the end, we were all crouched within a few feet of each other behind sparse foliage. Everyone had seen everyone else's butt, it just didn't matter anymore. We got very close quickly.

During the long rides, a lot of people would listen to music and some people were able to read (I'll never understand that). Many of the roads were unpaved and very bumpy, we got used to our "African massage" as we bumped along between destinations. I would sometimes try to write notes or journal in the truck, but my handwriting was even worse than usual. Long in depth conversations would happen on the road (religion, politics, sex, whatever, no topic was taboo; as I said, our group was close), or sometimes we played card games at the tables. The most popular one became Presidents and Assholes, which up to 6 people could play, and we all developed our own strategies.
The challenge with playing cards was that the truck is not air conditioned, it has windows all along the sides, some of which would be open for air flow and wind to cool us down. Having all those large windows which could be opened was great when we went on game drives in the truck. You could see out the windows clearly, take pictures, feel close to the animals. But when playing cards, holding them down or retrieving the ones that flew away was common practice. We also had to make sure when rains came through that all of the windows were closed to avoid our seats and our stuff getting wet.

Our drives were punctuated by Patrick saying, "Jambo jambo," a Swahili greeting, to start the day, to announce a stop, or to wake us up so we could see something outside (sometimes wildlife, sometimes scenery). We would reply, "sawa sawa," meaning ok or fine. Some of the other phrases we came to know and love were "why not?," "no worries," and "African time," referring to how things run, no schedule is exact (much like tiki time in Costa Rica). We had a schedule, meals had set times, we hoped to get to our destinations by certain times, but really, it was all pretty relaxed, and our group became efficient at getting onto the road, so that we always ran early.

Driving between countries, we had a few border crossings, markedly different on the road than on an airplane. Everyone had to get off the truck with their passports, fill out a customs form, line up to get inspected and stamped, and then wait for the truck to clear through as well. This could go pretty quickly, or it could be drawn out with extra hurdles. Our first crossing, from South Africa to Namibia, was the latter kind. Going out of South Africa, after customs, they individually took us aside and searched through our daypacks and purses. Afterwards, someone came on board the truck to re-check our passports. Then on the Namibian side, we went through customs very slowly, they asked us some questions, took pictures of all of us, and got fingerprints from one of our New Zealanders.

Crossing between Namibia and Botswana was much easier, which is good since we did it a couple of times, winding through our route. We just had to take our shoes and dip them in sanitizer on the Botswana side, for fear of spreading foot and mouth disease.
From Botswana to Zimbabwe, exiting was easy, but entering Zimbabwe, the customs agent was having fun flirting with all of the girls, since their customs form asks for marital status. He was trying to make plans with us to meet up at a bar that night in Victoria Falls. We specifically did not go to the bar he mentioned, just in case.

Each night at dinner, Patrick would lead off with "Something about tomorrow" and give us the run down on what to expect from the next day. We would find out what time breakfast was and what time we would be leaving, so that we could figure out when to set our alarms to wake up, get ready, and take down our tents. But after the first morning, I don't think we ever used our alarm, we just woke up to other people's zippers, pots and pans clanking, and usually the light of the sunrise. Never before in my life (in memory) have I woken up naturally at sunrise each morning, but somehow out there, it wasn't difficult.

Each morning, Wilson, our cook, would prepare some hot food in addition to there being cereal available and hot water for coffee or tea. Black tea with milk and sugar became a staple of my morning. Usually there were eggs of some kind and toast, sometimes bacon or sausage, and couple of very special days, crepes (yum!). After eating, we all washed our own dishes in a few tubs (soapy water, rinse water, hot second rinse water), and then flapped them dry (waving our dishes in the air to dry them faster). Sometimes we made flapping exercise time and would do squats or lunges while we flapped. Sometimes we would get a little too exuberant and a utensil or cup might go flying into the dirt, and have to go back to the first tub.

When lunch was a roadside stop, one group would help out the cook, chopping some vegetables or otherwise helping with set up. We would put out our camp chairs, eat quickly, wash up, and get back on the road. This process was surprisingly efficient.

Dinner was usually at 7 or 7:30pm. It's really impressive how many meals were included in this tour. Other tours I've gone on, you get most breakfasts, and then just a few lunches and dinners included, but on this trip, it was almost every day's meals. There were just a few days when we were staying in bigger towns when we had to fend for ourselves, and then it was nice to get out and see what was locally available (although in Swakopmund, Namibia, it was mostly German or seafood, not what you would expect). Dinners around the truck would begin when we quieted so our cook could introduce the soup of the evening, always delicious. After that, he would tell us about our main course, including something separate for the 2 vegetarians with us. The crew were very conscientious about making sure everyone's food restrictions and preferences were met, and took it personally when we didn't finish our meals (but there was always so much food!). Dinner was almost always accompanied by sharing around the bottles of wine we'd bought. While we ate, we would hear Something About Tomorrow, and then we would wash up and flap our dishes. If the campsite had a bar, we would usually head there for a little while after dinner, but most nights ended pretty early, in anticipation of an early morning.

When I signed up for a 3 week tour of mainly camping, it was with some trepidation. I think a lot of our group was unsure of what to expect. I've camped before, for a long weekend here and there in organized camp grounds with bathroom facilities, but 3 weeks on the road with some stops having "basic facilities" was a bit daunting. I considered paying extra for a single supplement, but decided since we might be camping places with wild animals roaming around, I'd feel more comfortable having someone sleeping next to me. This was the right decisions, I had such a great tent-mate.

Most of the time when we heard loud noises at night, it was someone snoring in another tent. But one night in the Okavango Delta, we were woken up around 2am by something crashing through the woods near our tent, and then, illuminated by the full moon, right outside our tent there was a huge elephant. He stopped for a minute, maybe finding his path between tents, and was silhouetted against our tent, big tusks, massive legs, long trunk, it was incredible. I didn't go rustling through my bag for my camera, this was a moment that my tent-mate and I shared and is imprinted only in our memories.

The biggest mistake I made going into the trip was thinking I knew what to expect weather-wise from summer in southern Africa, and instead of bringing a real sleeping bag, just getting a bag liner, a lightweight very thin bag for warm weather. There were a couple of nights near the north end of our trip (closer to the equator) where this was about sufficient, but there were many nights when I was freezing. The first night of camping, at a winery in the Western Cape, I was violently shivering and blindly searching through my backpack in the dark for any other layers, trying not to wake my tent-mate. All I could find was my quick-dry towel, which I pulled on as a blanket. The next day when we stopped in the town of Springbok, I went to a Pep, the prevalent discount everything store around southern Africa, and bought a fleece blanket. On the other hand, my Therm-a-Rest travel pillow was fantastic, totally comfortable, a great investment. The tour provided us with foam mattresses, and because we had a fairly small group, sometimes we could take 2 of them for extra cushion.

By a week into the trip, we were all experts at erecting and deconstructing our tents, Everyone would help each other out, it was a group effort. But we also had some nights where it was safe to sleep outside of our tents, under the stars. Early on, we had a new moon, and several nights around it were so dark that millions and millions of stars shone out. This doesn't begin to show what we saw, but there's Orion and some others.

Sleeping to the sounds of crickets (and some snoring) with the vast universe shining out above was incredible. Also in some places incredibly cold, but worth it.
One of these places was a "bush camp" where we were miles and miles away from the nearest habitation or other human. We stayed in a rock alcove at the base of a huge stone formation.

When you climbed to the top of the rock, you could look in all directions and see just open space. It was such a drastic and wonderful change from living in New York City, barely able to turn in a circle without hitting someone else. The caveat was that there were no facilities of any kind, so bush toilets for everyone for that night, and brushing teeth using a water bottle. What I had been nervous about in reality was no big deal. The girls went as a group with our head lamps on to another alcove, all turned out our lights and did our business, then put our lights back on and returned to camp.

Most of the campsites were really nice, with decent bathroom facilities including showers, often a pool, and usually a bar (which we felt it was our duty to support the local economies by patronizing). Sometimes trucks and buses with other tour groups would be at the camp at the same time, but other times it would be just us. There might be WiFi or there might not, but usually we didn't care, because we were having such a good time with our group, that we didn't need to be sucked into our devices focused on the outside world. More than once, we had an impromptu sing-along and dance party at either the campsite or local bar, no one worried about what they looked like or how they sounded, just letting loose and enjoying where we were.

This trip was an absolutely incredible experience for me, and the people I met really made it unbeatable. I have a lot more to say about it, and my next installment will be about the animals we saw. Thanks for reading!