Editor’s Note:  Two blogs in two days – the Minkey is on a roll, don’t get used to it!  She is going to keep trying to post more regularly and revisit various countries that her adoring public has not yet heard about!  

You knew it was coming – another rant about some challenges that the Minkey faced, this time in Africa.  I can only publish so many namby-pamby stories where I am less than critical of the universe.  It’s time to get back down to business.  Let’s talk about flying termites and torrential downpours!

Yes, seeing wild animals in their actual habitat was absolutely thrilling.  Unfortunately, over the course of my stay it began to rain in earnest.  One of the more memorable rainy days – actually it was a rainy evening – was in the Okavango Delta at Kwara.  For our evening game drive the plan was to go out on a boat to check out birds, crocodiles, hippos and enjoy the beauty of the delta.  The boat was flat-bottomed and narrow and I would say a ton or two lighter than your average hippo.  It appeared to be aluminum.  It had some seats up the middle and a metal framework with a flat platform that you could go up and sit on to get a bird’s-eye view of things.  As we were heading towards the boat – I noticed that the weather was looking to shift into storm mode.  Dark roiling clouds approached us with occasional bursts of lightening and far-off thunder.  Hmmmm…

There were only three guests, myself and another couple (from Canada – have I mentioned that nearly all the people I met in Botswana were Canadians?  Go figure…) and we had our guide and the spotter.  The spotter is the guy who is looking for animals – usually he sits on a makeshift seat on the far left fender of the jeep – because he is an adrenaline junky. Ok, no, that is probably not it – though he would be the first to go if we encountered an aggressive predator.

Myself and the other lady head up the ladder to the upper platform and sit down at the front of the boat, dangling our feet over the edge and hanging through the bars.  Our guide now became the boat captain and we cruised out into small delta tributaries that were teeming with all kinds of life.  There was a tree full of baboons – it had some kind of fruit that they enjoy – but at the sound of our boat they all took off in single file swinging and leaping across the water back towards the forest.  There were beautiful kingfishers and much larger birds like storks and herons.  And elephants – this was maybe the closest I got to an elephant – a male who was standing in the water and ripping out bushes and shoving them into his mouth…   Elephants are extremely hard on the environment and in this area they are destroying nesting habitat.  But this is the wild, anything goes out here…

 

This is where we saw the hippos diving through the water as if they were dolphins!  I never saw hippos do that anyplace else – I have it on video and will try and get it posted.  I was kind of concerned about our proximity to the elephants and the hippos – I can’t help thinking that these are wild animals and you don’t know what they might do…   The guides think differently and claim they would never put us in danger – but you can’t know what a wild animal’s reaction will be, right?

Anyway shortly into the boat ride we did get some rain – quite a bit of rain so we climbed back down to the main deck and poncho’d up, so to speak.  Keep in mind that the main deck is completely open to the elements, short of having a roof.  We stopped for our ‘sundowner’ – this is a prescribed portion of every evening game drive – a stop to have a drink and some snacks and enjoy the sunset.  This is where I always seemed to get a generously poured glass of mediocre red wine.  Perhaps the guides thought I needed to relax more…

Our sundowner stop was at a place where countless storks, herons, and hornbills were nesting.  Perhaps hundreds of birds were there – it was a bit noisy and stinky (the amount of bird guano was astonishing).  As we observed the bird interactions the storm descended upon us at last.  Stark lightning bursts lit up the sky followed by mega claps of thunder and the rain came down in sheets.  As we stood there with the lightening striking all around us – I could only think of how stupid we were – in water, in a completely metal boat, which was the highest thing around for miles, thanks to that upper platform!  Our guide put that boat into high gear and we hightailed it back to the shore.

This soon became the boat ride from hell as we were deluged with water from all sides.  The ponchos could only do so much  – fairly quickly all of my edges were soaking wet, to say nothing of my feet.  The poncho came down to a little below my knees – so my feet were totally exposed.  I had to sit with my hat brim protecting my face, as best I could.  Those who know me well, may recall how much I detest having wet socks (usually a hazard of biking in the rain).  It requires a primal scream whenever the point of sock saturation is reached.  Eventually we got there.  As the ice-cold water reached my feet I had to reduce the primal scream to more of a primal squeak – trying to maintain some amount of dignity.  That was the other problem – it was FREEZING cold with the wind and rain.  When we finally reached the shore we had to endure a jeep ride back to the camp.  I say endure because like the boat the jeeps are open on all sides, and because the terrain is so rough that it feels like your internal organs are being rearranged (perhaps I’m just getting old…).

A very sad Minkey ran into her tent and removed all soaking wet items.  She was oh so sad because she knew that none of these items would get fully dry anytime soon (maybe never in this climate – I spoke with a local in Maun, Botswana who told me they can’t wash anything because it won’t ever dry – nobody has machine dryers in this part of the world!).  The worst part being the shoes …  I had one pair of shoes and one pair of flip-flops on the Africa adventure – and the flip-flops were kind of out of the question when wandering around in the bush!

It gets somewhat worse after the boat ride.  I am the lucky person who ended up in Botswana during the first rains of the rainy season.  During this auspicious time, the termites enact an ages old plan – and release the hounds!  Oops – I got carried away there, they actually release the FLYING termites.  Yes, that’s right – they have FLYING termites in Africa.  For about ONE WEEK.  Just for one week are these abominations alive – and I was there to enjoy them.

Here’s the deal with the termites.  They are the same termites that create elaborate mounds which they use to house themselves and the Queen.  Termites are basically born into a specific social order.  You can be a worker, a soldier, OR you can be a potential King or Queen…  Those hatched into the King and Queen section are fed special goodies and they end up with wings!  These are not ordinary wings – they are disposable wings.  Craziness.  The idea is that once a year when these fledgling Kings and Queens are fully developed they open doors in the termite mound and these fledglings are released.  They fly off in search of a nice patch of ground where they promptly drop wings and start digging.  A new termite palace will eventually form if the fledgling King and Queen accomplish this task.  Imagine the skies full of flying termites – that is literally what happens.  They appear at night and are naturally attracted to light – which is what we humans are using in order to see anything (no streetlights in the bush!).  The rest of the birds and some animals feast for a week as they devour these fledglings, it was like party central out there, I’m telling ‘ya.

As the Minkey pulled her sopping wet shoes back on to head over to the lodge for dinner (escorted by my guide with a flashlight) I noticed that there was a fair amount of flying termites out and about.  Actually clouds of termites…  Dinner is basically served outside – no screens!  The other couple was smart, they had opted to have dinner in their room.  Unfortunately, myself and the guide attempted to eat whilst being assaulted on all fronts by the damn termites.  They are maybe an inch or two long – with narrow bodies – although other types are quite a bit larger (EWWWW!).  There I was trying to eat while keeping termites off my plate and out of my mouth.  Seriously – I kid you not, they were bouncing off my face, my hair, my arms and I was removing them from piles of food on my plate.  Disgusting.  I was already a bit emotionally frayed, (shall we say) and this was kind of the end of my coping abilities.  My first world self was freaking out.  I finally said to the guide and the dining staff that this was a no-go for me – I would rather not eat then endure this torture!  The fabulous staff there did not bat an eyelid but covered my plate and wine glass and escorted me back to my room to finish my meal…   I also spent some time in that room destroying all the termites that had gotten inside and were dropping wings and attempting to burrow into the mattress.  Stupid bugs.

It took two days for my shoes to fully dry.

So there you have it – the dark side of traveling in Botswana during the rainy season …

One last photo – when there was sunshine this is what I saw from my tent porch: