WE left at the crack of dawn next morning. The other party had a cleaned-out fuel pump and we had a radiator cap stuck together with Pratley putty.
Neither vehicle had the slightest difficulty in negotiating the sand ridge and we made good time up the dusty track to Savuti.
After setting up the awning to give us some shade, our first priority was a shower. We had only one bar of soap handy and I couldn’t remember quite where I had put the others.
To save time, I gave Corrie the plastic box containing the soap, while Karen and I took the shampoo. We had just covered ourselves from head to foot in green apple froth, when there was a knock at the window of the women’s shower.
It was Corrie, complaining that he wasn’t finding too easy to wash with the soap I had given him, for the simple reason that it wasn’t soap and he didn’t think that rancid butter was a very good substitute.
I later found the soap, in an identical plastic box, in the deep freeze.
The camp was practically deserted. There were only three parties in residence – the four young men with whom we had travelled up, ourselves and one other couple. Even so, we had a lot of visitors that afternoon. Only one of them was two-legged. The rest were elephants.
I was a bit nervous of them at first because, only a week earlier, an elephant had had to be shot, for trampling three tents and overturning a Land Rover.
These, however, took very little notice of us and I soon got used to having them around.
But I did wake Corrie from his post-prandial snooze, when one particularly large specimen seemed to be casting covetous glances at our patch of shade. I really didn’t fancy sharing our awning.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like the South Coast Herald’s Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
For news straight to your phone, add us on BBM 58F3D7A7 or WhatsApp 082 421 6033
