WHEN we got back to camp, we found that we had been raided by vervet monkeys. Their main target had been our big sack of oranges, but they had also nibbled at one or two onions.
The fact that they had spat out the onions without finishing them, led us to believe that vervet monkeys didn’t like onions. We were wrong. Next day they pinched all our onions.
By now the camp had filled up and the news of our deep freeze had reached its furthest extremities. We had processions of visitors, bearing gifts of warm beer and gratefully accepting the hospitality of our cold ones. Even the couriers from the commercial safaris sneaked away from their clients from time to time, for a cold slurp under the shade of our awning.
As far as wildlife was concerned, the highlight of this trip to Savuti was one of our visits to the Hippo Pool. Unlike most other game reserves’ hippo pools, this one was always teeming with hippo. ‘Teeming’ is perhaps the wrong word, because it infers a certain amount of movement and these hippo were generally pretty static. We pulled in next to a vehicle belonging to the best of the safari companies and Corrie began to film.
The camera was already rolling when the altercation started. We all dived for our cameras, but we were too late. Corrie was the only one who got the whole sequence of hippo fighting in the water. The professional courier’s only comment was: “You jammy bastard!”
From Savuti onwards, we would be breaking new ground. Although we had visited the northern part of the Chobe National Park before, we had not approached it from this direction and we had been warned by several people that this was one of the worst stretches of road in the whole country.
Over dinner on our last night in the camp, Bruce suggested that, instead of using the main tourist route, which headed north-east to Ngoma, we should try the longer, and lesser-used route round the south-east of the park. I was not too happy about going off the beaten track with our radiator cap still stuck together with Pratleys, but we decided to risk it.
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