FRIDAY morning saw us back in Serondella camp, a couple of hundred rand poorer.
We expected the monkeys to have had a field day in our absence, but thanks to the intervention of other campers, we had lost very little.
While this was one worry off our minds, the problem of the freezer was now acute.
It had not been possible to plug into the mains at Kasane, and everything had now been defrosting steadily for three days.
We had two stiff beers apiece before daring to open the lid. Blood had leaked from the meat packets all over everything and most of the beer cans were liberally coated with molten butter.
A packet of bacon all but walked away on its own and the overall smell called for another can of Dutch courage.
Strangely enough there was very little damage. Once the blood and rancid butter had been washed off everything, the funny smell disappeared and, when I opened a packet of steak, I found there was nothing wrong with it. Except of course, that it was completely defrosted and required either currying or refreezing immediately. If the men couldn’t get the freezer to work, we were going to be eating curry for the rest of the holiday.
I never did find out exactly what they did to the deep freeze. By the time they had finished with it, it looked like something out of a science fiction nightmare.
Bits of plastic piping bypassed other bits of plastic piping. The ignition button was held down with a G-clamp and the whole creation was tacked together with epoxy resin glue. All that mattered was that it worked and we were spared the curry for a little longer.
By now we were realising just how hard our neighbours must have worked to save our camp from the monkeys. At the first sign of food, the pesky little things were everywhere and there seemed to be no way of getting rid of them. One got trapped inside a car and was driven 10km out into the bush before being released, but I don’t suppose it deterred him any more than other methods deterred his relatives.
The most effective weapon seemed to be a water pistol, but I had forbidden Karen from bringing hers with her.
I tried shying a baked bean can at one. He caught it, shinned up a tree, and dropped it on my head. Only once did I see one looking in the least bit uncomfortable. He had leaped into the frying pan to steal a piece of bread and found it rather hot. He shot up a tree and sat for half and hour, whimpering and stroking his burned foot.
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