BootsnAll Travel Blogs

We were sitting around the boma at Koro camp one afternoon, the day before Charlie and the Trackers were leaving, when Kate (the camp ‘maid’, I guess) ran i, saying there was a snake outside. we ran out to see a Mozambique Spitting Cobra lying inthe grass, with most of a frog sticking out of its mouth.

We watched for a few moments – while I made sure everyone knew about its ability to spit venom, but knowing that with the frog blocking its mouth we were safe…for the moment. charlie then appeared and decided that we should catch/kill it as it was in the camp area. She donned a pair of sunglasses to protect her eyes from any spitting and then using a long stick started to try and catch the snake. At this point I got on the radio to let stuart know we had a snake (he was in the bush on his way back to the house) whilst on the radio, Charlie shouted for me, so I ran back over to her, by which time christoph (Kates hubby) had joinedher and the two of them were in the process of killing the snake. HOWEVER, the snake had spit at Charlie at the same time that she had shoutedfor me – resulting in Charlie getting some of the venom in her mouth!!!! A quick radio to Stuart and Charlie started washing her mouth out whilst climbing in to the Landie the snake carcass was put in and I drove ‘patient’ and the snake up to the house, where Staurt met us, we swapped into the Cruiser and raced for the border. At the border (we always use medical facilities in south Africa) we shot thru the Botswana side without passports – explaing it was a medical emergency and then again thru the RSA side – this time showing them the snake carcass to get them to open the gate quickly.

We managed to get a puncture on the dirt road to Alldays and almost had the car slide off the hi-lift jack!, but eventually reached Alldays where we found we had another puncture! all the time we keeping charlie talking to make sure she was OK – she looked worried and pale, but otherwise seemed not to bad (I think she was complaining her lips were numb not otherwise, OK) we swapped into another car and drove another 50km before meeting up with the ambulance that had been called for us about an hour before!. charlie was loaded onto a stretcher and she and Stuart sped off to hospital, leaving me to get back to Alldays in another vehicle.

that night I had a restless evening in a lodge at Alldays – where the barmaid watched me walking around my cabin nekkid whilst looking for summat to wear before I opened the door (I hadnt realised the door had a big glass panel in it!!!) …she had a message from annelien for me and a bag of clothes and toiletries from the lady who had dropped me off at the lodge (her family own the local store)

anyhoo, next morning I got the punctures fixed and then drove all the way back to Koro to pick up the students leaving and then drove all the way back to the border, where I met up with Stuart and Charlie!!!! she was fine!..the venom had no effect on her and they just kept her in overnight for observation PHEW!!!

Back at Joburg, I met up with Martin and Mark (ACE) and got transferred back to the Botswana border at Platjan. Here I met up with Charlie again who drove me and Frazer (new student) into Tuli letting me sit on the Tracker down to the camp.

I only stayed at the camp for the first night (in the love shack) and then moved up to the house, so Stuart and I could concentrate on prepping for the Tracker course

We set up camp in Lost hills with a tent for each of the participants and then set off to Alldays to pick up Rob, Adam, Lee, Yutte(sp?) Geoff and Guido

they all turned out to be nice guys and we had a lot of fun sorting out haw to organise camp and then starting the tracking.

We did one humongous walk the one day: starting around Lost Hills after some ellies we had heard (but never caught up with) then along to the Rockies and then down to Mamatumi!!! a canny old walk THAT one!…with 42 degrees showing on my watch – in mostly shade! thankfully there was water at Mamatumi, otherwise I think Stuart may have had rebellion on his hands..and a couple of dehydrated corpses!….easy to laugh about it now tho.

Still no ellies, so we moved camp to Lekkerpoet anyhoo. This time we had some success, in finding leopard, hyena and eventually LION track, which we followed for most of the day without actually catching up with the lions…until we got back inthe hilux to leave and instantly the liones was spooted inthe spotlight beam!!!…a nice sighting as she wandered along even sitting and posing for us in the grass!

Back at the camp we were warned by Adam about the ‘flat stone‘ …….we had brought a ‘bucket’ shower which we hung from a tree in the rocks at the bottom of Lekkerpoet hill – 50m from the camp. however, Lee had gone to ‘see a man about a dog’ and had walked off into the rocks to find a suitable place – he had just crouched down to …well, you know…when he looked up and realised the shower outlet was dangling right above his head!!!! he’d only managed to find a toilet spot right underneath our shower!!!! too late to move, he did the business and then placed a flat rock over the ‘evidence’  so the rest of us had to actually stand on that rock to have ourshowers that night. YUK!!

Half way thru the course Geoff had to leave us, due to his pacemaker (that we didnt know about!) playing up!!!…bit of a shocker to me and Stuart, but  at least it happened back in Koro camp and not out in the bush

The rest ofthe course went along well with the smaller group getting on well and improving in tracking skills dramatically

Eventually we came to the assessments which took place over 3 days – amazingly both Rob and Lee got Tracker 2 level! (along with Charlie who had joined us for the assessments and also got a level 1 Trail certificate too) I managed a Level 1 Tracker, which I guess is OK, though really I had hoped for better

Well, its been 7 months since I was in Africa - I was missing it OK, I was missing it AND Stuart at Tuli had emailed me to ask if I would go over and help him run the Tracking course ... [Continue reading this entry]