Imagine getting home from a wilderness trail in deepest
Africa with nobody for hundreds of kms around,
And instantly throwing every waking moment into the
birthing of a new and glorious retail space.
Imagine having the privilege of working with a young woman
who has a vision and an eye for selecting unique and
beautiful local stock, so that this venture can be
a proudly South African one.
Imagine how much fun (and I must admit, at times physically
hard work) we have had creating a new ‘baby’ for
the people of Cape Town, so that their gifts are easily
sourced and wrapped without the hassle of the dreaded mall.
Imagine having a spot on the planet where my own creative
musings can be displayed and possibly bought,
where I can display a mad Hatter’s tea party
and make swings and birds nests, How lucky am I?
Imagine, on Belvedere at Belvedere square is where
you can find a wonderful space to see all the new
and trending gifts for everyone…babe to great grandparent.
What a fabulous experience this has been, what encouragement
we have received,
Thank you Robyn.
We lost Reggie.
On the second day on the wilderness trail,
with not another human for a radius of 150 kms,
with no GPS and no cell phone network, we lost our human compass.
After an evening of campfire stories, advise and tracking lessons,
(not to mention tin mugs of Cabernet Sauvignon, melting chocolate
and crunchy macadamia nuts) a good night’s sleep
and an early morning Kgalagadi-lion-in-the-camp
wake up call,
(the adrenal alarm clock leap into action,)
we were on track for another day of adventure.
Reg, with the only detailed map and loads of past experience
went ahead of us in his zippy little Jeep,
while we rumbled behind in the trusty Isuzu,
stopping from time time to bird watch or animal spot.
A day in the wilds of Africa.
Perfect.
We had been well prepared as to how to find fresh tracks
of all descriptions thank goodness and  after a longer than usual stop
for my first ever sighting of a “choir” of meercats-
(so sweet I just couldn’t be torn away,) we needed the skills. We had lost Reg.
We arrived at a fork in the narrow winding and sandy road,
( the width of all tracks only supports 1 vehicle,
hence it is a continuous one way trail)
But at this intersection there is no little Jeep in sight.
What to do?
We detected tracks and forked right…One thing about this
kind of tracking is that you are either right or wrong,
no 50% pass rate in this test.
Pressing on, we travelled up and down dunes etched with grasses
thorn trees, deep furrows in the pathways and dangerous roots
that can slash your tyres causing mayhem.
I could not even imagine changing shredded rubber
in big predator country.
After about 20 minutes and no sign of a regrouping, which
had become so much a part of the past days we started to worry
that we had made a bad call, the longer we thought about it the
more convinced we became, until finally the big decision to turn back
was made, not an easy task in the deep and narrow grooves that were
our track but we managed eventually and then…..
No more searching for flora and fauna, I held with suction pad hands
as we flew up and down dunes, left, right, thump, bump, back along
the already travelled winding blind bends, in a race
to find our lost comrade.
(or were we the lost ones?)
At each rise we searched for the little white Jeep
but the second flurry of summer grasses were just too high
and the track too deeply buried.
Suddenly, as we were tackling yet another rise on a blind corner
POW!
There he was, the only 2 vehicles on this wilderness trail
met at pace and metal merged with metal!
Fortunately we were all fine, it was like watching the inevitable unfolding
before our eyes, soft sand, deep tracks and nowhere to go.
Our car suffered most, her bonnet had to be roped shut
for the rest of the trip, Reggie lost some glass,
generally though, other than feeling very sheepish
we got off free of any major problem.
Just the realization that we had failed ‘Tracking 101’
and the call for more camp fire lessons beckoned.
Just like fisherman’s stories, campfire tales are like cordial,
a small amount of concentrate and and a lot of filler.
(Red wine was our filler of choice).
The red, always at the ready!
So … there we were, our first night on the wilderness trail
and Reggie, the Survivor of 7 previous wilderness trails and
with many years of stories under his belt,
is keeping John and me spell-bound with stories of free-range Lion,
Hyena and Jackal invading various camp sites on countless occasions.
Jackal, camp anions.
One incident that made me more wide-eyed that Hotel Paradiso
was one night a few years ago on a previous trip,
when he woke up to feel a lion digging under his tent.
The Lion, according to Reg, was looking for warmth
and had found it, centimeters away from the pop-up tent.
Exciting…
(I don’t think so)
True story.
Reg called to his buddy in the other tent for back-up,
but there was no response,
just a lot of snoring.
In desperation and as per their camp rules, he leapt into his car
(parked with the door at arms reach away from the tent zip,)
and chased the lion and his wives out of the camp.
Always sleep with the car door a meter away.Even in daylight!
So, with that story in mind, on our first “wilderness” night,
we took our head torches (thank you Christine and Gavin),
and bolted for the bushes for a late night P and teeth clean,
then plunged gratefully into our paper thin but pristine
tent, serenaded only by Jackal in the far distance.
There is little that beats the quiet of a bush night,
the dazzle of the millions of stars and the build up of storm cloud.
Sunset.
Thank goodness we kept our fly sheet on, as fortune
smiled on the dry bush and that night we had just enough rain
to wash away the dust and lay a new and fresh ‘canvas’ in the sand.
Rain on our tent.
All the tracks from previous nightly visitors disappeared
and the pre-storm heat was relieved.
At 5 a.m. the next morning it happened.
The most unmistakable and fear inducing sound blasted me
into wakefulness, it shattered the silence and had me quivering
in my sleeping bag.
Oh @#$% @#$%^^& I think, There is a lion in Reggie’s tent,
Maybe it has eaten him already, oh lordy lord…what to do?
Wake John up…
(he had done all the driving for 3 days, no lion
was going to disturb his sleep, also he is deaf in one ear
which is very helpful in big predator country!)
Suddenly I heard another start-up and roar, Reg had done the leap
and was escorting Simba out of the camp area, Jeep style
wearing his protective Simba t-shirt, and armed with his catty.
Our very own David and Goliath situation.
We too quickly got into our vehicle, but sadly missed the action,
the Kalahari lion had been “moved on” and all that was left were
virgin tracks in the sand around the tents, tracks of lion,
hyena, giant millipede and aardvark.
Fresh as they come.
And a slightly depleted supply of adrenalin.
I promise I will always listen to fisherman’s stories
and campfire tales in a different light.
After our extraordinary experience at ‘Hotel Paradiso’
John and I left the town without a backwards glance,
(I didn’t dare to have a last look, who knows what other
scary sights we might have overlooked!)
Which window would you choose?
We were headed for the cleanest and most simplistic
accommodation I have ever enjoyed before, red sand,
a tree or maybe two, a circle of stones to build our own cooking
and safety facilities, no fences, no defenses.
Our very own Paradiso, Botswana Wild Style.
But let me not get ahead of myself!
We drove to Kuruman, a small town in the Northern Cape
where we were meeting up with Reggie, the most fearless person
I have ever spent any time with.
I discovered at this point that we were traveling in the worlds
largest sand mass, and the vegetation and colours supported
this fully. Reds, Oranges, Golds…such beauty.
Camping for the first night of our trip
was a totally fabulous experience at ‘Red Sands’,
a reserve run by very ordered and solid Germans.
Clean took on a new meaning
and suddenly the adventure became do-able…
until at team talk-time (The team ‘Simba” T shirts
were handed out and do’s and don’ts discussed.)
Reggie was in charge as this was his 7th trip into the wilderness
and therefore knew what to expect…possibly.
But when we were told that the time had come
to collect  small round pebbles and were
handed our ‘security system,’
a catapult and and a cloth bank bag for the pebbles,
The penny dropped.
Wild, very wild camping.
We entered Botswana through a little know and seldom used border post,
McCarthy’s rest a new and lonely sentry post with a great welcoming team,
(I almost mention the Gupta wedding guests but think I’d better not!)
and began the most extraordinary drive, on a road which is referred to as
‘a cutting’, a huge swathe of sand with many vehicle tracks
but not another traveller in sight. 50 kms of thick sand…in 90 minutes,
a baptism by sand!
Fortunately Reggie likes to drive fast, as we were traveling behind him
and we squeaked into the camp gates 5 minutes before the gates closed.
Phew!
Rushing to set up camp in Mabuasahube before sunset, we passed a
Leopard, a leopard! It was just sitting chilling, my first ever sighting
but no time to stay..
Setting up camp in the dark is the first don’t on the list.
And so it is in the natural world, you never know what might happen, or who might come to visit?
Our new neighbours,
a ground squirrel, a jackal and a brown hyena, not to mention a cheeky hornbill!
With the anticipation of a 2 night stop after 3 full days on the
road and with our camp fire blazing, we settled down
with a Kgalagadi sunset and a glass of good red.
To life! To a new day and to another adventure filled day.
Imagine getting home from a wilderness trail in deepest
anspired 