The trip of my life started at 4am on Saturday, September 3rd, 2011. It was still dark out, here in Cape Town, as I finished packing my canvas bag and backpack, both stuffed full of clothes, medicines, and toiletries for my ten day spring break trip.
Colleen, SarahCatherine, and I locked all of our precious belongings we were leaving at the apartment away, and headed down to Steers on Main Road. A bus picked us up, already scattered with strangers who would slowly make Team Elephant the best group of people to travel with on this trip. By the time we arrived at the airport, the bus was filled with 15 students from UCT, plus our leader, Trevor. At the airport we met three more students, these from Stellenbosch University. We all talked nervously to each other, not yet comfortable, and still having no idea of everybody’s names. We waited quietly in the airport, then loaded the plane departing for Johannesburg at 6:45am. The group was scattered around the plane, and I was alone in an aisle seat. I read some magazines and napped, and finally we were there. It was warm in Johannesburg as we stepped off the plane. Everyone gathered their bags they had checked and we headed out of the airport to be met by our cook and driver. There they were, Elroy, our 23-year-old cook, and Paul, our 38-year-old driver, holding a “Team Elephant” sign.
The two walked us to our truck, Shashe, named after one of the rivers in Africa. The next few days the team and I would continuously refer to Shashe as a bus, until it was finally engrained in our heads that “it’s not a bus, it’s a truck.” As you walk up the stairs, to your right is a wall of lockers where we all shoved our bags, I chose locker four of course, and then to the left were coach bus seats, and two booth tables with seats on both sides.
Our bagged breakfasts were there waiting for us, and Colleen, SarahCatherine, Kylee and I all grabbed one of the booths (we all knew each other before the trip because we are all in Ida Cooper’s group). Though I had hardly gotten sleep the night before, I felt awake and excited, ready to see the stereotypical “Africa”. The four of us chatted while most of the other people on our bus slept, and I began to think our group was a bit lame. Why was everyone already sleeping when our trip had just begun? The four of us started a card game ‘Kemps’, and watched the scenery change as we got farther from Jo-burg, becoming less crowded with buildings and more sparse, with red dirt and small trees with no leaves.
At last, as we blasted one of our iPods with music, the rest of the group began to come around. We started a game of ‘Go Fish’, making it a name game to get to know each other, and then moved on to ‘Go Fish’. The closer it got to lunchtime, the hotter the truck became and we were forced to open all the windows, holding onto our cards for life as the wind whipped through. By midday everyone had changed into shorts and t-shirts and were guzzling water. Yep, it was spring break, the first time I celebrated spring break and it was actually warm. We stopped for lunch at a mall on the side of the road, still in South Africa, and then continued on. A few of us pooled our allotted money together to buy a chocolate cake from the grocery store. We might be on break, but we weren’t going to miss out on our dessert.
And so the drive continued. The scenery became more barren. Red dirt, stick like trees, and random mud houses and villages popped up along the road. We made several bathroom stops throughout the day, pulling over to the side of the road and hiding in the bushes to pee. This is Africa. There are no multiple rest stops along dirt roads.
By the afternoon our music had changed to SarahCatherine’s ‘Africa Playlist’, and we had crossed the border. After having checked out of South Africa, filing through an office to get our passports stamped, we crossed over the Limpopo River, no mans land, and into Botswana. Again, we get our passports stamped and the truck was searched to ensure we weren’t brining anything hazardous to the country. The officer took a squash from our truck, as it could carry bugs unknown to Botswana, and we had already been warned by our guide to hide our oranges, as they too would also be confiscated.
Continuing on, we listened to Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’, ‘Shosholoza’, the SA National Anthem, and finally a variety of songs from The Lion King. As the bus sang along to ‘The Circle of Life’, the Africa sun began to set in front of us. This was the first tear worthy moment of the trip. Team Elephant had already grown closer. We sang. We watched the blood orange sun set below the dirt road. We were in Africa.
By 7:30pm we had reached our first campsite, Cape Itumela, in Palapye, Botswana. We had a quick instruction from Paul on how to set up our tents, and then got to work. SarahCatherine and I were tent mates and were the first ones to set up our tent and organize our bags, sleeping pads, and sleeping bags.
Once everyone was settled we made our way to the main hangout of the campsite for a buffet style dinner put on by the camp. We all stuffed our mouths with food, rice, pop, a beef dish, garlic bread, salad, coleslaw, sweet potatoes, and creamed spinach, and got drinks from the bar. We sat together, still all quite shy, and shared the basic information about ourselves; where we were from, what our major was, etc.
As everyone was finishing up their dinner, on of the campsite workers came around to our table with a straw plate. Inside, were fried Mopani worms. I cringed as she ate one in front of us, explaining how her culture eats them and how they somehow have nutrients. She pushed the plate towards us. Reluctantly, a few of us grabbed at the worms, not wanting to be rude. The worm was crunchy, chewy on the inside, and tasted like dirt. I chewed as little as possible and finally swallowed the worm. Little did I know I would be eating this delicacy again later on in the trip.
After dinner, a few of us went swimming in the camp pool, but practically froze and had to quickly get out and warm ourselves by the fire. By 10 pm, most of the group had gone to bed, exhausted from the day of driving. But Mike, Ketil, SarahCatherine, Colleen, and I chose to stay up and hangout. We played a few games of pool at the bar, and ate some smores that the site had set up for our group and another tour group, Southern Ambition, who were also staying at the camp.
By midnight we all headed back to our tents. We needed some sleep, as the next day we had to get up at 5 am!
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