Fast dip
We left Tsitsikamma, which means ”Place of Many Waters”, and drove eastward to Jeffries Bay for a bit of civilization (i.e. shopping in one of the many brand factory outlets here – Jeffries Bay is a paradise for surfers and thus brands like Billabong, Quicksilver and Jeep have big shops here).
I found nothing I fell for in the Billabong shop, where most of us shopped around, so I walked over to Quicksilver, Rip Curl and Jeep. Nope, nada, nothing worked for me.
So I went back to the truck, found Thabani who opened the locked door for me so I could quickly change into swimwear (I had 20 minutes before we were to supposed to be back on the road again) and I was the only person in the group taking a dip in the beautiful water (which may have been 18-20 degrees, the sun had chosen to hide but it was still around 25-28 degrees in the air so it was a lovely swim!).
Safari! Safari! Safari!
We drove on and stopped at a shopping mall before we reached Addo, we needed new ice for the cooler box where we kept our water, beer, cider and other drinks. The cooler box belong to the truck, it is perhaps 100 liters, and we took turns to buy about 10 liters of ice every day to keep it cold. A tip – bring a marker as many on tour will be buying the same brands of beer, water etc, so things can get mixed up. We had no problem with it, but you never know what kind of fellow travellers you end up with so it can be a good idea to label your stuff.
When we arrived at Addo, we put up our tents and then went straight out on a safari!
Addo Elephant National Park is located about 60 km north of Port Elizabeth and is not as large as Kruger National Park in the north, but it is known to have the largest stock of elephants in a single park and also for it’s numerous kudus. It was kudus all over the place, lots of them! There are Big 5 here (elephant, buffalo, rhino, lion and leopard) but of these, we saw only elephants today.
By the way, you know what a confused owl say?
Ku-du. Ku-du.
Thanks for that one, Amarins!
Watering hole …?
In the evening, after dinner when Godfree had prepared an amazing stew and also added pap to us (pap is a staple food in Africa, it is a very solid porridge of polenta and you can shape it into small ”scoops” to eat with, kind of like the arabic bread. We ate with our hands and it felt liberating to leave the knife and fork of civilization), after dinner we had a beer and I managed to get Amarins to massage me a bit, felt so stiff… so I now owe her one in return.
Then we went to the floodlit water hole to see if something happened there. With watering hole I mean a watering hole for animals, not a bar this time.
There were little birds down at the water hole, so my attention shifted to the whole amazing night sky, which was splendid, although the moon was getting full.
Since it was Han’s and Marja’s last evening with us – they would get off in Port Elizabeth to stay with friends – we thought we’d hang out a bit in the water hole for the people. Yes, I mean the bar.
But it was closed! 21:00! OMG! 21:00! Disaster!
But … come on. We are Nomad(s) in South Africa and we have four Dutchmen with us and a Boer. There is a saying – ’n Boer Maak’ n plan – a Boer makes a plan, that everything can be solved.
So we made a bar outside my tent – a bench, a bottle of whiskey, wine and beer from the cooler box. In the tree branch above us we hanged a flashlight and ta-da! We got a bar, people!
As night fell, people dropped off until it was me, Amarins, Roland, Han and Marja left, as the beer settled in us our talks became deeper. We talked mostly about relationships.
When Han and Marja went to bed around midnight, we who stayed had a nice visit – a porcupine who probably tried to find its way home but we were in its path. It was about two feet high (including the thorns that is) and we followed the poor fellow with the flashlights at the ready. It ran away, but returned later. But we were still in the way…
We closed the ”bar” late and after a last look at the beautiful starfilleds sky, I had a good nights sleep to the sounds of the bush – crickets and some monkey who could not sleep…