VaP route to Okavango: nine friends travel to Africa

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A dome of smoke enveloped us, spitting water mercilessly. A mass of liquid life tumbling off a cliff. And there we were, the group of travelers, feeling that the world is a giant and we are tiny. It was almost six in the afternoon and Luigina, Francesca, Monica, Luis, Moncho, Ramon, Victor, Jose and me (Xavier) we tried to guess that the sun was setting behind us at Victoria Falls while the earth roared and the air trembled under a cloud of smoke through which no light passed.

The earth roared and the air trembled under a cloud of smoke

The next morning our travelers decided to get on a helicopter and review that work from above.. From there the water is not palpable, dodges in amazement from a sky that flees from so much fierceness. In April the waterfall carries more water than I ever imagined in my previous visits. In the afternoon it was a boat cruising the Zambezi River, to my liking the river that drags the word Africa the most, from which we contemplate a sunset that was drenched in some wine. Those days of the Victoria were time to try crocodile, Get to know tapas and flamenco bars in the African version and have a dinner in a camping trip where, sheltered by some embers and some good music, I think we all became friends without knowing it..

And so we went to Botswana, the country with rules and without people, where kindness is not for sale. We arrived at Chobe Park and got on a boat from which the shore is wild. That day it seemed that the animals were ordered to show themselves and went down the mountainside in a rigorous order of sizes and species. Boat, while, he dodged a few dozen hippos that float alive on the water and we listened with laughter and some tenderness to Luiggina's voice and his Italian accent that broke the silence with a "beautiful crocodile". We finally took out our tents and José made a chicken barbecue so good that he sent us to sleep with the pain of having to brush our teeth.

That day it seemed that the animals were ordered to show themselves

In the morning we toured the park in our cars. So we check again that African parks have two months in which they explode with beauty: April and May. It is just when the rains end and the slopes are covered with yellow, Violets and greens and the waters are blue like the wind of the oceans. We didn't see many animals, maybe the best were the large groups of giraffes, and we dedicate ourselves to admire the beautiful spectacle of the horizon. That night we had booked a dinner on a boat which confirmed two things: that the group was great (forgive) and that a sky lit with stars and a glass of wine are enough to make anyone happy.

We left Chobe and went to Maun, to the Okavango, for a track not suitable for quiet minds. The Chobe Sur is a road of sand and potholes that leaves a thick vegetation on the sides. A nine-hour safari through absolute nothingness. We passed a van of American religious men with hippy pretenses that we pulled out of the sand and towed for a while. Then, when we had to drop them, we left with the feeling that that car would never leave there. The roads of Africa are not for everyone, wrinkles are not understood in the lines of a map.

After working 35 years in the bank decided to send to hell so much ink

Finally, after a marathon car day, we changed the program and decided to give our travelers Magotho. It is a small camp with en-suite tents that rests next to a river. We dined and drank around a bonfire, but it was when dawn came when we discovered that the jungle sheltered us and that one could be there all our lives contemplating the green branches, zebras and antelopes. The world there was wild and warm as the person in charge of that camp explained to us, a South African who after working 35 years in the bank he decided to send to hell so much ink and move four years ago there to listen to the world crack.

We left Magotho and a track where elephants crossed at the “zebra crossings” took us to Maun, capital of a river, the Okavango, that natural rarity of the planet of being the only flow that the sea does not swallow, the desert swallows it. There our travelers got on a plane and contemplated the beauty of the Okavango in high definition, the one that gives doing it from the clouds.

Then, the next day, it was in the mokoros (boats) in which we furrow the river. We entered between papyri and water lilies in a world for which we could not fit. Everything is so wild that one has the sensation of entering a labyrinth of roots that engulfs you. We ate on an island and went on a walking safari looking for animals under a punishing sun and listening to the stories of Luis who recorded videos in selfie mode as delusional and imaginative as the eternal smile of this Galician who always gives others a free laugh.

Smelled like wild childbirth, a wind storm

From Okavango we went to Nxai Pan. And there we find a gift. That park is Africa in capital letters. The earth was wet from the rain that chased us. Smelled like wild childbirth, a wind storm. We crossed the bread (dried lakes) where the car slid and danced in the mud. We arrived at some mythical baobabs that formed a wooden sculpture and that ancient travelers used as a reference so as not to get lost when there were no roads in Africa.

That day we were camping wild, we pitched our tents in an area without defenses, surrounded by animals that watched us from the undergrowth or that perhaps were by our side. The best of the trip (majority opinion) for having the feeling of sleeping in the middle of the same jungle. The camp toilets were surrounded by concrete protection and spikes, we were just surrounded by them.

We were only surrounded by them

We went out on safari and we were lucky that you can or can't have on safari. We found just over a kilometer from our tents two lionesses with five cubs who gave us a traditional piece from the savannah difficult to see. It was brutal to follow and observe them with their young hanging in their jaws. Then there were herds of ostriches, some springbook, giraffes and the mad dash of two wildebeest. There was a sunset and a sunrise that climbed through the sky and an unforgettable dinner full of great moments that ended with José alone before the bonfire and the visit of two hyenas.

We left Nxai Pan happy and screwed that we didn't leave to enter again. But we were heading for another unexpected gift. Llegamos a Elephant Sands, a camp in which we set up our tents surrounded by Afrikaner campers and in which we saw a pond in front of the restaurant. We were finishing our dinner when Luiggina warned us that something big, fat and long-nosed he was hanging around our house. It was a herd of elephants that came there to drink. And then those sublime moments that one can ever live: the elephants drank within five meters of us, they threatened, they watched us, they barred, they drank and played. There, in the middle of a closed night, as if we could be part of their world. We fell silent and stared. No more was needed.

The elephants drank within five meters of us

And so the end came. He did it by getting some new aptitude out of our friends. Ramón was sick, and spent six hours lying in the back of my car without saying a word of complaint, not even a question. We changed the program for him and went to Victoria Falls after crossing the Hwange Park in Zimbabwe. Instead of camping we went to a hotel that is next to the Zambezi. It couldn't have a better ending. A long table served us to say goodbye to all between anecdotes and memories in the form of rankings that served us to dust off the memory. It was eleven days and it seemed like a hundred.

There the journey of nine friends ended. We must be very lucky, always on expeditions VAP we said goodbye with hugs sincere. Then, when they go we were stunned and in return you look back thinking that this car is not mine. Somehow it costs continue traveling without them, without us.

Thanks, thank you very much (y thanks a lot), in Luiggina, Francesca, Monica, Ramon, Moncho and Luis.

 

 

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Comments (2)

  • Rosa

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    Of course it will also have been an unforgettable trip for everyone. What is it about VaP that makes these trips so special? A part is provided by travelers, a large part is due to its organizers.

    Answer

  • Monica

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    De vuelta a casa echando de menos a nuestros amigos » africanos»

    Answer

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