THE TOUR: The guides and Harrison

I wrote this a long time ago and so I don’t remember what’s there... But I don’t want to read it again. :)

I decided to tell you something about our guides and Harrison today. :) The guides were, in general, nice people. There were three of them, I think I named them somewhere, but I don’t want to do it again, so I’ll do it this way – there were two men W and J and a woman named H. :) And don’t worry, I’ll tell you only the interesting things (i.e. things I find interesting :)).

Let’s start with W. He was the main guide, the head of the tour. He was, I think, 26, but if you were to believe all his drunken stories, you’d have to believe he actually started to work (as pretty much anything, the more violence involved, the better :)) at the age of 13... During the day, he was ok, seemed to be quite organized (concerning things that mattered to me, not his paper work :)) and an excellent cook. Seriously, what he was able to prepare in such conditions was unbelievable and everything was so good that probably everyone put on weight there. :) And he’d always come to the back of the truck and say “Ok guys, welcome to... the toilets are over there...” :) Also, he’d always say a sentence that Jill hated (she actually told me that there’s a certain type of people who say this and that you can tell if they’re going to say it just from the way they look :)) – “Is there any questions?” So that was W during the day... Then came dinner time and after he was done with dinner and with telling us the plan for the next day, he’d disappear... to the bar... He was able to spend more than 100 US$ each night on drinks. And he’d get drunk a lot, which, as people said, had several stages involving dancing, singing (sometimes racist songs), taking his clothes off and, finally, being seriously stupid, trying to hit or hurt people (in the way “hey, pretend you wanna attack me with a knife”) and saying stupid things, mostly racist... He was always talking about bar fights in Swakop, bar fights in Zimbabwe, with him being involved in each one of them, of course, telling us that if somebody is bothering us, we had to tell him, he has “his people” there... In fact, he never did anything and when we arrived at the “dangerous” places, he’d be always friends with the locals. We had actually known about him before we met him. Our friend, Marie, went on a different tour with the same company and when she got back we met her in our backpackers. And she told us about this guide with a funny name who was very good but not very professional in certain ways, such as drinking too much and sleeping with girls who are on the tour... :) That was the same guide who went on the tour with us then and Marie was right with everything :)

Then there was J, the driver (he hated when somebody called the truck “a bus” – he’d always say angrily “Do I look like a bus driver?”). He was, in my opinion, amazing. He was a very good and fast driver (so we got everywhere much earlier than the itinerary said) and he knew so much about animals. I think he was originally from Namibia or Botswana, lived on a farm and than worked for national parks for years (he was 35). And he was the funniest person ever when he got drunk. The complete opposite of W. He’d dance with his glass in his hand, but it was the funniest dance I’ve ever seen... He was kinda jumping like an antelope or something, bouncing from one wall to another... And he’d make animal noises that made you think if it was him, or a real animal. He told us so much interesting stuff about animals, took an elephant poo to the truck to show us how it burns and smells... And on the way back to Jo’burg, he stopped the truck when there were some, like three of four, elephant standing next to the road. First, we were wondering what he was doing and thinking that it’s a picture stop (but it didn’t really make sense because at that point, nobody would bother anymore to get a picture of an elephant... :))... The next thing we saw was J running towards the elephants, stopping about 2 meters behind one of them and roaring at them so loudly that we could hear it inside the truck... We thought he was crazy and so did the elephants, I guess, as they all ran away immediately. :)

And H, the rose between the thorns. :) Hm, she was there as the interpreter/translator for the Germans on the tour. I don’t speak German but it seemed to me sometimes that the English-speaking Germans had to help her from time to time. She was older than the guys and nice and friendly... But there’s nothing very special I’d remember about her. Just that she was scared of wildlife which is kinda funny considering the kind of tour we were on. :)

And Harrison, the truck. Reliable, I guess, but so noisy that I was afraid sometimes that it was going to fall apart completely. :) Harrison was, however, surprisingly comfortable. It had a cooler and a little table and also a safe called Charlie (which broke... and from which we almost lost some passports and money :) – that’s how safe it was :)) And it had all the equipment needed for cooking, plus little chairs... everything was there! Talking about cooking... and dishes... We washed our dishes after every meal, but we did so, usually, in water which was rather cold. You can’t imagine what happens after about 15 people washed their dishes dirty from sauce and stuff in the cold water... You think you can, but I had thought so too until I saw it and had to put my hands in it and then had to eat using the dishes again. :) During the second half of the tour, looking for a seemingly clean cup for morning tea was an inseparable part of breakfast (and notice that I’m saying “seemingly” – nothing was really clean :)). However... who cared? We slept in tents full of sand, lived wearing clothes full of sand, Harrison was always full of send, sometimes so much that you couldn’t see almost :)... dirty dishes? You really develop immunity to all the possible viruses that could live there. :) I liked Harrison, although it torn Jirka’s pants and broke an annoying German woman’s head (or was it J’s driving? :))... It’s funny how one develops a personal relationship with a car/truck when the car/truck has a name. :) (All the trucks belonging to this company have a name... And all are named after a dead rockstar.)