Birthdays

Michael -Alternate Thursdays 

The way you think about birthdays depends on your age. Kids love birthdays. Parties, presents, the whole work. As they grow up they look forward to the new freedoms each year brings - being allowed to drive, to drink alcohol, to vote...well maybe not so much to vote. Then, as adults, they are 30, 40, and suddenly the enthusiasm tends to flatten out. They become fortyish, mid forties, around fifty. But sixty is a big one, heralding retirement in the future. That's something to look forward to. Maybe. 

But after the three score years and ten, things become a bit iffy. One tends to talk about one's next birthday in the future as an achievement and not one that is guaranteed. My last trip to Botswana with my partner was a belated celebration of one of her birthdays. (See? No details.) Now I've decided to celebrate my eightieth birthday with another trip to Botswana - a tour of the Chobe Game Reserve with our old friend and Chobe expert Peter Comley. Peter runs a safari tour business and has squeezed us into his busy schedule for July. We can't wait.

However, there is a small problem. My birthday isn't in July, and I'm not turning eighty for a few years yet. So how does that work? you ask. The answer is FOMO. Why put off a perfectly good eightieth birthday treat for several years when I may not get to eighty at all?  So July it is.

By way of justification for this nonsense, here are some scenes and pictures from that last Botswana trip in the Chobe area.

Michael and Peter enjoying bush time

The one disadvantage of living on the Cape south coast is that it’s a long way to the places we love in the bush and from Botswana. Our first destination was Kazungula and that's about 1,400 miles by road, but we took it easy stopping at in Lobatse and doing some research at Otse on the way up. (Otse features in our new Kubu mystery.) Kazungula has busy border posts with both Zambia and Zimbabwe, and is situated close to the point where the four countries meet—Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. (The actual point is somewhere in the middle of the Zambezi river.) More important, it’s the home of our great friend Peter Comley. He, and his late wife Salome, have been tremendously helpful over the years with local information for our books and with suggesting venues for the next murder. Peter is also the author of a number of guides to the wildlife of Botswana and Namibia, and he has written an autobiographical book about his early years in Botswana focused around his amazing dog, Django. If you want a moving and delightfully written view of what Botswana used to be like in the old days, get hold of a copy of Django. (It will have to be an ebook, though.)

Elephants at Chobe

Apart from the delightful time with Peter, we had the opportunity to stay at his brand new camp in the Chobe Forest Reserve. This is definitely my idea of camping! And since work on the swimming pool, for example, was incomplete, we had the place to ourselves—with elephants, buck, and birds joining us at the waterhole from time to time. One early morning there was an altercation between some lions and a pack of hyenas over a kill. We couldn't see it, but we certainly heard it!

It was a wonderful base to explore the Chobe national park and the stunning Victoria Falls.

I think someone invented the word "glamping" for this sort of tent!

The case rests

Bath or shower? Hot and cold running water, of course

Or just relax ...

... overlooking the waterhole

Fortunately the only croc who made it onto the viewing deck

Can't wait to go back!