#day:14

[drachedraws]

Blinking pixel Roman.

[triblondon]

Day 14

The morning is cloudy and cold as we gather in the lounge at 5:30am. Our second drive is a 'big five' drive, which means visiting a neighboring reserve, the 15,000 hectare Thornybush Private Reserve. The extra size (it's 32 times bigger than Gualaguala) means they have space for all the big five animals (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard), but in such a massive space they can sometimes be difficult to find.

Our Thornybush land rover and guide pick us up from Gualaguala at 6am. The drive lasts about 3 hours, and we see four out of five - no leopard, which is the most difficult to find. Whenever we find the game, there are always other vehicles there as well, so the reserve seems busy, but well managed. We stop briefly for some tea, and then head back to Gualaguala.

We pull into Gualaguala at about 9am, where the other game drive is already back. Breakfast is at 9:30 in the treehouse. It consists of cereal with milk, then scrambled eggs, bacon and grilled tomatoes, then a fruit salad, followed by toast, then a cheeseboard and finally chocolate muffins. We spend a few hours reading in the tent, and at about 12:40 we go on the 'self-guided walk' shown in the Gualaguala guest handbook. It's an hour-long walk around a series of numbered trees, with a guide explaining what each tree is and what it's useful for. Unfortunately after about half an hour we have seen no numbered trees, and are starting to get the impression that we're on the wrong path. Then the path opens out and there are paths leading off everywhere. Nick decides to adopt the "let's try this way" approach to navigation. I'm consoled by the thought that this is only a 500 hectare reserve, and it has no predators in it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have snakes, biting insects and ants though.

We get hopelessly lost. We see some game in the distance - a herd of wilderbeast and some impala. Eventually we find a road, and disagree on which direction to take to get to the lodge. Finally, the lodge is found, having located zero out of twenty eight numbered trees. An incomplete success.

We've got an hour before high tea, so to the bewilderment of the South Africans, we jump in the pool. It is still just as 'refreshing' as it was yesterday.

The afternoon game drive, after a high tea of nut cake and fruit, is another 'big five' drive. This time we're with a group of dutch who seem to be avid birdwatchers, and we have to stop incessantly to take photos of and wonder over tiny birds that we can barely see. We do eventually see some buffalo and black and white rhino, but no elephant or lions.

We arrive for pre-dinner drinks to meet several new guests, including a mother and daughter from the UK, who are at the start of a garden route holiday ending in Cape Town in a couple of weeks. Dinner is fish with creamed brocolli and stir fry vegetables, followed by bread and butter pudding, and is excellent.

[triblondon]

Day 14

In the morning, when it finally arrived, I gingerly dressed in the wet clothes that had failed to dry overnight. I did have a dry shirt, so I wore that, but I was still feeling pretty wet from the waist down.

Everything was piled back into the boat, once we'd bailed the water out of it, and we zoomed back to camp, or ground zero, as it should probably now be known. Even from a distance, it was obvious that there was a hole in the forest. In the cold light of the morning, everything seemed safe and calm, but it was a complete mess; branches and lumps of tree everywhere.

We surveyed the damage. Both tents had collapsed, and mine had rolled over, apparently in both cases due to the rush of air displaced by the falling tree. Small debris littered the camp. One of the hammocks had been hit by a falling branch. It wasn't obvious from camp which trees had fallen, but all things considered, we'd been lucky.

I didn't realise how lucky until Alex and I tried to retrace the walk we'd done on the morning of the previous day, down past the kapok, the arched trunks, and on to the waterfall.

The path was different, to say the least. We were diverted off the track to go over and round obstacles that weren't there the day before, and at one point I got to a trunk that was lying intact across the path. It came up to my thighs, a fairly substantial piece of timber.

"Hey, Alex - is this the one that fell?" "Nope, that was there yesterday. This, is the one that fell"

Notice the dramatic pause there. I moved up to join him and arrived at the kapok, or at least the remains of it. It had snapped, just above the buttresses, ten feet or so above ground level, and the trunk, lying on its side, was shoulder height. It had taken down about five other trees, and had decapitated another half dozen.

I tried to gauge how much the tree weighed, and in the end concluded that quite simply if it had landed within ten feet of the tent, I would probably have been dead. If it had landed on the tent, not only would I have definitely been dead, but probably also no longer in one piece. We were saved only by the angle at which it fell. It certainly had the height to reach camp if it had fallen in a slightly different direction.

Sobering stuff. Alex looked around and started speculating about the fate of the other trees.

"At least ten will come down over the next few days. The roots will have been affected. That one, for instance…"

CRACK!

OK, it didn't happen with quite that degree of comic timing, but no more than 30 seconds after Alex pointed at a particular silvery grey tree nearby, it gave a out a loud crack and leaned over by five or so degrees. Haji was shouting at us again, and this all had distinct echoes of last night. We retreated to the camp area, and watched as the silver tree gave one last shudder and came clattering down.

No more trees fell while we were at the campsite and we left after taking a few victory photos of ourselves. This campsite would not be used by Haji again - he'd have to find a new one.

We spent the rest of the morning on a two hour jungle hike, on the other side of the lake. The ground was sodden underfoot, and leeches were out in force. I grabbed a piece of broken bamboo from the ground and every few minutes would swat them off my boots as they tried to climb up my legs. Alex, hard man that he is (some might simply say stupid) was wearing sandals, and lagged behind as he fought a continuous losing battle against the bloodsuckers.

We made a round trip to the largest flower in the world. Except it wasn't in bloom, so it was simply a very large bud, but I'm sure it's lovely. On the boat I managed to successfully kill a leech, which is not easy. You see, stamping on them with a hiking boot bearing your full weight normally has no effect. They're just infuriatingly squigy. But if one happens to have just finished a meal, they're prone to explode if you whack them. Very satisfying.

Back at the resort, a quick lunch preceded a very well earned shower. I then set about doing nothing more adventurous than reading a book for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, we dined on fish curry, and then I went back to the room, to read my book for a few hours before bed. I was sat on the balcony of my room, and glanced up to see that there were about a dozen small lizards congregated around the lights, where the mosquitoes were being efficiently devoured. I was marvelling at their ability to stick upside-down to the roof when one fell on my head. It landed on the floor, froze for a few seconds, and then ran straight back up the wall.

location:Malaysian Jungle

summary:In which the travellers bear witness to a scene of devastation, and ward off swarms of predatory creatures

_wp_old_slug:14

trip:sea04

day:14

[triblondon]

Day 14

It was a hot night, but the thunderstorm cleared the mosquitoes.  Rob came to wake me up but it wasn't necessary.

We left Lake Metz at about 10, bound for Moscow.  We're still on the main highway linking Moscow and Saint Petersburg.  After about an hour we get stopped by the police.  Rob and I are getting used to this by now but for the others it's all quite exciting.  Strangely though, having stopped us the police promptly vanish, leaving Dimitri searching high and low for someone to fine him.  In the end he gave up and we drove on.

Having crossed two state borders, we arrived in Moscow at 2.45 PM.  We checked into the same hotel where Rob and I had met Sasha two weeks ago.  This time we were on the seventh floor.  The hotel has two sets of lifts: one for even numbered floors, and one for odd numbered floors.  Last time we'd been on the second floor and the lift had been dodgy.  Now we discovered that the other lift was even dodgier - not only did it seem to randomly accelerate and decelerate, but it actually scraped the shaft wall.

Lunch at the hotel at 3.00 PM.  Rob had discovered that he left his bankcard in a cash point in Novgorod, so he went to find a telephone to phone his bank.  The afternoon was spent mostly wandering around Moscow.

We met for dinner in a basement restaurant behind the GUM.  Incidentally the GUM, Russian for "state universal store", is a common name for the main department store in many cities in Russia, but the most famous example is the one facing red square in Moscow.  During the Soviet era, the GUM was one of the few stores not plagued by shortages of consumer goods, and very long queues often extended across red square.  Now the GUM is fully privatized and features mostly international luxury brands.

Over dinner Mike tells us one of the funniest anecdotes I've heard in ages, but I'd ruin it in the retelling so you'll just have to live with the suspense.

location:Lake Metz / Moscow

summary:Stopped by police (again), dodgy lifts, GUM

trip:russia03

day:14

[triblondon]

Day 14

I woke up to find that the Italian hikers were dressed and packing. I checked the time and decided that 7am was too early for someone of my trekking experience to be getting up, so I dozed until eight, when the last of them left the room, casting an amused glance in my direction.An hour later the other guests were only just ready to check out when I arrived to do the same. I let them go in front, and regretted it. It started cordially enough, but soon arms were flailing and much fast and loud Italian was being exchanged. Eventually they left, and I presented myself to the now very worked up lodge owner to settle my bill. I was then stuck with the same problem the others had had, which was that the lodge's credit card machine had stopped working. This was quite a problem, because I had no cash and the nearest cash point (ATM) was about 10 km away, and a long way down the mountain. It wasn't a problem though. The owner wrote down her address and asked me to send a cheque. She didn't even seem too bothered that it would be a couple of weeks.

The great thing about this place, I reflected, was peoples' wiliness to trust and help each other. You certainly didn't see this sort of thing in the large cities, and not even in Cortina - you have to go right out in the sticks to find people who can adapt to this sort of unexpected problem.

Leaving the lodge, I walked out into a perfect crystal-clear alpine morning. From the veranda of the lodge the peaks of nearby mountains were lit up by the low sun, and a thin blanket of low cloud hugged the valley. The clouds seemed close enough to touch.

I started picking my way down the mountain. Once again the route was actually a piste, though without snow obviously. Gradually trees began to appear, and once I passed the bottom of the lower chairlift, the slopes became thickly wooded. I spent the rest of the morning walking back to Cortina, a trip of about 12km.

Just before reaching the outskirts of Cortina, I emerged from the trees, and found the roads surprisingly busy. Not with commuters or holidaymakers though - these roads were the playground of the super-rich. Lotuses, Jaguars and lots of motorbikes shot past with no regard for the speed limits, and made sharp turns frighteningly close to the sheer edge. Just after I crossed the road, two Lotus Elises came speeding round the corner side by side, apparently racing.

I lazed around in the afternoon, feeling slightly battered and bruised, but triumphant nonetheless. I spent three hours in a street café, watching the world go by, had two very expensive orange juices, spent 15 very expensive minutes on the internet and declined a tempting (but of course very expensive) trip up the mountain on the other side of Cortina.

I concluded that I'd be lucky to leave Cortina with any money at all. When I got to the bus station for the one-hour trip back to Calalzo, the ticket office was closed. In fact, now I came to think about it, everything was closed. I actually found myself surprised that there were still places that completely shut down on Sundays. Anyway, this left me with no way to buy a ticket. On the bus the driver didn't speak English, but at least I had a go.

"Calalzo?" "Si"

That was it. No "that'll be €4.50 plus a fifth of your house and your first born child", or some equally extortionate price, just "Si". I gave up and sat down, not wanting to argue with a free bus trip, especially since I had spent so much dosh already.

Journey 7: Cortina to Rome 2 legs, 700km, 4 hr 27 min. Average speed: 63kph Origin/Destination Departs Arrives Carrier My Rating Cortina d'Ampezzo Calalzo-Pieve di Cd. 19:45 20:45 DolomitiBus (Bus) Calalzo-Pieve di Cd. Roma Tiburtina 20:55 07:08 TrenItalia

On the train I had the entire six-person compartment to myself. Made quite a change from being surrounded by Finnish civil engineers, and I was soon on my way to Rome.

location:Cortina

summary:Waking up above the clouds, I spent the day walking back to civilisation and a train to somewhere less expensive

trip:europe02

day:14

[triblondon]

Day 14

We had a free morning, but I woke up at 08:30 anyway, because next door were building something and clearly thought they should get an early start. Lorna decided to get a Thai massage, so the guesthouse manager arranged for a masseuse to come to her hut. I went off to check my email. The morning continued uneventfully, and after lunch we piled into the truck to drive to Nakhon Pathom, where our overnight train to Trang would depart, and made a stop on the way at our guide's local temple - a brand new one but no less spectacular for it. It didn't have any boundary stones, which I thought was interesting - most temples I'd seen so far had boundary markers: one stone for a normal temple, and pairs for royal temples. I had found them quite useful for working out where I needed to take my shoes off.

Nakhon Pathom contained the largest Sri-Lankan style temple, or stupa, in Thailand. We had a look around, passing time before the train left, and got some good luck armbands from a monk in exchange for a donation. Everything requires a donation - buddism seems to be a very capitalist religion!

Dinner was various things picked up from the stalls of the night market. Back at the train station, our train has been delayed by about two hours. The interior of the train turned out to be nicer than I expected, and beds were private and confortable. The ride was reasonably smooth and the carriage was airconditioned. I still couldn't sleep though because there was a light shining straight into my berth which I couldn't shut out.

location:Kanchanaburi - Nakhon Pathom - Trang

summary:Truck to Nathon Pathom, local temple, overnight train to Trang

trip:thailand02

day:14

[triblondon]

Day 14

No word from the service provider about my enquiry for a permanent connection, so I phone them to see if there are any human beings to talk to. There are. They inform me that a radio connection will be required and that the setup cost will be about Z$400,000 with a monthly fee of around Z$6000 a month. Unfortunately a new repeater station may be required in which case the cost may rise to Z$1million, which sounds horrendous, but is actually about £5000. I call two other service providers (there only seem to be three), and am still waiting for them to call back. Whatever the chosen option it's still going to take around two weeks to install it, so it doesn't give me much time.

location:Harare / Reapers office

summary:Working at the office

trip:zimbabwe01

day:14

[triblondon]

Day 14

No journal available

location:Brisbane - Nimbin

summary:Tour of Nimbin, permiculture centre, solar power plant

day:14