Arrest (Part 3: Wednesday)

resident warthogs fighting at Red Chili Rest Camp
the girls on the ferry awaiting our first game drive...at this juncture they had no idea it would be so hair-raising-ly exciting!
Murchison at dusk!
pair of g-raffes
heartabeast...what a funny lookin' fellow, eh? not something we see in our usual QENP trips, so a fun sighting.


Wednesday 30 December 2009 – We took our time, slept in, sat and enjoyed our breakfast, then tried to iron out directions that were as clear as absolutely possible. We reached the park without a problem, settled in at the Red Chili Rest Camp in our small but clean banda, ate lunch and rested a bit before heading to the ferry to cross to the other side of the Nile for an evening game drive. After purchasing a map of the park, we got on the 4pm ferry with the Zoolander, and after crossing headed west into the area which is known for the best game sighting.

Carrie and Anna climbed to the roof rack with instructions to bang on the roof if they saw something and wanted to stop. This was Carrie’s first safari experience, so we took it slow, stopping to admire everything along the way…the cob, the heartabeast, the buffalo, the giraffes…God’s imagination arresting in it’s beauty and creativity. The first buffalo we saw was a loser, off by himself, caked with dry mud from his wallowing that morning, right by the road he stopped to stare the vehicle down, and then putting his head down and shaking it a bit, he took a couple quick steps towards us – seeming to be charging the Zoolander, I put my foot on the gas…he then quickly changed directions and ran off into the grasses…phew…a bit later a big hawk dove out of a tree on the side of the road coming within inches of the girls’ heads as they sat perched on the roof…Carrie’s self stated dislike of birds came a bit closer to home!...a bit further along, in a bit of a gulley, I noticed a big green UWA Land Rover vehicle approaching on the narrow road, and in order to make room for it to pass, I pulled off the road to the left…CLUNK!!!!… with a capital A!...we were stuck in a ditch that was hidden by the tall grasses at the side of the road…the front left tire of the car in the ditch, the right tire trying to support the vehicle and perched at an angle I wasn’t sure it would ever recover from, God knew we were sunk…the back of the UWA vehicle was packed with people and all of the men hopped out and after the driver of the vehicle wisely asked me to let him maneuver our vehicle of the ditch from the driver’s seat, the men literally hoisted the front left corner of the Zoolander out of the ditch! Phew! All I had to offer them was my handshake, but they seemed to appreciate it and then we were on our way. Poor Carrie never quite recovered from the incident as it was her corner than went down as she sat on the roof rack…for the rest of the trip, she would hold onto the door for dear life and look at me with that “what in the world do you think you’re doing!?!” look whenever we moved over to the side of the road to allow someone to pass in the park ☺ Before long it was approaching 6pm and we needed to make the 7pm ferry back to the other side of the river to return to our camp, but we were still heading away from the ferry after 2 hours of driving…hmmm…so we decided we needed to turn around and go back the way we came because the map scale seemed to be off and we had no idea how much further we had to go to reach the next branch back towards the ferry. So, turn around we did, and, well, lets just say we made pretty good time. I was scared to death we were going to hit an animal or another ditch, but God was merciful and we made it to the ferry with 15 min. to spare. And don’t worry, I don’t plan on repeating this part of the adventure anytime, ever. Not only did we reach the ferry but reached the ferry with a herd of elephants right next to the river at the ferry crossing – so close!, and a pod of hippos splashing around in the water including two little hippos wrestling/playing tag – so cute.

Returning to camp we ordered dinner, showered in, well, showers…you know the kind you kind of pray during because you’re standing in inch deep water because the drain doesn’t quite work properly and you have no idea who preceded you in said shower…but it felt great otherwise ☺ For dinner, Carrie and Anna got a really great pumpkin gnut stew with rice that I was quite covetous of. In planning for the coming day, we tried making reservations for an early morning game drive with one of the outfitters that books there at the camp, but there was no room. Instead, we booked a park ranger as a guide and planned to be the first to the ferry. Feeling good about the plans for the next day (morning game drive and afternoon boat launch) we headed to bed. Finally, my body, arrested of sorts, in sleep. It was only about 10 pm but I was exhausted!