I had one of my earliest starts today. I knew I had a long 4 days ahead of me so it was best I got up at the same time as the birds if I wanted to cover some decent mileage. It was polony sandwiches for breakfast which I ate INSIDE my tent so I didn't get a second showdown with the squirrel from yesterday.
I had to stop at the ATM again as yesterday it only let me take out an amount which I later converted to be just £30. African currency makes you feel super rich when you're chucking notes of a thousand and 5 thousand around but really you're holding 20p and all you can buy is a lollipop or two from the old lady in the street. After my quick ATM visit, i was straight in and straight out of the shop with some water and having what I like to call a "bish, bash, bosh" of a morning. Getting things done!
The road was promising, I was happy with its quality even if there wasn't a huge cycle section but there were hardly any cars to worry about anyway. I was made instantly happier when just half an hour into my day I spotted a mummy and a baby Elephant about 30m from the road. If I've been told one thing about Elephant etiquette, its don't get between mother and baby. I didn't even bother getting the camera out, I was quite far away in my eyes but you never know, the mum could be one of those psycho mums and her personal space could have a radius of 100m. I've also been told that if an Elephant is flapping its ears it means its not happy with where you are and its giving you a chance to go. If an Elephant pins its ears back...you've had your chips. So I took these three gems of Elephant etiquette with me as I cycled through Botswana's biggest national park that was heavily populated with Elephants.
About an hour maybe two past before I got my next sighting. I could see this one though from a good 400m away. He was massive and he was standing on the road. I did what everybody does these days, I got the camera out and pushed record on the video. As I cycled towards the beast he had turned his back to me and stepped just off the road so I had about a 15m gap if I were to cycle past where he was. He was constantly flapping his ears but he had his back to me so i didn't know if that meant he knew where I was and he was giving me a chance to go away like some African game of "what's the time Mr Elephant?" Or he didn't know where I was and he was just flapping his ears to a tune in his head. (I do the same) I continued to cycle slowly towards him at the same time as filming and commentating in a more heavily breathed/petrified impression of David Attenborough.
Now here's where I wish I knew what Elephants were thinking because I got to about 25m away when he turned around and let out the most spine tingling scream/horn/trumpet whatever you want to call it. I did exactly the same thing and just bolted it in the direction I was facing. I don't know whether I scared him or not but for an animal with such big ears, if he didn't hear me coming then I'm concerned that they may just be pieces of unwanted excess skin and are hindering him more than anything.
Anyway, as the Elephant and i both trumpeted from different holes, I suddenly found myself in a corridor of multiple Elephants and whilst still trying to film, I managed to pedal faster than any American on drugs has ever pedalled!
The big one ran off into the bushes and the others on the other side of me ran deeper into the bushes which gave me a chance to stop further down the road and look back at my award winning piece of film. I checked the camera...only gone and NOT filmed the whole thing hadn't I. My commentary, my screaming and my Blair Elephant Project movie hadn't even started! I was gutted but to be honest, I was just happy to be alive and the adrenaline pumping through my body was intense. It was like a Bungy jump only it lasted longer and alot more life threatening.
It was then, that it really dawned on me that Dumbo is just a cartoon and real Elephants with nothing between you and them but a handlebar bag are quite frightening; especially if you only have 3 pieces of info about them and one of them is "you've had your chips" and another can be Interpreted differently to either "warning you" or to just flapping away flies or as my uncle said "giving you a wave" with their ears.
My heart was still pounding like an African drum when I had the third encounter 5 minutes later. This time the Elephant was in the bushes just off the road. It was still only around 25m away but it was a smaller one and this one had heard me coming so was just hiding on the outskirts. I stopped, filmed and cycled away from this one with no problems and no mess but it was still a huge adrenaline rush.
After all the Elephant excitement/fear, my legs were absolutely gone. The adrenaline had drained them and I checked my tachometer, I had only cycled 20 miles! It was a great start if I was on safari, I had seen more Elephants than humans but I wasn't on safari, I was trying to cover over 100 miles today! I got my head down and cycled the next 50 miles with the most intense concentration that any long grass has ever received. There were not just Elephants in this National Park, you name it, they had it and so it was a good job the road was in good condition because I was looking everywhere but the road as I cycled through the morning.
First I would check the long grass that lined both sides of the road, then the shaded area under the trees and then up the trees (ever hopeful of a that rare sleeping leopard in the trees) I like to live life on the edge anyway but this was ridiculous. I want to personally thank every piece of hose, rope, ripped tyre and broken cam belt that I caught out the corner of my eye for sending me off my saddle and into air with a fright. It wasn't that long ago that the French and their random horn beeping would receive the same reaction, now I'm cycling through snake and lion country!
Thankfully there were no more close encounters and I reached a place called Pandamatenga in literally the middle of nowhere. Luckily for me, Pandamatenga had a campsite and a shop so I stopped for some supplies and set up camp having had an eventful and highly successful day. The lady that ran the campsite gave me some good info on a site called Elephant Sands that Dan and Camii had mentioned to me on Saturday. It seemed there wasn't going to be much between Pandamatenga and Elephant Sands and the ride tomorrow would be well over 100 miles so it was a good idea to get some rest now in preparation for tomorrow.
I was knackered and it started to rain early at around half 4 so I had a nap in the tent. I was woken up to the sound of screaming kids coming from the only other campers on the site. I was pretty hungry anyway so I cooked up some noodles (makes a change, I know) and one of the women said hello as she walked past me on her way to the toilet block. On her way back she talked a bit more and then invited me over for dinner with them.
They were from South Africa, two couples, one with two kids and the other with 3. I was still quite tired but I couldn't go to bed at 7 so I took them up on their kind offer. They were cooking a "Braii" which is an Afrikaans word for BBQ. They had some springbok skewers (one said it was bok, the other guy said it was beef but it certainly didn't taste like beef) but they had the skewers and some sausage clamped in a contraption like a toastie maker made out of just a grill wire which made turning the skewers so much easier. They then actually made cheese and tomato toasties in the same way which I have to say, could not of been grilled any better! On top of this they fed me up with some biltong and so I was having an extremely typical South Africa "Braii" in the middle of nowhere in Botswana.
We didn't stay up late, around 10ish but it was worth it for the conversation and the joy of meeting new, very generous people that only a few hours previous I was cursing their screaming and crying children! The two guys who were cousins worked as farmers and gave me one more piece of Elephant etiquette that filled me with more confidence for my next encounter. He said, "95% of the time an Elephant will fake charge, if you stand your ground they will stop" this can be laughed at but it did help because he said if you don't stand your ground and do decide to run then you will definately get trodden on so I was prepared to take my chances and stand my ground next time.
Conversation then turned to politics and I am the worst person to talk to about politics, I've never watched the news! I listened though and the man made a good point. It's good to hear people's opinions, I can take it or leave it but that is also what travelling is about. Ignorance is bliss for me but I listened to what the guy was saying about why he thought Africa is like what it is and I used my personal experience of cycling through it to relate to his argument. He made some very good points and I agreed with pretty much everything. It helped me to realise things that I had missed on my ride and not thought about before aswell. I won't go into it because I'm getting tired thinking about it as I was getting tired talking about it but its nice to have an overall evaluation at the end of my ride at least.
I eventually decided to hit the hay after the politics but not before my trunk was packed up with croissants and biltong! A really great group of people which I'm gutted that I've forgotten their names. One lady was called Merica and her husband was Gus but shamefully I've forgotten the other couple as I didn't write it down. Still, a good day and a very nice ending.
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