Week 6 Part 2

Home World Diaries South Africa Cape Town 2008 Week 6 Part 2

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Sunday (Orange River Tour)

2008/11/02

The next morning was starting with the sunrise. We had a small breakfast. I'd some gluten free cereals with, so that there was also some food for me. Even if this was the only thing I didn't have to put on a slice of bread to eat. Afterwards we pumped up and loaded the boats. A short instruction was given and we started of. It was quite windy and we had some headwind, so that we had to fight to come forward.

Later on we stopped for swimming and were jumping from a big rock into the water. One of our guides asked, if we want to get a picture of us while we were jumping and so I gave my camera to him. However, when I got the camera back, it wasn't working any more. I opened the battery box and found water inside. That was the last time, I could use my camera on the Orange River. So no pictures from here on, any more. :-(

Fortunately I had my video camera with, so that I took a lot of movies. Here you can see the results.

About lunchtime we stopped on a bank in the river. Our guides had an inflatable table with and prepared some food on a sandbank in the middle of the river; which means between the countries. After the lunch we were only paddling for about one more hour. After that we went to the bank and prepared the dinner and the places for the night. It had been getting more windy the hole day, so that we weren't able to use a fire in the open area. Instead we used the safety of the trees and bushes. Also our sleeping area we had to find near to the bushes, because otherwise we would have been in the middle of the storm.

Monday (Orange River Tour)

2008/11/03

The day started early, about 6 am, just some minutes after sunrise, which was also again the reason why it started at that time. Than we got up, we found traces of an animal, it might had been an animal at the size of a little dog. The animal has visited us during the night and nobody had noticed. For breakfast, we got eggs and ham. After that we packed our canoes and started again. The wind was nearly gone but it was still blowing in the wrong direction. Because of the efforts from the day before, some of us felt stiff and aching. So our trip started a little bit slower than yesterday.

Well, this was only the second part of this week. If you mist the first one. Please click ‘previous’. And the week is not at its end. Just my website requires a new site. So lets continue there.

The temperature was fast rising, so that we had about 45 degrees or even more. Luckily the river was cooling us and so we used the chance to refresh in the river several times. I had taken with some sun creme from Germany (light protection factor 16) and also had bought some from South Africa (LPF 30). I had used the first one the day before, which was quite okay, but I had forgotten to creme my knees, as they were normally under the trousers than I was standing. But this day, I had a bad sun burn at them. (Cancer is greeting). So I put my towel on my legs to protect them. This worked, just that it was to short for my feet, I should recognize the next day course of the next sun burn. The sun was quite dangerous.

This time, we had our lunch somewhere on the bank on the Namibian side. We'd been deeply in the Richtersveld National Part already. It was amazing how the landscape changed. Had we a lot of grass and sand at the beginning of the trip, there were loads of three to five meter huge stones. They looked smooth like stones which were washed by the water for millions of years.

It was our rafting day. We had some rapids to master. They weren't big problems, if your boat didn't turn. Unfortunately, my boat had the bad habit to turn as soon as I stopped paddling. We entered rapids, always one-by-one. At the highest rapid we had to enter on the left side and to paddle to the left us strong as possible and as fast as possible.

Nevertheless, I drifted to the right. I may have been to slow or my boat was to heavy, who knows. Just the result was, that I couldn't go any further, because my front end of the boat was stuck on the rock. Leaving the boat wasn't possible, too. So I waited till my boat turned again - okay, I helped a bit. That's why I took the rapid backwards. Later on our guards congratulated me for that and told me, they had expected me falling into the water than they saw my boat getting stuck.

We had the typical red life jackets with. We wore them when we entered a rapid. But the also used them to protect our bottoms this day. About lunchtime, our guide asked us to

stop. He said we must not take any not waterproofed thinks with for a small ‘walk’ along the river bank. We secured our boats and he led us on the South African bank back to the rapid again. The stones were really hot and we were partly running the way because we were barefoot. Reaching the top of the rapid, he ordered us to stick our legs through the arm holes of the life jacket, so that we could sit on the stuffed parts of the vest. Than he helped us into the water and we were sliding down the rapid again. For this we had to lay as flat as possible on the top of the water. The life vest at our bottom was quite important, as we were bumping on some stones with our bottoms. Well, I as some others did the sliding a second time. After that I had enough of burnt feet soles. So I stopped and watched the last ones to slide. Actually, I also had some hurting in my left sole of foot as I had some wood in it.

We went on for some more time. At the area, called ‘Godzilla’ we stopped. It was a nice place at a little side bank of the river. We had some reed near the water and mountains on both side of the river bank. Only the shades to protect from the sun where quite small. Having burnt and having been afraid of getting more sun burns I preferred to read a book in the shade.

After the sun started to sink I explored the surrounding and found that behind the next bushes the desert really started. Only few bushes were living there whilst most of the land was sand. This day we saw a beautiful sunset than the sun was vanishing behind

and salad. Afterwards we were sitting and chatting for a while on the bonfire. We saw one of the most most wonderful star skies as well. At about have past ten we tried to catch some catfish but where unlucky. In the evening the affords of the day and the strange habits of our guide were forgotten and everybody fell asleep as soon as he (or she) entered the sleeping bag. The same was true for me, although I really liked it to see the stars.

We prepared our sleeping area with the canoes and luggage to get some wind-free zone. Also our braai and evening fire we had to celebrate in the bushes. In the afternoon we had prepared a little raft, which should be able to carry a little fire, while it was floating down the river and finally sink somewhere. Near to midnight, the wind got little enough, so that we could start the raft. And despite all sceptics it was floating quite for a while.

the mountains on the Namibian side. The wind has gone sometime the day and so we could start a fire in the opening. We had a braai with pasta (I had taken gluten free one with me)