Between trips...

It's quite amazing how it all goes out the window the moment I'm back in the UK. It's also somewhat terrifying that nearly a week has gone by since I arrived back in the UK. I vowed that I’d try and string a few final words together – well, ‘final’ in that they’d mark the end of the trip.

So after landing at Heathrow at 7am last Tuesday, and after all the various minor disasters I experienced in Africa (phone, camera, watch...), it seems entirely appropriate that I managed to lose my keys somewhere on the Victoria Line. 11am found me sitting on my doorstep, emptying out my rucksack, and cursing the fact that I’d been so careful to remove my keys from my luggage (where they’d been safe throughout Southern Africa), and moving them to my pocket where they’d be safe, and not subject to the vaguaries of Jo’berg’s baggage handlers...

… did you know that Amazon has just ceased delivering to South Africa through the mail service since so many deliveries are simply not reaching their destinations (essentially, due to theft)...

Still, every cloud has a silver lining. Luckily, one of my neighbours came out, on her way for a run round the Common. She kindly made me very welcome in their lounge, where I was able to sit for around five hours, while I waited for my cleaner to arrive with the spare keys. It was rather odd sitting just five metres away from home – so near, yet so far. Having started the trip with a defunct phone, nearly marooning me at Cape Town airport, t felt completely correct to bookend the trip with locking myself out of my house.

So, then, what did I make of Southern Africa.

(Y’know, previously, I would have said, ‘what did I make of Africa’. Of course, the fact that it’s a big continent is no longer an abstract concept)

It’s big., then. What else? Well, in no particular order…

· Watching the sunset from Lion’s Head over Cape Town, sitting there, on my own.

· Storming back from Lion’s Head in the dark, not sure whether I was more at risk on the mountain or on the streets.

· The polers playing cards on our canvas tent bag in the Okavango Delta, throwing down winners with flourish and flick.

· My camera busting within metres of the gates of Etosha National Park.

· Doing forward rolls down the dunes at Sousasflei.

· Sinking a Mokoro in the delta, and stepping on to the bank much like Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Carribean film.

· Dumping the hotel in favour of the Ritz backpackers in Jo’berg – sitting on a bunk in an unfriendly dorm questioning my decision, then hitting the bar and answering it emphatically.

· Flipping a raft on the Zambezi, and ending up twenty metres away from it, with only my paddle for company.

· Victoria Falls. Wet.

So concerned am I that I now have nothing to write about, that it looks like I’m off to Nairobi next week. Not sure why I’m doing this, other than I can’t think of a reason not to. I suppose the other reason is that I talked with Rob – the bloke I met in Jo’berg – about this, acted all keen, and I don’t want to be one of those people who’s all talk and no action. So, off to get my Yellow Fever jabs this afternoon.

In other news, I’ve been continuously surprised about just how many people seem to read these ramblings (caveated, understandably, with ‘well, I haven’t read all of it’). It’s nice to know it’s of interest – although this may well say more about how bored people are at their desks than the quality of my writing. Thanks for reading, all the same.

Just slogging through photos. I’ve picked the ‘best’ seven hundred so far, but I shan’t subject you to them all. I’m also working out some easy way of adding photos to the text, as apparently there are rather too many words-per-picture. Watch this space.