62 sleeps, part 2

Ok, I've been neglecting the blog again because of this whole 'work' thing, so I'm going to double up my posts now that I'm off for the day.

Well, I told the story about Big E and his Zimbabwean Adventure. To complete the circle, I have to tell one about Big A and his Namibian Adventure.

Big A and I did six months together in Southern Africa in the second half of 1999. He was, and still is, a handful. He is full of energy all the time. I don't think he slept until he was six years old. Then not again until he was 12. You get the idea.

Anyway, we flew that lovely Ethiopian route together, went up to the Breede, did a few trips, then on to the Orange where he ran the bar and I did overnight trips on the river, then he took an overland trip up through Namibia to the Zambezi and came back before I dropped him at Jhb International to head back to Canada. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, what I didn't include was:

1. Upon waking up somewhere over, like, Chad, Big A told me that he was mad at the passenger in the next row. Excuse me? You're WHAT? Why on earth? Are you on crack? On a plane? Oh no... someone was looking at him. I told him OF COURSE people are going to stare at you... you are so white you glow, you're dressed like a hip hop star and you are a young man seemingly flying alone. Try SMILING at the person who is looking at you and see how that goes. We smiled. We got a smile back. Disaster on plane averted.

2. He wanted to work. He wanted to work hard and experience life on the river working hard. So I made him do 9 back-to-back trips on the Breede River outside Swellendam less than one week after we arrived. A back-to-back is when you say good-bye to your people at lunchtime, shower, then greet your new people for late afternoon snacks. I stayed at the guide house and watched MTV. He worked as a 'hantie', or, an apprentice. His job was to chop wood, carry boats, blow up boats, and do river safety. He was exhausted by trip 7. I pushed him for 2 more. Only then did we have the same energy level and we could proceed with our trip without me having a heart attack.

3. He ran the bar on the Orange very well. He pulled a profit that no bartender before him had done. And his tips were such that he could take himself on a nice overland trip from the Orange up to the Zambezi, a standard 21 day job available with any decent overland company. You go to Sossusvlei, fly into the Delta, visit a Cheetah farm, go down the white water section of the Zambezi. I ran the bar while he was away. Without a doubt, all the clients on trucks coming down from the Zambezi would tell stories about This Crazy Canadian, who was beat red and had white hair that stood on end. He certainly established a reputation for himself!

4. He hitched down from Zim after the trip was over. He wound up on the Caprivi strip one night, at a bar by himself. AngolanUnita rebel soldiers befriended him. He hung out with them for the night, drinking local beer and listening to their stories. They invited him to join their army. He declined. The next morning, at dawn, he awoke to the dulcet tones of AK47s going off all around him. He leopard crawled around his hostel room until he found his video camera. He videod for about 10 minutes (good boy!) before taking off.

5. It was only when we were in Pretoria and leaving for Jhb international did we realise that Big A left his plane ticket in the safe at the base camp in Namibia. A frantic trip to the police station to report it 'lost/stolen', then a frantic trip to the travel agent, then a last frantic trip back to the airport finally saw Big A, beat red, barefoot, hair standing on end, leaving for his Ethiopian flight.

It was a fun six months :)