For all your complaints:
the Mopane-caterpillar!

By now it’s probably getting predictable and boring to you, the reader, but Popa Falls Restcamp is a joy for every bird lover. A small part of the falls, actually a series of rapids flows and falls right before our tent. This is pitched under a tree that is filled with some kind of berries; every day a group of grey hornbills visits the tree to eat the ripest berries. A black-headed oriole finishes their job after they’ve left. Between the reeds of the waterfalls different kinds of sunbird reside, while the bird bath next to the restaurant attracts starlings, waxbills and grey loeries. We crawl over the paths that the hippo’s use at night to reach their grazing spots and see the effect of their small tails that turn around as propellers while they relieve themselves: the shit is everywhere. The croco-boys and hippopotamuses luckily leave us alone when we jump from stone to stone and wade through the fast streaming water to explore the rapids.

Every time again cycling without luggage takes some getting used to, but quickly is a feast for the legs. During our third resting day at Popa Falls we make an outing to the Mahango Game Park; after all it’s been three days ago that we cycled through a wildpark. The villages alongside the gravel road give us a peek in the daily life of the Caprivians: women crush and sieve the ‘mahangu-grain’, while the men are having an ‘indaba’ (meeting) whilst keeping an anxious eye on the local ‘shebeens’ and ‘cuca-shops’ (beer stores annex bars).
At the entrance to the wild park we tell the park-official that we want to cycle over the public road to the Botswana border and back. That is true, and this is what we do. Okay, with a small detour right through the park and alongside the river. A small misdemeanour that’s barely worth mentioning, but results in beautiful pictures of roan-antelope, zebra, kudu, sable-antelope, hippo’s and impala. And again no lions, fortunately.

We say goodbye to Divundu and a large group of Bolivians that belong to a 4x4-club from Santa Cruz. They left their continent for the first time, to explore the south of Africa. Maybe we’ll see them again in Bolivia, in about ten years from now?
In two days we hurry through the 215 kilometres to Rundu, a lap just as boring as the straight road through the Caprivi Strip. The only distraction we get is the beautiful carved wood that’s for sale alongside the road – from the traditional elephant in all sizes, to airplanes and cars with real glass windows – and the thousands of bundles of thatch grass that the Kavango-people offer us, in order for us to build our own hut with thatched roof. Only two dollar (Namibian) fifty a bundle, still we reject the offer.

Did I feel miserable and nauseous the last days, with stomach aches and diarrhoea, in Rundu the prevailing virus completely knocks Peter off his feet. Three times he falls asleep again when he wakes up with a nauseous feeling in the middle of the night. The fourth time he only manages to open the tent’s zipper half when the volcano erupts. Two days of pain, nausea, fever and diarrhoea create the feared image of malaria, but the third day he feels alright. Rundu doesn’t really suit us, so we leave immediately.

The road from Rundu to Grootfontein, 260 kilometres, would normally take us three days, surely after being sick. The first day the wind is very strong and blows us in the right direction, we also feel strong. We race past villages, cuca-shops, waving people, a veterinary border and then more and more fences that separate us from ‘our bush’. With 164 kilometres on our computer we manage to upgrade our previous distance-record that existed since the Sahara in Egypt, slip through a gate and get to sleep in the well-known bush after all.

Of course we live to regret this foolishness the next day, especially Peter, because his body hadn’t completely recovered from the virus. The diarrhoea is back and the whole day is devoted to air and wind. Now we don’t mean the backwind that helps us the entire day.
The route isn’t very exciting: no villages, only bush, fences and once in a while a big farm. In Grootfontein we immediately go to bed, exhausted and fed up.

The municipal caravan park where we stay has nice stone seats, a braai (barbecue) and a lamppost for every camper. A luxury we haven’t encountered often before. Our first recovery day we at first feel tired and weary, a bit nauseous once in a while and we still have yellow-green diarrhoea.
A stroll through the ‘town’ leads us to three black ladies that sell their goods under a sunshade. We recognise the home-grilled peanuts, a kind of sugar-candy, oranges and... something that looks like worms. Aahhh! The famous Mopane-caterpillar, a delicatessen in the north of Namibia.
Three years ago, the last time we visited Op Pad-tourism trade fair in the Netherlands, we practised for our Africa-trip by eating fried crickets and worms. It took, even for an omnivore, some willpower, but we succeeded in putting those insects in our mouths. Chewing and swallowing were the next difficult steps; the salesman was eating them all the time and he looked quiet healthy, so we managed these steps as well. To be perfectly honest, they tasted quite nice, a bit nutty.
Now, three years later and almost 30.000 kilometres further, we’re in the middle of the real African life. Full of courage and determination we buy a paper bag full of caterpillars. Peter is the first to take a fat caterpillar of a reasonable size out of the bag; he looks at its dark fried wrinkly body and shiny black head, bids me farewell and puts the seven centimetres long insect in his mouth. The tasty, salty taste of soft meat fried in chilli and herbs immediately fills his taste senses and just like when eating crisps, his hand reaches for the next caterpillar before his mouth is empty.

I enjoy this meal as well.

The next day we feel reborn. Our energy has returned, the diarrhoea gets less and our appetite improves.
We enter a new era, of perfect health and immense physical abilities. Our medicine cupboard can be thrown into the bushes.
We do have the Mopane-caterpillar!