Bardia

The heat here is worse than ever, at 6am it's over 30 degrees and the humidity is just breathtaking. I know i'm not working properly but i'm not sure why, i haven't been sick or had diohhrea, but i have no energy at all. It's possible that it's because i've not eaten enough, and that could also be why i haven't been sick, but i'm not sure. To get through the riding i've taken a few electrolyte sachets that i brought out with me, which should replenish salts and such, but it's not enough.

So i'm feeling pretty sorry for myself but climb up to the viewing tower i'd seen the night before and watch the morning begin. There are a lot of little villages within the park boundary and as i'm watching a local woman with a big stainless steel bowl walks along collecting the dung that animals dropped last night. She rolls it up a bit to make it more compact, then adds it to the bowl, and when it's full put it's on her head and wanders off. This puts things in perspective for me a bit so i figure i'm just feeling sorry for myself and wander down to arrange one of the activities the manager and i spoke about the night before.

There are a load of things you can do in the part from treks, jeep trips, rafting and going through on the back of an elephant, but he has suggested we'd need more people for the rafting and the animals just hear the jeep and hide so i opt for the jungle trek with a guide.

The guide is maybe late 40's and looks like an old leather boot, he's tough and hard and the heat doesn't seem to bother him at all. His English is ok, but the accent makes him harder to understand, but not impossible. I've got a rucksack on with 3 litres of water and a spare camera, he has a rucksack with one litre of water, the packed lunches and some binoculars, and a four foot stick. He tells me if we encounter any animals he'll explain what to do, mentioning that there are five really dangerous sets of animals in the park, tigers, leopards, rhino's, crocodiles and elephants. He says if we see an elephant i should climb a tree but not a little tree like the one beside us at the elephant will just pull that down. The tree beside us is fairly substantial. I'm also curious how that stick is going to defend us from tigers.

We walk until lunchtime crossing a couple of rivers and stopping every now and then but only see some deer and monkeys. At one of the river crossing he creeps up to the bank, then looks puzzled, saying there are usually crocodiles here. This has me wondering where they are. He suggests another river bank which might be better so off we go again, crossing the river he was just worried about. I'm now thinking how often do you cross here and how often are the crocodiles watching, but it all goes off ok, but he is wary.

We've walked maybe five or six miles and i've started to flake again so when we stop for lunch i have to say to him that from here i should only go back, not further in as i think i'd be a liability, possibly becoming a casualty. He then says that it's best to wait here as if we head back now it's the hottest time, so if we hang around we may see some animals and can head out when it's cooler. So the plan becomes we make a place for me to crash out of leaves, he stays on watch and will wake me if anything comes along.

So i'm dozing thinking this was a stupid idea to come in when i didn't feel good, and since the park is 962 sq. kms and we'll only walked in for about 9 then i'm not going to see anything, but after a while he nudges me and says rhino. Now i apologise for the quality of the photography and the distance but i could barely stand in the heat and had to say no to his offer of going closer. I also need to figure out how to get the autofocus off as it dials in to the close objects rather than the far ones. The little grey smudge you may be able to see in the centre of the picture is the rhino. It looked a lot better through the binoculars.

Glad that i'd seen something bigger i returned to crash out until it cooled down. After a while he comes over again and says elephant. This time i'm more excited as he's speaking very quietly. On the opposite river bank, maybe 25 metres away a male elephant walks out of the bush and cools off in the river. He then walks even closer throwing mud on himself then goes back up onto the bank directly opposite us and starts to eat for a while.





He hung around for maybe 30 minutes or so just eating and spraying water and it was a really special to see it so close.








When he wandered off i figured it was time for us to do the same. The guide would have been happy to hang around even longer but i wanted to start towards the way out as i wasn't feeling any stronger, even after the packed lunch which seemed to be potatoes and onions. It felt like a shorter route on the way back, with only one river crossing but when we got back to the entrance i still had to sit for thirty minutes and drink water before i could mange the last 2km's back to the lodge. When we made it i went into the main building where they stuck on a fan and i had a cold coke, then i had to go and stand under a cold shower for a while before crashing out again.

The huts that the guests stay in are mud walls, which are rendered then thatched, and have a concrete floor. There are gaps here and there and small animals can wander in and use them as a toilet. The attached bathrooms are sort of wetrooms, but the water can also go off as it all has to be pumped up to a tank to give it the force to get through the pipes.

I emerge after a while feeling vaguely together again and they bring out dinner of roast chicken and potatoes and some kind of green veg. I eat as much as i can but i still can't finish it despite knowing that i need it for energy. They don't say anything but i feel terrible about the waste of food, considering how hard the life is here for the staff who live in these mud huts all the time.

I head off to bed resolving to leave in the morning as i'm not getting any stronger here, if anything i'm getting weaker.