Namibia Oct. 9, 2017 –  We arrived by boat in Namibia on Impalila Island after driving from Victoria Falls to the border and going through the border station.

There are long lines of trucks waiting to cross the border. There are many women “working” here. It a place where AIDS is a great problem among the truck drivers.

The camp is a series of thatched wooden huts for the guests with a larger thatched hut in the center with bar, dinning room, gift shop, and office.

Our hut is above the river and a few yards away from it as you can see from the photograph. The windows are large and there are two sliding doors in the corners where the two walls meet.

The view of the landscape and the sound of the river running just below us is amazing.

The monkeys lying on our veranda were not happy when we arrived and they ran quickly away up into the overhanging branches. They watched us suspiciously as we moved in for a few days. They had seen this before and were not impressed.

Our hut has a modern bathroom in it. Our last camp was nice, but our attached bathroom was made of grape stake walls which were open above seven feet or so and gave curious monkeys a chance to visit us or simply watch us shower if they had the desire to. They did not. They have more interesting things to do. I am sure of that.

We went on a river cruise this afternoon and saw many hippos, crocodile, elephants and birds.

We were led to our rooms by a man with a flashlight after diner and were asked to stay in them during the night to avoid hippo-human inter action.

Hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal.

Apparently we have a warthog guarding our room. He suns himself on the path during the day between our room and the lodge which is some distance away.

We can hear the river tumbling over several boulders as we lie in bed in the dark under our mosquito netting. It is wonderful. We had a frog in our bed when we came back from dinner. My wife was not happy about that and I had to catch it and put it out for the night.

He was clever fellow, but I prevailed, in the end. He was more dextrous than I, but I have a larger brain and soon put some of it to use and caught him. It was not a pleasant before bed exercise, but my wife refused to deal with him. So I was forced to be the man of the family again. I hate that argument, but it is somewhat true.

We will be birding for a couple of days here as well and visiting a village which adjoins our camp. We never use life jackets. I assume that they give the crocodiles indigestion.

The village was within walking distance from our camp. Perhaps the workers who served us lived there. The buildings are mostly mud blocks with tree limbs between the layers to hold everything together.

They are not painted for the most part and the rain simply washes the buildings away over the passing years.

Some of the newer buildings are made of a more durable construction. Concrete blocks and plaster seem to be the order of the day now.

So some folks are even saving their money and building better homes.

Of course many of the younger folks have moved to the big city and left the village life behind. Progress is a mixed bag, at best.

Is that a hippo staring at us from the river dear?

We have just returned on Oct.31, 2023 from Egypt and Jordan after spending three weeks there. It was amazing and interesting.

The photos and short stories of our adventures are now up on Facebook at R.C. Hand.

Longer stories about our trip and more photos will be up on this site soon.

There are now many videos of my guest appearances on several podcasts here on my website and on Facebook at R.C. Hand.

“Sunrise, Sunset”,my book of short stories is now also available on Audible.