The Suicide Month

It’s 10.30am and it’s hot. Seriously hot hot. October is traditionally the hottest month in this part of southern Africa. Known as ‘The Suicide Month’, temperatures can soar into the mid-forties. Today it must be edging towards 40. With no shade (no leaves on the trees) and no breeze, the only way to keep cool is to periodically throw yourself into the river next to the tent.

Inside the tent is like a sauna, so both of us are sitting outside at the table. Elle is wearing a blue bikini while cutting up her old underwear to use as ‘pull throughs’ for cleaning her rifle. I find this recycling combination quite sexy.

Elle got stung this morning while cleaning out her wardrobe. Not sure what it was but it left her was a large, nasty nettle-like rash across her stomach. She reckons it was probably a ‘hairy worm’, whose body hairs sting on contact with skin. Frankly, it could have been any number of large insects here, who are increasingly making their presence known as it gets hotter and wetter.

Both went out last night for dinner at a nearby safari lodge. Food was dreadful and tasted like leftovers but it was pleasant to sit in comfortable surroundings. Always nice to get away from camp for a bit and spend some quality time together away from hyenas. Turned into quite a romantic evening.

Things winding down here now, although Elle still determined to ‘collar’ a hyena before we leave here at the end of the week. (I’m going to Zimbabwe for a couple of weeks and she to a 70th birthday party in South Africa).

Had my first snake encounter this evening. Was chatting to Elle when she shrieked that there was a snake above me. Looked up to see a two foot shadow moving across the shade cloth literally six inches above my head. Turned out to be a Boomslang, one of the most poisonous snakes in southern Africa, eating a frog. Its poison is haemotoxic which attacks the red blood cells. If untreated, it can kill a human in about a week. Phew....