We are still stuck in the mud. The rescue that was supposed to come yesterday didn’t arrive. It was a moonlit night yesterday. The evening went smoothly with the music of the African wild. I liked it inspite of the difficult situation that we were in. I slept like a baby as I was too tired from the struggle and the Lady said that I snored at night too.
In the morning I tried to get the car out again. We dig in some channels close to the where the tyres were in order to drain the water out of the mud pool. I thought if we could somehow get the mud dried up my morning then the car might come out. But it didn’t work out as the mud didn’t dry up over night and the tyres dug deeper and deeper into the mud again.
We phoned the Xakanaxa camp to get the phone numbers of the rangers at the Mababe get. But we couldn’t get any connection to them. I called McKenzie at Maun again to check for the status of the rescue team. They said they got our location wrong yesterday and they ended up searching for us at some other place. I was surprised to hear that as there is only one road that cuts through the depression towards Savuti and I also have given them the GPS coordinates of our location. It turned out that the rescue didn’t even had any GPS in their car. I described our location again and they said they know our position correctly now and will be here in hours.
The day was getting hotter again and we set up a rudimentary tent using our tarpaulin. Two ends of the tarpaulin was attached to the car and the other two ends slopped towards the ground with the high lift jack as a pole at the centre. We put our chairs underneath and waited again for the rescue. There was nothing else to do. The sun was getting hotter but there was luckily some breeze. I was still feeling a bit tired. The extra time set me into thinking mode again. Wonder what the Lady is thinking about the whole trip. I really wish that she will come out of all this with some good memories. I really wanted to help, but from my experiences so far I think it will be better if I don’t try.
A few hours later we heard a car coming in our direction. I got to the front of the car and waved them to stop before driving into the mud track. It was not our rescue but some other tourist driving towards Savuti. They stopped at about 300 m from us. I walked over to them and told them that they should probably avoid driving through the track and rather drive through the bush. I asked them if they could pull us out and they said they will see. To my surprise they ignored my advice and drove straight through the mud. And as expected they got stuck!!!! I stood there in utter disbelief. For the next 1.5 hrs they were busy trying to pull out their vehicle from the mud. When all attempts with high lift jack and rescue path failed they attempted using the winch. Since there were no trees in the marsh they attached the winch to a broken tree stump nearby. And that worked and they somehow pulled their car out. Later on they also used the winch to pull our car out of the mud.
So finally, after spending about 24 hrs in the Mababe depression we were out. Or so we thought! We avoided the muddy track ahead of us and drove carefully through the bush. But it turned out that the bush is more dangerous than the mud. Since it is covered with vegetation actual ground conditions are not visible. Hardly about 400 m from our last disaster we got stuck in the mud in the bush. This time it was worse than before as the mud was much more loose and deeper. We were so tired that we didn’t even bother to try using the high lift jack. We decided to wait for our rescue that we called in before.
The day was getting hotter and there was hardly any shade. After about 2 hrs I saw 2 cars approaching us at very high speed. The first car stopped in front of us and told us that they are just tourists and our rescue is the car behind. They were just helping the rescue car to find us using the GPS they had. Since the rescue car didn’t have any GPS they were searching for us at the wrong place all the time. I was surprised that the company offering rescue services didn’t even have any GPS in their cars!
The family that helped us there were from South Africa travelling with their 4 kids. They were passing by through the main road to Mababe gate with their trailer when the rescue car stopped them to check for our GPS coordinates. The decided to help them out, though it was far away from where they were heading to. They left the trailer there and lead the rescue car to our location driving through the marsh and taking all the risks. The rescue car itself got stuck twice on the way. I was beyond words when I came to know about it. I felt really happy to see such kindness in people and to realise that the world has not got rotten with greed as I thought.
The helped to pull our car out of the mud and one of the guys in the rescue decided to drive our car till the main road where the tracks are much more drivable. The Lady got into the rescue car. How they drove through the marsh later on was similar to how you drive in rallying. It was a crash course for me on 4x4 driving though marsh. I think that’s were I went wrong. I was too careful and the speed at which I was driving was not giving enough momentum to drag the car out of the mud. For the track conditions that we experienced there one has to drive atleast at 40-60 kmh and that too at a minimum of high range 2 gear.
Once we were in the main road we said good bye to the family who helped us and also to the rescue team. The rest of the drive to North Gate at Moremi NP was not so easy as there was water everywhere. But after having seen how to drive through marsh I was driving like rallying this time. Luckily the car held on. At some instances I really thought that the car will break into pieces. It was too difficult to concentrate on holding the car stable and read the road conditions at the same time when you are driving at 40 -60 kmh. The Lady was my navigator and without her help I don’t think I would have made it.
We reached the Mababe gate safely and then proceeded towards the North Gate. Our destination was Xakanaxa campsite inside the Moremi NP where we had the campsite booking for today. But the campsite is about 30 km from the North Gate and by the time we reached North Gate it was too late to drive to Xakanaxa. So we decided to camp at North Gate instead. The last two days were more adventurous than both of us ever expected/imagined/experienced. When we decided to do this trip in the Green season it was clear for me that the trip might get difficult at some times. So I tried to make sure that we had everything that is need to come out safely if we something happens. But I never really thought that we will be stuck somewhere for so long. Though we always made sure that we had enough supplies all the time to stay safe for 4-5 days, the helpless feeling that one goes through is something that one cannot prepare for. I am really glad that both of us are safe. We were both exhausted. The day ended on a positive note with a hyena visiting our camp at night in search of food.
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