A series of unfortunate events that turned out fine

It was long, long drive from Livingstone, Zambia to Etosha National Park in Namibia. Fortunately, getting into Namibia was as simple as getting into Botswana, once we finally found the border post. We drove all day through a piece of Namibia called the Caprivi Strip and stopped for the night at a really nice lodge called Namushasha Country Lodge. We were the only people there, and the first to show up in 4 days. Slow season seems to be particularly slow this year. The next day we hoped to reach Etosha, but only made it as far as a town called Tsumeb.

There was more thunder and lightening, so we decided not to camp on the roof of the truck and headed for a cheap backpacker place in town. It seemed fine at first – a basic, clean room with a bathroom – and we were just planning to sleep and leave early in the morning. Once we agreed on the place, we realized we were the only ones there and the owners didn’t live on site. There was no telephone, the satellite phone didn’t work indoors, and my Botswana cell didn’t work in Namibia. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, except the town seemed to be a bit of a fortress and all the houses had guard dogs and high gates. Our place had a razor wire fence, but really cheap little padlocks keeping it all together. There was a sign on the wall with the phone number for armed emergency response. Once the owners left, we decided this was probably fine but were unnerved by all the town’s security features (that were largely lacking in our current situation). We headed straight to the biggest hotel, which was not much more money, clean, and friendly (and populated).

We were chatting with the owner at breakfast and he commented on the uncomfortable way I was sitting with my purse on the chair. When I told him I have a habit of leaving things behind, he told us how once he chased a guest down the block when they realized he had left some very expensive camera equipment behind.

Why do I tell this uninteresting story, you ask?

On the way out of town we noticed that B’s credit card was missing. We ultimately decided it must have fallen on the ground between the bank machine and the truck the night before. We went back to the hotel to call Visa and put a hold on it. The next morning, we got a message at our campground in Etosha Park to call the hotel because they found the credit card. I had mentioned that we were moving on to Etosha, and they had spent the day calling all the places in the area until they found my name on the register. The security guard had found it outside just an hour after we left (and were probably still in town looking for it!). Ironic, no? We pass through that town again and will stop by to pick it up. (And still have no idea how this happened).

And . . . when B was putting things in the car to leave that morning, he found this guy sitting on our pillows in the back seat.

[pic of baboon spider to follow]

I have no idea where he came from, how he got into our back seat, or how long he’d been with us. [Shudder]