Three Beautiful Things

1. We had travelled by open boat straight into the driving rain through the trackless wastes of the Okavango Delta. When we reached the pick-up point for Umvuvu, we were cold, wet, worried about our sleeping bags and a bit irritable. But then something made Iris laugh (it’s a sort of a-ha-ha-ha ha-ha-ha), and things seemed a lot less awful. 2. The blissful ablutions at Umvuvu bush camp. They are open air, which prevents bastard mosquitoes concentrating where you are most vulnerable. They are single sex so you don’t have to worry about boys walking in. The walls are bundles of reeds, with straw roofs where needed (i.e. over the loo and where you leave your clothes while showering). The showers are hot -- really hot, not just pretend hot -- and there are towels and soap (towels and soap!). The loo is clean and it flushes at the pull of a handle, so there is no need open the cistern and fish around. It uses a reedbed filtration system, so it’s all environmentally friendly, too. There is n...

1. Iris doing star jumps to keep warm at the lunch. 2. Stopping the truck to see giraffes grazing at the side of the road. 3. More pied kingfishers. This time I was sitting by the lake at Sepupa Swamp Stop watching them plop out of the sky into the water. I suddenly noticed a girl with white blonde hair was sitting under the tree too. She was so quiet and still that she must have been meditating. Sepupa Swamp Stop, Okavango Delta

1. Wayne contributes: ‘Having two drivers means you don’t have to take risks like driving with malaria.’ 2. A pied kingfisher with a beakful of fish. They are a bit disreputable-looking -- English kingfishers are definitely more exciting to look at, although you can have a proper look at pied kingfishers because they sit posing on trees. All you ever see of ours is a flash of blue and orange. 3. Three lady travellers got chatting to us in the hotel bar. They tested us fiercely on the national animals, flowers and birds of each country we had visited. 4. Fat Canadians. These were two more lady travellers and they were on a game cruise with us. They wore big round hats and shorts and had any number of cameras and binoculars round their necks. They shouted: ‘Hippos fighting at 10 o’clock and we all crowded round to the side of the boat to see. Chobe, Botswana

1. Male vervet monkeys have bright blue balls. I’d never noticed before and nearly fell off my chair in surprise as one walked past. 2. A purply brown butterfly with big white spots on its wings. 3. The group has become a bit like a family in the way we care for each other. After lunch I trip on a tentpeg and graze my knee. Within moments it has been sprayed with Detol and I am surrounded by people offering sterile wipes, plasters and comfort. 4. Wayne has thrown off the worst of his malaria. He is back among us, still sweating a bit and rather smaller, but much more cheerful. For the last few days we have had reports from Anne -- ‘I went in the room and my glasses steamed up.’ And ‘Last night he was complaining that his ears filled with sweat.’ He is still a bit sorry for himself, so we are trying to keep him from working too hard. Anne has been coping with four new passengers as well as a sick boyfriend, so it’s a relief to see the pressure off her, too. 5. Sitting in a waterside bar...

1. Rosey and I went white water rafting on the mighty Zambezi. On our first grade four rapid (The Mother) Rosey and I were thrown out. On the video, the raft disappears behind a wall of water and when it appears again, there are two less people on board. You can see Malvin, our guide, standing in the back brandishing his paddle in a triumphant manner. It was only then that I began to suspect that white water rafting involves a certain amount of theatricals. 2. We pulled Elaine into the raft after she got stuck under her kyack. 'Are you all right?' 'No'. 'What happened?' Shake of the head. 'Are you all right?' 'No.' Her face was grey and her lip was trembling. 'Are you going to get back in?' Pause. 'Yes.' And we all cheered. 3. Meeting the rescue canoe after swallowing a lot of river. You cling on to the front with your arms and legs and wait for a raft to come close enough to board. 4. We lost a paddle, so we snatched one from ano...

1. Seeing elephants swimming across the river. 2. Free bars on boats. 3. Watching Iris terrorising young men from outside our group. Iris is 68 and says she is growing old disreputably and that ‘It’s all talk, darling.’ She is fitter than the rest of us and has about twice as much energy and when she is not appreciating beautiful men she bounces around or races up and down hills, making me feel positively matronly. Livingstone, Zambia

1. Victoria Falls: I wasn't prepared for the size of the it, or the wetness: the spray is just like rain, sometimes torrential, sometimes just drizzle, sometimes heavy fog. Within minutes we were soaked to the skin. The sun shining through the spray makes rainbows everywhere, so the place looks like something out of a 1980s children's cartoon: 'Princess Khalisa, we have reached the Palace of the Chromatica and now we must return the Amathysteria to its rightful place, restoring life to the Rainbow Empress. 2. Baby baboons playing in creepers. One had an old corn cob, one a dead flower and the other a piece of straw. They were practising their climbing while clutching these treasures. The parents were sitting up straight with their legs bent up and their hands hanging louchly off their knees. 'They look so human,' we all said. But then I wondered when I had last seen a person sitting up like that. (Picture by Rosey Grant) 3.Walking along the photograph trail -- it...