While Uwe and I were in Namibia we drove our way toward the Caprivi Strip, a stretch of country that extends to the east like an outstretched finger. We spent a night at the Hakusembe River Lodge in Rundu. Each room is a private hut. They all have thatched roofs and are situated on the beautiful Kavango River.
The waters were too low for a boat cruise, so I caught up on my journaling, wanting to record everywhere we’d been and what we’d seen so far. No small task, that!
Uwe was (still is, for that matter) culling his photographs.
Dinner that night was a buffet in the big building, also with a thatched roof. The sunset was unusually vivid and stunning, but warned that a storm was on the way. We could see the wall of rain it would bring.
We moved indoors to eat. The storm system brought thunder and lightning, and the lightning strikes occurred faster and closer. Out one of the open doors we saw a massive flash immediately followed with an enormous CRACK!!!!!!!!!
The ground shook – the air was static – the noise was absolutely deafening.
I screamed, because it scared the s**t out of me. Everyone laughed shakily afterwards and I told one of the lodge employees, “My grandfather was a farmer, and he got struck by lightning TWICE. That was way too close for comfort.”
Then an employee ran out of the room carrying a fire extinguisher. She was followed shortly by another employee carrying a second fire extinguisher. Five minutes later an ashen-faced pair of German tourists entered, wheeling their suitcases behind them. They’d checked in late, and were just about to enter their hut when a bolt of lightning struck it….
The roof had caught fire. Some time later I glimpsed the staff carrying the rescued mattresses past the windows. The next morning at breakfast the bedding was still in a pile where it had been hastily stacked. The dining hut had a much higher roof, and we were very, very lucky that giant bolt of lightning hit another part of the grounds.
Lightning only strikes once, right?
NOTES: Text ©2023 Jadi Campbell. Photos © 2023 Jadi Campbell and Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography can be viewed at viewpics.de.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded and The Trail Back Out.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
In Botswana it took two hours in a jeep on terrible roads to even get to Moremi Game Reserve. It was worth it: in the park we spotted a big pack of wild dogs.
Africa’s wild dog should probably be called the wily dog. They’re social and really smart and farmers hate them. The wild dog’s intelligence, speed (African wild dogs can run at speeds of more than 44 miles or 70 kilometers per hour), and hunting talents makes them a real threat for livestock.
Their sociable nature means food is shared with the entire pack. Farmers set out poisoned meats, the wild dogs return and regurgitate the food to feed the pups and other adults, and everyone gets poisoned. They’re one of the most endangered species on the planet.
A few days later we splurged on a doorless helicopter ride over the Okavango Delta. Uwe wanted to photograph migrating herds from the air, and I just wanted not to faint or throw up.*
Victoria Falls wasn’t at full force when we visited but we still got soaking wet from the mists blowing over from the other side. We were happy to be wet as it was over 100 degrees that day. 
And then, when I looked in the viewfinder hoping I’d managed to get a few shots that didn’t include my thumb in the upper left hand corner, there was the breathtaking sweep and scope of Victoria Falls, dry season or wet season or any season. Even the fuzziness in my photo is supposed to be there – that’s the mists blowing up from Victoria Falls. Maybe the best photo I’ve ever taken with my phone!
Author Bram Stoker was born on November 8, 1847 in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland. In 1897 Stoker gave the world Dracula, the vampire from Transylvania. Undead, the vampire must drink blood and transforms himself into a wolf or a bat at will. In Stoker’s honor here is an excerpt from my first book, about the 2,000,000 wrinkle-lips bats Uwe and I saw when we visited Thailand. – Jadi
It was dusk when the car came to a stop on a plain with no one in sight, the sun a bright red disk sailing below the horizon. Gabe got out of the car just as the first bats emerged from the cave.
These were followed by more, and more, and more, an impossible number of flying mammals swooping and looping in ribbons across the skies.
“Each bat will cover up to 200 kilometers of hunting grounds tonight before they’re done,” the guide told him.
There was not a single other human being anywhere, no buildings, no roads, no signs of human civilization, only the twisting spirals of the bat colony in the air.
The men stood for over two hours as the bats sailed overhead. Gabe waited until it was too dark to make out the shapes of the bats before he turned away, images of flight burned onto his retinas and his memory.
Pam follows several mudlarks on Instagram and she was beyond excited to learn that the Museum of London Docklands was hosting the city’s mudlarks for two days when we were there.
Pictured here is mudlark Sean Clark, who takes part in a long-standing (and previously grim) activity. 
They will all be taking their vacations. Spots that are usually crowded anyway are going to be jam-packed. This is not an experience for visitors with weak hearts or fear of crowds.
