Welcome to Botswana: the land of The Okavenga Delta, the Kalahari Desert and the inspiration for Alexander McCall-Smith's No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series! It is a gentle land with friendly people and where they obey the road rules, speed limits and stop at pedestrian crossings. Most un-African.
When we entered from the north our map showed a number of places with an airstrip. We looked at the one in Gumare which was very new looking tarmac but there were some military present. I had already selected Tsau as a possibility as it was further from the wet area. We drove to look and found a very long grass strip but very rough and full of ground squirrel burrows. Fine for us but lethal for fixed wing aircraft. On returning to the main road shop to buy more phone credit Chris met a helpful man and a very flirty girl who came to look in the Enterprise and suggested we talk to the village Chief to ask permission to use the airstrip. This resulted in a meeting with the local police woman who called the resident Civil Aviation man and passed up the line to Head Office. In spite of mentioning the name of Jack Ramsden, retired Head of their CAA, who everyone knew, permission was refused.
The Chief's son, Jack Jack, came up with another plan and said he would help us. He drove us around on a complete survey of the area, visiting both football grounds a few kilometres apart and the dry riverbank and surrounding open fields. We decided on the bigger football field as there were more landing opportunities then went back to Jack's house to construct the basket and burner. We loaded everything onto his Toyota pickup for the morning. I then cooked a meal for the 3 of us which we ate outside with a beautiful sunset forecasting an exciting morning's flight. Jack's English was excellent. He had trained in Tourism Management in Zimbabwe. We learned about his girlfriend and 2 children. He wants to marry but can't yet afford the dowry (8 cows) = about £1000.
Next morning we were up and ready too early at 5.30 as it was still dark and starry skied. We were at the football field and inflated with Jack's help and a couple of friends who turned up. The met balloon gave a direction straight over the village - perfect. No wind on the ground but with speed not far up. We both flew and Jack followed. It was a really good flight. As we crossed the main road Jack was below us. Lots of open areas with donkeys, cattle and a cowboy on horseback. Chris decided to fly on longer and suddenly the smaller football field appeared off to our left. With a last minute correction to our track by going high we had a steep descent into the field narrowly missing a goalpost. A few excited but calm people to help pack away then back to Jack's where I cooked us a full English breakfast with the last of our bacon to celebrate. Jack enjoyed that immensely.
We are very pleased we made that flight as we had failed to make contact with both Jack Ramsden to help or the local balloon pilot, and we have been lucky in making a good friend of Jack in Tsau.
No comments:
Post a Comment