9- The Move

A few days later, we had to make a move. Our hosts, the Morkels, had to move to a more remote location. We had to make numerous trips by car taking things to the other side, taking advantage of those occasions to do some reptile search transects on the way.

And after those days of carrying some things, it was time to take the furniture and heavy things. Among them, a wall piano and a sewing machine.

So, with a lot of effort on everyone's part, we started the first load, filling a huge trailer with assured furniture to avoid damage.

Imagine the situation in an area without proper roads and plenty of sand. We got out on the main "road", where we could move a little faster.

But later on we had to re-enter roads with quite a lot of slopes, sand and rocks. A total journey of about three and a half hours due to the limited speed.

And it happened. In an area of climbing between rocks, the trailer axle came off, and we were unable to continue the journey. It was just me and Pete. He had a satellite phone, but all the other people we could contact were away from their homes, so we couldn't get anybody on the phone.

In that situation, we had to chock and unhook the trailer, and I would wait for it while Pete was going to find some backup. 40 degrees, my cell phone and notebook, some oranges and a bottle of water. There was only one tree whose top provided enough shade to mitigate the heat around it, so I decided to sit on its trunk while eating an orange.

Until I saw three soft ticks crawling up my pants. Everything in Namibia is designed to desicate you under the sun, as ticks lurk in the shade of trees, where mammals go for shelter.

I didn't want to keep tempting the ectoparasites in the shade, so I decided to explore the area in search of animals without going too far from the trailer.

Few reptiles, but I saw a lovely little mantis. It was Episcopomantis chalybea.

Episcopomantis chalybea

After waiting for about two hours, the backup appeared, and thanks to this we managed to put the axle in its initial position and get back on course.

This was the first of 3 trips with furniture, but the rest went by without serious problems. Once Germán and I were going with the piano, and one of the cars behind ran out of gas, and the solution was to pump some gas from one car to another.

Placing the furniture in the house was also quite laborious, as were the arrangements that had to be made in the house and that we were helping with. But with the gratitude of these people and after getting to know them a little, the help given was hardly heavy despite the fatigue we were experiencing.