After paying the guide, we made camp. While we were doing this, one of the locals ‘accidently’ bumped into us, (news travels fast in the bush, via bush telecommunications). He told us that this place was much greener a year ago, adding that they haven’t been hit as hard as other parts of the country. He told us that if you dig in the empty river streams, you will find water within 20cm or so! 

After trying the experiment out, we laid camp and soon the darkness fell. The milky way that appeared was beautiful. Stars winked and twinkled like a bag of diamonds spilt on a sheet of black silk. Shooting stars ripped through the sky. The breeze was cooling in the still summer night.

Next day after spending my first night outside in the bush, I woke up and decided to do a little birding venture. The birds I spotted were phenomenal. Compared to the British Isle birds that I’m used to, these were a treat. I spotted three species of  hornbill. There were also a myriad of sunbirds, Columbiformes and Drongos.

We had our breakfast. while we were eating, an extremely tall man greeted us. I was bit taken aback as we were very far away from civilization. He told us his name was Ibrahim and that he walked from a town which was a day away (he looked like he just stepped out of his house, that’s how fresh he looked). He knew the area very well and offered to guide us to the Gacan Libaax mountain. We were very glad as we didn’t know the way.

We set off after breakfast, riding out of our camp site and through a dry riverbed. It was a rough long two-hour ride from the end of the Gacan libaax mountain range, and we started to slowly climb (with the car) up the mountain peak.