The Paris Hilton of camping conquers Mozambique … with a little help from the ‘fam’

I’ve been told that the word ‘girly’ comes to mind when people speak about me. Is that true, you may wonder? Oh yes. And with an exclamation mark! My story starts with a big bang, the day my parents dropped the bombshell that our little family of four would be going on a camping trip with our brand new Conqueror Companion off-road caravan. I’ll bet you can practically hear my silent screams…

All packed up and ready to go! A few weeks later I found myself standing in our driveway telling my dad that the caravan’s indicator lights were working, and with every flash I reassured myself that I was ready for this. And so what if for the next six days every shower I saw would violate all known health codes! At least I had my GHD hair straightener. I mean, what can go wrong as long as I have a ‘good hair day, every day’? Into the car and out of my comfort zone I stepped as we waited for my mother, who was checking all the doors and windows before we left, for the third time. My dad yelled his usual ‘Into the wild blue yonder we go!’ as we pulled away and started what would be our most unimaginable journey ever.

We made a quick stop at the petrol station to fill the Fortuner up with the last South African fuel it would be getting for a while. Then we poured a seemingly infinite amount of water into the caravan’s built-in water tanks while my dad made sure that his money-maker wouldn’t crash and burn at the hands of the new manager.

After who knows how long, we finally got the whole family back into the car. Just as we were leaving our small town, I found out that we would be without the blessings of electricity for the next six days. Great!

Our first night was spent in the Kruger National Park at Punda Maria camp, where we clung on to civilisation by our fingertips because, according to Dad, the next day we would be going ‘where no camper has ever gone before’.

The fact that my parents regularly drag me to places that are so rural I cringe at the thought of them actually made our first night quite bearable. It was what my parents would call ‘luxurious’ compared to what waited for us the next dreadful day. However, I just closed my eyes and imagined our little caravan as a lovely suite at Durban’s Oyster Box Hotel.

To Mozambique and beyond! Next morning I was still half asleep when I became a visitor to Mozambique. Afterwards, when I’d emerged from my zombie-like state, my parents informed me that we had crossed over at the Pafuri border post.

Right here I have to interrupt my travel tale to say that it was the happiest border post experience we’d ever had – even for me, by far the most difficult person to deal with on a camping trip. So kudos to you dudes working it over at Pafuri!

After that we drove for what felt like days – and since no-one in the family took the trouble to learn any more Portuguese other than ‘Bom dia!’ I was fairly certain that we were going to die, because, you see, we were in the middle of nowhere! All I saw around me were grassy plains filled with crickets the size of golf balls and Mozambicans running away from us instead of towards us. Yes, they ran AWAY!

That night we arrived at the Parque Nacional do Limpopo and set up camp in Campismo Nhampfule. It was desolate … with a ranger sporting the whitest shoes I had ever seen on someone in the middle of Mozambique. We were completely alone that night, as the ranger left for town soon after we arrived. I guess having his first campers in two months was something to celebrate!

Mom and Dad set up our shower cubicle with water from the caravan’s tanks so we could have a quick shower. Later that night we ate Dad’s famous spaghetti bolognaise, before curling up and drifting off to sleep to the sound of a car honking at the gate to summon a ranger who would never appear. Two days later, I’d seen enough silver marsh spiders and snakes not to be afraid of them any more. In fact, I almost stepped on a snake and only freaked out a little. OK, so it was just 15 cm long, but still … that’s what you call progress.

The next day we drove for I don’t know how long. The road was bumpy at times, and it was clear that this part of Mozambique had recently been blessed with rain, as Mom constantly had to get out and check the depth of the puddles Dad planned to drive through. All around was mud, and there were crickets everywhere, as well as beetles and flies and spiders. It was all too much, and somewhere in my subconscious I knew I had a mental breakdown coming on. I felt one freaking puddle away from getting a permanent eye-twitch. Finally, after a whole day of driving, we pulled into an abandoned campsite. Emphasis on the word ‘abandoned’. Turns out my dad somehow forgot to make sure that the Sandalo site still existed. All that greeted us was a big clearing on the side of the road with a little hut that I assumed had been the ablution facilities, complete with the decorative blue worm floating in the sink … and no running water.

There we set up camp and scattered into the wilderness to find firewood. An old, battered and truly Mozambican car came and went. We all listened as the noise faded into the sunset. Around the campfire my parents started telling stories of lions roaming free and elephants trampling helpless campers who decided to take on the untouched Mozambiquen wilderness. I believed these to be tall-tale stories, but even so I decided we would be sleeping in shifts that night.

The next morning we woke up bright and early, packed and said our goodbyes to Sandalo. After about an hour’s drive we came across some Mozambicans who seemed to have been stuck in the mud for quite some time, so we decided to help them. My dad still takes pride in telling the story of how he towed a car out of knee-deep mud with his caravan … in reverse! To a heartfelt ‘Obrigado!’ from our newly freed friends, we continued on our way, wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t been there in their time of need. A few hours later, when we stopped for a breakfast of last night’s leftovers, it suddenly dawned on me that I was actually enjoying myself. Quite possibly this was civilisation-deprivation talking, or perhaps it was the fact that a big spider was watching me. I can’t be sure.

Right here I have to press pause on my story again to say that Mozambique really is a beautiful country. Even though we were nowhere near the ocean, we had that laid-back feeling you get when you go to the beach. I can’t say much about the people, though, since they all ran away from us, but the few we had the privilege to meet – like the fashion-forward ranger at Campismo Nhampfule – had a charm we came to know and love as typically Mozambican. Next we set up camp at Campismo Aguia Pesqueira.

It was to be our last night in Mozambique before returning to civilisation … oh, I mean ‘South Africa’. It was also the night I managed to shock my family by (a) volunteering to cook dinner and (b) admitting that it was actually fun to be a rural camper. This camp proved to be unexpectedly luxurious for us hardy campers, even though my mother had to fix the gas bottles at the ablution blocks so that I could have a hot shower. It wasn’t busy, so we had the privilege of choosing our campsite. Obviously we chose the best spot in the house, the stand overlooking the majestic Massingir Dam. It was beautiful, and I highly recommend a few nights there for your bucket list.

After everyone had settled down I started making my famous biltong pot. Dad lazily gazed into the blue yonder he had so excitedly anticipated just three days ago. Mom sipped her Hunter’s in silence, only to break it with the occasional ‘Ooh, did you hear that?’ when a fish eagle called out overhead, while my brother went for a walk to explore the campsite. That night we all slept as if we were in a coma. It was clear that the Kemps had had quite enough of Mozambique’s rustic charms. We were ready to go home. Since my story’s about to hit home base, I’d better point out now that we undertook this journey with no malaria medication whatsoever. We were armed only with a few bottles of Peaceful Sleep, mosquito patches and mosquito bands. Fortunately for us, the deadly mosquitoes kept their distance and we all came home with not so much as one mosquito bite! Home sweet home!

The next morning we arrived bright and early at the Giriyondo border post, ready for action … to find out that we were the only tourists there. The friendly staff helped us, and in no time we were back in the car and on our way. How happy we were! We knew we were truly back on home soil as soon as we came within range, finally, after so many days of isolation, of Vodacom’s signal towers. I immediately let everyone in my contacts list know that I was alive and sane. In the afternoon we pulled into Tsendze camp in the Kruger National Park. It was nice to be in the South African bush once again. As we explored the campsite, we all came to the realisation that our ‘rural’ vacation hadn’t been that bad after all. After Kruger, we spent our last night in a Mpumalanga town called Hazyview, where my mother exchanged some clothes for half-a-dozen wooden chickens and other trinkets … for no apparent reason.

We set up camp for the last time at the Hotel Numbi’s caravan park, where we had a taste of sunny South Africa at its sunniest when someone tried to break into a fellow camper’s car. The campsite was good, with a big lawn for a tent and a lot of trees for shade. It also had electricity, a first for us on this trip, so we took full advantage of it by charging everything we could lay our hands on.

Early the next morning, leaving nothing but our footprints, just like good campers always should, we headed home. As I sit here writing this, I realise that this vacation taught me a lot of things, and that it pushed me out of my little girly world into something that created a bond between me and the rest of my family. It created a lot of new memories and proved to be the escape we’d all needed from the hustle and bustle of school and work. I can honestly say that it was an amazing experience. Oh, and guess what? My GHD never even left its bag.