A gastronomic start to a wild journey

I’m writing this in a Wimpy. All South African travel write-ups should mention this dubious gas station eatery. Truth is, every foray into the wild, every border crossing and African sunset is linked to a Wimpy meal. If you haven’t found a remarkably well preserved chip in the footwell of your car years later, you haven’t been travelling.

So, travel writers and bloggers, more Wimpy, less: “The sun descended over the plains and I knew I belonged in Aaafrika.” In fact the sun is setting while I write this, there behind the 95 Unleaded pump bathing Wimpy’s red vinyl in impossibly redder red. And there’s not a single sod interested because there’s a Man U game on Telly. Black patrons are watching; white patrons are watching; the waitrons and pump attendants are watching and no one is complaining. English football is the one unifying thing in this country, besides Wimpy. This, the finest restaurant here in Colesburg, is a microcosm of the nation. There’s even a couple of clowns at a table. No really. They’re not in costume but you can tell they’re clowns because they’re miserable. Brian Boswell’s circus is in town, setting up across the highway. I went over to ask if I could take some photos but the manager said no, they don’t want bad press. Clearly that’s the only press they get. And rightly so. The caged animals are more miserable than the clowns. It was my first sighting of an African elephant on this trip and it left me feeling low.

You see, I’m travelling to Rubondo Island on Lake Victoria, home to elephants infinitely happier as well as many other creatures. Most significant are a population of wild chimpanzee the descendants of which were rescued from circuses and zoos in Europe back in the 60’s. German zoologist, Bernhard Grzimek, released 17 of these chimps on Rubondo giving them the freedom of this uninhabited island, the largest island national park in Africa. Incredibly, the chimps returned to their wild ways and thrived so that today they have almost tripled in number.

Great story. So, that’s where I’m going. I’ll be travelling much of the Rift Valley and heading back via Gorongosa in the very south of the valley – a place they call Africa’s Lost Eden. The wildlife in this national park was poached, hunted and needlessly gunned down during Mozambique’s civil war meaning many species were almost completely decimated. Today, an incredible conservation effort is restoring Gorongosa to what it once was. Already some species’ numbers are greater than they were in the park’s heyday.

There’ll be a whole lot of other things to write about and photograph, and incredible people to meet, but I’ll run out of Wimpys pretty soon – It’ll be nile perch and the epitome of free range chicken for me – feral chicken. So, let me just finish this dodgy burger, and I’ll be off.