Travel to Botswana, Scorpions and deadly dragonflies

We left Zambia and the Royal Livingstone Hotel after breakfast with our guide Victor, and arrived an hour later at the river crossing where the Chobe meets the Zambezi, the only spot on earth where 4 countries intersect: Zambia; Botswana; Namibia; and Zimbabwe. We piled into our aluminum boat and traveled across the river, arriving ashore in Botswana. We cleared the Immigration shack and were instructed to follow the curb for 10 metres until we came to the “Disinfecting Station”. I lead the way and could find nothing along the curb other than what appeared to be a very wet oversized welcome mat with a large blue plastic jug next to it filled with some kind of clear liquid. Our driver motioned for me to step on the mat, which I did and then stepped off onto the earth and toward the waiting open air Land Cruiser. This was apparently the “Disinfecting Station”, which must be symbolic of the Botswanian desire for cleanliness as it can in no way actually reduce any hazard whatsoever, unless of course dry shoe soles are considered to pose some kind of danger.

We drove another 20 minutes along the main road and came across a herd of 20 elephants crossing the bush en route to the river to drink on this hot day. The elephants were not in the least bit afraid of us and came within a couple of feet of the vehicle before charging on across the road. Luckily, no one panicked and we got some excellent photos. Justin who has been asking every time we see an animal whether they are actually wild did not have to ask this time, he just beamed a bright smile and kept a look out for more.

We arrived at the Chobe Chiliwero Lodge in time for lunch and were shown to our amazing villas overlooking the Chobe River, which this afternoon was dotted with dozens of elephants, hippos, buffalo, warthog and birds. I was in my villa unpacking when the phone rang, on the other end was Justin crying into the phone and begging me to come to their villa, while Livvy was in the background screaming something about a scorpion. David and I rushed over to their villa, which is next door to ours, and found the kids standing on their beds clutching on to one another, safe but somewhat hysterical.

Our junior dynamic duo had been attempting to fumigate their villa with the use of 2 enormous cans of bug spray aptly branded “Doom”, with Livvy stomping on the bugs and beetles and Justin then sweeping them up and disposing of them. Livvy, who in this operation is the “Muscle”, was stomping on a particularly stubborn spider when she saw something dart across the room. She was sure it was a scorpion and shouted to Justin, who is more of the “Sweeper”, but he thought she was making it up. The Muscle then began shouting at the Sweeper as only a little sister can and insisted he come over and see that she wasn’t lying. Reluctantly, the Sweeper sauntered over expecting to see a beetle, but instead was faced with a real, live, poisonous, and as far as he knew, deadly scorpion. At this point the Sweeper became hysterical and began to cry which understandably caused the Muscle (who has rarely seen her big brother shed a tear let alone a river of them) to panic and jump on the bed, for though she was right that this was indeed a scorpion and her brother believed her, she was now certain she had in fact come upon something deadly.

The Sweeper sprang into action, jumped off the bed and ran for the telephone which he grabbed and somehow remembering the emergency number 200 he had been given upon arrival, alerted the staff to the scorpion and their need for assistance. He then jumped back onto the bed where he and his sister clung to each other like shaking leaves. The cavalry arrived in the form of a maintenance man and a housekeeper who did not display sufficient urgency or concern as far as the dynamic duo was concerned. The maintenance man casually told them that the little scorpion could not harm them and then shooed it out the door with the back of a lodge pamphlet returning it to the wild where, according to the Sweeper, it would no doubt spend the rest of its life trying to figure out how to get back in. The Muscle however disagreed and felt the scorpion would know exactly how to regain entrance to the villa and would do so immediately. As you can well imagine this made for some additional hysteria.

And so as I entered the room, the duo was standing atop the bedclothes crying and quite beside themselves with terror. The Muscle, additionally, was demanding to be airlifted out of Botswana and back to Los Gatos pronto. “What kind of terrible mother would bring her children to Africa to be killed by scorpions? Get me out of here now!!!!!”

After spraying another can of Doom throughout the room and stuffing tissue into every visible crack and crevice in the structures walls and laying rolled up towels along the door and window frames, I had calmed the kids down enough to coax them down from the bed and outside. I assured the children that the proper measures would be taken to secure their environment against any other scorpions but reminded them that like the maintenance man said, the little scorpions cannot harm them. “Maybe not harm us Mom,” said Livvy, “but they can still hurt us!” Good point. We met our guide/tracker Mushe, enjoyed a restorative cup of tea and some gooey chocolate cake, and then headed out in our open air vehicle to spot the animals up close.

We had barely left the lodge when we came upon no less than 4 herd of elephant, or “Ellies” as Mushe affectionately refers to them. Soon we were amidst herds of impala, warthog, and buffalo, as well as a pack of giraffe, hundreds of different birds, too many flying dung beetles which the locals refer to as “Zambian Helicopters”, and even tracked a leopard down by the river bank.

After our afternoon safari, we returned to our villas to shower and change in time for drinks and dinner. Given that the lodge is situated in the middle of a national game park that is not fenced in, we had been advised not to leave our rooms after nightfall without the assistance of a hotel “escort”. Chloe cannot understand why they are called “escorts” when they are really guards, and at 15 years of age, the connotation of an escort is hardly lost on her. As we were waiting for our escort to arrive and guide us to dinner, I opened the door a bit too wide and too long and let in a lone dragonfly. David, however, would later argue that the so-called dragonfly was actually the size of a bird and patently dangerous. I will leave that judgment up to you dear reader.

The dragonfly flew to a lamp in a small alcove-like shelf by the bed and was fluttering its transparent wings. David began shouting to me, “Whoa, close the door, close the door, you’re letting huge bugs in here! Oh this is gross.” He then grabbed the can of Doom from the dresser and making sure to keep his legs a good 3 feet behind and leaning over toward the dragon fly (as though performing the limbo only facing down), he began to spray the entire contents of the can in the general direction of the insect. His aim was perhaps less than accurate given his state of excitement and agitation and so this did not produce the intended effect. David then spied a large umbrella in the corner and grabbing it firmly began to joust at the firefly (maintaining the modified limbo position which thanks to his steady yoga practice was possible) with the pointed tip in a wild attempt to impale it. Finally, my husband the dragon slayer, (or dragonfly slayer) killed the dragonfly and victoriously released the umbrella.

At dinner when describing the incident, David told the kids that the insect was “huge, the size of a bird with a torso as wide as a dinner knife and an enormous wing span.” Raised in Westmount, the most exclusive neighborhood of Montreal, I suspect there were people to dispose of mosquitoes and dragonflies in David’s childhood, and so we can hardly blame him for his current state of unease with the natural world.

Needless to say, in our room I am both the Muscle and the Sweeper.