Letaka Moments: Fresh Bread, No Matter What

3-minute read 

It’s the first night of a mobile safari.

We’re sitting around the campfire: a couple from Florida, two sisters from Switzerland, a South African, and a woman from England.

Our lead guide, Shaka, is running through the briefing. The usual. A few guidelines about the vehicle. A reminder to stay in your tent after dark. Most of us have heard it before.

A clink of glass interrupts him as the chef warmly invites us to the dinner table.

Three courses.

In the middle of nowhere.

Prepared entirely over the fire.

The food, it turns out, is as much a part of the journey as the safari itself.

Many of us have travelled halfway across the world to reach this corner of the Okavango Delta, so after a long day, a good meal and dessert, we turn in early.

One by one, we wander back to our tents.

The soft trickle of bush showers.

A burst of laughter from somewhere in camp.

Then, one after another, the reassuring sound of tent zips closing for the night.

You take a slow breath.

You’re in the wild.

The adventure has begun.

I woke sometime during the night to the unmistakable sound of metal crashing together.

Clang.

Clang.

Quite the jarring sound when you’re camped deep in Moremi.

I unzip my tent and poke my head outside.

Was that a wooden spoon flying across the bush kitchen?

I’m pretty sure I just saw a cloud of flour explode into the air.

I think the chef just shouted something.

Strange.

I crawl back into bed and drift off again to the soundtrack of spoons scraping bowls, pots clattering, and the occasional muffled yell.

The next morning we’re gathered around the breakfast table.

Hot coffee.

Porridge.

Fresh fruit.

Rusks.

Fresh bread.

“Did anyone hear what was going on last night?” I ask.

A couple of shy half-nods and shoulder shrugs.

No answers.

So I ask the chef.

“Two honey badgers raided the kitchen at one o’clock this morning. They found the bread for breakfast and I chased them off while the bread was still in their mouths… then I stayed up to bake another loaf.”

True story.

And a promise of fresh bread every morning.

No matter what.

It wasn’t the last encounter we had with wildlife trying to raid our kitchen on that trip.

But it was certainly one of the more memorable ways to begin a Letaka safari.

Letaka moments – Spread your wings

-Raf