As we didn't go to the Kgalagadi for our holiday this time around, we had decided to afford ourselves a bit of extravaganza and booked us the Doornhoek Guesthouse at Mountain Zebra for a whopping ZAR 2600.00 a night. For those who don't know: it is outside the main camp and we found the thought of no light pollution and no other soul around very enticing.
Upon our arrival at MZ we were informed that there was a bit of a problem with the accommodation since there was no electricity since the cable had failed. Now you must know that the guesthouse is about 5 kays from the main camp (less as the crow flies) and electricity comes from there with the cable being buried along the dam that is located right in front of the guesthouse. Not an easy task to find the fault, I'll admit.
We were told that they had been working on it all day and knew the fault must be somewhere around the dam but it wouldn't be until the next day before they could proceed with the works.
Instead of overnighting in the faulty guesthouse the receptionist offered us a unit within the main camp. At the same time she told us that there was electricity at the guesthouse but only by generator, hence a lot of noise. After a short discussion between the SO and myself, we decided that we'd accept the noise and go for the solitude and the excitment in staying in a unit that was in an unfenced area. To us this was just tough luck, since it was nobody's fault that the darn cable decided to quit just the day before we arrived. We were offered to have the generator switched off at 10 pm and on again at 6 am. Well, we were fast asleep the nights before by ten, so way too late for us and gate opening was at 6 am, so way too late to have the thing switched on only then. 9 pm to 5 am was the agreed downtime.
The check-in proceeded and we were introduced to the activities on offer. The Cheetah Tracking had been on our wish list and when we said we wanted to book that the lady at reception made a quick call to her duty manager to get it for us for free - and succeeded.
So far, so good.
Later that day two staff members arrived at our unit to fill the generator up on diesel and the SO went out to chat about the technical stuff. I'm glad he did because he ask for and got instructions how to operate the generator which was parked right next to the unit (the noise and the smell were not pretty...) and the three of them agreed on us being totally self-sufficient. Like that, we were able to determine the times when we would switch off and on again. Pretty perfect under the given circumstances!
The next day (now Tuesday 29th) we came back from our morning drive smack in the middle of the workers lunchtime, so we didn't find out anything about the progress. As it is, during our break I saw a fish eagle flying into a tree at the dam that I couldn't see from our porch. So the SO offered to drive me down to look for it. When we came back the work was in full swing again and we were told that the fault had been located but it couldn't be fixed without extra parts. However those parts would come from Bloemfontein and with a bit of luck they would arrive the next day since they had already been ordered.
Seems we had to do with the noise for another evening then...
Wednesday 30th came but - and I'm sure most of you have already guessed it - not the necessary parts from Bloemfontein... However, the generator was moved away from the house and with that the SO no longer had control over it. Being asked by staff what the operating times should be we told them 5 am to 8 pm.
That evening 8 pm came, but no staff to relief us of the noise. Now, the SO and I are rather patient and tolerant when it comes to dealing with situations like these in SA and we thought that they might have mixed up the hours with our Initial request (5 am to 9 pm). But 9 pm came and still no staff... We actually had to send a text telling them to get their job done. The SO was quite explicit about it... But don't be fooled and think that a bit of a stick would help to get the job better done the next morning. We had originally planned to go out on a short drive before joining the Cheetah Tracking. Since we only got electricity at 5.50 am after another text, there was no chance of a drive anymore.
Still not the end of it!
Upon return from the tracking and a quick drive afterwards at around 12.30 pm we found the generator being silent. No reason to cheer though because it ran dry since staff hadn't bothered to check on the diesel. Right, no electricity... which means: no hot showers, no cold drinks, warm cheese (not much else to eat left at that point, luckily). At that point we were both seriously put off with the lack of care and responsibility. On top of it all the machine was not SanParks own but a rental from a local electrician. Apart from totally annoying their guest, they had also potentially blown a good amount of money for replacing the generator. (It was not completely gone but money still had to be spent on a mechanic who had to come into the park to fix it.)
Anyway, we lost it and sent another text telling the duty manage we expected someone to explain the situation very soon. The guy that came and had to put up with our rants still has my sincerest sympathies but someone had to take the stick for all that incompetence. By then we couldn't be sure if we would get electricity back again or not, so we requested to get a box full of ice for our drinks to be cooled, a gas cooker for being able to make coffee the next morning and a key to a unit in the main camp so we could have a hot shower. We got it all and we also got the electricity back at around 5 pm.
As the generator was up and running again, they guys came to collect the key and the gas cooker again but we told them no way for the cooker because you never know if you get your electricity back on when you want to and the next day was leaving day, so wanted to make sure we weren't delayed again by human insufficiency.
On a funny note here: the SO created a new word... inzafficiency
Also, we told them with no room for misunderstandings that we wanted the generator switched off at 8 pm sharp and on again the next morning at 5 am – equally sharp. I’m proud to say that we managed to get them do what they were supposed to do at least that night. The next morning we had to send a text again...
The end
