Day 39 – From Zim to Zam

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) to Livingstone (Zambia) – Jollyboys Backpackers

We set off for our 14 minute helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. It was K’s first time in a helicopter. We had planned to fly over the Grand Canyon a few years back but the weather was abysmal and the flight was cancelled.  Not the same in Zim, the weather was perfect.

Even at the helicopter office we couldn’t escape people trying to sell us 200 trillion dollar notes. We were approached by one of the employees who we brushed off pretty quickly, we then heard one of the employees trying to sell one to the other couple for $50. We’d been offered one for just a dollar the day before while walking down the street (and that reminds me, we also had offers for M’s shoes, shirt and hat as well)!

M was spoilt and was selected to sit up the front of the five seater with the pilot, while K was squashed in the back 3 seats with a larger couple – but at least it was the window seat! It gave a great perspective of the falls and it has to be one of the quickest ways you could get rid of $250 without throwing it out the window. A lovely way to celebrate our anniversary in fact!

The border crossing to Zambia was very easy and our accommodation at Jollyboys was conveniently close to the town of Livingstone. M lashed out big time for the special occasion and bought K a $4 copper bracelet, followed by a nice dinner at a spot called The Spot.

Day 38 - Do not wear a white top when visiting Victoria Falls

Kasane (Botswana) to Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) – Shoestrings Backpackers

We caught the shuttle bus at 8.00am to do the border crossing into Zimbabwe, very straightforward and painless. We arrived at our accommodation by 9.30 and fortunately were allowed to check in immediately.

We then headed off to Victoria Falls, an easy walk of just over a kilometer. There were many people working very hard to sell you hundred trillion dollar notes (old Zim money), souvenirs, rain coats – very very demanding and pushy.

The falls were awesome! The amount of water is so phenomenal, and as it's not high season there weren't very many people there. We did the entire walk through the park that left us 100% drenched to the bone by the spray (hence the title to this blog) – however as it was so hot it was great to be so wet. We then walked to see the “Big Tree” – which is where the Zimbabweans and Zambians used to trade in the old days. This is how we discovered that the map we had seen at Vic Falls was not to scale – it was much further to the tree than anticipated (and in the heat) and there was really nothing much to see, other than a big tree. We did pretty much dry out by the time we got back into town though.

Back in town we decided to go to the famous Victoria Falls Hotel (we skipped High Tea but did have a drink). A very grand colonial place with the most wonderful view of the Vic Falls bridge - however even the posh can’t keep the warthogs off their lawn! After strolling through the corridors hung with photos of UK royalty we slummed it back to Shoestrings (which we are actually quite happy with). After a disappointing dinner at Spurs at the casino (our tip: give it a miss) we called it a day.

Day 37 – Elephants abound!

Kasane – Thebe River Safaris

Today we thought we should try another safari, but at a different time of day to improve our chances of seeing something different, so we booked in with the up-market Chobe Safari Lodge for 10am (also a more civilized time).

We stood on the road outside Thebe to flag a taxi, where we were approached by some local guys who said “don’t wait for a taxi, flag anyone down”. Our answer was “are you sure?” “Yes, they will be honoured to have white people in their car.” “Really??”

So we tried it. The first car went past without stopping so K said to our new pals “Well they didn’t feel honoured!”, and the response was “then they must be from Zimbabwe”! The next vehicle was an empty school bus and sure enough it stopped and took us exactly where we wanted to go!

The safari was very enjoyable as we managed to see a hippo by the side of the road (instead of submerged), and many more elephants than yesterday. So many in fact that we are now over elephants and will only take notice if there are cute babies or there are more than forty!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing by (but not in) the pool at Chobe Safari Lodge, followed by our final meal at Thebe.

Day 36 - Chobe didn’t let us down!

Kasane, Thebe River Safaris

5.45am start today for the dawn game drive, we had been told great things about Chobe so our expectations were high. The first hour was disappointing, but then things started to pick up. By the time we came across a pride of lions – yes, we can call them that as there was a daddy, 4 mums and five cubs - we felt Chobe had delivered.

However the most elephants we saw were actually outside the park on the side of the road on the way back to our lodge. Chobe doesn’t have any fences – it is not possible to keep the estimated 40,000 to 60,000 elephants contained behind a fence, so they roam free outside the town across the roads – a truly astonishing sight.

After the safari we headed in to Kasane where for only $5, M had the long talked about “hair cut” – the results of which he is currently undecided about, but he is pleased he will not need another one in a very long time!

We checked in for our river cruise at 3pm and came across heaps of hippos, elephants, crocs. We saw hundreds of impalas in one group - quite a sight when the most we'd seen previously in other parks was about 30 or so. Once again however we still saw the biggest group of elephants on the way back home outside the park – there were about 50 elephants standing only 500 meters from our lodge. In general however Chobe has had the largest concentration of wildlife we've seen so far, and this is the quiet season!

Day 35 – Nearly a wipeout!

Maun to Kasane, Thebe River Safaris

The night before we had been convinced by the kind, helpful owners of Discovery that we were crazy to take the 9 hour bus ride to Kasane when the flight was so cheap, so we opted for a sleep-in instead. Unfortunately K had one of her appalling, vomiting migraines all night – so we would never have made the 6am bus anyway! However she did just manage to scrape it together to crawl onto the 50 minute fight to Kasane. 

This is the first airport we have ever arrived in that doesn’t have taxis waiting at the terminal, but we eventually managed a lift and we made it to Thebe River Safaris, where K checked into bed and M took a walk to town (about 5km or so from our lodge), encountering an elephant on the side of the road on the way back (which as it turns out is a very common occurrence around here).

By the time evening came K had improved to the point where we booked some activities for the next day, but it was looking pretty shaky for a while there.

Day 34 – Three showers in one day!

Maun, Discovery B&B

Today we had a mokoro trip and game walk in the Okavango Delta.. We were delivered to the pickup point by our gracious hosts, and on arrival we were provided with some ponchos to keep us dry, as it’s currently the wet season and it pretty much rains every day, though when and for how long is quite unpredictable.

We hopped into a motor boat to take us to the start of the trip proper, which was in a small village called Boro. At Boro, we transferred to the mokoro, a low dugout style canoe, which is propelled using a long pole. This one was fibreglass, but traditionally they were made from trees.

It was quite a pleasant journey as we glided through the water lilies and reeds while our guide pointed out things of interest. As we progressed the reeds got taller, and the channel we were following became narrower, until we were holding our hands up to keep from getting speared through the cheek by a stray reed. It was also starting to warm up, and it looked like we might have a beautiful day,

After passing through a huge area covered with water lilies, we stopped at an island, where we were told we were going for a walk. This was where we hoped to see some animals – elephants, hippos etc. For some reason we thought this bit wasn’t going to take long, so we left our ponchos in the mokoro. About 25 minutes into our “short” walk, the sky got darker, the wind picked up, and it started to rain. Five minutes later we were totally drenched! Being the intrepid adventurers that we are, we carried on, hoping the rain would stop ….. but it didn’t! M was keen to continue (we weren’t gong to get any wetter!) – but by this time K had had enough, and decided to abort the walk, so we turned back, and this time the nice sandy trail we’d followed in had become a waterlogged trench! The only exotic animal we got to see on our “game walk” was a chameleon.

We finally made it back to the boat, K put her poncho on (better late than never – but as she puts it “did you mention how blinking cold I was?”). We then headed back to Boro in the mokoro, and of course on the way back the weather improved, so by the time we had returned to our original starting point (which included an hour and a half waiting at Boro for the motor boat, which was actually quite interesting, as it gave us an insight into modern African village life, as opposed to the Himba version) the weather was quite nice!

And so ends the sad and sorry tale of our first failed African Expedition.

Day 33 – What is it about buses in Africa?

Windhoek (Namibia) to Maun (Botswana), Discovery B&B

Today we’d booked an early bus from Windhoek to Maun, our base for exploring the Okavango Delta (well, one very small part of it). Pickup time was 6am – and as appears to be a persistent problem, the bus didn’t turn up. We called the bus company around 6:20am to find out what was happening ….. first we were told it was meant to be a 7am bus, then a call back told us it was on its way. We finally headed off around 7:10am ….. 70 minutes of lost sleep!

The trip was pretty easy – we were the only ones on the bus, a 14 seater, so Kathryn made her own first class section by lying on the back seat, and tried as hard as she could  to get those 70 minutes back! The only minor hiccup was when the bus driver tried to enter Botswana via the Namibian immigration lane – it was if he had never done the trip before! We also had to get the GPS out to direct the driver to our accommodation in Maun, another common problem it seems!

Day 32 - Try the Windhoek Experience!

Windhoek, Chameleon Backpackers

Last day of the van today, and also our last full day in Namibia. We didn't know what to expect when we arrived, but over the last week or so we've come to enjoy the country very much, the scenery has been amazing, and the people very pleasant and friendly (except for some sort of scam artist we met one day who swore when we only gave him N$10 - about A$1.50 - for his "soccer team's bus trip").

One thing to mention, we keep being mistaken for Germans, as we have been continually approached (especially today in Windhoek) by people asking us questions in German. Generally we tell them we don't understand, at which point they switch to English, and ask us where we're from. If we're in a playful mood, we don't tell them anything and allow them to keep guessing all the countries they know .... and not one person has come up with Australia yet - shows how few Australians must travel here!

Today we took a little van tour of Windhoek, checking out a few of the interesting buildings (the usual stuff ... churches, museums, parliament buildings, gardens), after which we had a nice lunch at the very swish Windhoek Country Club.

We dropped the van off, got a taxi back to our accommodation in town (the place with the warning signs - no, we didn't try out the suggestion in the photo!), and spent the rest of the evening trying to use up all of our 3G data allocation tonight before it becomes  unusable when we cross the border into Botswana.

This means a couple of things:

1. We have now uploaded another Picase album of photos for Namibia. You can click here to see it (or the Namibia link at the right of this page)
2. We've managed to get some videos uploaded to YouTube as well, our YouTube channel can be accessed at this link, and we'll also embed the videos into the associated blog posts. The direction leaves a lot to be desired, but you should be able to get some idea of what we've been seeing along the way!

Day 31 - Onwards preparation

Otjiwarango to Windhoek, Arebusch Lodge

Not much driving today, just a couple of hundred or so kms to Windhoek, which we reached by about 1pm. We pretty much headed straight for our caravan park, to prepare the van and get our now dispersed luggage in order for the van's return tomorrow.

As a result it was a pretty quiet day - we dropped in to the backpackers we'll be staying at tomorrow night (which seems to be in a pretty dodgy area, judging by the sign out the front), and K did some further planning for the next week or so, where we'll head to Botswana for more safari-ing, but this time with someone other than M driving!

The caravan park had a very nice restaurant, and as the only food we had left was two minute noodles, we opted to eat at the restaurant for both lunch and dinner.

Day 30 – It’s official – donkey’s are stupid

Opuwo to Otjiwarongo, Acacia Park

Today we start heading to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, which is where we need to return the campervan on Thursday.

As a result, there isn’t much to blog about – other than the bit where we only just made it to Kamanjab with the petrol gauge reading below “empty”, and then the car not starting once we had filled it up, it was pretty uneventful. Oh yeah … we also saw some giraffes, zebras and antelope in the bush on the side of the road (apparently the elephants often break out of Etosha and let the other animals free)…but we’re pretty ho-hum about those sorts of things now, being the great African adventurers that we are …….

Over the last couple of days, we’ve had to negotiate all sorts of animals (both wild and domesticated) on the road, and if there’s any correlation between an animal’s intelligence and its road sense, then from smartest to dumbest, they are:

• Elephants – the only time we saw one on the road it moved off as quickly as it could when it saw a car approaching – which might also explain why we’ve seen so few elephants so far.
• Antelopes- there are a number of types of antelope, with slightly different behaviours, but they generally get going – fast – as soon as they work out you’re heading for them.
• Giraffes – They are almost always seen off the road, but if they are on the road when you are approaching they quickly move away when they see you, in a loping canter.
• Goats - they see you coming and start moving off the road, and are pretty much out of the way by the time you get to where they were
• Zebras – they stay on the road for a while, but as you get closer they start moving faster, though if you drive up on them slowly they tend to stay in place a little longer
• Cows – they see you coming, but don’t bother to start moving until you get close, and even then they only move slowly. At least they do move though
• Donkeys – I have no idea whether they can see you coming – they don’t move, they don’t look up, and they don’t even register when you drive past them at 100kmh – which might  explain the dead donkeys on the side of the road!

Of course, we haven’t yet worked out what the animals are doing on the road in the first place – there’s nothing to eat, and there’s all that traffic to avoid!