Zambia and Botswana

After several days in Windhoek Namibia we headed north into Zambia via the Caprivi Strip which is this narrow bit of land hundreds of km's long boarded by Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Open now without the need of an armed escort we drove through hundreds of villages strewn along the road. Signs everywhere warned of elephants and to drive carefully, so we kept our eyes peeled, when we weren't trying to keep the car on the road due to extremely localised torrential downpours. The only elephant we saw was when we came across a whole village out on the road yelling and screaming. We slowed down and some kids pointed out a movement in the bush. Next minute there was a trumpeting and a whole heap of crashing noises followed by a huge male elephant running out of the bush. All the kids turned and ran but as soon as the elephant stopped they were straight back into their yelling and screaming. We discovered this was the way villages stop elephants entering their village and knocking everything down... houses, crops etc. Eventually the elephant tired of the village protection squad and sauntered off back into the bush.

Anyway, orderly Namibia turned into disorderly Zambia with a drive across a bridge. After over an hour filling in forms and getting papers stamped in broken down caravans we were back on the road to Livingstone. Swerving to avoid people, cattle, goats and chameleons we arrived at Faulty Towers backpackers and signed up for a white water rafting trip down the Zambezi and a booze cruise for the following day. Joining us on the activities were our next door neighbours from Australia. As it's high water at the moment the rapids on the Zambezi are rather tame but still a lot of fun. Dani chose to go in the "easy" raft and I was forced to go in the "hard" raft which meant the guide tried to flip us as much as possible. Given the size of the rapids he only managed to flip us once much to his dismay. The booze cruise was more of a civilised affair compared to the last one I went on over here and we saw hippo and crocs as we drifted along as the sun set. The Aussies, Dan a South African we met on the rafting, another SA and a kiwi who flew oil prospecting planes were on our cruise. We were to run into Dan everywhere we went over the following days around Victoria Falls and ended up sitting out a massive rain storm in the Vic Falls bridge bungee cafe whilst having lunch.

Zambia is a massive country with not much between points of interest. Given it being the rainy season and advice from other travellers we turned around and headed to Botswana after 3 nights in Livingstone. Approaching the boarder we were confronted by a queue of trucks about 1 km long parked up on the side of the road waiting for the pontoon that takes vehicles across the river to Botswana. We pulled up at the boarder post and after fighting our way through the crowd of touts we then began the weird and wonderfully complicated process of Zambian boarder control. The touts followed us to the river edge we we waited for 2 hours for a place on the pontoon. The pontoon carried one truck and three cars at a time. Given the number of trucks, some of these guys must wait for several days as the pontoon takes just over 30 minutes to make a there and back trip across a 60 meter wide river. African efficiency!

Hitting up a small town called Kasane in Botswana where we spent two nights we did a game drive in Chobe NP followed by a sunset cruise. Elephants are everywhere here and so are hippos so we can safely say we've well and truly ticked those two off. Now we are in Maun where we undertook an overnight Makoro (dug out canoe) trip into the Okavango Delta. It was just Dani, myself and the guide/poler and we had to carry in everything we'd need ourselves. Our guide (Kaiser) was caught off guard by our last minute booking so ended up leaving all his food behind. He said he was happy not to eat for the 24 hour trip much to Dani's disgust, so Dani forced him to eat the muck we made for lunch, dinner and breakfast. I think he was pleased to see the end of us poor guy. The delta was quiet in terms of the big animals, not surprising given the time of year, but was full of birds and insects. We still heard hippo and saw zebra however.

So that brings you up to date. Tomorrow we head out towards a rhino sanctuary and then who knows where to from there. Hope everyone at home is well and we'll update again when we get a chance.