footloose ferrett

The itinerary: Chobe NP > Okavango Delta > Etosha NP > Spitzkoppe >
  Swakopmund > Soussevlei > Fish River Canyon - 21 days

Highlights:   Games drivers at Chobe and Etosha national parks; seeing
  the Okavango Delta up close and by air; striking landscapes
  in Namibia at Soussesvlei, Spitzkoppe and Fish River Canyon

Lowlights:  Tourism seemed exclusively run by the minority of white
  Africans in the two countries.

Enjoyable for:  Those wanting a flavour of African in relative comfort;
  geologists; photographers - both wildlife and landscapes.

Challenging for:   Independent backpackers wanting to use public transport to
  get around - a tour or hiring a vehicle is essential.

Our African adventure was split in two in so many ways. The thing to remember about overland truck trips or any kind of organised tour is that it’s all one big gamble. However much research and planning that you do, there are many variables that can make a trip good or not so good that it boils down to pure luck. Whilst our trip in East Africa was plagued by problems (painfully long drives; an overcrowded truck; flooded, ant-infested tents; few interesting highlights) we had luck on our side for our next three week overland trip from Victoria Falls to Cape Town. Firstly, our crew were excellent; secondly, the size of our group was small and the dynamics worked well; thirdly the weather improved; fourthly, we had a bigger and water-proof(!) tent and, finally, the itinerary was action-packed and the scenery was in places mind-blowing. So here’s how Rhino and I made our peace with Africa and had an amazing time...

Our first stop after leaving Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe was the small Botswanan town of Kasane that is conveniently situated a few kilometres from Chobe National Park, which has the biggest number of elephants in any national park or reserve in Africa. There are estimated to be around 60,000 of these huge mammals roaming around the area. The park is also home to many of their friends and enemies: baboons, impalas, hippopotami, buffalo; kudus and lions.

We had two fantastic evening game drives near the riverbed driving through huge groups of baboons, impalas and herds of elephants. We were also lucky enough to spot some sleeping wild dogs (sometimes called painted dogs) which are close to extinction in the wild and to spend another glorious hour photographing a proud lioness sitting on top of small hill like a queen. We spent two nights in the park bush-camping, an experience we won’t forget quickly. With just our tents and campfire for protection, we slept surrounded by the strange, eerie noises of wild animals (the roars of lions, grunts of hippos and laughs of hyenas) and awoke in the morning to hear news of night-time visitors to our camp! On our final morning, we drove out of the park past our lioness from the previous evening who was basking in the shade of an acacia tree and devouring her kill with the rest of her pride.

Our second destination in Botswana was Maun where we stopped to do a three-day excursion into the Okavango Delta. The Delta is a spectacular collection of waterways formed in the basin of the Okavango River that flows down from Angola. We were transported from Maun and into the Delta in mokoro boats (like canoes but carved from a single tree truck or nowadays made from fibreglass) through kilometres of reed-filled wetlands. The locals who poled us to our bush camp then helped us set up camp (there were no facilities at all even the toilet had to be dug) and lived with us for the next three days. There were eight tourists from our trip, our Zimbabwean cook and the six Botswanan polers and together we created our own temporary village out in the wilderness of the Delta. Each day the locals would take us on guided walks showing us the tracks of animals (was a leopard really that near our camp?), the medicinal uses of plants and pointing out zebras and antelopes. During the middle of the day it was too hot to do much so we lazed around: reading, swimming or trying our hands (with much difficulty!) at poling a mokoro.

On the final evening we were taken for a sunset cruise and when calmly gliding through the reeds and water lilies, we came face-to-face with a hippopotamus. Fortunately, it didn’t seem that bothered by us and it swam away but it was far closer than I’d like an aggressive wild beast to be! After the beautifully relaxing cruise, we made a large bonfire and ate our dinner, drank wine and toasted marshmallows whilst the polers entertained us with some great traditional Botswanan songs and dances... and then it was the tourists’ turn - I just wish I knew the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody better and Rhino was better at playing the air guitar!

If I had a recommendation for the Okavango Delta, it would be to go into it and to go over it. We spent three fantastic days camping in the Delta wetlands and forty-five equally amazing minutes flying over it. In a small 7-seater plane we flew far over the Delta doing extreme banked turns (oh, the g-force when your side window is at right-angles to the ground!) to see herds of wild elephants, bathing hippos, grazing buffalo and antelopes. It really gave us a sense of the enormity of the Delta and the remoteness in which we had been camped. Both experiences were great and I’d highly recommend them.

Rhino's Horn

Waking up to the sound of the 'Zebras'

It has been usually sunrise, noisy animals or snoring neighbours that has woken me in the morning when camping in Africa. When tooting car horns ceased my slumber, I couldn’t work out what was going on and it wasn’t until I went into town at lunchtime that I realised the national fervour that football brings to African countries. I was greeted in Maun by a sea of turquoise, black and white (the national team of Botswana is called the ‘Zebras’) across the flags, shirts and painted faces of the supporters. Nobody seemed to be doing much other than tooting horns, chanting or blowing vuvuzelas and their Africa Cup of Nations clash was more than 8 hours away! It was great to see such ardent support but unfortunately Botswana didn’t get the result their colourful and noisy fans deserved.

We were brought back down to earth by arriving in Namibia in the pouring rain. Rain so heavy that putting our tents up on the water-sodden ground wasn’t even an option so we upgraded to the luxury of a hot shower, electricity and proper bedding. The following day, we made our way to Etosha – one of the finest parks in Southern Africa - and we weren’t disappointed. In our journey through Eastern Africa, we had seen four of the ‘Big Five’ – lots of buffalo, hundreds of elephants, a lone leopard and several prides of lions but no game drive came close to those in Etosha (though as I said earlier it’s all about luck so please no letters of complaint!). Now, as you may have worked out there was one of the Big Five that we hadn’t seen yet... it was one that Rhino was particularly keen to see but we’ll come to that...

We entered the park and were driving away from the entrance when we spotted an elusive leopard slowly meandering through the bushes. We were thrilled with such a good start to our game drive but after another couple of brief sightings it wandered further into the bush. We drove a little further and then the mother-of-all-luck hit us - merely two metres from the side of the truck was a pride of lions greedily tucking into a freshly-killed zebra eagerly watched over by a gang of vultures in the closest tree. We sat there for hours mesmerised by the lions devouring the zebra’s insides and laughed as a lone impala blindly wandered down the road to within metres of the great cats’ feast. After some time though, the flies, smell of fresh faeces and the sight of bloody entrails across the road left me feeling a bit nauseous and I was glad when it was time to head back to camp. The morning game drive got off to a slow start (as they often do) until suddenly we happened upon a great black rhinoceros slowly drifting in zig-zags along the road not far from his grazing mate in the bushes. Rhino couldn’t shake the smile off his face all day after running into his distant family – especially when we came across another rhinoceros later in the day!