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Sunset
Sunset from the game reserve with a nice BaoBaob (sp?) tree in the background. Well, after getting back from our last little road trip around Namibia, Ryan and I decided it was time to focus on getting further north, and to our ultimate goal of reaching Mozambique. Charlie is heading to Dar Es Salem and figured he would join us. What was going to be a simple train ride turned into another road trip, this time with five people. Rob (New Zealand) had to get up to Katima to do some fishing in Angola and Sophie (England) wanted to see the country so we figured the five of us could subsidize each other quite nicely and explore the area to a greater degree and maybe find some animals. We hit the road and drove 900km straight into the evening and ended up at a camp called Ngepi just west of the Caprivi strip. We camped on the Okavango river just above the Botswana border and enjoyed a few days or camping and exploring the small game reserve called Mohango.
We saw many more animals, lots of Antelope (several kinds) and Buffalo, monkeys, Hippos (finally), snakes, turtles and many of the other usual characters. The game reserve was really small, but much cheaper than the
Under the Stars
My ragged, freezing, wet and hippo infested sleeping quarters. national parks. Our first day there we had the place to ourselves, just driving laps in our crappy rental car for most of the day before heading back to Ngepi to do some swimming in the Okavango and resting on their awesome deck over the river. The camp wasn't very busy but fairly popular with lots of other travellers from Windhoek coming and going between Victoria falls and south. I slept each night under a tree on the wet grass by the river, essentially giving up sleeping in the tiny excuse of a car because of size problems. I threw my sleeping bag outside our first night there and then followed suit the next few nights. It basically got colder and colder each night, so I put more and more clothing on, waking up constantly from the Hippos feeding (and a bit of paranoia on my part). Since its my first time really sleeping outside like that in Africa (the car was safe enough on the last trip) and not really knowing the behaviour of crocodiles and Hippos on the river, I ended up sleeping very lightly. The sounds the hippos make at nighttime is quite odd, sort of a
Chuck
Digga, Blue, Cobba, Mate. He goes by many names but Charlie is still alive and kicking. guteral murmer between their little clans feeding in the moonlight. No problems at all though and aside from the cold I did very well, waking up each morning and waiting for the sun to rise over the river.
We had a little three legged pot that sat in the fire so we did our own cooking and pretty much just relaxed talking with the other campers and having a few good campfires. After Ngepi we headed further east before going down into Botswana to stay in Kasane. On the way there we drove through Chobe park but not into the actual 4 X 4 area (since our car wouldn't make it) and stayed at another camp site near the Lodge. This time I managed to "borrow" a big chair foamy thing from the lodge to sleep on in an effort to avoid all my body heat conducting into the dirt. This turned out to be absolutely marvelous until the ants attacked and I had to abandon my dirt patch and walk around in the middle of the night trying to find a place away from the river (Zambezi this time) and of course the ants. Everyone had a good
Okavango River
Rob, Sophie and Myself enjoying the afternoon by the river. laugh at me in the morning, especially the guards on duty that found me all alone and curled up away from the other campers. The worst part was how long it took me to realize just how many ants there were and that they had built a highway over my face (stupid Larium).
Ryan and Rob visited the Chobe park by 4 X 4 while Charlie, Sophie and myself stayed back to save some cash and check out the pool. We explored the town a little bit and generally enjoyed our one big day in Botswana. The next morning Rob dropped us off on the Zambian border and thanks to a bit of a loophole we managed to get into Zambia without purchasing a VISA. Anyhow, that's pretty much it for the road trip, shouts out to the Adams Lake crew for a job well done last long weekend and hopefully you guys will email me some pictures eh?!
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