Blogs from Kasane, North-West, Botswana, Africa

Day 3 started with a cheekly little lie in until 5. Away from Palapye by 5:45 and heading north again, this time to our final destination in Botswana, Kasane. Leaving early gave us an opportunity to see another amazing sunrise and within a couple of hours we were tucking into a Wimpy breakfast in Francistown. After Francistown the landscape became more and more African with endless grassy savanahs either side, absolutely stunning. The traffic was extremely light with the majority of other traffic being intermittent lorries heading south presumably back to Gaberone and South Africa. Reaching Nata after about 4 hours we stopped for fuel and a wee in probably the least disirable toilets you've ever seen, fortunately though Reet had bought wet wipes, a flannel and soap. After Nata the A3 trurns west and we ... read more

So we had a 2 nite sleep, a day to rest well sort of. We woke up and decided to visit Chobe National Park. It is dry, like desert dry and super hot (24 degrees at 9:30). So we decided to drive along the water front where it is greener and way more animals. We saw huge herds of buffalo and elephant, a few kudu, impala and 1 crazy zebra. we had brunch at the Sedudu picnic site. Nana you were missed here, it was a magnificent spot on the river. After lunch we headed back the the campsite to swim and do some washing. At 3 pm we boarded a cruising boat for a guided trip down the Chobe river. Despite the size of the boat we got extraordinarily close to elephant, hippo, buffalo and ... read more

M – Next stop Chobe National Park! Chobe is known for its elephants. Indeed there are estimated to be 120,000 elephants in Chobe. If you have read Kate’s blog on Etosha then you know that this isn’t exactly a selling point in Chobe’s favour for her! Hence we decided to take our friends advice and, rather than undertake a land safari, base ourselves on the river at Kasane enjoy the park from the water. The river in question is the Zambezi which after it passes through Kasane continues a 100km or so to form Victoria Falls (my next blog). Kasane is a lively African town with pretty good facilities (bars, restaurants and supermarkets) and is well worth a stopover. As such we used it as our base for Chobe and a day trip to Vic Falls. ... read more

Visited Victoria Falls yesterday, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. It should be on everyone's bucket list. The Zambesi River is in full flood and the first thing that gets you is the roar of the water. The scene is really spectacular with water vapor rising high in the air. We were wearing our $5 ponchos for the first time feeling like two Clint Eastwoods. We still got wet but it was worth it. The far side of the falls is Zambia but we saw it from the Zimbabwe side. I will never forget it. We then went to the Victoria Falls Hotel which is another must. It is one of those African movie type of colonial hotels with ceiling fans, antelope heads on the walls and paintings of British monarchs on the ... read more

We are still adjusting to the time change. After not sleeping the night we got up for a 6 am start to do the border crossing from Botswana to Namibia via ferry. Chris, a local and the great guide, assisted us in getting to our border crossing and picked up. Along the way we enjoyed the country side with many neighboring villages. At one point we saw a family of 15 baboons on the road (the animals lay on the road here as the asphalt keeps them warm here). Just two minutes later we spotted a cyclist...Chris told us either the baboons would flee or attack. The border crossing was interesting. I think there were 5 other white people there. They have been working in Livingstone building another orphanage with a local church. There people that ... read more