Cruising in Botswana

---

!Kao from Botswana.

Despite Livingstone only being 70km from Botswana, it was the slowest border crossing yet. Matt had tried to pull a swift one over immigration in Zambia by not buying a new visa when he came back from Zimbabwe. Luckily for him, I managed to divert the Zambian immigration official - he checked my passport first, very carefully and then we started chatting. He did not pay any attention to Matt's visa status so we luckily avoided a huge fine. Once through the border we then had to wait over 2 hours in a queue for the rickety ferry to take us 750m across Chobe River. There was only one barge which could only fit two small and one medium sized truck. Half a dozen trucks were pushed ahead of us in the queue much to our impatience. Eventually we were able to cross and half an hour later we made it to Thebe River Camp on the outskirts of Kasane, the entrance to the Chobe National Park.

In the middle of the night we woke up to a noise and looked outside the door of our tent to see 3 or 4 elephants munching on the trees 5m from our tent. It was fantastic.

On our game drive in Chobe National Park we saw mongoose, giraffes, a few elephants getting out of the river and from a distance we saw some male hippos fighting on the edge of the riverbank. The park has been completely decimated by the elephants, the trees have been stripped bare and look dead. They have a huge elephant problem here, 180,000 elephants, 55,000 elephants more than the park can sustain. They have discussed culling the elephants for a number of years, obviously no-one wants to do it and it is very controversial - conservation vs preservation.

We were expecting great things of the sunset Chobe River cruise, hoping all the elephants would come down to the water to bathe and drink but unfortunately there were only a couple of herds down at the water but the boat trip was still lovely. We saw water monitor lizards, one of which was demolishing an eel, plenty of hippos splashing about at the end of the day and loads of crocodiles lazing in the sun and swimming in the water. We watched in anticipation as a heron wallowed in the shallow waters looking for dinner with two crocodiles circling it. Luckily for the heron (but disappointing for us!) the crocodiles must be well fed at the moment as they did not even bother the heron at all. We watched kudu come down to sip gently at the waters edge, twitching with fear as a crocodile hid in the reeds. A herd of elephants, up to their knees in the reeds, tore at the lush plantation and shook it from side to side to release the sand. A large pool of hippos kept us entertained as usual, bobbing up and down on the surface of the water, rolling around and baring their menacing looking teeth.

The next stop was Maun, the base to explore the Okovango Delta. As we drove, a herd of elephants were feeding on the side of the road. It is a wild place. The Okovango River is 1400km long and when it reaches Botswana from Angola 18.5 billion cubic metres of water spreads across the flat landscape. In the maze of lagoons and wetlands known as the Okovango Delta attracts a huge array of birds and other wildlife.

We were picked up by a massive 4 wheel drive truck with wheels bigger than me and boy did we need them. We drove for about an hour or so on the sealed road and then turned off to the Delta through sand which at times could be 1km deep and water 1½ metres deep. One truck got stuck and they would have been there for a long time until someone pulled them out. After two and a half hours we arrived at the site of where we met our guides and polers for the mokoro trip.

A mokoro is a very shallow dug out canoe strewn from the trunk of the sausage tree. They feel very unstable and water has to be bailed out every half an hour but the guides use their incredible balance to pole the mokoro without us falling in although a fair amount of water did pour over the front as we were so low in the water. It was incredibly relaxing as we glided through the delta passed water lilies buzzing with dragonflies and watching the flocks of herons and pelicans, listening to the grunts of the hippos and looking out for crocodiles.

We travelled in the mokoro for an hour and a half to where we set up our bush camp. This was truly a bush experience, no showers and a spade to dig our own hole to go to the toilet. It was incredibly hot so we sat around the camp site in the shade until late afternoon where we then went for a bush walk. We headed out for about 2 hours and saw so many giraffe, zebra and baboons. We also saw a black backed jackal but he quickly ran away when he sensed we were following him.

We sat around the camp fire for dinner and toasted marshmallows. The sound of the frogs after sunset was deafening entwined with the grunting hippos and screaming sounds of the baboons made it a very exciting sleep although having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a little frightening considering the amount of elephant poo around and the set of eyes that reflected back at the torch light.

The next morning we went for 4 hour game walk where we saw warthog, giraffe and zebra. We sat on the edge of the waterhole watching the hippos swimming for about 30 minutes. Matt took a mokoro out to try polling, harder than it looks. The sunset mokoro trip later that day was very relaxing until we started to take in a lot of water from both the front and back and had to make a quick ride back to camp once we started to get quite wet. We saw lots of colourful frogs and a hippo, he popped back into the water and did not resurface for a while so we decided to leave before he got too close.

After a well earned shower back in Maun we headed to the airport for our flight over the delta. The flight was amazing, you could appreciate the shear size of the delta with all its tributaries and wet lands intermingled with the dry desert and we finally spotted all those elephant that Botswana is famous for. It was a wonderful way to spend 45 minutes.

Botswana was the end of your tour, it was an amazing seven weeks taking us to places where it is hard to reach without your own vehicle and we are excited about the next stage although with only two months to go it really is the business end of the trip!

The only problem is getting out of Maun and down to Windhoek in Namibia - for the first time on our trip it looked like there was no actual public transport and that we would have to pay an extortionate amount to get there.

In the end we caught the bus to Ghanzi. It took about five hours but once we arrived in Ghanzi there was a connecting bus that would take us all the way to the border. We had heard a rumour that the bus would wait but no-one would actually confirm this so we were really happy. The bus was interesting, everyone was really friendly and the bus conductor handed out sweets, 25cents per sweet - he had the best job. The bus was full of beautifully dressed Herero women - the dresses were reminiscent of the 1890s, a possible hangover of the German colonial times. The dresses billowed with a number of petticoats underneath, lovely beads and broaches and triangular headdresses that sat flat on their head covered in gorgeous material.

The border crossing was terribly slow, new computer systems on the Botswana side meant that the immigration officials took forever. We knew that at the border we would have to try and hitch a ride or stay the night at the one lodge before the next major town 60km away and try our luck in the morning. We were incredibly lucky though, a minivan driving from Gaborone in Botswana to Windhoek was waiting in line and they had seats left. We could not believe our luck.

It was another 4 hour drive to Windhoek, dodging warthog all the way who were crossing the road. We finally arrived in Windhoek at 8pm. We tried two backpackers before we found one that was not full. There were no dorm beds left only a double room which was more than we wanted to pay but it was really nice and after such a long day it was worth the money. It feels like luxury after all the camping. Instead of costing US$300 that we had been quoted to take a shuttle bus all the way to the border it only cost US$60 so we are glad that we persevered with the public transport option and managed to get here in only one day.

We had not eaten all day so we headed to Sardinia's, a delicious Italian restaurant where they served a great chilled white wine and a magnificent (in fact the nicest) pizza outside of Italy. Namibia is very expensive, nearly western prices so it is going to be an expensive month!

---