Namibia to Botswana

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After Etosha we headed up to the Caprivi Strip which runs along the Angolan border, we stayed a couple of nights at a nice campsite on the Kavango River which is the natural border between Namibia and Angola. Local people were crossing freely between the 2 countries on small boats, but as there is currently over 2 million unexploded landmines in Angola we decide to stay in our campsite. The next day we headed to the border, passing through customs to Botswana was surprisingly easy.

The main roads are a lot better in Botswana so covering ground quite quickly, only problem is when you come of the main road to get to the camps they say 4 by 4 only and we have learnt in Africa when they say that they mean it!

We have travelled down the Okavango panhandle to reach Maun. We stayed the first night in Botswana at Drotsky’s cabins, we was a really nice camp next to the main channel that feeds the Delta. The next day we went to the world heritage sight of the Tsolido Hills. We did a two hour hike around the hills which was pretty amazing. There were lots of rock paintings completed by the San people thousands of years ago we had a guide from the local village so we learnt a lot about the history of the paintings and the way they used to live around the hills which was really interesting. We did the hike at 11am and it was already starting to get hot, finished the hike in the blazing 40c heat but it was well worth it

We were going to wild camp at the hills but after we made a spot of lunch (at the min its either jam sandwiches or eggy bread) the flies were driving us nuts so we thought we would make a dent in the long drive down to Maun and camp at a nice sounding lodge 2 hours away…..

According to our GPS the lodge was on the banks of the Kavango river 12km’s from the main road so we set off down it, about 2km’s in the road just turned into a deep sandy bog and the going was really slow, it was already getting late so didn’t want to get stuck in the deep sand. All around us the trees were totally destroyed by elephants and we had to weave around fallen trees and branches. The camp was a bit of a disappointment really very run down and we were the only people camping in small campsite next to the main lodge, we went to bed early as we had a long drive to Maun the next day. We were woken at 2am by the sound of branches breaking in the camp site, I looked out the fly screen windows on the roof tent and saw a massive bull elephant about 10 meters away ripping branches from the trees to feed on the fruits, it was making a real racket. Fortunately we had positioned the landy behind a couple of large trees on the edge of the campsite, but I and Louise were frozen in the tent whispering to each other what to do if it came any closer. Fortunately after about half an hour it wandered of. We were up early thanks to a troop of baboons that were feeding in the trees above us and throwing fruit at the tent (and us when we were making breakfast) but we had a long slog ahead to reach Maun, which is the gateway to the Okavango Delta.

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Comments

[Rachel Baldwin]

Hi
Hello, The photos of all the animals on the previous entry look amazing - you've seen loads! Glad to see you saw a heritage sight - I love rock art, so I'm very jealous. Bye for now x

[Rachel Baldwin]

updates?
Hi, I hope you're doing ok. Are you going to be updating soon? Did you go and see the falls? News please! x

[AdamandLouise]

Hello how are you, not been anywhere near a computer that has internet speed that is better than dial up