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Published: February 20th 2010
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Magical Mystery Tour
Friday 12th February
Today we set out early again. We don’t know where we’re going yet today but we know we have a long way to go.
One of the group left his passport {
No! It wasn’t me} in the hotel at
Swakopmund four days ago. Theoretically it should have been easy for DHL, a fairly well-known multinational company with an office in Swakopmund, to collect the passport and deliver it to the place where we cross the border into
Botswana. They collected it from the Swakop Lodge but then returned it the next day saying they wouldn’t deliver. Ruth has been “wheeling and dealing” all week whenever we had a mobile phone signal to try and arrange a way for our truck and the passport to arrive at the same place. Another plan involved DHL delivering the passport from
Swakopmund to
Windhoek where another overland truck was going to collect it and liaise with us at the Botswana border.
I like this plan because our detour will mean we enter
Botswana at a different place and travel through the
Kalahari Desert! DHL had guaranteed to deliver the passport to Windhoek by
6 p.m. yesterday. At 7 a.m. this morning we are ready to set out but the passport hasn’t arrived in Windhoek and nobody knows where it is.
We set out hoping that we can be re-united with the passport today but making alternative plans in case our passenger has to stay in Namibia and catch us up by plane later.
At 9 a.m. we get news that the passport has been delivered to Windhoek but to the wrong address and that the tour leader on the other truck is trying to find it.
At 11:20 a.m. we are briefly in mobile phone range and Ruth gets a text from the other tour leader saying that he has the passport! Both trucks head towards the border.
Zelda Campsite
We eventually arrive at the
Zelda Campsite about 20 km from the Botswana border at 6 p.m. after 11 hours driving with just a couple of short breaks.
The good news is that the missing passport is here waiting for us!!
The owner is obviously pleased to see us as there are only a few people staying in the campsite. 25 people arriving on an overland truck is obviously good business and he is obviously keen for us to recommend the camp to other overland trucks.
This camp also sells itself as an animal sanctuary and when we arrive we are taken to see the feeding of the cheetahs and the leopard which are kept on the farm.The campsite has a really good bar and in the evening we go there to celebrate the return of the passport and the owner is again pleased to see us. He keeps the bar open for as long as the drinkers in our group want to stay and even gives them free shots.
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