Two days en route to the Namibian sand dunes

After having survived the Kalahari Desert for two days, we made our way to Ghanzi, a town in Botswana on the road towards Namibia where we were heading the following day. Dia had found a place just outside the town for us to spend the night as a stopover, a place called Thakadu Bush Camp. It was an interesting place about 3km drive down a sandy road, called a bush camp because they have their own large selection of game running around the camp including warthog, springbok and many meercats to name but a few. Joost kindly suggested to skip the rooftent for the night, which I didn't hesitate to accept! Luckily there was one room available, a simple but wonderful chalet, basically, it was a twin tented room with en-suite bathroom, but after camping in the Kalahari for two nights (which admittedly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be) it was a treat!

That night we decided to eat at the camp's restaurant, which was serving a selection of game on the specials menu. We decided to be interesting and all ordered something different from the menu and share with one another, with our dinner consisting of ostrich burger, eland kebab, warthog chops, kudu liver and beef steak. It was all served with crispy homemade fries and was nothing short of delicious! My favourite was the eland kebab, followed closely by the Botswanan beef. We all had a good night's sleep that night, and we were up at dawn the next morning for a quick breakfast and then left to make our way to the Namibian border.

It was another long day of driving with the border crossing into Namibia, but we had a nice surprise waiting for us at the end of it, and Dia deserves a big shout out for finding and booking us a campsite at the Lake Oanob Resort. It was beautiful! We had a spot at the edge of the lake with our own private steps down into the lake itself where we could go swimming. We had our own private BBQ area which we used for dinner that night and played guitar as the sun was setting. It made the long day's drive seem a long time ago and we all wished we could have stayed a little bit longer.

Once again we played a bit of guitar at night, and we have started filming a song here and there at various locations for the blog.

The only downside to our evening was the unfortunate coincidence that the campers at the site next to ours were a bunch of young kids celebrating the end of exams and were up making loads of noise all night. None of us got any sleep, which didn't set us up too well for the next day's drive. It was an unfortunate end to what started off as a really peaceful and beautiful setting. The management of the resort refunded us our fees, together with all the other campers in the vicinity who also suffered lack of sleep that night and complained. We did manage an early morning walk around the resort's hiking trail the next morning, and Joost and Maina squeezed in a quick dip in the lake before we headed off for the Namibian sand dunes.

Christelx

Kalahari Desert Day 2

Early the next day, we set off in one car for a morning game drive, seeing some lovely springboks at the waterhole.

We were also very lucky to spot a pride of lions lounging under some trees. There were about ten in total, including two large males and quite a few females.

Of the latter, one of the younger ones decided to hone its hunting skills by sneaking up on a honey badger that was trotting through the grass. The encounter that followed was unexpected, hilarious and informative. Safe to say that a new rule to add to the Dummies Guide to Wild Animals is that no one messes with the badger. This particular one was probably known as Santoro by his friends and foes alike, and would have made Joe Pesci proud.

Upon our return from the drive, we cleared up our camp, had breakfast and packed up the tents. This was also unfortunately the moment that a bee decided to get trapped in Christel's shirt, become claustrophobic and sting its way out, resulting in a rather nasty looking double sting that even the strongest vinegar and anti-histamine tablet could remedy. Nonetheless, Christel once again took to the wheel of the Hilux as we looped our way through the northern half of CKGR, taking in the breathtaking scenery, shrubbery and sand of the Kalahari. We managed to get stuck in some quite deep sand, but with a little quick thinking and one big push were on our way again.

We made our way further south to an area called Piper's Pan, where the views were even more stunning than before. As we approached our campsite, herds of wildebeest trampled their way through the yellow grass. The site was simple, a fire pit, ablution block and some trees, with not a single other human being in a 150km radius.

Maina and Dia prepared the food whilst Leo, Christel and I set up the tents, lit a fire, poured the wine and cracked open the beers. After a delicious serving of pasta, courgettes and salad, Christel played another couple of songs whilst the fire lit up the surrounding bushes and trees.

As we got ready for bed, another fire lit up the sky, as about 50km south of us, a bush fire was giving up a red and orange glow. With a northerly wind, this meant that we woke up a couple of times in the night to make sure it wasn't getting too close. Luckily it never did, and we rose at dawn to make coffee, have a bite to eat and once again go on a short game drive. Lions were again the principal attraction, including one male lion that was literally walking away from our camp site as we drove off. We're not quite sure how close he had gotten previously, but were glad that no one had gone to the toilet in the middle of the night. This also increased Christel's appreciation of roof tents.

After the game drive, we headed in a southwesterly direction to get to one of the gates of CKGR. The tracks were sandy and required constant concentration of the drivers, but after a couple of hours of intense driving through the sand, we got to the gate and headed towards Ghanzi.

Cruising through the Kalahari

After having stocked up on water, fuel, food and safety advice, we headed south towards the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Whilst on our way there, Christel discovered a word of warning for visitors to CKGR during the month of October, as this was known as 'suicide month'... apparently because it became rather hot, dusty and sandy. Despite the ominous warning, ’twas to be a great couple of days, challenging yes, but rewarding as well.

The road on the way down to the nearest town was frequented by sand storms finding their way across the tarmac, and after having fuelled up one last time in Rakops, we headed into the Reserve.

The good thing about having a second car with us at the time was that it was a Toyota Hilux with an automatic gearbox, much to the delight of Christel who commandeered the vehicle from my dad at the gate of the Reserve, persuaded him to take a backseat in the Nissan Patrol, and set off with Dia next to her into the park.

CKGR was deserted, and technically very much a desert, judged by the amount of rain that falls on an annual basis. Nonetheless, it wasn't all sand and there were still remnants of green in the trees, of which there were plenty, whilst the grass where present had taken on a yellow tint. Game was sparse, and it took a good hour of driving in the park until Maina spotted a duiker, a small antelope, thereby earning himself right of access to the first cold beer when we made camp. Further along our drive, as we approached one of the few waterholes that there were, the number of animals increased markedly, with herds of springbok and oryx appearing from the shadows of the trees.

Our camp was located up on a hill overlooking the valley, and as we set up our tents and got the fire started, the sun started to descend from the sky and Christel made a new friend in the form of female duiker whom she named bambi :) and who took an interest in our activities and stayed with us for a couple of hours.

The other visitors were unfortunately less friendly, as a swarm of bees decided that our bucket of water provided the remedy to their hot and bothered life in the Kalahari, and commit mass suicide, whilst the ones that remained in the air made our food preparation rather frustrating. The smoke from our fire reduced their interest slightly, and as soon as the sun went under, the surviving bees also decided to return to their nest. Christel and Maina played guitar by the fire after our dinner, and as we went to bed, we could see lightning flashes across the plains in the distance.

 Christel slept rather badly, woken up by animal noises on a number of occasions, including once by the deafening noise of lions making a kill nearby. My suggestion that they had Bambi for breakfast did not go down well!

Okavango Delta

A-M-A-zing! In short, Joost and I had a brilliant two days in the Okavango Delta. It really is a special place. We flew into the Delta in a small 5 seater airplane to a tiny airstrip that was attached to our lodge. As a side note, we only found out once we had gotten back to Maun two days later that there had been a plane crash in the Delta, I believe the day after we flew. Thank God we were not in that airplane, and how horrible for those who were. We felt quite safe with our pilot, although he looked even younger than Joost! Our lodge was just a 20 minute flight away and you fly quite low so that you get great views. Upon landing we flew right above an elephant, which was really quite special.

Our little plane and a German couple who flew with us

Joost got a great seat next to the pilot

The view from above

Now for the unbelievable bit, I was the first to get out of the plane only to be greeted by the man who was to be our guide for our time at the lodge and the first thing I said was 'I know you!' (no, it wasn't a chat-up line! – I actually believed knew him). It was our second time in Botswana, and our second experience with guides in Botswana....and believe it or not...we had the same guide!! Last year Joost, Jamie, Dia and I went on a 2 day safari through Chobe National Park and our guide for those two days, Ex is his name, had moved from Chobe work in the lodge where we were staying, Gunn's Camp in the Okavango Delta. What a coincidence!

With our regular Botswanan guide, Ex 

So here we are, in an amazing lodge with our own tented camp with a big bed, amazing private views of the Delta, access to a swimming pool and our own little en-suite outside shower area with bathtub and shower (though we were told not to leave anything outside as the baboons run freely around the tents and like nothing more than to take our stuff). I would be lying if I said this didn't beat camping!
The camp was unfenced so we were not allowed to walk around at night without our guide and had to lock the zips to our tent in a special way as the baboons had learned to unzip the tents by copying humans! I went swimming both days we were there in the freezing swimming pool, but it was nice and refreshing to cool down given the hot temperatures in the Delta during the day (approx. 35-40 degrees). Joost managed to enjoy a bath without suffering a visit from the baboons trying to join him, which apparently can happen.

Our bedroom in our private 'tent'

Catching some rays and enjoying the view of the Delta on our veranda

Joost enjoying the outdoor bath

Days at the lodge are spent with an early morning activity and a sundowner activity, each lasting about three hours, and the lodge holds a maximum of 12 people, so it's a very nice and personal setting. We ate impala as our main meal the first night, which I have to say was really delicious. The only downside to our stay at Gunn's Camp were the amount of small insects in our room on the first night. We soon learned how to deal with that issue using 'Doom', the insect spray that all the guests learn to rely upon at the camp. I suppose we ought to remember that for all the luxury we expect, we ought to remember we are effectively in swamp land!

Our morning activity consisted of the traditional mokoro ride along with a walking safari. The mokoro ride was really special and the morning walk lovely, until we were just about back at camp when our polers spotted a hippo blocking our path. Hippos are the big danger to mokoros as they tend to tip them over, an no one wants to come face to face with a hippo! Luckily our experienced polers poled us into the reeds to safety as they called for backup by way of the speedboat at the lodge that blocked the hippos path so we could quickly get past and get back to camp. Definitely a funfilled and exciting experience.

The morning mokoro ride

Spotting game from the speedboat sundowner safari

The Delta during the day...

...and at sunset

Our final day we had time for one last morning activity, which was a speedboat ride to Chiefs Island where we did another walking safari. This is where we had some luck. On our walk we spotted 4 lions, about 50 meters away from us!!! Oh my goodness, it was scary and amazing all in one. Instead of taking a look through the binoculars and turning around, we crazily decided to slowly follow them!! Don't ask, our guides weren't even armed. As we were within the conservation area of the Moremi reserve, guides are not allowed to carry weapons, simply a sort of 'flash bang' (just something that makes sound), so I didn't think following the lions was a great idea, but hey, what do I know. In fact, we were watching a lioness with at least two younger lions that slowly walked away, so we had nothing to worry about and we made our way back to camp. Pretty amazing to say the least! :-)

'Enjoying' the walking safari

And that was our end to our Okavango Delta experience. We then flew back to Maun to be greeted by Joost's parents and brother, whom we just spent the last 10 days with. Internet access has been extremely limited so we haven't been able to post this for ages, so there should be a few stories posted in succession. Coming soon, our experiences in the Kalahari Desert, the Namibian sand dunes, and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia.

Christelx

A message from Maun

Well, day 4 and time for our first update. We managed to find internet connection here in Maun, Botswana after an eventful couple of days driving across the Zambia-Botswana border and through Chobe National Park. The border crossing went reasonably well, with lots of paperwork and checks for whether we had fresh meat, milk or fruit with us as Botswana does not allow these things to be brought into the country. We managed to get through with just our tomatoes taken from us, as we were prepared for this. Day 2 was spent with a lot of driving and I had my first attempt at driving the Nissan Patrol. I managed to drive for an hour on tarred road without any problems, after which I handed over to Joost to do some serious off road driving through the park. We drove for hours passing just the odd vehicle. In the park we had a rather scary encounter with an elephant who didn't seem to want to let us pass, and it was only later as we managed to get through that we realised that there was a whole herd in the trees keeping a close eye on us. As we were finally nearing Savuti camp site, we came across a German couple who had gotten stuck in the sand and Joost did a great job using our air jack and recovery skills to help them out. At the camp site we settled in at our allocated camping spot under a tree and were about to prepare dinner when we noticed an elephant in the river behind us, only about 30m away! He or she was simply drinking from the river, but it was a little unnerving knowing they could walk over at any point as the camp site is not protected and all the animals just roam freely. That night we spent our first night in the roof tent, which was actually quite a cool experience (much better than a tent on the ground!). The only problem for me was that we had some visitors by way of at least an elephant or two and a group of hyenas that night. The elephant(s?) just walked around the vehicles and the hyenas were making noise rummaging through things, but we couldn't quite see what. On top of that a mosquito managed to make it into our tent and bit my face in two place before we killed it. Let's just say I didn't get too much sleep. The next day we made our way out of the park with lots more off road driving before getting to Maun. Joost did the majority of the driving, but I managed to help out and give him a rest by taking over for about an hour, including my first off road driving experience! Tomorrow we are off to the Okavango Delta for two days, after which we will be joined by Joost's parents and brother for 10 days as we head to the Central Kalahari desert and on to Namibia.

Here are a few photo's from the last few days:

Our little house under the tree at Savuti camp site...

...the elephant a little too close for comfort near our little house under the tree....

Joost reducing our tire pressure as we hit the sand

Feeling of accomplishment after having set up the roof tent for the first time

Christelx

The journey has begun!

Welcome to our blog! We have finally gotten around to getting this blog set up to keep in touch with our family and friends whilst we are on our adventure through Southern Africa. We cannot believe it has actually begun! We are excited and hope to share with you some of the beautiful experiences along the way. We have been in Lusaka, Zambia for the past 4 days preparing for the trip with Leo, Joost's dad, and are writing you from our first stop Livingstone, Zambia - home of the amazing Victoria Falls. Tomorrow we cross the border to Botswana where we will be spending the majority of the next week and a half. We will try to provide another update soon!

Along the long and winding road from Lusaka to Livingstone (note: don't worry, we didn't walk! pictures of the lovely car we are driving in to follow)