Botswana and Namibia - in a GIANT nutshell

Well, I knew I would fall behind at some point on the blogging.  I blame it on Breaking Bad, but now that I have finished Season 2, I turn my attention back to updating you all on the trip :)

To be honest, I think Botswana was a victim of my lack of planning.  I had such a great time in Zambia with Sarah, and we had planned that portion weeks in advance, so I kind of skipped over any planning for Botswana.  I knew I wanted to visit Chobe National Park, and then spend some time in the Okavango Delta,and that was my full plan.

Highlights in Botswana include:
 - Senyati Camp near Chobe - it had a watering hole that hundreds of elephants visited daily, to cool off and enjoy some fresh water.  And it had a hide, where you could get very close to them, without them seeing you.
 - Chobe River and Okavango Delta boat rides - doing a water safari is a nice change of pace and allows you to get very close to some of the animals.
 - Old Bridge Backpackers in Maun - thank you Kira, it's a great backpackers!
 - The lack of tourists in the parks - so it feels less commercial than some other parks
 - Meeting fellow travelers doing similar trips, and exchanging tips and stories over beers and wine
 - Being set up with another single traveler (male) who she thinks you'll get along with

Lowlights in Botswana include:
 - Due to lack of preparation, agreeing to a last-minute 4 day safari in Okavango, in a car, when you've just done an 8 hour ride from Chobe, and have another 10 hour drive ahead of you.  I should have though about how much time I wanted to spend in a car, animals or no animals.
 - Being a single person and not being able to do a multi-day mokoro trip because they need a minimum of two people (booooo)
 - Trying to self drive in Chobe.  I'm not a great spotter when someone else is driving me, so not sure why I thought I could do that, along with trying to keep myself on the loose sand tracks in the park.  I saw some animals, but I wouldn't call it a success...
 - Realizing the person the camp manager is trying to set you up with is clearly evaluating you as a potential life partner, 10 minutes into your conversation, and later determining that maybe self driving for a second day won't be such a bad thing...

So while there were definitely some positives in Botswana, I realize that to enjoy it more, I should have put in the planning time... ah well - next time Bots!

A gemsbok

I then crossed into Namibia.  For those that don't know, I hadn't known much about Namibia before planning this trip, but it's probably one of the countries I was most excited about when I left Dar.  I started with one night in Windhoek, mainly just to recuperate from a long car ride.  It seemed like a clean, modern, small city, but again, this is really just from a few hours in the city, before I crashed at my hotel.  And then I was on to Etosha National Park in the north.



I thought I was uninterested in safari-ing once I left Botswana, but I figured I would see Etosha since I was there.  Within 30 minutes in the park, I had seen two animals I'd never seen before (gemsbok and black-faced impala), and I was excited about my two nights there. On my first drive in the evening, I realized the terrain is incredibly dry and barren, and that I would be much better at spotting here :)  And I was!  I spotted a black rhino and spent 20 minutes with him alone, just watching him eat and wander. I stayed at the Okaukuejo camp site, where there was a watering hole, where multiple black rhinos visited it every night.  you get to silently watch, while nature goes about her business around you... pretty amazing.  Overall, it was a great safari experience and I truly enjoyed Etosha.

Next up was Skeleton Coast.  I was so intrigued, that I made last minute plans to stay at the only hotel in Skeleton Coast National Park and set out.  the scenery on the drive was amazing - vast desert, with both dry pans and sand dunes.  Once I got to the hotel, which was pretty much empty, I asked the woman what people did in Skeleton's Coast (it was freezing).  Fishing was the answer... So I guess I should have done a little more research before I booked :)  but amazingly enough, my hotel cost included a 4 course meal.  Well done Skeleton Coast!  After seeing a few small shipwrecks on the coast, I continued down to Swakopmund, where I am now.


I decided to spend a few days here, to get my car checked out (all's good - Baby Blue is a champ), and relax in a hotel (Deutsche Haus - highly recommended) before I have a week of camping.  Well, Swakopmund is a weird place.  The best way I can explain it is this: it's like a Florida vacation town, except that it is always cold, and everyone speaks German.  It feels nothing like the rest of Africa to me: no rowdy crowds, no dirty streets, and not all that many black people.  So odd!  But, with my many days here, I have spent the time running outside (yup - they have a running path here), catching up on Breaking Bad, quad biking in the dunes (kind of like a Super Mariokart race, where I couldn't stay on the track and kept accidentally making my own course) and kayaking with seals and pelicans.

 
I had planned to also visit Sandwich Harbor and drive myself through the dunes, but after a little web research, I have realized it is crazy for me to try this on my own... so now I am off to bed, to try and book a last minute guided trip there, while on my way to Sossusvlei.  So that means I'm off to bed now.

I'll probably edit this later (and add pictures), as I'm rushing through, but wanted to get something up while I had this great high speed internet :)  I'll try to be better at blogging in the future!

Staring death in its many faces in Vic Falls

The last two days of our safari were great.  We ended up seeing 5 leopards, including two cubs chowing down on a recent kill with their mom, and one leopard carrying a fresh kill up a tree!  And to finish it, we saw 14 lions out on a hunt on our night drive.  Still no live kill but I’ve got a few game parks left.  

We left Flatdogs full of delicious food, grateful that we never got trampled by elephants, and with a ton of great memories.  We stopped in Lusaka for two days – pretty much just enough time to check out a local mall, and meet up with a few of my Dar friends who were in town for a rugby tournament.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of the rugby since we left for Vic Falls the day it started, but it was great to have a bit of home on the road with me (and to prove to Sarah that I do, in fact, have friend here J). And we stayed at the Radisson Blu, which just reminded me that I do not need to camp all the time.  Luxury is fantastic, and we took full advantage of the gym, the pool, the spotless room and the delicious breakfast buffet. 

Once we got to Livingstone, Zambia, we organized our activities for our four days here and got started.  We chose to see the falls from both Zambia and Zimbabwe (Zim has a much better view of the majority of the falls, so we were really glad we crossed over), did a microflight over the falls to have an aerial view (which was amazing, except that we couldn’t take our cameras and both decided not to purchase the pics they took of us), went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi, and swam in the Devil’s Pool.  The highlight for me was probably rafting, that is until Sarah knocked me out of the boat and we both were sent flailing into the water on some big rapids.  I drank a good portion of the Zambezi and was fortunately saved by our safety kayaker (saying my expression when he got me was panicked is an understatement).  I did however, get Sarah back, by knocking her out of the raft later in the day, but that time we were rescued quickly and the rapids were minimal.  I guess we were good enough sports, since we were invited out with the guides that night and got to celebrate surviving, Livingstone-style, with lots of Mosis (local beer) and dancing.  It was a fun night on the town with some new friends. 

While I recovered from rafting and thought it was exhilarating, Sarah saw it more as a little too adventurous, and decided she had “risked death” enough for one trip, so she went to have some sundowner drinks instead of going with me to the Devil’s Pool.  Possibly a good idea, as this entails swimming across the current, at the TOP of the falls, and then plunging into a pool that is about 2 feet from the edge of the falls and taking some oh-so-casual looking photos.  While it felt less dangerous than the pictures make it out to look, it was definitely a beautiful view of the falls from the top. 

But for all of the activities we did in Livingstone, the most dangerous moment for me was the Vic Falls National Park in Zambia, where I cautiously followed some other walkers around a large male baboon, only to have him snatch my backpack from me!  I tried to give it a few good pulls before realizing I was not going to win this fight, and then let him wander off with it.  We waited as he emptied my pack TSA style:  iPhone thrown there, car keys examined and placed to the side, wallet thrown in the leaves.  A shop keeper then lured him away with some food, as I recollected my belongings.  I love Africa but I will not miss the baboons or monkeys.  I’ve now been stalked by them (in Senga Bay, Malawi, I fended them off for 50 yards as I tried to back my way to the restaurant), had my food stolen and been mugged.  I’m 0-3.  Let’s hope there are no more altercations because I don’t see me winning many of them.

Zambia was a great time, and we met a ton of great, friendly locals.  But with all the fun and excitement, we knew it had to end.  Sarah boarded her plane to go back to Lusaka, and then to the US, and I started planning my trip to Botswana.  This included getting Baby Blue checked out, as she has started screeching when I turn.  After three hours of tire pressure checking, wheel shifting and a wheel alignment, I left the garage with a new whatsapp friend (the mechanic) and still screeching tires.  Maybe Botswana has some better mechanics J