Trip to Caprivi and Vic Falls

The trip to the Caprivi and Vic Falls was something we'd looked forward to since we got here--and it marks the mid-point of our year in Namibia. Here is the blow-by-blow description of the 3000-km (2000+ mile) trip with Mom and Dad Powell. We'll make this a family participation blog, with descriptions of the various lodges that we stayed in during the trip.

For the more complete (100+...) photo story of the trip, you can go to our Picasa photo album. Thanks to African Adventure for the use of the map at right, which I've modified to show our route and yellow dots where we spent each night.

It was a tough decision to decide which part of Namibia to show Mom and Dad Powell, but we settled on a trip that would take us to one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World: Victoria Falls. We decided to visit the Zambia size of Vic Falls. Along the way, we stopped at Etosha National Park (Namibia), Namibia's Caprivi region (that little strip that stretches east of the rest of the country), and Chobe National Park (Botswana). We skirted the Okavango Delta in Botswana as well, before heading home to Windhoek. It was cold during the entire trip; it's winter in southern Africa, and it got very cold at night. It is hard to believe that tourist season here is during the coldest part of the year; lodges are mostly prepared for it, with extra blankets, but very few are equipped with heaters. Tourists are advised to bring lots of warm clothes--especially for evening and night wear (slippers, flannel PJ's, and warm jackets).

Day 1. We left Windhoek in our rented VW T5 Kombi, which was a great choice for a traveling vehicle. We stopped for lunch at the Etosha Garden Hotel in Outjo (we had stayed there previously with our friends from Nebraska; Kelly recommends the Austrian ice dessert at the Etosha Garden Hotel), and got to Etosha by mid-afternoon. We took a quick drive on the western side of Etosha's "pan" and spent quite a bit of time at the Okaukuejo water hole, which is inside the park. Staying in the park is the only way to view wildlife at night, and we enjoyed seeing a lion, some giraffe, elephants, and several black rhinos come to the waterhole that evening. We stayed in 'bush chalet' cabins at Okaukuejo; the mother of one of Tristan's friends at school was the interior designer for the cabins. Larkin: night-time waterhole viewing is great; my advice is to spend one night in the park and other nights outside to save money; Kelly: it's good to stay in the park at least one night to see the rhinos; kind of like going to Disney--there are benefits to staying in the park, but you pay for it...much less expensive to stay outside the park; Tristan: extra bed on floor for me was comfortable and warm; don't eat the cake at dinner.

Our room at Okaukuejo. Pretty nice digs.

Dad managed to get this black rhino's photo in the dark at the Okaukuejo waterhole.

Day 2: We drove through Etosha, taking photos as we encountered massive numbers of wildlife. Dad was adjusting to his new digital camera, and he got a baptism by fire this day: he went through a set of batteries in the Park! We exited the eastern gate with 14 minutes to spare (the park closes at sunset). We had to move quickly to get from Okaukuejo to the east gate in one day; so much to see. We saw a lion for the second time at the Salvadora water hole, and saw elephants at Rietfountein; We also enjoyed Olifantsbad and Twee Palms (giraffe heaven, evidently).

We spent the evening at Sachsenheim Guest Farm, just outside the east gate of Etosha. We learned that the owner's father had come from Germany to set up the farm and had 'ordered' a bride from Germany who came on a boat and arrived in Walvis Bay where they were married. Larkin: I had looked forward to showing Dad a real Namibian farm, and we enjoyed talking with the owner; Kelly: very clean and huge rooms; the pool looked like it would be fun when it was warm; neat family history of the farm; Tristan: very cold and we needed more blankets; food was very good.

Giraffe crowd the water hole at Twee Palms at Etosha, just before sunset.

Day 3: We headed for the Caprivi Strip, and went through Tsumeb and stopped at the Tsumeb Craft Center--a nice place where local people can be trained and then rent store fronts to sell their wares. The crafts were well-made and one lady was upset because the clouds were interfering with her solar ovens (she sells bread from the ovens and also the ovens). We followed the tar road through Grootfontein and Rundu before arriving at Divundu and the Ndhovu Lodge. As we drove up to Rundu, we started encountering the 80% of Namibia's population that lives in the north. This was a long driving day, about 600 km, and we drove past many farms, huts, and villages on our journey. Near the entrance to Ndhovu, we passed a tent village provided by Red Cross for this year's flood victims.

At Ndhovu, we stayed in large tents, which had a 'en suite' bathroom attached via a passageway from the tent. Hot water was provided by a fire-powered 'donkey' (a cast iron water heater with fire below to heat). The owner was a farmer from near Windhoek who had taken over the lodge about 5 years ago; the bottled water came from his farm. Larkin: one of my favorite places to stay; great location on the river and wonderful people; Kelly: beautiful with very personalized service; got to eat dinner with the owner or one of the guides; excellent food and we could hear hippos all night; they had an outlet in the bathroom (!); visiting when it was warmer would let you avoid having to take an open-air shower when it is cold enough to see your breath hanging in the air; Tristan: very nice, but at night the beds were freezing cold; I got to go fishing.

Tristan fishes on the banks of the Kavango River at Ndhovu Lodge, with elephants on the opposite shore. Days end tally of Tristan's catch: 2 trees and 2 logs. No fish, and thankfully no elephants.

Day 4: We stayed at Ndhovu and went on a game drive to Mahango Game Park, just a couple km's from our lodge. We all thought the game drive was probably the best 3 hours we spent on the trip--many new animals (both birds and mammals) now that we had gotten to a region of Namibia where the rainfall was over 700 mm/year (compare to 70mm per year down south and 300-400mm near Windhoek). Hippos, crocodiles, roan antelope, reed bucks, waddled cranes, and more. An elephant charged us during the game drive. Trees were changing too--we saw many baobob trees in Mahango, which is a place you shouldn't miss if you're traveling this way. Our guide told us the Legend of the Baobob: the tree grew so tall that God became angry with it and ripped it out of the ground and threw it back to earth upside down, so its roots were sticking up into the sky; so this is why it looks so odd. We also went on a sunset boat ride on the Kavango River.

At Ndhovu, we met Amanda, a WorldTeach volunteer from Rundu, who had hitched a ride to the lodge; we had been at the same security briefing with her back in January at the US Embassy in Windhoek! Her experiences (living in a smaller town without a car) had been very different than ours, and we enjoyed sharing stories of teaching and living in different places in Namibia. Amanda's blog is here, if you want to read about the challenges of secondary education in rural Namibia. She is currently raising money to bring her students to Windhoek to visit U. Namibia and Polytechnic--to encourage students to think about continuing in various fields of study. Larkin: Game Park was great and could be driven in 2WD vehicle; Kelly: great to be so close to Mahango park, and we got to see baobob trees; Tristan: hippos and baobobs were cool; wish we would have seen hippos on the boat ride.

Mom and Dad pose with the game drive vehicle and a baobob tree in Mahango Game Park.

Day 5: Only 200 km driving today, to arrive at Namushasha Lodge, near Kongola, on the Kwando River. We drove through the Bwabwata National Park (used to be called Caprivi Game Park). This park is non-existant at the moment. We saw no wildlife and there were no side roads or points of interest to explore--a work in progress and a park that has seen tremendous loss of wildlife during previous border wars, and (we have heard) has been largely ignored by Namibia to this point. It was a nice forested drive (some good examples of prescribed burning along the way), but not an exciting ride, for certain. We enjoyed an evening boat ride on the Kwando and saw hippos and a little croc. Our river guide, Alfred, was local, and he really whipped the boat up the winding channels and showed us how native Namibians used many of the river's plants and animals.

Namushasha is a larger lodge, and we dined with the other 40-50 guests in a large dining hall. Larkin: ; Kelly: luxurious and beautiful views from own balcony overlooking the river, but not as personalized; workers were nice, but we didn't get to know other guests; fun boat trip with a local guide; Tristan: I got my own cabin to myself; the man who took us on the boat drive told us a lot about wildlife and plants and how to use them.

Our guide, Alfred, shows us how the local people make a shade for their heads when they harvest reeds. I wonder how many times he's done this, and if he ever swears he'll never do it again?! Tristan thought it was a great hat. It's made of a water lilly and papyrus.

Day 6: We left Namushasha and stopped at a 'traditional village' near the lodge. It is a partnership between the lodge and the local communal conservancy--kind of a living history exhibit. A guide showed us various exhibits on traditional life, including snares and traps that were used to catch animals. See the Picasa photo site for some examples. We enjoyed some dancers who gave quite a set of performances of different types of music and dances. It was not in any travel books, and we're really glad we stopped there. We traveled through Katima Mulilo, a chaotic place, before exiting Namibia at the Ngoma Bridge to enter Botswana. We had to fill out an interesting form to state that we were (1) not feeling feverish, (2) not feeling sick, (3) not having a headache, and several other ailments associated with the symptoms of H1N1 flu. The border folks let us tourists cut in front of large bus loads of Zimbabweans traveling from Namibia back home, which made them really happy...

The road from the border to Kasane travels right through Chobe National Park, and we saw more elephants and a huge troupe of baboons along this road. We stayed at the Liya Guest House in Kasane, and ate dinner at the Chobe Safari Lodge. Although the Liya Guest House was not the greatest hotel in the world, we finally stayed in a place where non-tourists stayed. Botswana lodge prices are more expensive than Namibia, by far, and our basic rooms at Liya were US$30/person. Other nearby lodges were US$150-300/person/night. Some Namibian police, in town for a conference, stayed at Liya. Most large lodges in Kasane allow the public to eat dinner on their site, which is actually a great way to save money--we stayed for cheap at Liya, but spent most of our evening on the Safari Lodge's deck, enjoying marimba music and a great buffet. Larkin: Liya reminded me of some hotels in Puerto Rico; live marimba music was great; Kelly: lower-end, basic room, but clean; water was hot; yeah for Chinese food at the buffet!; an impressive place to eat dinner--just huge; the biggest buffet I've ever experienced on either side of the Atlantic!; Tristan: small room, but we had a TV; we had 'Hu Hot' food at the dinner buffet which was awesome.

Tristan prepares a get-away strategy, just in case he gets asked to dance. At the traditional village near Namushasha Lodge.

Day 7: One of the more interesting days on the trip, in many ways. We spent the morning navigating the border crossing Zambia at the Kazangula Ferry. You can read more about this fun-filled, expensive, long experience at a previous posting. Just be sure to have US$50/person (must be in US$$) with you for the visa and about US$100 (much of it should be in Kwacha before arriving at the ferry to avoid black market exchange rates; carbon tax had to be paid in Kwacha) for other tolls, taxes, and rip-off's. Upon entering Zambia, we drove 60 km to Livingstone, found our rooms at the Maramba River Lodge, and then went to see Victoria Falls. That was a spectacular sight, and we were happy to see local Zambians enjoying the holiday as well. The most amazing part of the experience was realizing we had only seen about half of the long falls. We highly suggest renting the rain ponchos in the park.

There are ultra-light flights over the falls, helicopter rides, boat trips, bungee jumping, and various other tourist ventures, which all sounded fun. You could definitely spend more than the one day we spent in Zambia; if we would have known how much it cost to enter Zambia, we would have scheduled another day in Livingstone to tour the David Livingstone Museum and other parts of this interesting, old town. We started seeing American tourists here--a departure from the normal German and South African crowd in Namibia. Zambia looked more like the 'Africa' that we pictured when we started planning our year in Namibia. In general, more chaos, more people, long lines, corruption, and less-structured infrastructure. Larkin: no comments: still in a daze over the border crossing; Kelly: cabins were darling, but going at a different time of year would be warmer; restaurant was on a patio overlooking the river where there is a hippo; beautiful setting; Tristan: I liked our cabin, but our shower was very cold (problem with hot water heater in our cabin); they had 'giant chess' outside, and I enjoyed beating my dad.

Fairly certain the insurance doesn't cover us, now...Larkin loads the van onto the ferry.

Maidens and gents of the mist.

A double 'mistbow' at Vic Falls.

Day 8: The longest driving day of the trip--almost 700 km. Back through Livingstone to the ferry. The border experience was much shorter this time, but the ferry we used was much older; as the semi pulled off before we drove on, the ends of the floorboards flipped up at a 45-degree angle under his weight. No diesel in Kasane ("truck will be here in 1 hour"), so we traveled south from Kasane, Botswana through Nata to Maun. Interesting cultivated farm fields near Pandamatenga. The road from Kasane to Nata had 160 km of the worst potholes (really 'craters') we'd ever encountered--you will have to check out the photos on our Picasa site! A trip that should have taken 2.5 hours took us 5.5 hours, as we averaged about 45 km/hour (20+ miles/hour). But, the road from Nata to Maun was fine, which was good, as we drove most of it in the dark.

We saw the last elephant of the trip west of Nata as the sun set, and he was not too happy: throwing grass and mock charging the car. We arrived late to our next lodge: Okavango River Lodge, just outside of Maun. This lodge has actually been renamed ORL Backpackers, which explains most of the folks we saw there. A much younger crowd. Again, we opted for a cheaper place, due to high lodge prices near the Okavango Delta (one lodge we found charged US$1500/person/night...and they were full). Larkin: felt like 4-H camp cabins, I enjoyed watching birds over the flooded marsh by the lapa; good food; Kelly: older cabin, very basic, saggy beds, no mosquito nets, but huge shower with hot water; more electric outlets than any other lodge we stayed in; Tristan: our beds had craters in them; they had a pool table and a cool hammock to swing in.

Potswana.

Day 9: We stayed in Maun and enjoyed a day that started at the tire shop to repair a dinged wheel rim (pothole casuality of the previous day). We all took a 3-hour basket weaving class in the afternoon from Ms. Thitanya Kishonya at Quality Baskets (if you only follow one link, follow this one). Thitanya has a wonderful story of empowering women by teaching skills, and we had a relaxing day under the shade tree in her yard. She teaches the class at her basket store, where baskets range in price from US$7-300.

We noticed that people in Botswana spoke English very well, and were easy to understand. We also noticed the difference in histories between Botswana and Namibia; because Botswana did not participate in apartheid, the blacks and whites are much more relaxed in their relationships--just a different 'feel' to the country, racially. Larkin: I now have a woven coaster for my coffee cup, and it only took me 3 hours to make it...; Kelly: a lovely day with Thitanya, we blew a wad of money in her basket store, but felt good about blowing it there; don't laugh at the piles of baskets when I come home; Tristan: I stabbed myself with the awl during basket weaving.

Kelly shows Tristan how to remove an awl from his finger at the basket weaving class.

Day 10: We traveled from Maun, Botswana to the Namibia border. Driving-wise, this was a pretty dull day; we were skirting the northern edge of the Kalahari Desert, but did not see dunes. We stopped at a San gift shop in Ghanzi, where we met more Americans. We're getting the feeling that Americans are really missing out by not coming to Namibia, which is--on average--much cleaner, safer, more modern in cities, and less expensive than Zambia and Botswana. At the border, an odd feeling--it was great to be back in 'our' country again. Just 20 km from the border was our last stop: Zelda Guest Farm. You can read about our experiences with fellow guest, President Pohamba, by clicking here.

We enjoyed a cheetah and leopard feeding (providing Mom and Dad with the last of the Big Five that they wanted to see). We had a common building with Mom and Dad, with a between-room area where we played cards. Larkin: great birding on the grounds; Kelly: very personal; would recommend this to others; interesting that they do hunting and photo safaris (many places only do one); Tristan: awesome; room was very nice; wish we would have gotten to see more of the President.

A cheetah waits for feeding at Zelda Guest Farm. Cheetah says, "President, Schmesident...just give me my food!"

Day 11: Took a walk at Zelda Guest Farm with San bushmen, which was fun and educational. Three San and a lodge guide/interpreter, Jaco, showed us many native plants and their uses, and the fees for such tours provide money for the San children to go to the local school and to pay for school uniforms. Listening to the 'click' language was entrancing. Then, it was a 2.5 hour trip back to Windhoek. Laundry, school preparations for Larkin, and more sight-seeing and shopping for Mom and Dad. We had 3-4 days to relax before Mom and Dad flew home to Iowa.

Our San guide shows Dad a special root. It turned out they were almost all special in some way...