We broke the trip from Etosha to Botswana by staying one night north of Grootfien, at a strange hobbit like resort called Roys Place. We never met Roy (who supposedly lived next door), but he certainly has a creative imagination for building design and has created a scene from Lord of the Rings, with absolutely no building code inspections required. The in-house german chef was wonderful and we had one of the best homestyle dinners (Impala steaks, warthog) and breakfast, in this strange place. The ‘exotic’ foods have so far been OK with the kids, it appears that a lot of what we view on our game tours also end up cooked on our plates. Our classic trip food moment has been Sam proclaiming at one lunch “I just want crocodile!”. Roys place has a rural setting, where wild zebra and Wildebeest wonder freely through the grounds in the dusk. We finally saw the infamous Marula tree and savoured the fresh fruit and the preserves that we spread on toast in the morning.
The Caprivi Strip looks like an odd appendix attached to the north-western border of Namibia. To make a long history story short, in the late 19th century, Germany was the occupying country of Namibia (then known as German South West Africa). Germany tried to connect her colonies on the west coast of Africa with those on the east coast and by getting this piece of land (in exchange for other colonies in Africa) connecting them to the Zambezi River, and thought they could use boats to go down the Zambezi all the way to Indian Ocean. However, Victoria Falls at 100 m high, did not allow this to happen and today it has ended up as the pan-handle to allows quick access from Namibia straight to Zambia and parks like Chobe. The landscape changed as we headed north and on the Caprivi strip, to dense bush, baobab trees, mopane scrub and several small kraals (farms) with local San(bush tribes people) tending to their herds. Some villages are located close to the road, so it is easy to see the small thatched huts, in circular format with a central common area. Villagers took refuge in the shade of their huts, sitting on the bare ground or on small wood stools. For several hours of driving, we witnessed the Saturday morning routines of woman and children walking with water and supplies on their heads from the closest well/field to their village. Men tended to their herds, which grazed along the side of the road. Everyone appeared to be walking somewhere, back and forth to village areas, and it was amazing to witness how the young children were also integrally involved in helping with the routine of the day. Children too young to walk were strapped on the working womans back, tied only with a large scarf or cloth (no baby bjorns here!).
We continued our drive through the elephant migration path, where after desparately wanting to see elephants in Etosha, we prayed we would not cross paths with elephants on a highway where we travelled an average of 120 km/hr (and others travelled 140+). A few hours of being on guard watch for roadside elephants can be exhausting. We saw a regular stream of signs of elephants, droppings on the road and branches, trees broken, but no elephants crossed our path. We overnighted in a resort on the flooded Zambezi River, which typically has hippos and crocodiles on the shores but with the high waters had migrated to inland waters.
David on the Zambeizi River
Anna with Orange tree fruit
John with Lunch
The next morning, Sunday, we started our border crossing to Botswana. Not knowing what to expect at each country customs and immigration is a little unnerving. The process through Namibia to Botswana was equally as strange as our previous experience from SA to Nam, but this time there was not a single other vehicle crossing, so it had an eerie deserted feeling. We also had to go through a “disinfection” station where we were all asked to get out of the van with our walking shoes on and step on one of the dirtiest wet clothes, which was supposed to clean our feet to avoid the transmission of hand-foot disease. Subsequent to the shoes being “cleaned” our van needed to drive through a dirty water road bath¸and Viola! we had successfully entered Botswana.
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