The Trip So Far...

We’ve now been travelling for a little over 3 weeks and are writing to you from Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.  As we have a couple of days here it is an ideal opportunity to update you on our travels so far.

The truck has 24 passengers (which is its capacity).  There is oodles of personal space readily permitting all of our worldly possessions plus a few bottles of wine which we got on the first day and a small chilli bin for drinks and occasionally some food.

The gender mix is even, and our travellers range from age 19 to about 50 or so (there are some 3 or 4 people who are about 50, each of them travelling alone).  This provides for a great mix and variety in personalities.  Everyone is easy to get along with and so far the group dynamics have been just fine.  

The blog had been updated to Swakopmund in Namibia with a few small posts subsequently.  This post will update you on the activities from Swakopmund to date (but skipping over the Okavango Delta which was in the last post). 

We stayed in Swakopmund, Namibia’s own Queenstown for some 3 nights also.  Swakopmund is loaded with adrenaline activities including sky dives (which unfortunately were out due to governmental reasons - but wouldn’t have been any good given the misty foggy weather we experienced while we were there), quad biking on the sand dunes, sandboarding and more.  Jen and I went quad biking and sandboarding and thoroughly enjoyed both activities.  Quadbiking was almost like travelling on a roller coaster as you would climb one dune only to descend into the next dune.  It was fast and thrilling.  The wet weather permitted us to go faster and higher on the sand dunes, but also severely limited visibility.  Within minutes my sense of direction had been totally thrown as we would weave our way along the sand dunes and we put our faith entirely in the guide.  

Sandboarding was madness.  Flexible pieces of what looked like particle board would then be waxed and laid on the ground for us to ride down the dunes with.  Dunes with banking corners and bowls would be chosen as ‘runs’ to plunge down head first at speeds of up to 70+ kmph and very little chance of braking.  With no chair lift we would walk up the sand dune for each ride, so the weather (which was misty as most other days, with water particles visible in the air) made life much easier than it would otherwise have been.  The sand was more compact and the climbing much less exhausting.  I went for many rides hoping to dethrone the person who had the group’s top speed of 74 kmph, but alas to no avail.  

Leaving Swakopmund we continued up the coast for a half day or so, visiting (what appear to be a reasonably recent) shipwreck, which could probably be accessed and scaled at low tide and the next day a seal colony up the road littered with thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of seals barking, coughing and snarling at you and one another.  There were many baby seals which were a few months old, and the seals were close enough to touch (or get bitten by).  Watching the seals waddle into the water with waves over 6 ft high breaking right on the shore also made for good viewing.

After the seal colony we headed inland.  Leaving the coast the weather dramatically turned from cold, misty and damp air to hot and dry.  The contrast, in such a short space of time, was amazing.  But we were all glad it was dry.  Since then it has been dry on all days bar one (when we were in the Okavango Delta), but even then not very wet.  

We walked to rock paintings, left behind by nomadic bush people who identified the presence of water and animals (and their direction) in markings left in cliff overhangs.  We spent a night in a cheetah park, where 19 cheetahs (3 tame, 16 semi-wild) cheetahs reside.  The tame cheetahs were nothing but big pussy cats and purred away when we stroked their head (although in a very deep purr that couldn’t be recreated by a household moggy).  Petting, playing and walking next to these cats which are the same size as a big dog provides a rather false account of what these animals are like in the natural state.  To get a more realistic impression of cheetahs in the wild we were treated to a feeding time frenzy for the not-so-tame cheetahs.  16 cheetahs aggressively competed against one another for large chunks of meat, engaging in audible scraps, snarling and meat tug-of-war competitions.  One cheetah, not 2 or 3 metres away snarled at the park owner as he got out of his vehicle to get the food for the cats - the expression ‘don’t bit the hand that feeds you’ has yet to rub off on these cats!

Leaving the cheetah park we continued inland towards Etosha National Park.  From there we went on game drives, spotting numerous Zebra and Giraffe (sometimes right in front of, or to the side of the truck) wilderbeast, ostrich, eagles and even a lazy lioness (who was visibly annoyed with our distraction to her slumber - she chose to get up and most away further into the bush).  During the evening in Etosha we went to the campsites’ watering hole and watched 5 rhino drink their full, butt heads and play around with one another.  

Namibia provided some of the most dramatic landscapes we have ever seen.  Spectacular red earth which really comes alive at sunset and sunrise makes for hundreds of picture perfect photo opportunities.  The country feels untouched, raw, dramatic and beautiful (supposedly it has the second lowest population density in the world after Mongolia).  

After such a fantastic time in Namibia we were excited to see what Botswana had to offer.  Botswana was very different to Namibia.  Where Namibia was red, rugged, hilly, rocky and undulating, Botswana was sandy, incredibly flat (from our scenic flight there wasn’t a hill or any visible undulation in the land in all directions), and teeming with wildlife - much more so than most of Namibia where the only wild animals we saw were in Etosha.  Our time in Botswana was mostly centered around our visit to the Okavango Delta.  

On our final night in Botswana we went on a boat ride on the Chobe River.  We were absolutely spoiled for wildlife.  We saw many many hippos in the water, some 30 or 40 elephants coming down to the river to drink, eat and bathe in the mud, baboons climbing trees and calling to one another, and crocodiles sitting silently and waiting for their prey.  We were positioned closer to these animals than we have been in any other experience on our trip so far, and it was sensational to witness all of the sunset activity.

We crossed into Zimbabwe yesterday.