Botyburps

Well, it has been a few exciting and some stressful days since James last blog which I think finished with us cruising the Okavango Delta last Wednesday.  We ended the evening with dinner ( the meals have all been wonderful- gone is the diet!) followed by a demonstration of singing and dancing by the female staff – reminded us of Paul Simon’s music and I know it should have been the other way around.  Next morning it was back to the car by ex army lorry through the swamps, with some entertainment watching a 4×4 following us.  I reckon when they opened the door, water would have flown out.  

It was a shortish drive to Shakawe but the potholes didn’t get any smaller.  Some could swallow a small car. We headed to a cell phone shop to get a Botswana SIM card installed as what ever I did to the eSIM didn’t work in Botswana.  So we shelled out another $40 for 2 new sims but I reckon our English wasn’t understood as we now have voice but I don’t think we have data! Or we may be in a complete dead spot at present.  Who knows?  Somethings are a bit of a mystery.  At time of writing we have no WiFi and no cellular – I guess we are off the grid.

Then we wound our way through the back streets to our next abode.  We knew that there had been late and big summer floods and we think that all the roads and townships had been badly flooded.  Certainly driving through Shakawe was interesting as we rolled from one depression to the next – no seal on anything other than the main highway.  The accomodation wasn’t wonderful as it was a replacement for what we had been supposed to have.  C’est la vie.  

The next day we were off to cross the border into Namibia.  This was not fun as Hertz had not sent the papers through for the car – 2.5 hours later and with much sympathetic help from the border guard (and a $20 tip/bribe) we got the paperwork and were through. We were worried that this delay would make us late and it would be dark to find our next place but decided what the hell and took a detour to follow a road winding around the river just after we crossed the border.

That was a great decision as in 15 kms before we rejoined the main road, we saw many different antelope, baboons, a lion, zebras, ostriches, warthogs, 2 elephants and giraffes.  Apart from the lion, all within 50m of the car.  The lion was about 300m away. Very exciting and lots of photos taken -too many to insert.

The advice was to have our border crossing authorisation printed in case we were asked to show evidence of this if stopped by Police.  Unfortunately we had no way of doing this so we were relying on electronic versions to present – with no guarantee that this would be acceptable!!  So 1km after leaving the first town, Divindu, we hit a Police check point where they were checking all vehicles.  We were apprehensive and expecting an international domestic incident and having to call Winston Peters, but they just wanted to see my driver’s licence and waved us through with a smile.  Sigh of relief.

We then joined the highway for 190km of surprisingly good road.  Many small villages along the way.  Some selling produce and carvings etc at road side stalls. Not a lot of income among these people but all are colourfully and well dressed and they walk great distances everywhere, including the children.  Those too small are carried on mother’s back.

With relief we arrived at our next site on the banks of a great swamp – 3 sides about 50km long. Islands in the swamp have antelope and signs warn of hippo and crocodiles. Once again we are in a cabin/tent with all facilities and meals in the main building, a 50m walk along the swamp edge. There is a guard who patrols the area at night and the whole area is fenced with high fences. I hope he is paid well. We learned that there is a pride of about 9 lions wandering around the area and at times inside the fence. Two seen drinking from the swimming pool.  Yeek!!!

This morning, I am sitting looking at a small herd of antelope grazing about 50m

 away and enjoying a coffee in the sun. What a life.  

This afternoon, Saturday, we did a boat cruise through the swamp.  What a day.  I felt like I was on the Queen of the Nile, sliding through the reeds and rushes and then it got better.  We manoeuvred through 2 groups of hippos, all huffing and puffing at us, saw some crocs and any number of antelopes (red Lechwe and Sebu) and then two large herds of elephants.  We got to within 30m before they moved away.  The babies are cute but our luggage allowance would not go that far.  Then around the bend we saw a large group of buffalo.  Even the guide was excited and said we were having a lucky day.  Eventually we got back to the boat ramp and back here to dinner and now James is editing all the photos to a reasonable number.  

Moving on and back to Botswana tomorrow and hopefully back to WiFi.

Now back across the border with no real issues except that the lazy Namibian departure official didn’t stamp our passports and so we did a u-turn and back into Namibia to get that done and then finally through and relaxing at our next luxury accommodation on the Chobe river.