After the stormy night in the Okavango Delta, we had a Safari back out of the conservation area and to the lando. We enjoyed a night up close and personal with some elephants, and then took a sunset Cruise on the Chobe River to end our time in Botswana. Kwagga carried us into Zimbabwe and then finally to our goal, Victoria falls, or in the local language it is known as Mosi-oa-Tunya. The three weeks Overlanding across four countries with our new friends were at an end, so we said our goodbyes and until next time’s, and made our separate ways.
Delta Safari
Our night was fairly uneventful, although one of our friends said she heard something by her tent that went after her water 5L water bottle she had left outside, and it had teeth marks in the morning! We were served a delicious breakfast and then loaded up in the safari vehicles for our ride back to Eddie and Kwagga in Maun.
The first thing we noticed was tracks in the road, and our guide said they belonged to a hyena, but it was quite a bit later before we saw it, but one of the other members of the group stood up at the right moment to take the photo so we didn’t get one.
The first animal we saw was a ground hornbill, the males actually make a loud noise, then fly straight up about 15 feet, do a bit of a flip and land, all in the hopes of attracting a female. We didn’t manage to catch one doing the flip on camera but here is a few Southern Yellow Hornbills instead.
Next we saw a Spotted Jackal family, the male was quite close to us and the female had 2 young. They mate for life and the young stay until a new litter is born. They help the parents a little bit while learning and then leave on their own.
Of course some antelopes, buffaloes and other familiar animals made their appearance but the cutest was this family of bat eared foxes! The large ears help to hear large groups of insects underground, which is what they feed on.
If you get a bit queasy you might not like this next picture, a zebra kill under a tree. We tried to look for what might have been a leopard but it either was scared off or was hiding in the trees in a spot hard to see from the road.
Crossing the road in front of us we saw a pack of wild dogs head off to a clearing off to our right. One came quite close to us! One of the other vehicles were off to our right looking at the pack and it was funny to watch them all notice the dog that cross right in front of their vehicle, since they had been coming from the left and they didn’t realize there were more!
Somehow our guide found this pale spotted owlet! Time to play a little hide and seek, can you find the owlet in this tree? Check the caption for help.
I zoomed in just in case it was hard to see, depending on the device you are reading this on. Not the best resolution since I took it with my phone (wrong side of the vehicle for Mr. Wander to use his big camera)
After a stop back at the bathrooms, we made it to the exit of the conservation area and they disinfect the tires while we had to do our shoes by walking in a tub with a solution past the fence, then boarded the vehicles again. A few elephants ran across the dirt road we were on and then it was another 45 minutes to the campsite. We had a few minutes to use the bathroom if needed and find our spots on the lando for the next drive.
An Abundance of Elephants
We left the campsite and went back to the same shop stop from a few days before to pick up cool drinks and snacks, and any last minute cash. Meanwhile, Demi picked up lunch for us in the form of Magwinya, which is a fried dough ball, and in our case was filled with a tasty flavored minced beef. It is popular in Botswana and South Africa and goes by another name in Namibia. We enjoyed our lunch on the lando as we made our way to a really cool campsite called Elephants Sands.
When we arrived to our spot, Kwagga was parked up next to an outdoor kitchen area that had a 3 walls and a covering, and we were told to put our tents in a circle near the back of the lando. The idea is we needed to keep the tents close enough together so no elephant would wander in by accident. If they wandered through they might feel trapped and trample tents in an effort to find a way back out. By staying between the kitchen and the lando we should be a big enough deterrent from elephants wandering past.
While some of us were still putting up tents we saw a bunch of elephants coming in from the bush, headed towards the watering hole next to the restaurant! I walked over closer to the bathroom block to get a little better picture but a few of our group started practically running towards the elephants! Very dangerous especially as it was a matriarch heard with young. Demi yelled at them to stop to make sure they didn’t cause any issues, some of the elephants were already showing a little signs of agitation so Demi caught them in time. Mr. Wander was able to use his zoom to get a good picture from a much safer distance.
We headed over to see the elephants at the restaurant and had ourselves a drink, enjoying the antics of the various beasts fighting over the good water right at the source. That night our dinner was provided by the restaurant and found our seat just as the buffet was opening. There were so many interesting foods, some I recognized and some I didn’t but I tried everything that looked good. There was even a whole table of cakes and desserts. After dinner we got another drink and decided to watch the elephants a bit more until we went off to take a shower and settle into our tent for the night.
Chobe River Cruise
The following morning several of us found a camel spider under our tent, which appears to be a cross between a scorpion and a spider. It was fairly scared though, and had only burrowed into the sand under the very corner of our tent. We tried to move the tent over so we could take it down without it under and it kept trying to follow the tent, and then as we moved it again it started to follow the shadow of Mr. Wander, and finally it was scared enough to run off to the shade of a bush.
After we were packed and breakfasted, we climbed in the lando for our last long drive of the trip! We headed up to the Chobe River, which borders Botswana and Namibia and flows into the Zambezi river at the point where Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana meet.
We arrived at the campsite near Kasune and set up our tents while Demi made us lunch. During the entire trip Demi and Eddie have been wearing various shirts with the map of our trip on them and she said we would be able to order them near Zimbabwe. The representative was there with options for what we wanted on the front, each sleeve, and the back as well as sizes and colors to chose a custom shirt. We both decided to partake in the shirt and made our orders, we’d get to pick them up a few days later in Victoria Falls.
After lunch we had some time to relax until Eddie drove us in the lando to the docks to board a sunset cruise on the Chobe River. We had loaded the drinks we wanted in a cool box for the cruise, and I was under the impression it was a more of a relaxing booze cruise, but it turned out to be another safari!
We were sharing the boat with another G Adventures group just starting their trip from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. They had a few members that had been on another trip from Nairobi, linking about 3 different tours for nearly 2 months of Overlanding across central and southern Africa! We only met a few people on this group, one couple was from Bristol, UK, which is where our friends R&M are from as well. Randomly I ended up chatting with this woman and found out she is from the neighboring small town to mine I grew up in! What are the chances. There had been SO many “It’s a Small World” moments in our time in Africa!
Most of the animals we saw were hippos and crocodiles, but we did find a few fish eagles and monitor lizards. The fish eagles are the national bird of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.
We were all a bit annoyed at the boat driver since he didn’t seem to be keeping a respectful distance from the animals. Often he’d keep coming in close to the hippos to the point they decided to move, which I would think if you make wild animals adjust for you, that means you are interfering in their habitat.
Despite this, he did have a few interesting tidbits of information, in that the hippos don’t usually swim across the channel, but they can hold their breath for up to 6 minutes, and so they actually go to the bottom and walk across since they are faster walking than swimming!
We did enjoy our beverages and the sun setting on the river and we spied at least one river boat like what we had in the Amazon, as you can do overnight cruises on the Chobe. We have actually added that to our list of “future adventures”. You would think this list has been getting shorter with all our travels but you end up learning about more places the more you travel so I would argue it’s gotten even longer!
There were impalas and waterbucks, easy to tell by their rump that looks like a toilet seat! They swim back to the mainland when the water is too high to get to he grass on the islands in the middle of the river, but there aren’t any predators in the middle so that is what they prefer.
Before we left we spotted several birds including a maribou stork, darter birds and one that looked a bit like a mushroom! We were brought back to the dock where we disembarked just as Eddie and Demi came to pick us up to go back to the campground. We had dinner in the restaurant and then most everyone went to bed early.
BIRDS
Before the sun came up most of the group got ready and packed up to catch an early land safari. We opted to skip this one as we had so many Safaris both here and in Tanzania we were a bit “safari’d out”. It sounded like there were some issues with the drivers going a bit fast and with one vehicle going back to pick up a late sleeper from the other group but they did manage to get a closeup of a leopard, walking right by the vehicles, so that is a pretty cool view. The rest of us had a lazy breakfast and helped pack up the lando.
Falling in Zimbabwe
Once everyone was back it was time to drive to Zimbabwe! It was a short trip and pretty easy border crossing, and then we arrived to our last planeterra project for the trip. I asked about Botswana and Demi said in general Botswana is in a much better financial position since they were less affected by colonization and apartheid. She also told us that in Victoria Falls it is very safe, not much crime or pickpocketing, the most dangerous encounter would be surprising or coming too close to a hippo or elephant wandering the streets.
Here we were given some snacks and a lunch that was paid for by our tour, but we could purchase additional cool drinks if we wished. They also had fabric for sale and while I didn’t see anything right away, they would also join us at our campsite, but I’ll talk about that later. The money these women earn goes towards creating programs for orphans, becoming a positive and consistent influence into these children’s lives. I’ve heard some people talk about volunteering at orphanages while travelling and while that is good, the children really need consistent, positive role models in their life, so the tourist that is only there for a week or a month cannot fill this role. This organization we were supporting empowers local women to have the means to help others in even worse circumstances.
After lunch we got a little tour of the town when at one stop, Demi was setting up our dinner for the following night and a man came to the bus to ask if we wanted to be a millionaire! Eddie talked to him a bit to see the price and Eddie called back to see if anyone was interested. One of the group decided to purchase some of the bills, I think as a gift to someone in her family, later she let Mr. Wander take a few pictures.
Demi had told us about the recent history of Zimbabwe’s economy, which has undergone hyperinflation, to the point where they have had four different official currencies between 1980 and 2009. The first Zimbabwean dollar was set as equal to the US dollar at the time, but the early 2000s began hyperinflation and three times they redenominated the currency creating million, billion, and eventually trillion dollar bills. People didn’t trust banks, they’d buy everything they could once they got paid and often you might pay rent in household goods instead of cash, because those held value better than the currency. If you waited too long to spend your paycheck it’d be worthless! In 2009 they finally abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar and accept all sorts of currency including the Botswana Pula, South African Rand, Namibian Dollar, US dollar, Pound Sterling (UK), and the Euro. We were able to use up some of our extra currencies we didn’t want to keep from the last few countries.
Once we reached the campsite we set up our tents on these cement platforms. The women from lunch arrived and spread out their supply of bags and more fabric. This time I found a really cool panel with sunset colors and elephants I decided to buy to someday turn into a cool quilt or wall hanging. Mostly, people could pick out a bag, stuff as many dirty clothes as they wanted into it, and then pay $20 US dollars to have all their clothes washed and get to keep the bag when it was all returned. We had been keeping up with our laundry and I didn’t need any bags so I just bought this fabric instead.
After they had left, several of us were hanging out in the shade of the central gathering platform while others headed to the pool to cool off. I started noticing the clouds in the distance. Soon there was thunder and then an absolute downpour! We ran around closing the windows and doors on everyone’s tents so they wouldn’t be wet inside, they had left them open to vent as it was very hot that afternoon. Once it let up enough Mr. Wander and I headed to the main restaurant of the campground and decided to get a few drinks.
We tried an interesting menu item I hadn’t even before, essentially trusting your bartender. He asked a few things about what we liked/didn’t like and our favorite liquor, and he came up with a new cocktail that gave him a chance to experiment. The one turned out so well we helped him name it and I sent him a picture of it, we chose Purple Rain (being the proud Minnesotans we are) and once I played him the song he recognized it and liked the name. Maybe it’ll show up on the menu someday! It was flavored with the mint from springboki shots but he wouldn’t tell us what turned it purple, that was a secret. R & M joined us for the second round and then everyone else joined us for dinner.
The following morning the four of us walked through the edge of town to visit the national park and view the goal of the whole Overlanding trip: Victoria falls. In the local language of Tozi it is called Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning “Smoke that Thunders”. In 1855, David Livingstone identified the falls and named them after Queen Victoria, but they had been discovered long before local Africans and even other Europeans.
We walked along the falls to every viewpoint. We were glad we waited a bit thinking it was really busy right away in the morning with everyone trying to view it during sunrise. Mosi-oa-Tunya is classified as the largest falls based on its width of 1708 meters, being the longest continuous curtain of water, that’s over a mile long!
The Zambezi river falls 108 meters here but as it was currently the dry season it was a little less impressive than what it is during the rainy season. Although, I have heard there is so much mist then that it can still be hard to see! It’s known for an attraction on the Zambian side called Devil’s pool, where you can sit in a pool right at the top of the falls with minimal (although sometimes more) danger of going over. I have heard of people doing this in the rainy season and they really have to hold your legs, which sounds a bit concerning.
Along the way we found our friend A from Melbourne who had been trying to catch a picture of a certain bird. Towards the end by the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe, we hoped to see someone do a bungee jump but either they didn’t have anyone signed up or it was too close to lunch. We ran into another friend, S from Sydney, and all decided to head back towards the campground and found some coffee and cake on the way. Several of us met in the lobby for a few final rounds of Uno Flip!
That night we went to another restaurant nearby for our last dinner together. The following morning everyone headed out at different times for their various flights. Since we had to pack up everything in the morning so the tents could get cleaned for the next group coming in that night, we hung out in the lobby enjoying some refreshing drinks and catching up a little while we had Wi-Fi. About mid-day we took a cab to the airport and met some of our group there all waiting for their flights. We had two layovers, one in Johannesburg where we had to enter South Africa and change airlines, and then France, and finally landed in UK!
Next Time
We were certainly ready for cooler weather, so we headed back to Europe. In London, we had a few days to catch up with some friends before taking the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. We spent some time recovering in Amsterdam and Copenhagen and also caught up with a few friends we had met on our travels, and we even took a day trip to Sweden! Until next time, Sara mushe!
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