www.victoria-reto.com

On & Off  the Road through Africa!

On the tracks and roads of Southern Africa

Relaxing in Malawi
Malawi is certainly a place to relax. Coming from Mozambique everything there seems better managed and easier for travelers. It started at the border. We changed our last Meticais into Malawian Kuatchas fast and did not need to bargain much for the rate. Then we went into the immigration office, where we asked the officer to extend our two day transit visas for a longer period and got immediately seven days...
The roads we took were generally better. The drive towards Lake Malawi is a nice one with beautiful views. We decided to stop south of Monkey Bay and found a pleasant campsite at the coast. The staff and the owner, a Malawian, were very friendly. The business mentality was there. The owner had a reservation for a big group, so he even rented his own house and moved to a tent for one night. The price was strait forward and almost half of what it was in Mozambique, the showers were hot and worked well, everything was very clean. We decided to take a day off and enjoyed our time swimming, reading and updating our web-site. Here too it was possible to get fish from the fishermen at the lake. Then we continued to Senga Bay, where we found a similar situation. We camped at Cool Runnings, a place owned by a Zimbabwean lady that had an excellent restaurant. It was very interesting talking to her about Malawi and Africa in general. Again we stayed a day longer... Around there the souvenir sellers were a must, as things were as cheap as never before. They mainly offer wood carvings out of ebony, mahogany, teak, etc. We ran out of Kuatchas, but that is not a problem there as they are willing to trade their stuff for clothes, etc.

Then we headed to Lilongwe, the capital, where we arrived at night, and even so had a got a good impression of the town. It is small with lots of good supermarkets and a known place to camp for overlanders at the Golf Club. We uploaded our web-site in one of the fastest internet cafes on our whole trip.

Zambia: a pleasant African mix
Exiting Malawi was again easy and fast and so was entering to Zambia. There we had organized in advance from Mozambique, a visa waiver through a campsite. To our surprise, everything worked very well. To promote tourism the government gives the lodges and tour operators the possibility to waive visa costs (USD 25 per person) for their customers. It’s an easy procedure with a letter that the lodge then delivers at the specific border. So there we arrived at the immigration office and the officer immediately asked if we were Swiss and Argentinean... We camped close to Chipata in a nice place, also owned by Zimbaweans and started finding out if I needed visas for the next countries on our way. For Botswana I do not but to our surprise I do for Namibia and the visas are issued in Lusaka - only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which at the time were the worst possibilities for us. We ended up calling the consul and asking him if I could exceptionally get the visa on a Friday and fortunately he accepted.
In the meantime we visited South Luangwa National Park. The park is a wild huge extension, but mainly visited around the main gate, where there is a bridge over the river. We stayed at Flatdogs, one of the nicest campsites on our trip, were facilities are very good and elephants and buffalos graze between the tents... At night, a guard with a powerful light would accompany guests to the restaurant or the reception.

South Luangwa was my best chance to see a leopard, I was told, as sightings of this particular mammal are frequent there. So we decided to do the night game drive in one of the camps vehicles, which here are totally open, the seats just elevated. There we met Jim and Sherrie, from the US, who are also traveling through Africa but had a lot more time for it. We saw lions that night, first two males, then three cubs that were left by their mother in a rather visible place. We also saw lots and lots of genet cats, but no leopard (sniff!). The next morning we had our chance again. We got up really early to see a beautiful sunrise over the Luangwa river. We saw again the three lion cubs, this time with their mother and another lioness. There were Pukus as well, a species of antelope, similar to impalas, which were new to us. And the usual stuff: elephants, zebras, diverse antelopes, crocodiles and lots of tsetse flies (this time they bit us)... but no leopard...
At midday we returned to the camp and had a few minutes to relax at the pool before departing to Lusaka, in order to get my Namibian visa the next day. We chose to drive a bad road along the park, which was meant to save us some kilometers. It took us sooo long, it was getting dark when we reached the asphalt road going to Lusaka. Driving at night was not recommended by anyone, but it did not turn out to be a bad experience. The road was excellent and there was almost no traffic after dark. Here as well we could see that lots of land is burned during the night. We still do not understand the reason for it. We bush-camped close to the road and early in the morning we continued to Lusaka.

To our surprise the city does not seem to be in Africa. It is clean, tidy and modern. We found the Namibian High Commission before 9 am and before 10 we were already out enjoying a nice cappuccino at a Shopping Mall that seems to be in Florida, USA. From time to time it is also nice to have it easy... We left Lusaka that same day and drove again on excellent roads the almost 500 km to Livingstone, the Zambian side of the Victoria Falls.
The Falls are quite impressive, even when they are not carrying that much water because of the time of the year. We spent a nice day hiking around the area and going down to the Zambezi, where we could see the people bungee jumping from the bridge going to Zimbabwe. In the late afternoon we looked for a better campsite and found something quite unique: camping with private bathroom at the Livingstone Safari Lodge. It was a small house, with bathroom, shower and sink and a space to store things, not big enough to make a bedroom. There we stayed for two nights and enjoyed grilling.

We wanted to see the Zimbabwean side of the Falls, but going with the car was meant to be a hassle and relatively expensive, so instead we did something slightly more exciting. We went river-rafting for half a day in the Zambezi. The river is meant to be among the wildest but safest in the world, largely because of the deep water, steep canyon walls and lack of rocks midstream. And it was powerful indeed. We did rapids 11 to 23, just the two of us, our American guide and a support kayak. On number 11, our first one, Reto was already in the water, went under the boat but was retrieved by Steve, our guide, quite fast. Then came number 12, known as „the three ugly sisters“, a series of three short but powerful shakes, where our boat flipped. Steve and I ended up on the other side of the boat and grabbed to it quickly, Reto was again under it. But then comes immediately rapid number 13 „the mother“, that messed us even more. Steve was on the boat, which was still upside down; I went fast ahead and tried following the instructions during the briefing putting my feet in front, downriver. I lost my paddle but found Reto’s, who was even further down the river and found my paddle... When we arrived to a calmed area I hanged to the kayak. The only thing I could think about was Steve mentioning he had seen crocodiles in the calm waters of the Zambezi. According to him they had fallen down the falls when they were little and survived it, so now they were living there. The thought of it made me quite uneasy… Reto went to help Steve turning back the boat and then I rushed onto it. And so we went through the Zambezi and its rapids, that have names such as „the washing machine“, „the overland truck eater“, and the like. Reto ended up in the water once again, but we managed quite well the rest. It was a brilliant and tiring day.

And so we ended our short but intense stay in Zambia, previously going through the supermarket, where we could even pay by credit card, something we were not used to anymore. We liked the country very much as for us it was the right mix between Africa with a bit of comfort at affordable prices. We also found the people friendly and diligent. The ferry crossing the Zambezi to Botswana was a bit chaotic though.

Beautiful Botswana
On the other side, Botswana seemed to be more ordered and regulated. Kasane was our next stop. We spent the night in the crowded campsite at the Safari Lodge, and had a buffet dinner there, where we ate a too much... Botswana is a bit more expensive than Zambia and although friendly, people do not seem quite as welcoming. To spend the night at Chobe National Park for example, one needs to reserve a space in the campsites way before hand. And the way overlanders travel, this is not easy. In any case they keep on saying the place is very full and that it is impossible to stay for the night in the park without a reservation. The reality is that when we arrived to the camp and asked if there was space to stay, they told us it was full but we could squeeze at their “reserved” campsite. But then the place was not full at all... out of the seven camping spaces at Xakanaxa Camp, four were empty the night we were there... We were not the only ones to observe this, several other travelers had a similar experience. It seems they try to make this image of a mega-organized country but then it ends up being quite inefficient.

Nevertheless, the country has a lot to offer in terms of wildlife and scenic beauty, and both Chobe and Moremi have incredible changing landscapes. We went through villages at the north of Chobe and had funny experiences with animals around Linyate. In first place, and unavoidable are the lots of elephants. Then a girafe almost crashed us, when it appeared galloping from behind and crossed the road in front of us. We also saw something remarkable: the dead body of a young elephant being eaten by vultures. We met some other tourists, who told us it was hunted by three male lions the night before. The lions had been around until one hour before we came and then left the vultures their turn. It was the first time we learned that lions actually do bring down elephants. The next day we saw another elephant cadaver, this time a big one, being eaten at that point by a hyena.

The nicest area for us was the strip between Chobe and Moremi, along the Khwai river. There we bush camped and slept very well. We only heard a hyena and a lion in the morning, just to discover later on that the place was full of them. We were driving along the river looking at some antelopes on the other side and then just a few meters ahead was this female lion, who came to drink. We followed her, and she lead us to another lion, this time a male, before disappearing into the bush. We stuck to the male. It was now his turn to drink. He did so for about twenty minutes, so we could do lots of nice pictures. We were lucky enough to see an elephant coming to drink at the same time and the hippos were also not far away. Our lion would roar a bit from time to time getting similar replies from others still in the bush. It was one of our best lion sightings, especially because of the beautiful early morning light and the solitude of the area. We were the only ones around.

Later that day we entered Moremi Wildlife Reserve in the Okavango Delta. The wildlife was similar to Chobe’s, with abundant elephants and antelopes. What is stunning in Moremi are the woods, and the changing landscapes in general. We arrived at Xakanaxa and were told the rangers had shot an elephant for security reasons as he was aggressive and intruding in the camp site. There were lots of lions profiting from it. So there we went. It was difficult to see all the lions as many were lying in the bush, too full to make a move… from time to time one of them would stand up and eat a bit of the dead elephant. The vultures were waiting on the nearby trees. We were told that until the night before there was also a leopard, which was two days stuck on a tree as the lions had colonized the elephant (again I missed my chance…). That night a hyena sneaked in the camp site hoping to get some leftovers from our dinner, we supposed. Reto shone at it with a flashlight and it went away for a while, but as we were coming back from the bathrooms we discovered it wondering around our car. Luckily it was alone and easy to chase away. The next day we left early. We saw the lions again and many kudus, waterbucks, zebras, elephants, etc. We also spotted lots of beautiful birds but unfortunately we have no idea what they were… In a detour to dead-tree island we also saw monkeys and yet a different marvelous landscape.
That evening in Maun we stayed at the nice Audi camp site and enjoyed a wonderful meal at their restaurant. We decided to take a day off to work on our pictures and web-site and to jump into the pool. There we met Andrew and Jaye, a South African – Australian couple, who are more or less doing our same route and have met several of the overlanders we also know.

We would have loved to stay longer in Botswana but unfortunately time is running out. We left for the Namibian border into the Caprivi strip on the route along the Okavango delta Panhandle and camped on the way at the Guma Camp, just on the shore of a nice lagoon formed by the Okavango river.
Ahead is Namibia were we will stay for about two weeks.

Hope to update you once again before its over!
Regards,

Victoria & Reto

 

Link to Travel Report     10 Namibia & South Africa