Namibia
Thursday 29-06 (380km)
We manage to clear the Augrabie Camp at 09.00. We drive back to just beyond Keimoes and then take a shortcut to the N10 towards Namibia. The bloody shortcut turns out to be a severely corrugated gravel road with sharp stones and sizeable potholes and we labour for one-and-a-half hours to cover just under 50km. When we inspect Wa Bashasha at the end of her first ordeal, she is still in one piece and has obviously enjoyed the rough ride more than we have. At noon, we arrive in Nakop at the Namibian border. Customs go easy on the car and her contents – the car only has to be exported on her Carnet de Passage again once we leave the South Africa-Namibia-Botswana custom union – and half an hour later we are on our way to Ariamsvlei, the Namibian side of the border. A distance of about 20 km which we rapidly cover. When we present our passports to be stamped, the Namibian immigration officer finds that we have no South African immigration stamps!! So, we drive back again to Nakop to get the damned stamps. Back in Ariamsvlei again, immigration is kind and handles our passports in less than 10 minutes. Paying road tax for the Road Fund (the Cross Border Charge Permit) is a different matter and we queue for almost an hour to N$ 150. In the end, and due to our own stupidity, the border crossing takes a little over 2 hours! Once on the road again, we reach Grünau at about 16.00 and find a room in the only guesthouse in this tiny village: the Grünau Country Lodge. Rather a cosy place if it would not have been freezing cold without heating facilities. Luckily the dining room is slightly warmer and after a good meal we jump in bed at 09.00 under a feather cover and a thick blanket. As it turns out, this coverage is barely enough. When we pay our bill in the morning, we find the – South African run – guest house much too expensive for what it offers. N$ 400 per person for a room without even a single chair!
Friday 30-06 (400 km)
From Grünau we take the road to Keetmanshoop because we need petrol and cash. We arrive there at 11.00 and find an ATM point in the centre. When we see approximately 80 people queuing we realize it is the last day of the month: PAY DAY! We try another ATM: 100 people queuing. Luckily we have some US$ in our purse (the rest is stacked away in such a way in Wa Bashasha’s body that we have to dismantle half the car) and we decide to change it in a bank. Although not as long, the queues are there as well! After 45 minutes we have changed our 200 US$ for 1300 N$. Next stop is the super market to buy some provisions in case we have to camp in the interior. In the supermarket we meet all the people that were ahead of us in the bank again! In effluent Holland we have apparently forgotten how important pay day is. From Keetmanshoop the voyage goes – over an extremely dusty gravel road - to Helmeringhausen. Wa Bashasha takes a liking to the dust and sucks it up through the hatches of the petrol tanks under our seats, the rear door and the heating vents. By the time we arrive in Helmeringhausen we and the complete interior are covered with a thick layer of chalk like grey-white dust. On the positive side, we have to admit that Wa Bashasha managed to often punishing corrugated gravel roads well. Helmeringhausen is not more than a guesthouse, a petrol station and a general store (a real country duka they would say in East Africa). We arrive just in time to get a room, because many holiday makers from South Africa use Helmeringhausen as an in between stop to Sossusvlei. The room is clean and we unload some of the luggage before climbing a mountain trail to watch the sun go down from a hill behind the guesthouse. Back in the guest house we are confronted for the first time with the type of Afrikaners we do not want to be associated with (real “proleten” we say in Dutch). They are extremely loud, don’t care a damn what there children are doing in the guest house and the gardens. They drink too much and then become even louder and more unpleasant. Needless to say, of course, that we have these types in the Netherlands as well.
Saturday 01-07 (355 km rough gravel roads exclusively)
Early in the morning (08.30 am) we quarrel about where to go. Eventually Meta wins and we head North towards the bloody sand dunes of Sossusvlei, one of the major tourist attractions of Namibia. Namibia is extremely beautiful indeed, but almost empty. At one time we travel with red sand dunes on our left and beautiful high mountains (up to 2300 m) to our right. Wa Bashasha picks up dust as a kind of high performance vacuum cleaner and we are covered with it (and our luggage) from head to foot again. For the time being we cannot do much about it, but in Rehobot or Windhoek Paul will try to seal the hedges off and do something about the dust entering through the back door sill. At Sossusvlei we drive through the gates of the Sossusvlei Lodge and Meta inquires about the price of accommodation. 2000N$, which is 250 Euro, for the two of us per night. We decide that 250 Euro for a place crowded with the type of foreign tourists we dislike is far too much. We drive back and enter the National Park to tank. On our way out, some 50 metres from the gate, Wa Bashasha’s engine stalls once again. After some furious hand pumping of petrol, which leaves Paul with a blister on his left index finger, the engine catches again. We decide to look for accommodation on the road to Solitaire. About halfway we find a guest lodge: Weltevreden. A nice place, but unfortunately no accommodation available. While the owner lady and Meta try to cell phone some people down the road for accommodation, Paul is hijacked by three South Africans from Durban who are camping with their Land Rover Series III. After half an hour we manage to extract ourselves from the Series Club and drive to Solitaire. There, we find a place in the guesthouse near the petrol station. A small oasis with a swimming pool and guest rooms around a small but GREEN lawn. Just too good to be true.
Sunday 02-07 (150 km)
The guest house is unfortunately fully booked and we cannot stay for another night. Eventually we get a bag packers room next to the petrol station. Basic, but acceptably clean and we move our luggage. The bag pack room saves quite some money, because we pay only N$ 100 per person (about 12 Euro). We make a day trip to the Namib Naukluft National Park, about 75 kilometres from Solitaire. A fantastic mountain park (some of the mountains are over 2000 metres) and after we have followed a hiking trail for some hours we decide to try and camp for one or two days in the park. On our way back to Solitaire we again admire the fantastic scenery in this part of Namibia, curse the dust and corrugated road parts, and wait somewhere for the sun to set. Much to the distress of a jackal who was probably also watching the sunset! At dinner we discover that we have not enough Namibian money left to go to Naukluft and we discuss the possibilities to change some money next morning (Solitaire has about 6 buildings!).
Travel log Monday 03-07 (75)
We pack the car and Meta manages to get N$ 500 on her credit card in the only general store in Solitaire. In the bargain, she has to buy half a kilo of “boere wors”, two bags of fire wood and 5 litres of drinking water. At 09.00 we are on the awful gravel road again to the Naukluft Park, where we arrive well before midday. The attendant in the park directs us to a flat spot where the car stands level enough to sleep in the roof tent. Ten minutes later two South African 4x4 vehicles with enormous trailers arrive and immediately we get involved in a fight about the place our car stands. We are apparently in the wrong place, but the way in which the South Africans deal with the matter is disgraceful and brutal. We are wise and move our car to the next camping place and watch our neighbours building a complete lager. Within an hour, 4 meter high double story tents have arisen, gas tanks fuel gas lights and the wooden poles separating one camping place from the other, have become a stockade. Some of these Afrikaanders still have the idea they own the world and all that is in it and show almost hatred towards “die buitenlanders”! We have travelled now for some weeks and are beginning to be increasingly suspicious of South Africans travelling in convoys of 2, 3 or 4 oversized 4x4 vehicles and ditto trailers. Many of them have no idea what good gravel road manners are, are loud, disrespectful with respect to other people and aggressive when challenged on what ever matter. Luckily we also meet many pleasant and civilised other South Africans. Usually with smaller cars and smaller trailers! Notwithstanding our irritation with our neighbours, the camping place is a dream and we enjoy a lovely walk, before beginning the preparations for our braai. Soon after sunset it becomes very cold indeed and we throw some new logs of hard wood on our fire. The night in our roof tent – even with our mummy sleeping bags – is freezing and somewhere at 04.00 Meta is fighting an almost lost battle with her small portable bush toilet. However, we manage to keep the mattress dry and after all have great fun.
Tuesday 04-07 (175 km)
Due to the sub-zero temperatures we rise early and shortly after 08.00 we are on the gravel roads again to Rehoboth, some 100 km from Windhoek. Just before Rehoboth we see a sign towards the Oanob Dam Resort. After another 10 kilometres of dusty roads, we arrive at a large lake situated between low hills with high mountains in the background. Around the lake is a small bungalow park with 7 large detached bungalows – sometimes almost a kilometre apart – and a small number of apartment buildings and a restaurant and reception. It is a postcard picture and although it is not cheap, we decide to rent a detached bungalow for a night. For the first time since we left Sibratsgfäll and Veldhoven, we have a sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a terrace bordering the lake and a magnificent balcony with a view on the mountains and the lake again. After we have prepared lunch, we unload the car completely and begin cleaning up the contents and shovelling out the dust and sand. Paul uses all his spare rubber strips to try to make the petrol tank hatches and the backdoor dustproof . At 17.00 we have repacked the car and she looks halfway decent again. When we arrived at the Resort earlier during the day, Paul spotted a Series II 1969 safari vehicle in the parking lot and asked where it was serviced. The receptionist called the garage – Auto General – and we made an appointment to have Wa Bashasha, a Series III 1975, serviced, for the first time during our trip, next morning. Luckily the resort can have us for another two nights, although we have to move from our bungalow to an apartment.
Wednesday 05-07 (30 km)
Auto General is a small workshop in the industrial area of Rehoboth and is owned by Henry Beukes. What we want to have done is: cleaning the oil bath air filter, an engine oil change, a check and possible top up of the gear box and the differential oils, greasing all the greasing points and a general check of the suspension, wheels and tyres. The workshop is small and when Paul drives the Land Rover over the oiling pit, she stands among a lot of discarded wrecks! The garage has no 10W40 engine oil and (correctly) claims that a Series III in Africa should use 20W50 with an old- engine additive. Paul agrees and the engine is first flushed with a cleaner and 5 litres of cheap oil.
Then, and after the oil filter has been cleaned and fitted with a new filter cartridge (out of Paul’s spare part box) the carter plug is screwed in again with a new copper washer. Cleaning the oil bath air filter properly (it is full of Nambian dust sludge!) takes an hour and then all is fitted together again with a new cork seal from Paul’s magic box. The gearboxes have lost 0.5 litres of oil in 3500 km and they are topped up with EP90 from our own stock. The differentials and wheel hubs are all right and the greasing is not a problem. There is no visible damage to the suspension, wheels and tyres. When, after two hours, the work has been completed, and before Paul is aware of what is going on, a mechanic sprays the engine and bottom side of the car with two bottles of cleaning agent and begins to clean it with pressure steam and then with high pressure water. The result is twofold: the engine and underside of the car are cleaner than ever before and the engine fails to catch because of the water in the distributor. An air pressure hose treatment saves the day and after paying the equivalent of Euro 100, we contently drive back to the resort. By the time we are back, it is already afternoon. We sit on our terrace and watch the sun set over the lake until a touring car arrives from Cape Town, carrying 44 pensioners on a 14-day round trip through South Africa and Namibia. All of a sudden the resort is buzzing with activities, but around 22.00 everything is quiet again.
Thursday 06-07 (15 km)
We stay at the Oanab Resort where we complete our travel logs and prepare an internet version for our web master Marc van Santen. Later in the afternoon we meet the Namibian owner of the resort (his Swiss wife from Sant Gallen we had met before) and he invites us down to his house for a glass of wine after dinner. In the pitch dark we follow his car for some
kilometres through the bush, passing sleeping giraffes and sucking up a lot of dust again. We spent a most pleasant evening chatting with the owner couple.
Friday 07-07 (120 km)
We have a smooth ride from Rehoboth to Windhoek where we arrive at about 13.00 hours and ask for the direction of the Klein Windhoek Guest House. Due to all the stationary running, the engine of the car is starved of petrol and when we enter the guesthous’ courtyard the car stalls again. We are taken on a tour of the guesthouse by the owner’s wife (from Manheim in Germany). The place looks very well kept, but we are a little surprised by the tight security and the advice NOT to leave our car unnecessarily parked along the public road. Marc and Barbara have a kind of apartment with a separate bedroom for the children and a “braai” on their own patio! We unpack, lunch and then take the car to find the place where we have to pick up the Land Rover for Marc and Barbara.
Somewhere in the industrial area we know we are near to the place, but cannot find it. While driving around, a coloured walks up to the car and warns us that the area is very unsafe. We close all the doors. We decide to return to the guesthouse, but then the engine stalls again. While we are pushing the car off the road, Paul suddenly yells “stop the thief” and runs after a man who is crossing the street. There is a lot of oncoming traffic but Paul almost catches the guy. Then the thief jumps into a helper’s car which races away. Another car with a white Namibian stops and tells me to jump in and together we try to drive the other car off the road. All to no avail and a quarter of an hour later we assess the damage: in my shopping bag were 2000 N$, VISA and ABN-AMRO cards and a cell phone. Yet another car with a European stops and the driver gives us his cell phone, tells us where we can find his number in the menu, and then just disappears again.
Paul lets the car roll backwards towards a Firestone tyre centre and there the people help him to phone a towing service. The owner of the centre is a Namibian German speaker and he helps us finding a garage capable of diagnosing what is wrong with our Series III. Then all of a sudden the car’s engine roars to life again and just before dark we arrive at a garage at the other end of town. Again a German speaking owner who is very helpful. What he has to say, however, is not reassuring. The petrol Series III all suffer from fuel starvation when the engine gets hot at low speeds (no air passing around the fuel pump) and when the fuel is warm as well (hot climate and the exhaust runs along two of our fuel tanks). There is not really a good remedy, except stopping the engine, putting a damp cloth around the fuel pump and dripping water on the cloth until the pump has cooled down. Yet, he promises to have a look at the car again Monday morning early. It is already dark when we finally drive through the gate of the guesthouse again.
After telephoning the Netherlands and blocking the credit cards and the cell phone (none of them had been used yet), we come to the conclusion that we have been incredible naïf for people who have lived so long in Africa and go for dinner in a fancy “German” beer house. When a group of Namibian singers enter – much to our delight and the visible chagrin of many white South African tourists present – they begin with “cry freedom!”.
Saturday 08-07 (0 km)
Before breakfast the owner of the cell phone calls on us. As it happens, his name is Jan Bakker. This Dutchman has been living in Nambia with his family for 30 years and we thank him wholeheartedly for just handing over his cell phone to us . At breakfast we meet the owner of the Guest House – Francois van Niekerk – and he offers to take Paul to town in the morning. The centre of - a very tidy - Windhoek has still many German characteristics. In the streets German is heard frequently and many shops feature German names. The presidential residence is guarded by soldiers armed with AK47s, but otherwise there are no soldiers and only a few police to be seen in the streets. Francois takes Paul to a camping shop and then to an open air gathering of Afrikaans speakers in Windhoek. Some 4000, dominantly white families, meet on the fair grounds, participate in charity auctions, watch wrestlers, buy and sample biltong and “droë wors” and, of course, eat and drink to their hearts’ desire! By the time Paul arrives back at the guest house - slightly affected by too much beer at the wrong time of the day and on an empty stomach - it is 14.30. We arrange a minibus for Sunday afternoon to pick up Marc, Barbara and their three children at Windhoek airport and then have dinner again at the “German” beer house. No singers this time.
Sunday 09-07 (0 km)
We rise late, have a cooked breakfast, and leave for the airport, some 40 km from Windhoek, at 12.00 hours. The plane from Johannesburg is punctual and at 13.20 we see Barbara and her family disembarking. An hour later we are at the Klein Windhoek Guesthouse. The newcomers settle in and then we drive to the industrial area to pick up the hired Land Rover Defender for the Van Santen’s. It turns out to be a TDI 5 with a complete camping outfit. After a totally inadequate explanation of the car and the equipment, Marc finds himself behind the steering wheel on the “wrong” side of the road. At night we update each other with news and adventures and have our first wood braai.
Monday 10-07 (320 km)
We are up early to have the car checked, to get some money in the centre of Windhoek, to stock supplies and to buy some camping gear. To our dismay, none of our credit and bank cards yield a single Namibian dollar and we are forced to change some Euros and US dollars.
We buy water, soft drinks, wine, meat, bread and vegetables to survive the next two days in a self-catering manner and go to a large camping shop (Cymot). The choice of camping gear is unbelievable and we regret again that we bought most of our stuff in the Netherlands. There they don’t really have an idea what African “outdoor” means. We decide to leave our totally impractical “topsleeper” Land Rover kitchen behind, a pity of the 250 Euros we paid for it, and buy a practical and portable cooking and light kit from Greensport. Then we make our way to Outjo, via excellent tarmac roads, and our little cabin at Oppi Klippie, where we arrive early in the afternoon. On our way to the cabin, and off the main road, we meet the first large elands and enjoy the magnificent scenery of the Oppi Klippi game farm. The cabin itself is a simple affair with 7 clean beds, a small kitchen and the inevitable braai in front of the cabin. The shower and toilet are open air between huge boulders and the hot water comes from a bush wood boiler. After a traditional beef potjie dinner, we sit around the fire in the freezing cold for some time and then turn in. Our grand children learn how to use their head lamps for the first time to brush their teeth and pi.
Tuesday 11-07 (20 km)
A quiet day. We buy food in Outjo in a well stocked supermarket and Paul even manages to lay his hands on a bottle of first class single malt whiskey. Less pleasant is the discovery that we cannot get any money at the Windhoek Bank ATM point: apparently, in the aftermath of the Windhoek robbery, our bank cards are all blocked. We have lunch at the cabin and while Paul is under the car repairing the tachometer, we walk around the “klippies” and once again enjoy the magnificent scenery. Anyone who likes a quiet and remote spot to stay with the comfort of a roof over his head should try Oppi Klippie. Jannie and Mimmi Linde are most friendly and hospitable and their dog, with two puppies, is a friendly companion! The rates they charge are very reasonable. In the dry season Oppi Klippi is easily accessible by ordinary car.
Wednesday 12-07 (215 km)
In the early morning Paul takes the grandchildren on an eland drive and by accident they discover one of the puppies, reported lost the day earlier, howling among the klippies. Too small to get out on his own, he must have spent a miserable cold night between the granite boulders. A wonderful tarmac road brings us Khorixas before we turn to the gravel again and try to find Xaragu Camp in Damaraland. After 60 kilometres of gravel, we find the (rough) access road to the camp, and 10 minutes later we are there. Comfortable tents with toilets and showers, a communal dining room, a small swimming pool and a tame young mongoose. The latter much to the (frightened) delight of our grandchildren. All, literary, in the middle of nowhere! At night we have dinner in a crowded dining room and then turn in early. Marc and Barbara use their roof tent for the first time because a family tent was not available. At 04.00 hours we all wake up because of the unbelievable din made by a group of young overlanders from the UK. After one hour, Paul gets really pissed, dresses and walks to the overlanders’ camp to inquire from which sewer they crawled. The next quarter of an hour they are relatively quiet, but when their truck leaves the camp, its radio is blaring at full blast again. We begin the understand why these young overlanders are extremely unpopular among the other travellers in Africa. Frightened puppies that make so much noise to overcome their fear in dark Africa?
Thursday 13-07 (65 km)
After a change of tents (Marc and Barbara get a family tent) we set out to Twijfelfontein to see the world famous bushmen rock engravings.
A pleasant and knowledgeable young Namibian guide even manages to capture the interest of the grand children! Some 5000 years ago, the early bushmen rested and slept among the steep rocks and hunted and gathered on the plains some hundreds of metres down the slope. The engravings mostly show the animals they hunted (giraffe, antelopes, rhinos), abstract representations of waterholes and now and then a footprint. No attempts at depicting humans and their activities. Looking at the many kilometres of surrounding rocky escarpments, Paul wonders how much of this area has really been researched, and how many rock engravings have as yet not been discovered and described. On our way back to Xaragu camp, we picnic in a sandy dry river bed, where Paul manages to get Wa Bashasha bogged down in the dry sand. Luckily Marc’s Land Rover Defender is there to rescue him. Not far away from the site with the rock engravings, there is an area with organ pipes (a kind of basalt like structures in a river bed) and the remnants of old lava deposits: the burned mountain. Neither are very spectacular and do not justify a visit to the Twijfelfontein area. In combination with the rock engravings, however, they are worth the extra kilometres.
Friday 14-07 (65 km)
Horse riding in Damaraland! At least we have not invested in Barbara’s upbringing in vain: this morning she took her three children for an hour’s ride through the dusty hills. Thijs in the saddle in front of her, Jelle and Eline on their own horses. Exciting for everyone, not in the least for Barbara. After the horses, we drive some 30 kilometres in the direction of Khorixas again until we reach the site of the petrified forest. Millions of years ago, during one of Africa’s periods of pluvials (rain periods), giant primitive trees where washed away over large distances, ended up at the bottom of inland seas, and became petrified. Now, steady erosion has brought them to the surface again in Damarara land. Our compulsory Nambian guide is not knowledgeable and makes it obvious that he is not interested at all in showing as around. Quite a difference with the guide at the site of the engravings! After half an hour we give up and return to the building at the gate to prepare our lunch. Here again, we notice how self-centred some of the overlanders are. Paul increasingly begins to consider them as a kind of new scourge of Africa: overlanders instead of locusts.
Saturday 15-07 (215 km)
Back to Outjo and Oppi Klippi. We refuel halfway and loiterers at the petrol station discover that Marc’s right rear tyre is almost flat. In the end five people are involved changing the tyre and in the confusion we are swindled out of almost 400 N$. Next time we have to devise a different strategy. When we finally arrive in Outjo, the supermarket is closed and at the cabin we consider our remaining supplies: tinned Vienna sausages, baked beans, macaroni and some rice. When Marc and Paul drive back to Outjo to see whether they can put some life in the ATM point, they discover an open supermarket and after all that night we have an excellent beef stew from the potjie! Oppi Klippie remains cold at night and we turn in again very early.
Sunday 16-07 (200 km)
At 07.30 it is still freezing cold, but Paul has put some logs under the bush boiler and in between the big granite boulders I take a hot shower. After buying and stowing the necessary supplies for a couple of days – we also find an ATM that accepts some of our cards – we head north towards the Etosha National Park. Through the Anderson Gate, we arrive at Okaukuijo Rest Camp but, alas, there are no camping sites free any more and we continue our voyage for another hour and a half to the Etosha Halali Rest Camp. Here we find a good camping place, make our bivouacs and have an excellent braai.
Monday 17-07 (45 km)
The Top Sleeper Columbus roof tent sleeps comfortable, but is not really designed for Africa. Principally because the mosquito netting has no zips and cannot be closed or opened properly from the outside. The roof tent ladder too remains an annoyance, since its legs cannot be adjusted and since the mechanism is extremely finger unfriendly. We are less concerned about its appearance, but also that is suffering: the glue of the fancy “chrome” strips is not heat resistant and hence they fall off. Whilst Barbara and her family have their game drive, we stay in the Etosha Halali Rest Camp, shovel the usual sand out of the car, wash some towels and air our sleeping bags. At midday we walk to the waterhole and find two small herds of elephants enjoying themselves with the water and mud. In the late afternoon we take Wa Bashasha out for a private game drive and see some hyenas, gemsbok and a beautiful African hoopoe. At night we have beef stew from our potjie again and we are getting rather attached to this cast iron cooking pot.
Tuesday 18-07 (75 km)
In the morning there is the usual hustle of moving camp. A chaotic breakfast with hard boiled eggs and toast made on the bush stove, dishwashing and folding and packing of the roof tents. As happens more often nowadays, we feel very dirty but decide not to wash and change clothes. After an hour on the gravel roads one would be dirty again anyhow! At 10.00 we are on the road to the Etosha Namutoni Camp. We arrive there about midday. A camp site shaded by large thorn trees and a resident warthog that is just stealing our neighbours potatoes. Paul chases the pig away, stores some of our neighbours’ supplies in their roof tent and closes their ground tent. After this skirmish, watched by three excited grand children, Paul sits down and contentedly sips a cold beer from our small Engel fridge. The warthog, however, is a bad loser. He suddenly turns around and after a short spurt crashes into Paul’s backside, almost managing to launch him off his camp chair. The whole episode much to the delight of Jelle, Eline and Thijs. In the afternoon, I join Barbara and her family for a game drive (we see a lion!), while Paul supervises the first real cleaning of Wa Bashasha since we left Holland. At the carwash he meets one of the game wardens and soon they talk politics. Thousands of tourists visit the camps in Etosha every year and generate a considerable revenue for the Namibian government. Yet, most facilities in the camps, with the exception of the restaurants, are in dear need of repair and maintenance. According to the warden, local and national politicians are not concerned with the maintenance of facilities for the benefit of Namibians in general, but rather with filling their own pockets as quickly as possible. According to Paul, the carwash turned out to be an interesting experience! After cooking ourselves for days, we decide to dine out at the restaurant. Reasonable food and very pleasant and helpful staff!
Wednesday 19-07 (225 km)
Considering the condition of the roads, we decide not to drive from Namutoni Camp to Rundu in one day. Via his satellite phone, Paul contacts Roy’s Rest Camp, some 50 kilometres north of Grootfontein and luckily they still have accommodation available. Northern Namibia is all but empty – no people, no cattle – until we pass the main veterinary gate. All of a sudden, and for the first time since we have left Cape Town, we find ourselves in black Africa again. Small villages along the road, plots with sorghum, charcoal and wood sellers trying to peddle their products and … the smell of wood fires! In Grootfontein we find a supermarket and restock the fridge before continuing our way to Roy’s Rest Camp. That camp is a pleasant surprise indeed: clean, a small swimming pool and very friendly staff. We quickly feel at home and enjoy our first shower in days. I use the opportunity to wash my hair which was almost solid with the dust (and sweat) of Etosha.
The buffet diner later that night is a success, until Paul discovers that he cannot find his cell phone. No matter how we search, this vital piece of equipment can, for the time being, not be recovered. The people at Roy’s Camp advise us to stay in the Ngepi Camp near Rundu for a couple of days and Paul manages to reach them by satellite phone and a booking is confirmed.
Thursday 20-07 (410 km)
Since we have to cover more than 400 km to the Ngepi Camp in Rundu, we leave Roy’s Rest Camp early: 09.00 hours. With four adults and three small children that is quite an achievement! The tarmac road is in excellent condition and we make good progress. Apparently Botswana is suffering from a poliomyelitis epidemic and we see a number of mobile vaccination units. Once we come in the vicinity of the Okavango river, the semi arid savannah landscape changes: trees grow more dense and higher and dominant brown becomes dominant green. Around 16.00 hours, we turn off the main road and follow the gravel road along the Okavango until we see the sign directing us to Ngepi Camp. The last 4 km are backbreaking, but eventually both our Land Rovers reach the camp in one piece. At the camp we are “welcomed” by a scruffy looking and unfriendly South African youngster who informs us that he can only provide accommodation for one instead of three nights! When Paul tells us to get back to our cars and look for another place, he suddenly has two bush huts available for 3 nights. The bush huts are basic reed huts, but have proper and clean beds and adequate en suite open air toilet and shower facilities. A generator provides electrical lighting. There is a brief panic when Marc discovers a nest of African wasps in the children’s quarters, but a burst of Doom Spray results in the eradication of these harmless bush creatures. Our diner is served in a dusty yard on upturned canoes with some oil lamps and consists of a meshed potatoes and minced meat oven dish. We are charged 100 N$ per person for this unsavoury mess and Paul wonders whether we should not have moved on after all. However, we all sleep well and marvel at the magnificent sunrise over the Okavango river in the early morning.
Friday 21-07 (30 km)
After breakfast, which proofs somewhat difficult to arrange and takes a considerable time to be cooked, we admire the Okavango from the jetty and explore Ngepi Camp. The campsites and tree huts are situated along the river. Particularly the campsites are among the most beautifully situated and well kept we have seen so far. The camp, however, was designed before roof tents became popular, because all sites (with lush green grass) are for ground tents. Later in the morning we visit Popa Falls, basically not more than a number of rapids in the Okavango river, and have drinks at the Popa Falls restaurant where book for dinner on Saturday night. At 15.00 we start the preparations for our braai and afterwards sit around the fire to keep warm. Ngepi, as it turns out, is a camp dominated by overlanders. When we try to arrange a lunch for the seven us, we are told that this is possible only if there are no overland truck arrivals! We get increasingly annoyed with the extremely unfriendly and lazy young white staff of the camp.
Saturday 22-07 (22 km)
In the morning, while Paul struggles with the travel logs and other administrative matters, we make a boat trip over the Okavango river and are impressed by the friendliness of the African staff of the lodge. In the afternoon we prepare for our long haul to Botswana in the morning and when we tank up at the petrol station in Divundu it is already dark. The atmosphere at the station is unpleasant and we are careful to keep the cars locked.
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