Since my last update I have traveled across Northern Namibia and Botswana to Victoria Falls. Along the way our overland truck visited a couple of National Parks, which were full of the most spectacular wildlife.
After leaving the Skeleton Coast our overland truck headed through the desert to the Etosha National Park in the north of Namibia. This Park which surrounds a Salt Flat was one of the first National Parks created in Africa and it is full of wildlife. Almost as soon as we entered the Park we saw Elephants and Giraffes close to the road. At the side of our camp site was a waterhole which was floodlit at night, and on the evening we were there a group of rare Black Rhinos came to drink but despite their size they moved away when a pride of lions turned up. Jackals roamed through the campsite going through bins and one of our party was bitten by a ground squirrel, for which he had to have a Rabies jab!
Our journey continued into Botswana where we visited the Okavango Delta. This is a huge swamp with islands within it on which the animals live. To get there we were poled out on canoes, rather like punts, through the reed-covered delta to a wild camp on one of the islands, where we stayed for two nights spending the time swimming in the delta and going on game walks looking for wildlife.
In the North East of Botswana is a small Park called Chobe. This Park is home to thousands of Elephants and we saw large numbers of them when we visited. We also came across the carcass of an Impala which had probably been killed by a leopard but which was now being devoured by a large group of Vultures. While we were in Chobe, we had the first downpour of the rainy season, the kind of rain you only get in the tropics, with streets turned to rivers. Some of our tents were washed away by a river of water that poured through the campsite and one of our group dislocated his shoulder when he fell over trying to save them!
Covering all this ground has involved lots of early starts, up at 0430 some days, packing up the tent and the camp in the dawn light. We have also covered thousands of kilometers, a lot of it on dirt roads with often five or six hours of driving a day. The landscape is now very African, endless areas of trees and scrub forest, conical huts made of thatch and goats and cattle wandering across the roads. I was lucky to be traveling with a great group of people, mainly British and Germans, who made the whole trip a really fun experience. It was with real regret I said goodbye to them all this weekend.
We have ended our tour in Zimbabwe, in Victoria Falls. Next week I will be visiting another game park to the south of the Falls and will then probably travel on into Zambia.
I cannot add any pictures at this time due to the very slow connection speeds. This is also my second attempt to write this article, as my first attempt was lost when there was a power cut, which are quite frequent here
