Livingstone and The Caprivi

Hello from Dublin! My 4 months journey finally came to an end at the weekend. And the last 3 and a half weeks were just as fun as the rest of the time has been. Actually so much went on that I'm splitting it into 2 entries, one for Livingstone & northern Namibia (the Caprivi Strip) and the other one for Namibia. Last time I wrote I was in Swakopmund in Namibia. From there I got a bus up to Livingstone in Zambia. It was a 24 hour bus journey and surprisingly it wasn't too horrible. I packed myself some food, listened to some audio books, got into my sleeping bag and managed to sleep for about 8 hours. I only woke around 7am when we were nearing the Caprivi strip. We had a herd of elephants crossing the road in front of us, much more exciting than the cows or sheep that cross the road here in Ireland!

I was staying at a hostel called Fawlty Towers in Livingstone and getting off the bus was mayhem. All the locals are right up in your face offering taxis, accommodation and food. I collected my bag as calmly as possible, told them all I needed a walk after 24 hours on a hot bus and wandered through the town till I found Fawlty Towers which was a really cool chilled hostel.

My friends Rob from the UK and Cara from Canada were meeting me there the next day. It was really fun to see them. Rob has been traveling also for the last few months and Cara moved to Botswana last year to manage a safari camp, leaving her lawyer life behind. While in Livingstone we did a booze cruise down the Zambezi river at sunset, lots of fun and we saw some hippos. The next day we went to visit Victoria Falls.

There's a bridge you can cross right beside the falls and most people who cross it wear ponchos over their clothes because you get absolutely soaked. Rob suggested we go poncho-less, it'd be more of a laugh. It certainly was. If we jumped into the falls we couldn't have gotten any wetter. The bridge was really slippy so Cara and I took off our flip flops so we wouldn't slip. Of course that didn't stop me and I fell right at the beginning of the bridge. I ended up with a lovely bloody elbow, a bruise on my backside and a pain in my side from laughing so much.

Cara only had a couple more days before heading back to Botswana to work and Rob and I had 2 weeks so we decided to head back to Namibia.

There was another bus from Livingstone to Katima in Namibia, just across the Zambian border. I knew some people who owned a Safari Lodge on the Zambezi so after a few quick emails to secure our accommodation for a couple of nights we were off. This was a different type of bus than the 24 hour one I'd taken. It was much more of a local bus, which included people having live chickens in plastic bags are part of their carry on luggage. We made a few stops along the way during the 4 hour journey. At one place, through the window, they would sell you a whole fried fish with the heads still on (similar to the ones I had in Madagascar). Cara and Rob both looked relived I didn't have enough Zambian money to buy one.

We had to be across the Zambian and Namibian borders by 6 and of course the bus was running late. We made it to the Zambian border at 12 minutes to 6. By the time they processed our passports and we found a taxi to take us the 2 min drive to the Namibian border, it was 3 minutes to 6. We were about to put our bags in the taxi and encourage the taxi drive to haul ass to the border but he had huge crates of fish in the back of the car! We quickly moved them to another car and tried not to think about how bad our bags would smell as we threw the bags in and sped off. We were the last people at the Namibian border, the workers were putting on their coats and starting to shut down their computers but luckily they let us through. Exciting but nerve wrecking stuff! Not sure what we would have done if they'd been closed.

Our taxi took us past the border once we'd been processed and onto the the Caprivi Houseboats Safari lodge. I could live at this lodge. Such a chilled place right on the Zambezi. Francois (my friend Johannes' brother) and Chantal his wife run the place which consists of about 5 thatched bungalows with an ensuite outdoor bathroom. The 3 of us piled into bungalow. Chantal made us a lovely dinner and we slept so well, listening to the sounds of the water hitting the river banks.



We hung out there for 2 days, reading, watching some world cup games (including Eng vs US) and Francois organized a private boat trip for us down the Zambezi again at sunset. Such a peaceful beautiful area.

Finally after the 2 days, Cara had to go back to Botswana. Luckily Francois knew someone who could drive Cara most of the way home. Rob and I decided to get the long bus journey (15 hours) back to Windhoek the capital of Namibia and rent a car so we could drive around the country for 8 days and camp.

Anyway, here are the photos I took in Livingstone and the Caprivi. Cara and Rob had much better photos but Cara managed to delete her photos accidentally and Rob had his bag stolen. More about that drama in the next entry!

Jen
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