So I had a month of ‘down time’ before joining a tour group in Namibia, but had to leave Angola as the visa is only for 30 days. Although, looking back, might my two remaining days have been enough for me to get to Kalandula Falls in the middle of the country? The second highest falls in Africa, which I’d like to see. But anyway, I missed that opportunity, and took one overnight bus from Luanda to the border, then another overnight bus from the border to Windhoek, before catching up on my sleep!
Sometimes I am happy to just hang around for a month – sleeping, washing clothes, labelling and backing up photos, and chatting with fellow hostel guests, as well as the odd day exploring - but there is little to see in Windhoek, there is no cheap accommodation – and Botswana is just next-door…
So I did some research and worked out how to get to Botswana (how can a country as wealthy, and relatively developed, as Namibia, have no public transport, and no private buses except for those run by a South African company that do just the trip from South Africa to Windhoek and on to the Angola border?), and booked myself on a three-day tour visiting (and camping in) the Okavango Delta and the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. I slightly nervously transferred half of the cost to a bank account in Tanzania that was not in the name of the tour company, then a couple of days later got up at 04:15 as required to get to the side of a shopping mall where an estate car – the Tok Tokkie shuttle – would start its journey to Botswana. & then on from Ghanzi in Botswana to Maun, but thankfully Botswana has buses, and bus stations! & the tour company did exist (and confirmed receipt of my money) and they paid for my dinner as an apology for making me wait two hours for them when I arrived in Maun.
Then the next morning they took me to the mokoro station and from there into the Okavango Delta (a mokoro being the traditional wooden canoe-like boat used in the Delta). We passed quite a few zebra and a couple of elephants on our way to a small area on an island where a large tent with a bed was already set up for me. Two guys were also camping there and we passed the heat of the day in some interesting conversations. Another mokoro trip was provided later in the day, to an area where we could take a walk for an hour, revealing more zebra and elephants plus reasonable sized groups of red lechwe and wildebeest, and of course I got to see the sunset over the water. It was peaceful and beautiful.
They fed me well back at the camp, and I slept well on the comfortable bed. A nice breakfast, then back in the mokoro for the journey back to the mokoro station. I very much enjoyed this part of the trip, although looking back, I rather wish I'd also splashed out to take a helicopter or light aircraft flight over the Delta, to see the geography of it from the air as much as the wildlife.
The second part of the tour I’d arranged was a trip to the Makgadikgadi Pans, to include camping overnight beside the big salt pans. We started late, due to some logistical issues that I didn’t quite understand, and chatting a little to the driver for this part of the tour, I learned that it was his first time driving to the Pans. Hmmm… but he got us there, and when we got to the entrance gate, the guard was very helpful, informing him that the entrance ticket also covered the Nxai Pans, and that there was a particular place currently FULL of zebras. So we drove to see the zebras (which were amazing – there must have been thousands of them) and on towards a camping area, seeing many more zebra plus various other creatures including giraffes, elephants, kudu, wildebeest and a few birds.
My itinerary had said I’d enjoy a sundowner with sunset over the salt pans, but we were too late for sunset and I still couldn’t see any salt pans. When I enquired of the driver, he said we would need to get up early the next morning to get to them, as they were some distance away.
So the next morning we set off, and he drove very far at great speed, and eventually we saw an area of salt flats. But it wasn’t like the pictures or description in my itinerary, which I showed him. This turned out to be the first he had heard of my detailed itinerary, and when (after a late breakfast back at the camp) the owner of the tour company showed up, he also claimed to be unaware of the details in the itinerary I’d been sent. He seemed very concerned, and showed me WhatsApp messages he had received from the company that subcontracted my tour to him, and I think he was telling me the truth. It seems that the area we should have gone to was the Nxai Pans.
But it was too late, so we drove back to Maun, and to partly make up for what I had missed I was offered free lunch and dinner the next day in the town, plus a free night at the Pans if I came back to Botswana (although I would have to pay for the transportation to get there).
Maybe at that stage I should have added a few more days to my stay in Maun rather than continued to Gaborone, and tried to do the flight and the salt pans, but I had booked non-cancellable accommodation in Gaborone and wanted to allow plenty of spare days for getting back to Windhoek as I didn’t trust the transport … so maybe one day I shall be returning to Botswana, who knows? But I should say that although it wasn’t the best visit, it was still enjoyable and worthwhile. Gaborone is not worth seeing (there’s a monument to the three heroes who led Botswana to independence, and a museum that was closed for renovation), but I don’t like visiting a country without seeing its capital city.
The trip back to Windhoek was another adventure, as I was notified some 18 hours before my scheduled Tok Tokkie Shuttle that it had been cancelled, with the next shuttle scheduled for three days later. Thankfully my guest house manager was super helpful, and one of the people he contacted knew of a minivan leaving that evening for an overnight drive to the border – which was a good start, even though it was probably the most uncomfortable vehicle I have ever travelled in. Then at the other side of the border was a taxi, waiting for passengers to fill up his seats for the drive to Windhoek. Not only did all this work out cheaper than the Tok Tokkie shuttle, but the taxi took me right to my door in Windhoek! & I should add that despite the difficulties, the people I interacted with in Botswana were some of the nicest I’ve ever met, and those in Namibia have not (so far) been far behind.
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