the overland trip

Hello again from Africa!!!! I’m sorry its been so long since my last post but arriving home from (as you will see later) an emotionally exhausting trip on the eve of a moderately hellish week of orientation and registering for classes, followed by the first couple weeks of school has left me little time to blog. But I know what you’re all thinking… “excuses, excuses…” so that’s why now 6 weeks later I’m sitting down to write the epic (sort of) tale of what happened on mine and Amanda’s fantastic trip.

My last blog left you on the eve of my departure for our 10 day over land trip to Botswana, and Zimbabwe. The next morning we got up at about super early(like 430), and got ready for our trip, which was pretty much drinking a solid (instant) cup of coffee and sitting waiting for our transport to come and get us. Finally our transport came and got us and we headed off. Our transportation was a big passenger van filled with our fellow travelers and their luggage. Our driver was our amazing and awesome guide David. He told us that we were going to drive about 2 hours north and meet up with the other van of travelers. The first two hours went pretty quickly and quietly as I fell pretty much straight to sleep. When I woke up we were pulling down a dirt road towards some wooden barn looking buildings where we were meeting up with the other van. We pulled in and all unloaded out of our vans in our van there was an elderly couple from Texas and their daughter who had been working in a pediatrician clinic in the capital of Botswana, and an 2 Italians who had been working for amnesty international in south Africa. The other van was comprised of 5 Spaniard friends who were traveling southern Africa, and 2 girls from England who were traveling in South Africa before they went to college, they had just graduated high school. The guide from that van was an Afrikaner named Gideon. Anyways we milled around for about 20 min while our guides loaded up our trailers and reorganized our vans. After that we loaded up and started driving towards Botswana which was to be about a 9 hour trip, the first hour so we all spent conversing about ourselves and how we happened to be in southern Africa. The 5 or so hours I pretty much spent catching up on sleep or reading. After about 5 hours we reached the Botswana border, after waiting while our guide David bribed the crossing guard (he later explained this is a perfectly normal occurrence) we crossed into Botswana and got our visa stamps. We ran into a stall while we were waiting because due to a typographical error on one of the English girl’s visas. Anyways about an hour later we loaded up and took off for where we were to be spending the night. At about 9 o’clock we got to Nata which was our first stop in Botswana. That night we pretty much set up our tents ate dinner, tried to learn some names, and went to sleep. I did try 2 new beers though. One was St. Louis 3.5 which was a stout 3.5% and another called Lion, both of which were pretty tasty and aided in my falling asleep rather quickly. The next morning we repacked all of our things had breakfast and departed for our next stop. After a couple hours of driving we arrived in Maun, which is the last city on the edge of the Okavango River Delta. We arrived in the city did a little shopping for last minute needs and than headed to our campsite, at our campsite we pretty much had the whole afternoon to lounge around hang out. I tried another new Botswanan beer, Taffle which proved to be superior to the other beers I had tried. Anyways I pretty much lounged the afternoon away enjoying a couple Taffles, reading and generally enjoying the fact that I was in Africa. That night proved to be pretty uneventful and the whole group went to bed not to long after dinner. The next morning we all broke down camp again and had a quick breakfast while we all were waiting for the big overland truck to come and pick us up and take us to the delta. Once the truck showed up we packed up every thing that we would need for the next 2 days and loaded it onto the truck and hit the road for the delta. The truck we were driving in was basically a huge flat bed with 2 rows of seats, placed back to back in the back, and room underneath the seats for all of our stuff. So we drove in the truck for about an hour till we got to the “Buffalo Fence.” The buffalo fence is a 3000+ km fence surrounding the Okavango delta. The point of the buffalo fence is to keep the wild buffalo separate from the domestic ones. Once past the buffalo fence we drove about half an hour in to the delta to the water line. At the water line was waiting about dozen mokoros, or dug out canoes about two were traditional and the rest were “modern”. Traditionally the mokoros are made of a tree, however due to the fact it takes this tress 80+ years to be fit to build a mokoro, and than it only last for about 5, so it’s not economically or environmentally viable to make all the mokoros traditionally. The only “modern” thing about the others was that they were fiberglass type material; otherwise they are exactly the same. Back to the waterfront though, we unloaded all of our stuff from the truck and let our delta guides load it onto the mokoros. Once we and all of our stuff was loaded up into the mokoros, our guides hoped in and started poling us through the delta to our campsite. The first five minutes or so of the ride were a little stressful because you feel like you could flip at any minute, but after you get used to it; it was really a peaceful ride. After about an hour we got to our campsite and set up our tents and camp stools. As soon as we were set up we set out for an evening game drive, this was the drive when we saw the most animals. First we saw an elephant shaking a tree to get the fruit out, after a while we saw a couple of zebra grazing with another set of elephants grazing in the distance behind them. Than we walked for a while longer and found a dried up water hole, in the dried mud we saw hippo, lion, elephant, hyena, zebra, and all kind of gazelle footprint, watching over the dried pond was a huge African fish eagle. By the time we were done looking at the dried pond we started to head back to camp, on the way we saw the elephants again and some ostrich running past them. Back at camp we were all pretty tired and had to be up early for a sunrise game walk, so we ate dinner and hit the sack, that night whist taking a midnight pee, I heard a lion roaring off in the distance even though it was a long ways off I finished quickly and got back to bed. The next morning we had a light breakfast of yogurt, fruit and coffee and headed out for what turned out to be an epic game walk. We really didn’t see to many animals, only a mixed heard of gazelles and zebras way off in the distance. After about 3 and a half hours of walking we got back to camp and had a big brunch, and the rest of the afternoon to lounge. Some people went swimming, some took naps, I and a couple others tried our hands at poling the mokoros, which turned out to be ridiculously hard (I flipped once and Amanda pushed me out the 2nd time) and quite a work out. That evening we had dinner and went on a sunset hippo cruise. The cruise was amazingly beautiful and we got as close as we safely could to a group of hippos enjoying the last of the sunlight. Once we got back to camp our guides put on a show of song and dance for us, in return we all were supposed to sing some songs, which sort of happened, (we massacred the Macarena) and after a couple futile efforts every one, guides included, lost interest and we stayed up late talking and enjoying the fire. In the morning we got up and went on our last game walk in the delta, unfortunately again there weren’t too many animals out save for couple more ostriches, this time much closer. After the walk we packed everything back up loaded it onto the mokoros, and headed out of the delta. Once we got back to our campsite and set everything up we all reveled in the fact that we had hot running water and toilets again. After a shower and a rest, about half of us headed to the Maun airport and went on a flight over the delta. We divided into two planes and head out over the delta. The flight was absolutely amazing!!! I saw so many animals, huge herds of elephants playing in the water, probably close to a thousand buffalo, zebra and gazelles all grazing in a huge mixed herd. There were hippos, giraffes, and I’m pretty sure I saw a small pride of lions lounging in small clearing. Thankfully we were in the sane pilot’s plane, the other smaller plane shot past us at one point in the middle of a barrel roll. Anyways we landed safely and went back to camp, that night everyone ended up at the bar and quite a night was had. The 2 English girls who had always gone on the game walks with me and Amanda, had both been flirting with our guide Gideon, after a couple drinks the 2 girls provoked Gideon to push them in the pool, being close by and more than willing to help Gideon the two girls and somehow Gideon ended up in the pool. Other than that the night consisted of drinking and merry making until we all made it back to our own tents to sleep. The next morning it was the same pack up and head out story, this time we headed back to the first place we stayed in Botswana, Nata. When we got to camp we had the option of upgrading to a luxury tent. After spending the last few nights in a tent me and Amanda decided it would be a great idea to take the upgrade. The room was a huge tent with permanent walls and fixtures. It was palatial in comparison to the tents we had been staying in (which actually were really nice) it had a nice shower tub, the first and only I have seen to date, a filter coffee pot, (a nice break from instant) and best of all a comfortable bed (an even more welcome break from a sleeping bag on a pad.) that night just about every body upgraded and was pretty eager to go to bed. However before bed we said good bye to the family from Texas, and the girls from England. In their place came a family from Ohio, and traveling couple the girl from England, and the guy from “Portugal/Sweden.” The family from Ohio was pretty nice an mom and dad who were amiable and easy to get along with daughter, was a couple of years older than me and a bit of a know it all but other than that she was friendly, and seemed really familiar to me and Amanda but we couldn’t figure out from where. The female half of the traveling couple was very nice and just traveling on a whim after saving up for a while. Her partner however was anything but amiable; he was bottom line an arrogant, douche bag. He claimed to be born of Swedish parents living in Portugal, which was believable being that he looked very Swedish. However he spoke with a perfect English accent, including using words like “dude”, “sweet” and other Americanisms, when we asked him about it he claimed he went to an American high school. Other than that he was rude to our amazing guide David and seemed pretty much to think that his shit didn’t stink. That night right before I fell asleep, Amanda sat up and said she had figured out where we knew the girl from Ohio, we had met her at the backpacker we stayed at in Pretoria, she was with the Peace Corps, and she and some other Peace Corps volunteers had been staying there before they traveled on their break. After an amazing nights sleep in the for real bed, it was the same pack up and head out story, however there was no packing up to do for me and Amanda so we got to sleep in a little bit. So we loaded up into the van the new van arrangement had Amanda, myself, the family from Ohio and the traveling “couple.” On the road Chobe in between dozing off and ignoring the “Portuguese” guys “amazing life stories” I saw and elephant hanging out on the side of the road, as well as an elephant skeleton and couple of ostriches. When we finally go to Chobe I was very ready to be out of our van. We got to Chobe much quicker than our guides expected, (he said this was because there were no cows or elephants in the road) so we had time to put up our tents and hang out for a bit. While we were relaxing a guy came over with our guide David. The gentleman owned a custom t-shirts shop and custom made t-shirts especially for overland trips. The price was reasonable (15 USD) so me and Amanda each got one and included our pre-trip to Durban and Pretoria. A little while after our lunch we were picked up from our campsite by an overland truck that was taking us on a sunset game drive in Chobe. When we first got to Chobe, I was starting to get a little bummed cause there weren’t really any animals for the first bit of the drive, however we came around a corner and one side of the road was a huge troupe of baboons and on the other was a herd of mixed gazelle. As our driver was pointing out and listing the names of the gazelle in the herd, there was 1 I hadn’t heard of, and I turned to Amanda and said that it couldn’t be that interesting because I hadn’t seen its name on a bag of jerky. (All of the other gazelles I have seen frequently as jerky in the snack sections.) Apparently our driver overheard me and proceeded to give me a lecture on how indeed this gazelle was very interesting because it is found only in Chobe and its highly protected, etc. After that I kept my comments to myself. Anyways the rest of the game drive was awesome, we saw hippos, crocodiles, tons of different birds, more gazelles, and finally we stopped in front of a huge pack of probably close to forty elephants. The elephants were absolutely amazing, some of the babies were nursing, a couple of the older ones were fighting, and at one point a car pulled a little to close and a huge bull came charging forward to hold his ground. Needless to say the car quickly hit reverse and got out of dodge. Behind the elephants the sun was starting to set which made it all the more amazing. We finally had to leave the elephants (I could have stayed and watched all night) and turn around and go back to our campsite. On the way back we saw a giraffe and a lot of vultures sleeping in a tree. When we got back to our campsite our guides had made us dinner and we all tucked in. During dinner, our guide David informed us that while we in Chobe, the Livingstone head offices had called him and that because of insurance reasons we were going to go to Zambia instead of Zimbabwe like originally planned. He said that this would mean an increase in price for those with American or British passports. Instead of paying the 30 USD it would have cost to get into Zimbabwe we now were going to be required to pay 135 USD to get into Zambia. This was pretty obviously lame and nobody was really too happy about it. We talked to David later that evening because was very clearly not happy with the decision either. Apparently he had never been to Zambia and had no idea how things worked there as far as crossing the border and getting the required paperwork. Me and Amanda though frustrated had brought extra money for this sort of thing and weren’t going to let it get in the way of enjoying Victoria Falls. So the next morning again, we packed up and headed out this time however it was a short drive to the border. The wait to cross the border however was where the time was wasted. The Zambia – Botswana border is a huge river, the only way to cross this river was on one of the two ferries. Now ferries wouldn’t have been a bad idea if they could hold more than a semi and a passenger car, along with no more than 100 people. Every body crossing into Zambia was bringing at least 3 brand new TV’s, and other electronic stuffs with them, all new and still factory sealed. We would later learn that this was because of the outrageous inflation in Zambia. Anyways we all finally got across and went to pay for our visas. This is where we ran into the first of our problems in Zambia. When we went to pay for our visas we couldn’t pay in Rand and had to pay in USD because we were US citizens despite the fact we were living in South Africa. So we than had to change our rand back into USD, and of course there were no official change bureau’s so we had to go to a shack labeled as such, where we got screwed and had to pay about the equivalent of 330 USD to get 270 USD which put a huge dent in what was left of our money, i.e. all of it. Amanda just about immediately broke down in tears, after I calmed her down; we went back and paid the crossing guard for our visas. After we got our visas we went back to the van to see how much money we had left, we only had a little but if we could get to a bank we would be fine. As soon as every one had their visas, we headed into Zambia, to the campsite where we would be staying. The campsite/lodge where we were staying was absolutely beautiful; it was situated right on the edge of the Zambezi River about 2 kilometers from where the falls dropped. The first thing I did when we got to the lodge was to call and activate my credit card so I could at least use it if I needed to. That night we didn’t have the opportunity to go to a bank but we did get to a proper change beauteous and were able to exchange some of our left over pula into kwacha, which is the near worthless Zambian currency. That night, included in our tour package was the sunset cruise on the Zambezi. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get our minds off of money for a bit. The cruise was a blast; it included free drinks and dinner, which made for a very pleasant evening. The next morning we went to Victoria Falls and took a tour of the Zambian side, (Victoria falls is 35% on the Zambian side, 65% Zimbabwean side.) All I can say about the falls was that it was absolutely awesome, the shear magnitude of noise and spray and everything amounted to being one of the coolest things i've seen in my life. Amanda was super excited as well because it was her birthday that day. After the falls we went to the market at falls, everything there was way overpriced and everyone seemed like they were ripping you off, I did get some cool things but only after the most heckling i’ve had to do to date. That afternoon we went to the back to try and draw some cash from Amanda’s South African bank account, however there was nothing doing, no banks would accept her card to withdraw money, (we found out later that they should have, however we were already home when we found this out.) I still had my visa card, however visa is not everywhere I wanted it to be, even though it was “accepted” nobody has a credit card machine to run it on. So pretty much we were in Zambia with no cash, and we still had to get to Zimbabwe to get our plane to go home. So after heading to all the banks in Livingstone, Amanda and I, extremely frustrated and stressed, headed back to the vans hoping that we could get in and hang out while everyone else explored the town. On the way our frustration was compounded by the “salesmen” everybody who passes tries to sell you some sort of trinkety stuff. No one takes no for an answer either, but you keep walking and they are gone, however one “salesman” tried to sell Amanda a bracelet, the dialogue went something like this:

Guy: Hello ma’am would you like to buy a bracelet?
Amanda: No I’ve already got one and I don’t need any more.
Guy: No, No these are very, very nice I make you good price, good…
Amanda: NO, FUCK OFF!!!!!!
Thankfully we made it to the van quickly and though no one was there we sat on the curb and waited for on of the guides to come back to the car, though about 5 or so minutes after we got there the family from Ohio showed up, and were equally frustrated with Livingstone. So we all shared some laughs about our stories with the “salesmen” and beggars. After about 15 minutes both of our guides showed back up and we sat in the vans and hung out and talked. We were sitting and talking/ laughing with our guide Gideon about how much annoying the “salesmen” were as they continued to come up to the van while we were sitting in it, as well as other stuff. Finally everybody got back to the vans and we headed back to camp. On the way me and Amanda stopped at the grocery store, (one of the few places that did take my card) and we got some beer, because even the price of the Zambian beer, Mosi (Mosi means “smoke that thunders” a reference to the huge plume of water vapor that shoots into the air from the base of the falls) was right on par with American bar prices at the bar at the lodge. (This is outrageous because the most i’ve paid for a draught beer is about 3USD and that was for a Guinness) That night a couple of us from the group sat around drank beer and watched monkeys playing around until it was to dark to watch them anymore. The next morning I had booked a white water rafting trip down the Zambezi. The trip was awesome; everybody except the family from Ohio went on the trip. They provided a big breakfast first, than we got a safety lesson and an overview of how far we were going, etc. Than we loaded up and drove about an hour or so to get to the point where we started rafting. In order to get to the water from where we started however, we had to hike down into the gorge that river has created, not nearly as intense as the Grand Canyon but same idea. Once we got to the rafts we loaded up and set off. We rafted down about 15 rapids and it was so much fun. After the rafting we back to the lodge where they had a late lunch ready and offered us the movie and ticket packages all of which was outrageously priced, so sorry no videos or pictures. That evening was thankfully or last in Zambia and we all went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Livingstone. At dinner we talked with our guide David about what we should do the next day in order to get to our backpacker in Zimbabwe and furthermore our flight home. He said that we could leave early the next morning so we would be able to go to a bank in Botswana, which he assured us would take Amanda’s bank card, at that we would be able to cross into Zimbabwe from there. So the next morning we all packed up early and left to go back to Botswana. However along the way we were stopped at a bogus traffic stop on the roads out of Zambia, and our guides had to pay some outrageous price for some “necessary” paperwork that we didn’t have. Anyways this stop combined with some more delays at the border meant that by the time we got to the bank it was closed. Banks here by the way have extremely ridiculous hours, like Saturdays they are only open from about 9- 11:30. So again I started stressing out because I had just enough cash for a Zimbabwean visa. So we told our guide David about it and he got on his phone and stated making phone calls trying to figure out what needed to be done to get us home, while he was on the phone Amanda and I headed into a grocery store to buy some groceries to try and barter our way from the Botswana-Zimbabwe border to the backpacker. Right as we got out of the store our guide David came up with another man and introduced us to him. I regretfully can’t remember his name; however he was a heaven send. He was one of David’s traveling contacts and lived in Zimbabwe; he agreed to come with me and Amanda to get to the Zimbabwe border and than get us to the backpacker in Zimbabwe. After which David leant us forty Euros to ensure that we would get to our backpacker and than the airport safely. He than gave us his bank account info so we could get him the money when we got back. He than said good bye, and good luck, and should we use Livingstone again, (though he said he would understand why we wouldn’t want to) he hopped to see us again. After that our amazing guide David was gone. Back to the story though, so the gentleman from Zimbabwe had to get a few things from the grocery store before we left. He came out of the store and he called a taxi, after arguing about the price we hopped in and drove to the Botswana-Zimbabwe border. The Zimbabwean man than helped us through customs and immigration, where the crossing guards were really friendly and very chatty and gave us a cool sticker visa instead of the normal stamp visa. Our Zimbabwean guide than negotiated a taxi cab to the city of Victoria falls. Once we got to the city he than walked with us to our backpacker and stayed there until he was sure that we were booked and had a ride the next day to the airport. Once we had paid he left and refused anything and everything we offered him as a thank you. The backpacker we stayed at was really cool and one of my favorites, everybody was super laid back and easy going, that night we met a couple of students from Kansas State who had been doing student teaching in Botswana. The next morning me and Amanda traded some of the stuff we bought to trade with an artist who stayed at the backpacker. Shortly after our airport transport came and took us to the airport. Once our plane had taken off me and Amanda looked at one another and sighed than laughed and said wow what a trip!!

So there is my epic tale of Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Sorry it took me so long to post this but I will post again shortly with an update from schools begging till now. Don’t forget I love hearing from everybody and hope your getting by with out me.