We decided to cross over to Botswana on rather short notice. Initially the plan was to go to the Victoria Falls, that's what everybody was doing whom we met up here in the Caprivi strip. But when we camped on the river Chobe only 300m away from the Botswana border called Ngoma Bridge, we changed our plans. And now it was time for me to get nervous again. I always got nervous when we were about to pass a police checkpoint within the country. Our very first check point had hit us by surprise just outside of Windhoek. John passed it at about 60km/h... not a good idea. The policeman waved us back and gave him a lecture about traffic rules. Luckily only that, but it took about 20minutes. After that we were more cautious, we stopped at every official looking person and most of the time they just lifted their hand in a very lazy way, didn't even get up from the chair under the shady tree. Sometimes it was more difficult to interpret their handwaving though. Once we were sure we've been waved through only to find the policeman shouting at us, and hence making us pull over, gave John another lecture on traffic rules and argued we didn't stop, which is a serious violation of the traffic rules. Oh well, he eventually let us go after receiving a "little present", but I was furious at the unfairness!
However, crossing the border with a rental car, not knowing the rules and regulations, made my stomach rebel the whole morning.
Luckily we were prepared and knew that we couldn't bring certain food into Botswana due to their struggle against food-and-mouth-disease. So at the checkpoint we only had to get rid of our apples, which very obviously would be consumed by the checking staff later on.
The border crossing formailites proved to be very easy at the end. A stamp in each passport, some payments for car insurance and carbon emission tax and we were through. Too easy!
Our plan now was to drive to Maun, the gateway to the Okavango delta, via a 4x4-only road which was about 250km long, instead of driving 700km around it. Unfortunately our tank wouldn't reach more than 300km. Enough on a tarred road, but not on soft sand. So we had to drive back to Kasane where the next petrol station was, which was a 100km detour.
The next morning, fresh and with a full car reaching another 1400km without being refilled we made our way through Chobe Nationalpark to Maun. The sandy road forced us to release tyre pressure enormously and most of the time we couldn't go faster than 20-30km/h. The 250km proved to be unmanageable within one day! At the end it took us more than 8 hours until we decided not to push it any further and stayed at a campsite about 80km before Maun. The whole day was very exhausting even though we've only been sitting in the car. The enormous concentration while driving (John) and the constant fear of being stuck (me) wore us both out. And even though we crossed the Chobe Forest Reserve we saw not more than 1 elephant, 2 giraffes and 1 impala... and of course lots of birds, but we didn't really enjoy the landscape and its fauna anyway.
Luckily the next days didn't require us to do a lot of driving. We went on another Mokoro Trip through the Okavango Delta. And here we could actually enjoy sitting in this wabbly canoe and being pushed through the maze of shallow water which forms the delta. We were a group of 3 Mokoros and quietly our little group slid through the water following a -to us- invisible route. All we could hear was the gentle splashing of the long stick that the guide used to push the boat forward. We stopped to watch elephants in the distance and after about an hour we reached Chief's Island. Here we went for a walk which turned out to be 4 hours long. The beginning was quite inexciting. We seemed to walk aimlessly around the island (afterwards I knew the guides were looking for animals all the time; the one in the front in order to show them to us, the one in the back to prevent any attacks) when we only saw one giraffe in the distance. We sneaked up to the young bull who stood still for a long while watching us approaching and when we were about 60m close he decided to turn and galopp away. Now, having seen more giraffes before in Etosha and elsewhere, we knew that a galopping giraffe is rather panicked even though it doesn't seem like it. Their movements are soooo slow, because it takes so much effort to move 4 2meters-legs, that's why they normally don't do it. It is almost like watching slowmotion when you see a giraffe galopping.
After that we walked for ages and learned so much more about white-browed sparrowweaver, yellow-billed stork and I-don't-know-what... it seems to be a great sport for others to watch birds in Africa, but for us they were just too unspectacular and then they are constantly flying away...
But we should have more luck watching a herd of zebras grazing, impalas, which were more nervous and took off, ostriches which didn't seem to like our company and then suddenly we were surrounded by about 15 giraffes. Not close of course, we only spotted them one by one and only realized at the end how many it were. They seemeed to be curious and cautious at the same time. We decided to have our lunch break in their middle. This confused them a little so they better disappeared slowly, one by one...
After the lunch break we came across an almost dried out waterhole in which 2 giant catfish struggled to survive. We couldn't see them as the water was almost black with mud and of creamy consistence already, but it seemed to be only 20cm deep and the big fish were constantly splashing trying to escape into deeper water. Quite dramatic but also exciting... the way of life, here it would end for 2 fish who were at the wrong time at the wrong spot... but at least they would end up as fish eagle dinner, because many of them hung around the island...
Now we were at peace with our game-spotting intention and went back to our mokoros. It was me who spotted the hippo grazing in the reed, which was unusual as they normally stay in the water during the day. But we were far enough away and hippo didn't mind. All in all, even from today's point of view that was my best Africa wildlife experience!
However, crossing the border with a rental car, not knowing the rules and regulations, made my stomach rebel the whole morning.
Luckily we were prepared and knew that we couldn't bring certain food into Botswana due to their struggle against food-and-mouth-disease. So at the checkpoint we only had to get rid of our apples, which very obviously would be consumed by the checking staff later on.
The border crossing formailites proved to be very easy at the end. A stamp in each passport, some payments for car insurance and carbon emission tax and we were through. Too easy!
Our plan now was to drive to Maun, the gateway to the Okavango delta, via a 4x4-only road which was about 250km long, instead of driving 700km around it. Unfortunately our tank wouldn't reach more than 300km. Enough on a tarred road, but not on soft sand. So we had to drive back to Kasane where the next petrol station was, which was a 100km detour.
The next morning, fresh and with a full car reaching another 1400km without being refilled we made our way through Chobe Nationalpark to Maun. The sandy road forced us to release tyre pressure enormously and most of the time we couldn't go faster than 20-30km/h. The 250km proved to be unmanageable within one day! At the end it took us more than 8 hours until we decided not to push it any further and stayed at a campsite about 80km before Maun. The whole day was very exhausting even though we've only been sitting in the car. The enormous concentration while driving (John) and the constant fear of being stuck (me) wore us both out. And even though we crossed the Chobe Forest Reserve we saw not more than 1 elephant, 2 giraffes and 1 impala... and of course lots of birds, but we didn't really enjoy the landscape and its fauna anyway.
Luckily the next days didn't require us to do a lot of driving. We went on another Mokoro Trip through the Okavango Delta. And here we could actually enjoy sitting in this wabbly canoe and being pushed through the maze of shallow water which forms the delta. We were a group of 3 Mokoros and quietly our little group slid through the water following a -to us- invisible route. All we could hear was the gentle splashing of the long stick that the guide used to push the boat forward. We stopped to watch elephants in the distance and after about an hour we reached Chief's Island. Here we went for a walk which turned out to be 4 hours long. The beginning was quite inexciting. We seemed to walk aimlessly around the island (afterwards I knew the guides were looking for animals all the time; the one in the front in order to show them to us, the one in the back to prevent any attacks) when we only saw one giraffe in the distance. We sneaked up to the young bull who stood still for a long while watching us approaching and when we were about 60m close he decided to turn and galopp away. Now, having seen more giraffes before in Etosha and elsewhere, we knew that a galopping giraffe is rather panicked even though it doesn't seem like it. Their movements are soooo slow, because it takes so much effort to move 4 2meters-legs, that's why they normally don't do it. It is almost like watching slowmotion when you see a giraffe galopping.
After that we walked for ages and learned so much more about white-browed sparrowweaver, yellow-billed stork and I-don't-know-what... it seems to be a great sport for others to watch birds in Africa, but for us they were just too unspectacular and then they are constantly flying away...
But we should have more luck watching a herd of zebras grazing, impalas, which were more nervous and took off, ostriches which didn't seem to like our company and then suddenly we were surrounded by about 15 giraffes. Not close of course, we only spotted them one by one and only realized at the end how many it were. They seemeed to be curious and cautious at the same time. We decided to have our lunch break in their middle. This confused them a little so they better disappeared slowly, one by one...
After the lunch break we came across an almost dried out waterhole in which 2 giant catfish struggled to survive. We couldn't see them as the water was almost black with mud and of creamy consistence already, but it seemed to be only 20cm deep and the big fish were constantly splashing trying to escape into deeper water. Quite dramatic but also exciting... the way of life, here it would end for 2 fish who were at the wrong time at the wrong spot... but at least they would end up as fish eagle dinner, because many of them hung around the island...
Now we were at peace with our game-spotting intention and went back to our mokoros. It was me who spotted the hippo grazing in the reed, which was unusual as they normally stay in the water during the day. But we were far enough away and hippo didn't mind. All in all, even from today's point of view that was my best Africa wildlife experience!
No comments:
Post a Comment