Singida

I've been waiting for it to happen. The Landy has covered 56,000 km on the trip so far and no puncture. Until today. We'd been bouncing up and down a dirt road for hours alongside which were various road improvement efforts. About 20km from the turn onto the main road on to Kigali the rear left tyre blew, so we stopped, put out the warning triangles and proceeded to get out the jack etc. The whole village came out to see what was going on, then pulled up a seat in the dust by the side of the road to watch the show, with commentary we couldnt understand and lots of laughter.

Once we got the wheel off it was apparant the tyre had been slit on the inside. I went walking down the road to see what could have slit it as Duncan continued fitting the spare with the help of all the men in the village. I saw some bits of shock absorber and thought, well we're not the only ones who've had a problem on this bit of road. Oh, wait. Duncan now has the spare wheel on and notices the shock absorber is missing... it seems the shock absorber sheared off and slit the inside wall of the tyre before exiting through the other wall of the tyre and landing in the red dust on the side of the road. Pity its not a simple puncture - the tyre was new in Namibia.

The speed Duncan takes judder bars (of which there are thousands in Tanzania) and potholed/corrugated/rough surface/livestock infested/heavily pedestrianed roads is a source of contention between the two of us. I think he's a madman and should slow down, he thinks I'm overcautious and should stop asking him to slow down. I'm pleased to say he drove the remaining rough road to the turnoff at a speed that pleased the both of us. I hope he'll keep it a bit toned down in the future.

Tonight we're staying at the Aqua Vita resort in Singida. The GPS suggested they offered camping but they werent really into that idea when we enquired, however the cost of a clean double room with private bathroom, mosquito net and cable TV for the night was the same as the cost of last nights camping and included breakfast, so we took a room. Dinner was equally good value. Duncan ordered moussaka which took a forever but was a gargantuan size, if interestingly interpreted. I ordered the only non meat option on the menu (the fish was unavailable), the local delicacy Chips Omelette which was exactly what it says on the tin. While we waited we were served pea soup and peanuts at no charge. I went out to the Landy to get the malaria pills to take with dinner to discover one of the staff washing the Landy. 'It is very dirty' he said. True enough. By the time we finished dinner the Landy was unrecognisably clean and again, no charge.

Ngorongoro Crater, Lions vs Buffalos

On the road west out of Arusha we started seeing many more long limbed Masai in their distinctive red and blue coloured robes. We'd seen a few youths hanging around in Dar and cycling along the main highway north with the stick slung casually over one shoulder, and passed the odd herdsman ushering his stock across the road infront of us. 

Yesterday we passed through several whole townships full of Masai trading at the market or hanging about chatting. We made our way up to a town about 15km east of the Ngorongoro park gate (where it seemed every second vehicle was a Land Rover) and made enquiries about tours into the crater. We could drive in ourselves of course, but in addition to the $50.00 park fee each, there is another $250.00 of vehicle related fees and we were looking to be able to split them with some other tourists.

An early start this morning as we were being picked up at 6am. It was dark and misty and although the light dawned, the mist stayed with us all the way up the outside of the volcano until we started our descent into the crater.

Arusha

The November rains have arrived. We've been getting intermittent showers since we arrived in Dar but last night the sky opened and drowned Arusha. The upside of this is that Mt Meru is mostly visible with only the peak shrouded in mist, the downside that the streets are flooded and I got very wet.

We stopped by DHL to see if they could tell us if the carnet was on the way - they advised there were no parcels in the system from London to Arusha for any Duncan or Irvine... so Duncan called the RAC again and they're going to get it on the courier this week and send it to Kigali in Rwanda.

Otherwise in Arusha we dodged touts trying to sell us tours to Ngorongoro and Kalahari and changed lots of Tanzanian shilling into USD as ATMs in Rwanda are reputed to be unreliable and you require USD for many payments anyway - like visas or gorilla tracking permits.

Moshi

We had discussed on and off whether we wanted to climb Mt Kilimanjaro or not while we were here. What mountain? The clouds are so thick and dark the mountain is invisible, so that is a bit disappointing, but also reinforces our decision not to climb at this time of year.

Duncan called the RAC again and the carnet bloke is on holiday this week. The staff there are unable to tell us if it got on the courier on Friday or not. Moshi is a chaotic little town where we finally found an internet cafe with power - though excrutiatingly slow. I was happy to discover that given our respective passports (UK/Sweden), neither Duncan nor I require visas for Rwanda so we dont have to find somewhere to print out the online app you're supposed to complete and take with you.

My bank's online services were not up to the lack of speed so I still dont know why I've not been able to withdraw funds since Botswana (fortunately my NZ bank has given me no such problems or we'd still be stuck in Malawi with no money for fuel).

Dar es Salam

The city is bustling with crammed buses and 4x4 vehicles charging about without even a cursory nod to road rules. It is also oppressively humid. Today we spent around three hours walking around in 35 degrees of sticky heat, sorting out money and trying to find a safe place to leave the Landy while we spend a couple of days in Zanzibar. We also needed the internet to apply for our Rwandan visas in advance, but every internet cafe we came across was inoperational due to rolling blackouts.

As the afternoon wore on we decided we werent going to get ourselves sorted out in time to take the last ferry to Zanzibar for the day so we headed to the ferry that would take us over to the south coast. Cue more motor chaos.

 We are now camped on a pristine white sand beach with azure blue sea and palm trees etc and have decided to spend a couple of days chilling here before heading up towards Arusha to pick up the new carnet (hopefully).

Mikumi

I woke up this morning feeling pretty rough. I had a dodgy tummy last night before I went to bed, but I put that down to the doxycycline tablets we take against malaria in conjunction with a curry. My sleep was poor, with disturbing dreams (military style execution for example). Today I've been running a low temperature accompanied by a mild headache... All the books say malaria is symptomised by a high fever so we think I'm okay. Grumpy though. Accordingly we got a late start from the Kisolanza Farm where we camped last night. We were hoping to purchase some of the great fresh produce we'd heard about, but two overland vehicles in for dinner last night had wiped their stocks out. Never mind.

About 10km out of Iringa we hit roadworks, which extended all the way up the hill to the bustling town. By the time we finally got up there we were ready for lunch and enjoyed cold chipatti wraps. We also hoped to check on the progress of the carnet renewal at one of the many internet cafes but a town-wide blackout prevented that (and explained the cold only options at lunch). The roadworks continued for miles, with lengthy stops waiting for traffic coming in the other direction on the single lane. When we were given the signal to go, it was like the starting flag had dropped at the grand prix. All the private cars and mini busses (daladalas) were racing to pass the trucks in front of them before they got onto the single lane! Suffice to say we covered fewer kilometers than planned and stopped just before dark at the little town that borders Mizumi Wildlife Park at Tan-Swiss Camping, which I dont recommend as they have no camping facilities - we just pitched up in the carpark - and their extra-high camping fee doesnt include showers.

Traffic on Tanzanian roads is chaotic to say the least. The main road we were travelling today it was packed with heavy trucks, daladalas (minivans), busses and completely mental 4x4 owners. On the whole the truck drivers drive fairly sensibly and use their indicators to signal to you if it is safe to pass them or not - left to say its clear, right to say its not. But it can be a bit tricky. Are they indicating its okay to pass or indicating that they're turning left? You can quickly tell when they haul on the brakes. Its even more confusing from the other side. Is that enormous freighter coming towards me indicating right because its about to pass the vehicle infront of it and narrowly avoid a head on collision with me? Or is it warning the cars behind it not to pass? All too often an oncoming vehicle had misjudged their passing opportunity and flashed their lights at us to make room for them in our lane or hit them head on.

We saw all too many heavy trucks and buses in varying states of distress, from breakdowns on blind corners to upside down freighters beside the road. The worst I saw was a burnt out fuel-tanker.

We encountered a couple of police escorted convoys of VIPs or something. They're a bit intimidating. First in the convoy are a couple of police Land Rovers with flashing blue lights and cops in high visibility overalls shouting and waving their arms at you to pull over on the side to let the convoy through. These are followed by half a dozen Land Cruisers with flashing headlights and one passenger each speeding down the centre line. Then the convoy is concluded by a couple more police Land Rovers.

Aside from the last 100km where all vehicles were more or less in a procession, and police roadblocks stopped all traffic every 20km or so we made much better progress today. Duncan spoke with the ever helpful Paul Gowan of RAC carnets about our renewal and he says that we should be able to pick it up at DHL in Arusha in about a week. So that leaves us some time to visit Zanzibar and for Duncan to do some diving.

Matema Beach, Tanzania

We wanted to spend another day at the lake in Malawi swimming and lazing in the sun and stopped at a few places up the coast, but didnt find anywhere as nice as the beach at Nkwazu Lodge, so decided to head to Tanzania. The only problem at the Malawi border was finding someone to open the gate for us once the paperwork had been done. Tanzania was equally straightforward - we just had to pay visas ($50), road tax ($5) and temporary import permit for the Landy ($25) in USD. Thankfully we had both Tanzania Schillings and the Comesa insurance so didnt need to deal with any of the aggressive border touts.

It took a lot longer than we planned to get to Matema Beach and we ended up in the pitch dark, driving a dusty rutted road dodging bicycles, pedestrians and livestock. Although I couldnt see very well, my impression was that it was lush and full of vegetation.

The next morning we woke to a long grey/black sand beach with gentle waves rippling the blue lake, parked ourselves under the shade of a tree and spent the day reading and swimming.

Livingstonia

Still further up the coast of the lake the road headed inland and we slowly started climbing in altitude.  We passed through a rubber tree plantation, the tall green trees a contrast to the scrubby bush we'd been in so far, until we got to the bit that they'd harvested - all dry red dust and earth-moving machinery.  As we kept climbing the vegetation became more lush, verdant and tangled like the jungle in Cambodia.

Eventually the rough and potholed road changed into a new smooth tarred one  compliments of the EU according to the sign.  There have been loads of signs on the sides of the road all through Zambia and Malawi.  In Zambia they were mainly indicating 'basic' schools with their mottos - 'where they fail we succeed' is a memorable one - or churches, I've seen more Kingdoms of Jehovahs Witnesses signs and corresponding identical white and rust brick buildings than I can count.  In Malawi in addition to the school and church signs are loads of signs indicating development projects, a great many of them funded by the EU.

This smooth road took us into the capital of the northern region, Muzuzu, on the top of the Viphya Range at an alititude of 2200m.  We stopped for fuel and money and eventually descended down the escarpment back towards the lake via a series of knuckle whitening turns.  If they werent enough of a hazard, the road was also peppered with enormous freight trucks and other vehicles driving in the middle of the road and as the lake came into view, troupes of baboons meandering across the highway.

Chintheche

Nestled in among mature trees with a prisine white sand beach and small waves we stayed at Nkwazu Lodge, where we could swim so we lazed away the afternoon in the shade, taking dips in what felt like the ocean, but with no salt.  Lake Malawi is enormous, like Lake Victoria, it is formed from the depths of the great rift where the Indian and African techtonic plates separated after colliding for millenia.  The lake goes forever, you cannot see the great ranges of Mozambique on the other side.

Bua Camp, Nkhotakota Forest Reserve

Another short driving day up the west side of the lake.  We stopped in Nkohtakota, an old slave trading town, for diesel, but they were out, then we went in search of both of the Livingstone Trees.  One is supposed to be the where Livingstone persuaded the chiefs to stop the slave trade under, the other has political significance for the independence of Malawi.  We couldnt find either of them, not that we knew which was which anyway.  We did find a beautiful white sand beach where we stopped for lunch, then pressed on up to the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, up a dirt track through little villages about 15 km from the main road.  The villagers waved and smiled as we slowed down to pass through.  Bua Camp is right by the river in a gorgeous clearing.  John, an ex-pat from the UK is setting up a tented camp and has built a comfortable lounge and dining hut on a wooden platform overlooking the river.  The place was a bit of a building site, he's due to open at the end of the month, but we were made to feel welcome.   Its been a very hot day and I was tempted to a swim in one of the several large rock pools between the rapids, but unfortunately crocodiles made heir homes there so we settled in for a relaxing evening listening to the roar of the river.

Thume Forest Reserve

After much faffing around with banks to get some Malawian Kwatcha (my card mysteriously wont work, while Duncan's does, even though they're on the same network) we finally paid our bill at the camp and headed into the bustling market by the bus station to pick up some fresh veggies.  We didnt end up leaving Lilongwe until 2pm, but we werent going far.

Our destination was a Thume, an off-the-map forest reserve on the road between Lilongwe and Salima we'd been told about the night before by one of the proprietors of Africa-Nomad Safaris.  The directions were not exactly of GPS precision... 'about 20km before you reach Salima, you'll pass an electricity station on the left.  Take the track on the right at the next corner.  Turn right when you get to the baobab tree, follow the road to the end...' but sufficient.  We passed through many tiny villages where the children waved at the Landy and after a couple of stream crossings and zigzagging up a hill we found it before dark.

The camp is a base camp for the reserve rangers whose motto is painted at the gate: "more sweat, less poaching'.  They patrol for game, wood and bamboo poachers and generally keep an eye on the elephants and buffalo.  The rangers were clearly delighted to have us turn up.  "How did you find us" was a question we heard repeatedly, as they're still building the new camp and dont advertise that they welcome campers and provide basic (but more than adequate) facilities.  We were shown around the base camp and taken to admire the spectacular view.  We were reassured they 'have shot-gun' so we'd be well protected overnight.  One of the rangers even lit our fire for us which was handy as we're still novices with a campfire and now I have a new technique to try out.

In the morning we took a guided walk, less to see the wildlife than because it was impossible to say no to the enthusiasm of the staff and a good cause to contribute to.  There were five of us, the guide, a volunteer and a ranger with a rifle in addition to Duncan and myself.  The guide said we'd walk in single file so we fell into line behind him and trouped off.  Then we walked in silence for about half an hour when he said 'elephant' and pointed.  Indeed there was a cow and two calves under a tree a couple of hundred meters away.  We climbed up a rocky hill for a better perspective (although I dont think I could have a better perspective than the one at Croc Valley a couple of mornings ago) and he spotted some 'buffel' on the hill in the distance.  We hung around on the hill for about ten minutes then he said 'we go back' so we did... and that was that.

Lilongwe, Malawi

We took off towards Malawi around lunch-time, braving the dusty, potholed road and dodging the many pedestrians (who fled to the road verges at the sound of the landrover) and bicycles along the way.

I am impressed by the utility of the Zambian bicycle.  Even on the most corrogated or rutted roads you find industrious locals vigorously pedalling along.  And the bicycles are good for all sorts of cargo, other people, live pigs and goats...  One chap carted six person-sized bags of coal on the back of his, another man had a tower of five boxes carefully balanced on the carrier, towering over his back, but the most impressive bicycle cargo I saw was a wooden double bed frame, balanced on its side on the back of a bicycle speeding down the main highway and taking up as much room as a car.

The border crossing to Malawi was painless, we cruised into Mabaya Camp in Lilongwe just as it was getting dark and passed the evening chatting with an ex overland tour driver who was full of tips and entertaining stories.

South Luangwa National Park

From Siavonga we returned to the main road and headed east towards Zimbabwe.  At the border town we took a dusty red road north back up towards the T4.  A few kilometers along we came to a river crossing by pontoon operated by the same company as the crossing from Botswana into Zambia.


Because we had a foreign registered vehicle, the cost was USD $20.00 or R 180.00 instead of the more reasonable local payment.  The hitch was that they wouldnt accept kwacha in payment, we had to pay in rand or USD.  Argh!  We hunted up enough USD and were quickly on the other side.

 We turned into a one lane road through sugar cane, banana and corn fields then this narrowed to a track through the forest and eventually deteriorated into a series of steep turns up the side of a mountain. 

The view should have been amazing but the air was hazy.  The bush was pretty and literally smouldered in many places by the track where trees had been cut down to stumps and the trunks were burning.  At first I was concerned about getting caught in a burn off.  It took a while to work out what was going on.  The trees werent being felled to make a field or clearing in the bush, or even to use the wood for shelter or cooking but to make charcoal to sell in big bags on the side of the road.

We finally emerged from the bush on the other side of the mountain range and through a small village where the children were really excited to see a car.  I cant imagine that road gets much traffic, it was fairly hairy for the Landy in places. 

Another day of driving on roads that turn into goat tracks... At one point we were waved down by a boy who was returning with his wife and new born baby to his village, on a bicycle with no pedals, on a road that required a 4WD to pass.  How could we refuse him a lift?  So the bicycle was strapped to the roof and they piled in the back.

After another full day of driving on dirt 'roads' we finally arrived at South Luangwa National Park.  It turned out the fees were going to be USD$80.00 or $70.00 or $65.00 and we expected them to be payable in USD.  After the Okavango Delta and Chobe I was a bit fatigued of game parks so we set up camp by the river and let the game come to us.  A small herd of elephants walked right through our camp not long after dark while we were walking over to the ablution block thankfully although one of the small ones mock-charged Duncan.  I woke at 5.30 the next morning to the sounds of elephants munching the tree outside the tent.  Upon investigation I found myself only one foot from the elephants trunk, which was delicately picking leaves off the tree we were parked under.  Croc Valley Camp is unfenced and they regularly have elephant, hippos, lions and other game wander through the camp.  Two weeks ago a leopard came to drink at the swimming pool.

Siavonga, Kariba Lake

They're resealing the road out of Livingstone and we took a series of detours onto tracks parallel to the T1.  These were ridiculously dusty.  You couldnt see the car in front of you at all - it was like following a cloud of smoke for about an hour.

We stopped in Choma for some diesel and enjoyed lunch in the shade at the Choma Museum and Gallery which had interesting exhibits on the region, and the lives of the tribal people displaced by the dam.

In addition to the usual livestock roaming the roads we came across several nursing sows.  We passed an articulated truck that had failed to take a turn, the cab was on its side, but the trailers were completely upside down, lying on top of the load they were supposed to be carrying.  In Monze, as we bumped over the judder bars in the centre of town we encountered a car towing a few tall trailer coming in the opposite direction.  Out of the top of the trailer poked two giraffe heads, their horns covered in green fabric of some kind.  We had to stop at many police checks where the police generally waved us on, though at one we had to show evidence of our 3rd party insurance (wave the yellow card), but I think they randomly check for other things too.  I saw the driver of a truck in front of us pass down his fire extinguisher to the inspector at one of the checks we were waved through.

Our original intention was to head to Lusaka, mainly to get some money, but we passed a Stanbic Bank on the T1 (at Mazabuka) and decided to head for the top of Lake Kariba instead.  This is one of the worlds largest artificial lakes - made by displacing the Tonga people in the 1950s and dam-ing the Zambezi.
We are now camped on its shores, listening to the frogs and crickets and hoping no hippos come to investigate our campsite.

Victoria Falls

Although Foleys, the land rover garage, is closed for two weeks while Nick is on holiday in the UK, we found someone to service the Landy just up the road from their workshop.  Des had many an interesting story and showed us the wreckage of the Hilux he's rebuilding after hitting an elephant on the road at night! 

More reasons not to drive at night.

He dropped us back at Jollyboys Hostel and we spent the morning lazing around at the pool.

Once we had the Landy back and the day had cooled somewhat we drove out to Victoria Falls, right by the Zimbabwe border.  It is the dry season, so the falls are not dumping as much water as they do in the wet season, although the mist still reaches you on the footbridge.  They run fast enough to give you a sense of what a wall of water must pour over the edge once the Zambezi is full.  We enjoyed a few hours wandering about enjoying the views, the mist and the roar of the falling water.

Livingstone, Zambia

This morning we headed straight for the border.  Very straightforward on the Botswana side - fill out leaving forms, get passports stamped, discharge the carnet for the SADC.

You then drive to the riverfront and wonder what happens next as a small swarm of local 'businessmen' descend upon you wanting to help you through the border on the other side, bickering over who saw you first and who you should do business with.  The Zambian police had recently issued a notice advising the steps you need to go through at the Zambian border and that agents were not required.  Helpfully, a copy of this was posted at the Botswanan immigration and after I carefully noted it all down, we were handed a copy as we drove down to the river.  When I showed this to the 'businessmen' they declared they were not agents but runners, give them the paperwork and money and they would clear it all and get us through there fast.  That may be true but we had a lot of time and I'm not going to give money and passports to someone I dont know.

Somewhat confusingly, although importing and exporting Zambian kwacha is supposed to be illegal, and its also illegal to change money on the black market, you are expected to pay some of the fees in USD and some in kwacha at the border - but there are no ATMs and the one bank office I found was either closed for the day, or closed for good.  We were given kwatcha by a local money-changing businessman to pay for the insurance, motor vehicle levy and carbon tax then once we'd passed out of the border control area we gave him the equivalent in USD - and the rate he charged (after a bit of negotiation) was only 4300kw to the dollar which is a damn sight better than the 3000 offered by the sharks on the Botswanan side and pretty close to the 4500 offered by the bank in Livingstone when we finally got there.  We also discovered all the ATM machines in Livingstone are Visa only so had to take a credit card advance until we find a Stanbic Bank (which accepts Maestro) in Lusaka.

-------------------

For the benefit of anyone trying to figure it out (god only knows we only found conflicting information when we looked) here are the requirements as of 5 October 2009.

The first thing to note is that all payments are made on the Zambian side. 


1.  Immigration - we already had ours but the people ahead of us easily purchased their visa at the border USD $50.00 each, although we had already sorted ours out in Windhoek.

2. Ferry fees - the notice said these were payable at the office on the other side, but we were asked for them as the ferry was crossing.  It took a while for the ferry official to convince me, but his receipt book printed with the same name of the company as on the police notice did the trick.  USD $20.00

3.  Carbon Tax.  This is payable in the two windows to the left of the two immigration windows.  Unless you have a carnet (which we did) in which case you go through the office you're in down a corridor to the building behind, past the defunct bank to an office on the left.  These differ according to the spec of your vehicle.  The Landy is 2.5 litres and it cost us ZAK 150,000.00.

4.  3rd Party Insurance.  If you dont already have this, you can purchase it on the other side of the border gate at a caravan on the left.  Weirdly no one stops you walking through or checks your passport.  Then you can walk back in to continue the paperwork shuffle.  One month 3rd party insurance for the Landy cost ZAK 112.00.

5.  Road Transport Permit.  These are USD $20.00 within Zambia or $40.00 if you're going to Malawi.  It seems the fees are return if you're going to Malawi, that is they assume you'll be coming back so take the payment all in one go.  When the clerk realised we wouldnt be coming back through Zambia he charged us $20.00 and wrote a note on the receipt to show at the border when we exit Zambia.  You need to already have paid the carbon tax and have insurance before you can get your road permit.

6.  Council Office - Motor vehicle levy.  Pay this ZAK 20,000.00 at the building marked 'police'.

Then get back into your vehicle and join the queue for the exit gate.  Various people will come to check for different receipts before you can drive out, so keep them on hand.

You can extend the insurance and get a yellow Comesa card at the branch of the insurance company on the main road in Livingstone.  This means you dont have to take out a months insurance at every border crossing up the east side of Africa to the Sudan.

Chobe National Park

We wanted to drive from Maun, up through Chobe to Kasane, before crossing to Zambia but were unable to secure a booking for the only place it is permissible to camp in the park - it seems they are booked months ahead and although we checked twice, and had flexible dates, there were no cancellations.

So then we considered driving up the old cattle track through the Nxai Pan national park but considerable internet research indicated it was a bad idea so we plumped for the long way on the main road.  8 hours, many, many potholes and a roan antelope sighting later we made it to Kasane just as it got dark thankfully.   I've heard too many horror stories about elephants on the road to want to drive at night and we saw our fair share grazing along the highway as the afternoon wore on.  We spent today cruising about Chobe National Park along the riverfront of the Zambezi.

Game parks are funny.  Kruger and Etosha reminded me of the game Pacman - think of it from above - lots of cars driving randomly along a limited number of roads stopping, turning around and reversing in search of some game to view.   Chobe was a bit different in that many of the roads are deep sand and require 4WD to pass so apart from a few game drive vehicles from the local lodges in the afternoon we really only saw a couple of other cars. 

Chobe is packed with all sorts of wildlife.  Pretty much all the animals we've seen in the other parks but in huge numbers.   Pods of more than 30 hippos, troupes of 200 odd baboons, hundreds of buffalo and countless impala.  There were herds of elephants around every corner and the ransacked flora shows it.  Elephants spend 24/7 eating and much of the park had very little foliage left. 

One herd of about 20 elephants we were watching at the river got a fright from a passing boat and took off en mass.  Elephants move quite fast when they're in a hurry, but they're so graceful they somehow still manage to look like they're in slow motion - this group reminded me of that scene in Reservoir Dogs when all of the Mr Colours are walking together to the coffee shop to plan the heist...

More Okavango Delta

A boat trip back to the dry land as the sun rose and Mike took us out on a game drive.  We saw lots of red leche, elephant and all sort of birds but he highlight was when Mike pointed out some lion tracks and we followed them, then a blood trail to some dismembered bits of red leche and eventually tracked a male lion and two lionesses to where they had buried into some plam bushes and were fast asleep, sated presumably.  This makes it sound easy.  Mike is an excellent guide.

We returned to camp at 11 for another excellent brunch then had a few hours for siesta before a mokoro trip in the afternoon.  On the way up to our tent we came across an elephant a couple of metres from the track who had waded across to the island.  Cue detour to tent.

The mokoro trip was very tranquil.  The water is so clear, filtered by the reeds and the sand of the kalahari - even where it is deep you can see the white sand of the desert underneath.  We saw tiny painted frogs clinging to reeds and lots of birdlife which would otherwise have been scared away by the noise of an engine.  We tried a spot of catch-and-release fishing as the sun went down, but I could barely cast the line (a proper rod and reel is very different than a hand-line off a boat) and we were predictably unsuccessful.  It was fun trying!  After another several hours in the game vehicle this morning we caught our return scenic flight with Johannes back to Maun and returned to the Old Bridge.  We totally broke the budget on this trip to the lodge but it was very worth it.

Last night there was another big thunderstorm.  As the sky started to hint of getting light I heard a loud crack then an even louder thud by our heads.  A bough had broken off the tree above the Landy and skimmed the tent with its branches as it landed on the roof of the Landy.  Fortunately no harm done, but I cant imagine how our heads would have been squashed as we slept had we been parked ten centimetres further back.

Okavango Delta

We spent the first night at The Old Bridge backpackers in Maun. The campsite has water on both sides of it and the sound of the many different frogs at night was amazing. All different pitches and tones like a piece of baroque music. That night there was a heavy thunderstorm with torrential rain most of the night and we woke to wet feet in the tent. We went into town and booked a couple of nights at a Wilderness Safari lodge in the inner delta, then returned to the campsite to dry out our stuff.

After leaving the Landy in the secure carpark at Wilderness Safaris we crossed the road to the airport for our flight into the delta. We were personally introduced to our pilot, Johannes, which I thought was a nice touch - when you're in a tiny aeroplane, it helps the nerves to know the pilot. Actually the plane wasnt as small as I thought it would be - it was a Cessna, seating about 15 and the flight was low over the ground and pretty smooth.

Water flows from the highlands in Angola and instead of taking the route to the sea, it spills across the white sands of the Kalahari desert in Botswana.