Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia - On African Time(s)

Hi everyone! I´ve just come back from another wonderful journey which was quite different from the ones I had done before. Firstly, because it was an organised group tour for young people, and secondly, because it was to (Southern) Africa, a continent I hadn´t really travelled to before if you don´t count Morocco and Tunisia.

Because of the different mode of travel Africa requires, I am dividing this into two different blog posts: this one about my experiences on the trip (what we did, saw, and ate, including pictures and judgy judgements from your trusted travel writer: me) and another one that follows on travel tips (what to pack, how to travel Africa, safety, costs etc.).


Backstory: After finishing my teacher training at the end of June and securing the next contract and housing, I found myself with another six weeks free to spare. Not knowing when would be the next time I had such a long time to myself, I went to a travel agency and sat down with her to look at my options. I had been toying with the idea of joining a group tour for quite a while after having learned of the Marco Polo Young Line travels which I believe offer a good way to see destinations I wouldn´t dare (or be too lazy/inexperienced) to go alone to. Three hours later, I walked out having booked the Falls and Delta westbound tour with G Adventures which would go for eight days from Victoria Falls (Simbabwe) through Botswana and finish in Windhoek, Namibia. We were going by bus and camping the whole way. I was to leave in two weeks and was very excited because this was exactly what I had in mind when wanting a group tour. I packed, got vaccinations, and got myself organised.

source: G Adventures

Day 1: Let´s GOOO!

The first stop on the tour was Victoria Falls.

Because there is no time difference from here to Simbabwe, Botswana or Namibia, and the weather is quite the same as here (hot in the days, quite cool in the night) since it is African winter right now; I didn´t need much time for acclimatisation.

After having landed and arrived at my accomodation, I got to know some of my new group members, we had a snack, and then set off with two of them to visit the mighty Victoria Falls only a short 15 minute walk away. They are ocnsidered one of the seven natural wonders on earth among the Australian Great Barrier Reef and the Northern Lights and as such, I have to say they are truly impressive. They stretch for over 1,8 km and are 110m high. The local name is Mosi-oa-Tunya which means "thundering smoke". The spray of the water drenches the visitors and can be seen from far away. At night, I can hear the constant thunder of the waterfalls while lying in my tent.
I didn´t think I´d like the Falls as much as I did. I usually don´t like sightseeing but it wasn´t crowded and I hadn´t seen footage of it before which usually helps me not build up any expectations and then being positively surprised when I see something with my own eyes instead of saying, "ah ok looks just like on the pictures, lame".

Day 2: Rafting and cruising in Victoria Falls

The following day we also had to ourselves in Victoria Falls and I joined a rafting tour and a sunset boat cruise which is also known as booze cruise since there is an open bar. 

I absolutely loved the rafting! I had been hesitant because it was quite expensive but rafting down the Zambezi river was such good fun and the water was the perfect level of challenging for me. After hours of paddling, swimming, and walking up the canyon, we had a great BBQ waiting for us and it was then that I learned that Southern Africans know how to prepare their meats. I don´t usually eat a lot of meat, but boy, I didn´t say no there and it was always very good! 

The evening boat cruise on the upper level of the Zambezi was a welcome relaxation after a long day and we saw some hippos, crocodiles, elefants and lots of birds while enjoying our cold beers. 

On the boat with six group members. All in all, we were 21 people on the group Vic.Falls to Windhoek.

Day 3: Entering Botswana and doing another sunset cruise on the Chobe river

The next day, we started the actual tour. We learned how to pack our tents onto the Lando (like bus but special) and had some camping breakfast. Toast, cornflakes, banana, instant coffee or tea. Since most tour mornings are early mornings I was quite happy with having just a small bite and pack my banana for later.
We drove to the border, got our passports stamped, and continued to Kasane. We set up tent and when I went to reception to sneak some WiFi, I was positively suprised to see a herd of elefants casually munching on some trees when I turned around not expecting anything at all really.

Botswana is the country with the highest elefant population in Africa. This means that you´ll see elefants a LOT. Which is great. It´s what you dream of seeing but don´t expect to actually see. Like being thrown into the wet dream of every safari tourist.
My favorite way of seing them was on foot because it´s the most direct way to encounter them. We also saw them from safari jeep, boat, and lando, but walking and then seeing them was definitely my favorite.

The evening boat cruise was again very relaxed, a cold beer in hand and my camera in the other just seeing all the wonderful wildlife of Africa go by. Chobe river is the same as Zambezi river actually, it just has a different name in Botswana.

In the evening, our CEOs (= guides) prepared a 5 star dinner for us including marinated steaks grilled over an open fire, beans and carrots in some nicely spiced sauce, and deep-fried potato wedges. Yum!



Day 4: Early morning game drive and camping under Baobabs

5:45am the next morning we huddled up in a safari jeep and went on a game drive through the waterfront part of Chobe national park. It was freaking cold but the sunrise and the clear, fragrant air were well worth the early rise as well as seeing all the animals, of course. We saw lots of birbs in all colors (I like the turqoise one but my favorite were the families of helmeted guineafowls that scurried around everywhere! In fact, they might have been my favorite animal to see there because they were so amusing), some leopards, lions, water buffalos, eagles, giraffes, and antilopes.

helmeted guinea fowls (Helmperlhühner)

other side of safari: one leopard twenty jeeps

My animal pictures are all pretty crappy because I took my pictures with my phone camera whose zoom is practically non-existent. The other group members took very amazing pictures but hey, I guess you all know what these animals look like anyway ;)

After a quick sandwich lunch we headed off to our next stop, Planet Baobab near Gweta. The roads we drove on were well maintained (mostly), along vast stretches of nothingness (all flat with small shrubs as vegetation, next to no settlements or people seen. The only sign of life during these hours on the road in Africa were the odd goat, donkey, ostrich, giraffe or elefant along or on it) and empty of other vehicles (always). There are very few roadside service stations so if you need to go to the loo, we do "bushie bushie" - the bus stops in the middle of nowhere and everyone ambles into the roadside bushes with some toilet paper in hand. It´s quite fun actually if you don´t mind having your bare behind exposed to the nature and if you don´t walk into the increasingly stingy bushes like I did in the Kalahari. 

After arrival,we set up tent under the mighty baobab trees and had a quick jump into the pool. When night fell at around 6pm, the walkways and trees were all tastefully illuminated and we had our first taste of the amazing starsky that can be seen there. Again, my camera was too bad for capturing this, but the others took amazing pictures. 

Day 5: Drive to Okavango Delta and scenic flight over it

The caption pretty much says it all. Driving a few hours, set up camp, chill in the campsite bar to get WiFi, then head off for the scenic flight in a small airplane. By now, the days were very hot so we nearly melted when we set up our tents. The flight was nice but somehow I didn´t really feel it. Maybe it´s because of the distance you have to the animals you see (what I talked about with the elefants) or because you know these pictures from documentaries (what I talked about with the Victoria Falls) so your brain doesn´t really get that YOU are here to see this LIVE. I probably sound like a spoiled brat but for me it´s just very important to get the feels of a place. 

This evening, I had a cat jump onto my lap and sleep on it for an hour. That was the cutest, fluffiest and warmest thing ever and it made me very happy. I love encounters with the locals :D

Day 6: Okavango Delta Adventure! Mokoro Poling and bush camp

Another very early morning followed by a wait for our pick-up drivers. Everything in Africa just takes a little bit longer - "no stress in Africa", is what locals say. I call it "African time". I assume there´s just a little bit of a time difference there actually that nobody talks about, like the academic quarter hour. Also at the airport and at restaurants everything just works a little bit slower.
We were driven to the Delta itself, which is the largest mainland Delta worldwide. It´s a big system of shallow and deep water that constantly changes and is home to many animals. This night, we slept in a very basic bush camp: no running water, the toilet is a dug out hole behind a bush and there´s no fence around to keep potential curious wildlife out. To get there, we were put into traditional Mokoros (dugout canoes) and then we glided over the calm waters past hippo pools.
Again it was quite warm so I went for a swim right after we arrived (everybody watched me waiting if I get eaten by a crocodile but the guides said it´s safe here so I trusted them), some did first shaky steps in poling with their polers, and some just lay in the sun. Later, we all went for a bush walk and saw zebras, ant-eater holes, more elefants, luckily no lions (no thanks I´m good, not on foot), lots of termite hills and of course the spectacular sunset.

This night, the polers danced and sang for us. At first I was unsure how I felt about this because I didn´t want to be the white person that comes and makes the locals put on a show for him - how colonial! But they seemed to enjoy themselves (here´s one of the songs they sang but of course in a different version) so I put my worries aside and enjoyed the rhythm and energy of their songs and movements. My favorite song was the frog song which apparently requires males to hop around and shake their bums. Some of our group guys joined in and it was the most hilarious thing I´ve seen all year, trust me.
By this time, I was a bit sad about the obvious distance between us tourists and the locals. Us being chauffeured around all the time and being in the nature also meant not getting to know the people, their culture, their cities. So I made an effort to hang around with our polers, ask them all my questions and also learn a few words of Setswana. I learned "Hello" (Dumela Ra/Ma) and "hole" (Muschi Ma) and felt a bit better afterwards.

After a few very scary bushie-bushies, we got back to the dry land in the early morning and headed off to our next stop.


Day 7: San Bushmen walk and sleeping in the Kalahari

Our next camp was nearby Ghanzi. There was no settlement close by which meant another great night for stargazing. Unfortunately, we had a temperature drop this night and in the morning there was frost inside our tent. All the nights before had been quite comfortably warm (around 15°C) but this one was just brrrrr. I slept inside my sleeping bag with all my clothes on and was kind of ok but still caught a cold.
Before this, we went on a bushmen walk with the San bushmen. At home, I had been unsure about participating in this (native inhabitant tourism and so on, is it ethical?) but on the tour we had always been encouraged to give everything a try and then judge for ourselves. So I participated and even though the bushmen/tourist ratio was a bit questionable (six bushmen facing 30 tourists with all their cameras, like animals in a zoo? I hope they don´t feel like this!) I am happy I did it. The San bushmen are believed to be the direct decendants of the first people who ever lived there which makes them the decendants of the original Homo Sapiens groupings and also the oldest ethnical group in Africa. They still live as hunters and gatherers minus the hunting part since the government doesn´t allow them to hunt anymore. So they make an extra living by doing these walks with the tourists - but still live like they lived 30.000 years ago.

They have a language with Klicks in it and told us mostly about the plants that can be used to cure toothaches, backaches, headaches, to prevent Malaria (chew the roots of a grass that has chinin in it) and so on. It´s fascinating to think that the ancestors of these people have invented language and found out about all these things just by trial and error!


Day 8: Driving to Windhoek, Namibia

After a very welcome hot porridge for breakfast, we had another few hours drive before entering Namibia. Every time we crossed an inland border, we all had to get out to walk through a liquid in order to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease.

After arrival in Windhoek (Namibia was a German colony once so many street and guesthouse names are still German which feels VERY weird) everyone got a decent shower and got a little dressed up for the occasion of being in a city. We dined very finely in a restaurant that serves game - I ate some zebra and some oryx and something else I don´t remember the name of. The wine was excellent, the game was a bit too salty for my taste. I wonder where they get these meats from...

The next morning it was time to say goodbye. Two thirds of our party kept going on all the way down to Capetown with G Adventures, some people left to go their own ways. As for me, I had another day and a half in Windhoek until my flight home. I felt sad and empty after everyone had parted. I really liked our group and everyone was really great. You experience so much together, talk and laugh about it. Beautiful strangers turn to friends.


Day 9: Windhoek

This morning, I did a city and township tour that I had booked at reception. It was only two tourists and the young tour guide who drove us around which meant I could again ask him all the questions that came to my mind. We saw the German church and went to a market where he explained all the dried foods to us and gave us some grilled meat, pap (some wheat-porridge that doesn´t taste on its own but is fun to eat with hands) and tomato-onion-sauce to try along with some fermented wheat drink. I love trying local foods and therefore I was very happy about how this tour turned out.
Afterwards, he drove us through a township: A part outside the center where people live in corrugated-iron huts without an official address, electricity or running water. Mostly also without work and some without any school education. This also broadened my horizon and once again I felt very, very privileged and lucky.

This afternoon, I was quite drained and spent after all the exciting days. So I slept a few hours by the pool and then tried to walk to the museum. On the way my phone and cash (not much) got stolen from me so I turned around and went to the police station instead. It was a sad ending for an otherwise great holiday, but it was my own fault for walking along a deserted road when I should have taken a taxi instead. One day I´ll learn.
Anyway, that´s also the reason I don´t really have any pictures from the last three days apart from the ones I had already shared on social media. Hence the different-looking two last pictures.

The next morning, I had a big hostel breakfast (with "Brötchen"!) and then went to the airport. It was only me and the driver on the airport transfer I had booked via reception so all my alarm bells rang and I had sweaty hands all the way (who was to say he wouldn´t drive me somewhere else where people can rob me again? I had all my things with me after all and he knew that!) but I got there safely. Apparently there´s only too naive or too paranoid with me. Again, one day I´ll learn.


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Now I´ve been back for a few days and I have recovered from my cold and fatigue of the long flights and days. Looking back, I feel truly blessed for the experience I have had and it´s all just a 24 hour journey from door to door away! The tour has opened up the continent of Africa for me and I´m curious about seeing more: Kenya, Namibia with its desert, dunes, fish canyon, and German-style cities by the sea. South Africa with Capetown. One day I´ll surely come back.
But first, I´m interested in other destinations: Iran maybe. Western USA. Central America (Cuba). Peru. The Scandinavian winter (Polar lights, Husky sleighing, the real snow experience!). All these places to see and experience! After all these years, I still got the travel bug.


Next Tuesday, I´m moving to Böblingen, Stuttgart. I´ll be living there for one school year to teach English in a high school. My next inner-German adventure! After that, I have no idea. Life is a journey, not a destination!
I´ll keep you posted :)

PS: Here is a video a guy made who did the exact same tour as we did, only the other way around. I very much recommend it for you if you have the time to spare because it can show you even better than my crappy pictures what everything looked like.