Botswana & Namibia Road Trip: Chobe National Park and Planet Baobab, Botswana

Truthfully my holidays started a bit before our September 9^th departure across the border in to Botswana. Mum and her friend Reegena arrived in Livingstone with a week to check out the town prior to the start of road trip.

So, as a result Mike and I got to do a couple of the remaining tourist activities that we hadn’t yet done such as “Walking with the lions” and the Zambezi Sunset Cruise and others that we had done before such as sundowner drinks at the Royal Livingstone Hotel and Sunday lunch at Taita Falcon Lodge. 

Mum with the lions

The lions: Unfortunately these ones are bred in captivity

Enjoying sundowners on the Lady Livingstone Cruise

Sunset on the Zambezi River

Finally, the 9^th of September arrived and we set off on our Botswana and Namibia trip, with Mum and Reegena joining us for the Botswana part.

First stop was just over the border in Botswana, to Kasane. After a quick “lunch stop” at the border post where we had to scoff down our home packed lunch before being allowed to cross the border (damn that foot and mouth disease!), we made a return visit to Chobe National Park.

"Scoffing" down our packed lunch at the Botswana border

I won’t spend much time writing about Chobe as this was our 5^th visit. But I will say that Chobe never disappoints and hopefully the photos speak for themselves!

Monkey Tree

Impala taken it easy

Mum and me: Check out what's behind us!

After a couple of awesome days in Kasane, we set off south, heading towards Nata onroute to Planet Baobab, west of Nata.

The road south to Nata was interesting; under construction, the diversion road was narrow, slow and dangerous with large trucks coming from the opposite direction and taking up much of the road.

The road on the way to Nata: Over turned car

The road to Nata: Narrow roads

On this road we also had our first negative encounter with the Botswana Police. Set up on this stretch of road was an “Animal Control” post, at which we were forced to give up our earlier purchased rump steaks (vacuum packed), salad ingredients and apples. Apparently there are different zones in Botswana and you cannot bring such goods from one area to the other. I had a couple of issue with this as:

1. Botswana Tourism fails to disclose this to tourists, so many people run into this issue after making large purchases at local supermarkets in known tourist towns, and
2. The post was for animal products only. There was no mention of vegetable products, only the police telling us that they had to take our vegetables due to issues with fruit flies. I’m not sure if they were telling the truth or not, however no where on the post signage was there mention of vegetable products, only animal. Also interesting and a little suspicious to me, was how selective they were with the vegetable products. Things like lettuce they let us keep.

I did get a little fired up during this encounter, probably a result of my built up frustration at Zambia. But as expected I/ we didn’t win and I have little doubt in my mind that they all had a lovely dinner much later J. Local hoteliers also later confirmed that the vegetable products should have been ours to keep!

From “animal control” we continued onwards to Planet Baobab, a bush camp surrounded by giant Baobab trees.

Planet Baobab

I loved this camp and the Baobab trees that surrounded it. They are truly amazing. Most of the trees are believed to be between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and are just beautiful, especially at sunset and sunrise.

The camp itself was also lovely with cute bush huts, which mum and Reegena were lucky to stay in (Mike and I camped) and a large inviting pool to chill in while gazing up at the Baobab Trees.

The pool at Planet Baobab and me in it!

One of the many huge Baobab trees

Sunset at Planet Baobab

Mike taking a picture of a giant Baobab tree

To give you some idea of the scale :-)

Unfortunately we had planned only one night there; a second night would have been great and also given us the opportunity to check out the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, which we were sad to pass by along the highway. Nonetheless, we continued on to the next exciting phase of our Botswana leg, the Okavango Delta!

Road on the way to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

A Weekend Away at Nina’s Fishing Camp

For months now friends of ours have been raving about Nina’s Fishing Camp, a lodge on the banks of the Zambezi River in Western Province, Zambia. It’s actually on the way to Sioma Falls, where we camped at over Easter.

Zambezi River rapids

The view from our room. If only I could provide the sound of
the water too!

Anyway, last weekend we finally made it there for a truly fabulous few days away, or a “lekker” weekend, as the Afrikaans would put it!

Mike and Arno 

I know very little about fishing and have never really had much of an interest in (although I do love eating fish), but as the weekend at Nina’s proved, you don’t need to be into fishing. Just being at the beautiful lodge, cruising down the Zambezi in the warm sun, listening to the water flow down the rapids while lying in bed reading or napping, made a very enjoyable weekend. Having great people, Robyn, Arno and Simone, and the owner Nicky, to spend it with, also helped.

Our group for the weekend enjoying a lovely meal together

Nina's Fishing Camp from the water

The rooms at Nina's Fishing Camp

View from the water

Pretty much as soon as we arrived, we took to the water so that the boys could see who had the best fishing skills; the fact that Mike has never fished off a boat before was irrelevant! Well, despite what some may say, fishing really does come down to luck. We hadn’t been out there for 15 minutes when Mike caught his first Tiger fish. A good size one too, about 2kg! Another 20 minutes later, Mike caught a second Tiger fish of equally good size, not impressing Arno at all! Unfortunately due to a beer versus fish moment, Mike missed out on his third catch with the beer in the hand winning!

Fishing on the Zambezi River

Mike's first catch: A 2kg (approx.) Tiger Fish

Mike and his catch

Mike's second catch of the day. Another good one!

Something that we didn't know about fishing is that for every fish you catch on your first go at Nina’s, you must take a shot of…..well, I'm actually not really sure what was in the shot glass but it did have a good burn and a garlic after-taste.  Truthfully, I doubt it’s a Nina’s Fishing Camp policy :-)

Robyn: After a shot of the mystery mixture

Simone taking her chances with the shot glass

Robyn, Arno and Mike enjoying a few "quiet" drinks

Anyway, needless to say, there were a few tired and one (Mike!!) particularly hung over participant on the fishing boat the following day.

A quiet, peaceful cruise along the Zambezi River is exactly
what we needed after the previous night! 

Day two saw more cruising and attempts to catch the biggest fish of the weekend, although less successful this time. Small catches but nothing of the size caught the previous day. It was a very pleasant morning followed by a relaxed afternoon of reading and napping.

The evening was spent sharing a very South African dinner of “Samp” with an Ox Tail “Potjie” (pronounced “poy-key”), a dish that spends many hours cooking and tasted delicious!

Ox Tail Potjie

Arno and Simone serving up the Ox Tail Potjie and Samp 

Simone and Robyn deciding how hungry they are

My plate: Ox Tail Potjie with Samp and a glass of white wine to wash
it all down. Yum!!

Day three and the return home saw some of our built up rest and relaxation take a sudden drop when one of our tyres burst about 150kms outside of Livingstone. Fortunately it was a rear tyre and our driver got us safely to the side of the road (thanks Arno). However it was a good blow- out; see below picture. A relatively quick tyre change by the boys and we were back on the road in no time!

"Ruth's" sister having her tyre changed after a blow-out on the way
home

The tyre: It was a pretty decent blow-out

And as this blog post is published, our friends Robyn and Arno are sadly (for us) returning to South Africa. But the good news is that we now have friends to visit in South Africa when we head down there early next year. Can’t wait!

L-R: Me, Mike, Arno, Robyn and Simone

Trip to Sioma

Over the Easter weekend we decided to take advantage of the 4-day long weekend and make a trip out to the Western Province of Zambia, to an area called Sioma. With us we had 3 other volunteers who came along for the adventure!

Sioma is located in the south-west corner of Zambia and remains very much untouched, lacking good roads and infrastructure and as a result is rarely visited by tourists. To get to Sioma you really do need a 4x4 as even in the dry season it is possible to become bogged in the sand; in wet season the going can be very tough and explains the lack of a tourism industry. This is a shame given how pretty the area is, especially along the Zambezi River.

"Ruth": Ready for our adventure

Our trip out to Sioma was actually ok. We found the road to be much better than expected although we were travelling in “Ruth” with her new suspension. We also found that work has begun on building a new road there, although this is still years away from completion.

New road being built by the Chinese next to the Zambezi River
on the way to Sioma.

Untouched: Typical village along the road side on the way to Sioma

We stayed at Sioma Camp, a site based on the edge of the Zambezi River. They have chalets and a campsite; being volunteers we opted for the more economical of the two and camped. Unfortunately, as anyone who knows me, I’m not the most seasoned of campers, however the site was actually very comfortable and even had hot water for showers! I was also relieved not to come across any snakes, as I’d been dreading coming across the infamous Black Mumba.

Sioma Camp

Our campsite with Mike and my tent in the middle

 We came fairly well equipped, however still managed to forget a few key items, such as a saucepan and pot for cooking. The staff at the camp were very kind however and lent us a tea pot for boiling hot water as well as chairs and a table to eat at. We were able to improvise a bit too using foil to create a frying pan for eggs and cooking pasta in the tea pot, which worked surprisingly well.

Mike preparing to cook dinner on the campfire

Improvisation: Cooking eggs on tin foil when there is no pan

Waiting for the water to boil

Sioma Camp was just what we all needed, very relaxed with beautiful views of the river and a restaurant/ bar where we could sit and read or enjoy a few quiet drinks while looking out onto the river.

The view from the Sioma Camp restaurant/ bar, looking out
onto the Zambezi River

Enjoying a quiet drink and company

One of the main reasons we wanted to head out to Sioma was to see Ngonye Falls, about 10kms north of our camp. The falls were seen by David Livingstone about 2 years before he saw Victoria Falls, Livingstone commenting, “the scenery was the loveliest I had seen”.

The entrance to Ngonye Falls: Where they tried to charge us
more than the cost of seeing Victoria Falls

Unfortunately we probably didn’t pick the best time of the year to go and see them with the Zambezi River very high following the wet season and the falls resembling more of a very large rapid (they are only 25 metres high when the water is low). Nonetheless, the “rapid” was still pretty amazing and the speed of the water in the Zambezi incredible. You definitely would not want to find yourself floating in the river.

Whirlpools and strong currents in the Zambezi River

Rough waters

We viewed the falls from both land and on the water. From land we couldn’t see much of the falls (even though they tried to charge us $5 each, local price to see them; it costs about $1.50 local price for Victoria Falls to put things into perspective. Needless to say that’s not what we gave them). On the water the falls were amazing and we were able to drive right up to them. It was a pleasant trip moving up the Zambezi on a lovely sunny morning with a beautiful view of the banks of the river and again, we were in awe of the speed of the river and the whirlpools that developed in the water.

View of the banks of the Zambezi River on the way to Ngonye Falls.
Very Africa!

Mokoro on the Zambezi River. This would be tough work.

Ngonye Falls: One large rapid following wet season

Mike and I with Ngonye Falls just behind us

More rapids on the Zambezi River

 Sioma was a lovely weekend away and reminded me again that I was in Africa, which is sometimes easy to forget when you live in Livingstone. Great spot on the river with excellent company!

Our group (L-R): Marjolijn, Elspeth, Phyl, Mike and myself