The Trans-Kalahari Adventure is a guided 21-day safari starting in Cape Town, South Africa and ending in Livingstone, Zambia via Namibia and Botswana. Accommodations range from historic guest houses to luxury hotels to tents. Transportation is by custom built Toyota overland vehicle and 4×4 safari vehicles.
“Are you ready to rock and roll?” The significance of those words, addressed to us at the start of each day by senior guide Misheck Mahonye, became clearer to the 14 travellers on the safari truck as the paved roads, rich farmlands, and mile upon mile of brilliant spring flowers of South Africa gave way to the main dirt roads of Namibia, Botswana and Zambia. Heading north from the sophistication of Cape Town, after viewing the beautiful Cape areas and Table Mountain, we two Canadians, along with Australians, Spaniards and Belgians all within an age range of 45-65, anticipated some challenges as the heat increased and the landscape became less familiar and more forbidding.
For us, the biggest jewels of the trip – Kalahari Desert, Namib Desert, Etosha National Park, Okavango River, Chobe National Park and Victoria Falls – seemed to be strung upon a 5,622 km ribbon of dust, dirt, rocks, sand and sometimes paved road. We embraced this trip with both excitement and trepidation, armed with maps, cameras, medicinal supplies and malaria pills, a certain amount of blissful naiveté and a burning desire to see lots of wild animals in their natural surroundings.
Day Four saw us in the 3.6 million-hectare Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which straddles South Africa and Namibia. The address of !Xaus Lodge, which is perched on the rim of a salt pan, is dune 91, and the lack of any type of contact with the outside world, along with the restricted hours of use of generator-driven electricity, really emphasizes the fact that we were in the desert and truly away from it all.
The oppressive heat of the day subsided as we sat around a fire at night; eating traditionally prepared delicious Afrikaans food and marvelling at the star-laden sky. The coolness of the night explained the presence of flannelette sheets, wood-burning stoves and extra blankets in each of the units, which had, upon arrival, looked incongruous. No lion sightings here, but a sunset pan drive, a nature walk and interaction with the ancient Bushman of the area and viewings of many birds and animals had been added to our lists.
On the way to the Namibia’s Fish River Canyon, we spotted three hyenas asleep under a tree only a few feet away from the truck, and it proved to be one of those special intimate moments. Several times one of them made an effort to raise its head and look at us, but it appeared to be all too much and it flopped back down to sleep unperturbed by the distraction. The 160 km Fish River Canyon was formed over millions of years through the faulting of the earth’s crust and erosion by the Fish River. It is popular with hikers who like a challenge and those who enjoy breathtaking views, especially at sunset with a glass of champagne in one hand and a camera in the other.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of splendid isolation that being in the middle of the Deadvlei clay pan in the Namib Desert can provide, with its 900-year-old dead trees, encircled by mountainous sand dunes and only the fleeting glimpse of a stray tourist in the distance. While the rest of the group opted to take the long way round by way of a five-kilometre walk over the dunes, I took a hair-raising 4×4 safari truck shuttle and thus found myself an early arrival and pretty much alone.
Nine hundred years ago, the climate changed in this area and the pan that had formed when the Tsauchab River flooded providing sustenance for acacia and camel thorn trees was hit by drought, so the dunes encroached and the trees were cut off from the river. Nearby is Sossusvlei, which still has a little water, but it is the immensity of the world’s highest sand dunes that holds the visitors to this area in awe.
The tents at Desert Camp provide us with an uninterrupted view of the desert and dunes as the light plays over them in an ever-changing play of colour. But tempted as we were to drift into heady contemplation of these splendid surroundings, we remained vigilant due to warnings of monkeys with a tendency to steal unguarded possessions and rushing off with them into the endless desert.
Day 10 found us staying at a boutique hotel in the coastal German Colonial town of Swakopmund. Here was another chance to explore the desert from a different vantage point: the air. The Namibian Skeleton Coast Park is about 40km wide, covers some 16,845km² and has a reputation of being a shipping graveyard littered with the bones of both ships and various other creatures washed up on its shifting sands. Seeing this vast area by air is an exciting experience especially when flying over Deadvlei and Sossusvlei and saying, yet again, “I can’t believe I was there.”
The stranded 1909 shipwreck of the Eduard Bohlen passenger liner is well and truly engulfed by the shifting sands, and now lies over a kilometre from the coast. An aerial view allows for sightings of huge colonies of sea lions, thousands of greater and lesser flamingos, abandoned diamond mines, extensive salt works and colourful algae, which causes pink and red colours in the salt pans, and which also colours the feathers of the flamingos.
Now, into the mountain ranges and hot dry valleys of Damaraland with a stop atop the Ugab Mountains, which, with the changing rays of the setting sun, look surreal like a scene from a fantasy movie. Travelling on, we stop to visit with Herero women wearing their long dresses and elaborate headdresses, which indicate status, and selling the colourful dolls similarly dressed at stalls along the roadside. Treadle sewing machines are put to work in the production of the dolls. It’s hard to make a choice from the hundreds of colour and fabric combinations on display, but a moment of shared appreciation happens when the maker of one small doll is attired in the exactly the same outfit as that of the doll chosen; smiles all around.
On the way to Etosha National Park, we visit the Himba people, who are known for their elaborate hairstyles and traditional dress. They cover their bodies in red ochre and fat and, since they are very happy to shake hands and look at the images on digital cameras, it means we too get a goodly coating of red ochre and fat during the visit. Their homes are made from palm leaves, mud and cattle dung, and upon being invited inside one such structure, you may learn about the Himba way of life.
It’s not as if there weren’t plenty of animals and birds to see throughout the safari; ostriches tearing across the landscape, giraffe, wildebeest, springbok, weaver birds and sociable weaver birds whose huge, haystack like nests adorn trees, telegraph poles and any other structure that allows them height, but as we closed in on Etosha National Park, we sensed we were in for a real treat.
The huge Etosha pan shimmers like a vast lake while at the water holes and across the plains there are lions, elephants, rhino, zebra and more. Seemingly indifferent to our presence, we are able to get close-up views of these and other magnificent creatures as they mated, taught their young to hunt, drank at the waterholes or wound their way in long orderly lines across the plains. They generally carried on with their routines despite us being there.
Two days later, we are in for another incredible African experience when we reach the Okavango River and enter Nunda Lodge, where the hosts offer us cooling drinks as we drag our dust-laden, travel weary selves onto the patio to watch the sunset over the river. The permanent tents along the riverside are our accommodation and give us a real taste of being in the midst of nature as the insect sounds and harrumphs of the hippo (under our patio no less) permeate the night.
A riverboat cruise allows us to see local people using the river for bathing, fishing and playing … along with crocodiles and the numerous hippos who make us aware of their presence as they burst from the water close to the boat and jaws agape.
Crossing into Botswana being sure to wipe our shoed feet, and our spare shoes, on disinfected burlap sacking, we headed for Chobe National Park, home to the biggest concentration of game in Southern Africa, and stay at the Chobe Safari Lodge on the banks of the Chobe River.
The abundance of wildlife in this area is like being in a 360-degree National Geographic reality experience, with layers upon layers of animals. Up close, there would be crocodiles, monitor lizards and elephants; a little further on, buffalo; close again, hippos plunging from the land into the water, and baboons picking through the mud for tasty morsels, giraffes and various antelope on the hills, colourful water fowl in the reeds, eagles aloft. It was hard to sleep here, not because of the luxurious accommodation and the air conditioning, but because of what we’d seen during the day; that, and perhaps the baboons sitting comfortably chatting on the patio during the night.
Into Zambia by crossing the great Zambezi River with its unimaginably long line-ups of trucks waiting for passage on one of the small (one-vehicle) ferries and so to Victoria Falls. Known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya meaning “the smoke that thunders” the falls consist of almost two kilometres of cliffs and water falling down over 100 metres into the gorge below. Viewing the area from a helicopter allows for complete and varied views of the falls, the 1905 bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the surrounding countryside thus providing an overall perspective of this majestic force of nature.
Months later, we are still processing the contrasts, diversity and immensity of the areas in which we travelled. Understanding a little more about so many aspects of life and nature in Southern Africa only confirms that there is still so much we don’t know, yet how appreciative we are that we experienced as much as we did.
African Overland Tours: www.kiboko.co.za
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