8.12.16 – 25.1.17
Meerkats
Besides the big 5, which we did see already, Gabi wanted to see meerkats badly. We found somebody – after lengthy price discussions and viewing guarantees – who took us on a longer bush drive to a family of meerkats. They are really super cute. Luckily they weren’t that shy; they even presented their 4 youngsters. One of their favourite dishes are scorpions. The meerkats smell them in the ground and then they start digging hectically until they can grab them. It seems that they are immune to the poison of the scorpions.
On the road
On the way through the potholes from Shakawe to Moun we sing laud and wrongly Elvis songs. All of a sudden our control system for the tire pressure runs riot. And this time it doesn’t stop. Looks like something serious. The pressure of the back tire on the driver’s side drops and drops. In not time we are below 3.5 bar. We drive off the tar road to a little street heading towards a little village. And indeed, when we jumped out of the truck to checked our tires: we recognised this is our first flat one. We didn’t catch a simple nail, but rather a huge M25 screw, which stuck up to the head in our tire. While Gabi tried her best to document all the action (video will follow later), Peter did change the wheel together with the habitants of the nearby village. To do so, he had to get the quad bike lift down and dismantle all the material that somehow had multiplied itself there. One of the spare wheels had to be lifted down before it could get exchanged with the flat one. With the help of the supporting stands it was done within 2 hours. We were so proud.
Shortly after the village Mea we luckily found the unmarked turn-off and drive truly off-road without a track along the salt pan. We cannot drive on the pan, as it is too wet now. The ground is not strong enough to carry us. Same with Konje island. We cannot visit it, it’s too muddy and the ranger wouldn’t allow us to drive there.
So we follow the track northwards. The track is ok but with the rain it becomes muddy and slippery. When we left the thunder front behind us, the sight became ok again. The pre-announced difficult river crossings though were easy for us. The real challenge we experienced when the 20m wide track all of a sudden slimmed down to a narrow little road of maximum 2 meters. Over 500m cutting bushes with our wonderful crimper is definitely quite exhausting.
The road from Maun to Mababe is mainly super bad. Nearly 100km of the most horrible corrugated gravel road you can imagine. Nothing helps to reduce the shaking and wobbling. It’s a battle of material. Without having experiences with jack-hammers one couldn’t stand these kind of vibrations. But it got even worth: in the next village we learned, that we cannot drive the intended loop, but had to drive back the same ugly road. Oh no. Back in Maun we had to adjust the front tread width and to construct a new bolt for the front winch, which vibrated off despite the security spring. And these were only the more obvious damages, which we happened to detect.
At the time when we arrived in Maun at the chosen campsite a huge truck got stuck in the entrance. Of course we offered help in the pouring rain. The monster strong Globi can master that. The winch without idler pulley not though – and Peter is somewhat too lazy to get the idler pulleys out in that rain. So we do it the conventional way: just pulling. But all the ropes cracked, and the chain as well. Then they doubled the chain and then it worked. The other truck driver is so happy getting out of the dip, that he promptly drives full tilt into Globi. Certainly we can let repair that, but the usage marks become slowly a bit more obvious.
African Administration
As usual we buy our new SIM cards immediately after crossing the border. In this case it was Mascom, one of the biggest telcom companies. The data-bundles are extremely expensive. So we make sure that we turn-off all automatic data transfers in our mobile phones. But when we started the phones the other morning, no data any more – we bought capacity for one month! Of course we went back to the agency immediately to claim our loss. The very kind saleswoman explained that all data had been used. Strange, we were quite sure, that we did sleep and not surf the internet. Finally we went to the competitor Orange. They sell a WIFI including a data package for one month for less than the Mascom data bundle itself. And the WIFI still works!
When we left South Africa our old Carnet de Passage needed to be punched out and carried over to the new one. Though the customs officer refused to do so for two reasons: a) within the customs union they do not stamp carnets any more and b) the old carnet had been expired already and if she would stamp it, it would become valid again!!! Peter tried for 5 hours to explain her, that it’s just about the carry over to put into effect the new carnet, not to re-validate the old one. Somehow that woman was living under the assumption that you had to do that the same day the old one expires. She couldn’t tell though what one had to do the night in between as the new carnet always becomes valid only one day later. Sleeping in the customs area between the two borders? Peter known as somebody with a lot of empathy, patience and coolness was close to a volcanic eruption after these 5 hours.
We left RSA without the stamp and the very kind officer in Botswana stamped our new Carnet a bit wondering, why it didn’t happen on the South African side.
One day we stood in front of the gate to the Chobe National Park. At the gate they explained the price policy the follow: for Globi we had to pay 1’500 Pula (a monthly salary of a worker in a hotel) per day. Entry fee for each of the adults (Peter and me) and Campsite fee would be added on top. Obviously they don’t want self-driver/camper. They definitely prefer rich tourists which fly in and pay up to 1500 US$ per person and day. Whow, really an exclusive circle here. It’s a pitty for the beautiful national parks. We certainly will not come back and cannot recommend Botswana to anyone.
Diaves
We met Vreni and Ernst the first time in spring in Lüderitz, Namibia. We agreed to spend x-mas time together in Shakawe. So we had 10 great days together a the strands of the Okavango river, did some hiking in the Todsilo Hills and spent some time during the turn of the year in Maun. We had a fantastic time with them and we are looking forward to seeing them again somewhere, sometime.
Freezer
The handmade tinker freezer of our cabin builder is still not working properly despite several repair efforts. It’s unfortunately not made for off-road driving. Slowly the freezer got warmer up to fridge temperatures. Not really fun if it’s full of frozen food. And then the miracle happens: in the little village at the end of the world in Shakawe we found one of those offroad freezers you can see here everywhere in all buggies. The transport back on the front of Ernstli to the campsite was adventurously – really African. In Europe we most likely would have been fined for that! However, it’s great that we gained back our independency.
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