27^th August 2007 update - Farewell to a cold, wet and windy South Africa! 

In Stellenbosch we also manage to meet up with fellow overlanders Dan and Amy, from the UK, who have driven their Land Rover down the east coast of Africa (www.africa-overland.pizco.com).  After them going to all the bother of driving up to Stellenbosch from the place they're staying in Cape Town just to meet us for a beer, luckily we all get on really well!  We've been dithering about whether to brave the chilly weather to go east and see some more of South Africa or just head north for warmer climes in Namibia but the prospect of joining Dan and Amy on the route north decides it for us - we'll just have to come back to South Africa another time when we have more time and better weather!

We arrange to meet Dan and Amy two days later in Citrusdal, a few hours north of Stellenbosch / Cape Town.  They're only going as far as Walvis Bay, in Namibia, from where they'll be shipping their Landy home to England after travelling for a year, but this will give us a week or so travelling together which should be lots of fun.  After a rainy departure from Stellenbosch and torrential rains on the way north, we're pretty happy we've made the right decision!  The rain eases off just before Citrusdal and we manage a sunny day relaxing at the homely and welcoming Gekko Lodge there.  In the afternoon Dan and Amy arrive and we make our collective way through most of a bottle of gin, followed by some wine and cheese and a few beers - looks like it's going to be a fun couple of weeks!

After a slow start next morning, we make our way north through Namaqualand, admiring the wild flowers all along the road as we go.  Early evening finds us setting up camp just outside Springbok, just south of the Namibian border.  As we're trying to start the fire to barbecue (or 'braai' as they say in Southern Africa) the sky clouds over and the wind starts to rise.  The rains begin just as we're ready to eat, but luckily we find some shelter to eat under.  The rain and wind just seem to get worse and worse all night - the worst thing is that in between each of the powerful gusts that batter our tent (and rock the Landy alarmingly) there's a brief lull so you can hear the howling of the next gust approaching!  However, in the morning we realise that we've been luckier than some as our roof tent and Dan and Amy's ground tent have survived the storm and kept us all warm and dry.  A friendly black guy from Cape Town we chatted to the night before has had a bad start to his three week trip around Southern Africa - the flysheet of his tent is literally flying horizontally from a tree and the rest of the tent doesn't look like it's coping too well with the pummelling either.  We pack up quickly in the rain (everything is soaking but there's nothing we can do) and scurry north and over the Namibian border, where the rain miraculously clears up!

It's still overcast and quite windy when we arrive at the national park campsite at Ai-Ais, at one end of Fish River Canyon.  However the wind dies down in the evening and we have a pleasant evening round the fire.  The next day dawns clear and sunny and we have some fun with the two Landies on the 4WD track along the canyon rim.  The canyon itself is more impressive than we'd expected and reminds us of the Grand Canyon in the United States (on a slightly smaller scale).  Leaving the park we camp at the atmospheric Canyon Roadhouse and spend most of the evening in the bar to avoid the bitter cold outside!  Brrr!  Fried eggs for breakfast soon warm us all up and we head for Keetmanshoop, to visit a farm where fossils of prehistoric lizards have been found, where we also take copious photos of Namibia's famous 'quiver tree', so called because its hollowed out branches were traditionally used as quivers for arrows.  Camping there, we have our first taste of Amy's famous homemade hamburgers, a definite hit!

On our way west towards the Namib Desert, we pass four British motorbikes and Dan recognises Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman and their team, who are currently riding from Europe to South Africa for 'The Long Way South' (you may have seen the television series 'The Long Way Round' about their trip from London to New York via Russia and Mongolia).  Bit weird to think that we are doing the same route but actually the experience is completely different for us as we have no fixed schedule (definitely a plus!) and no support crew (ok, these could be handy sometimes but it's not really proper overlanding, is it?)!

We manage to squeeze onto the fully-booked national park campsite at Sesriem by camping in the car park (though despite Roel's negotiating efforts we still have to pay full price!).  This gives the advantage that you can enter the park at 5.45am (an hour earlier than day visitors to the park), in time to see the sun rise over the beautiful Namib Desert.  Dan and Amy have been there before and Amy skips the early start as she's not feeling too hot, but Dan, Roel and I visit Dune 45 for the sunrise and then walk to the beautiful and eerie Dead Vlei, a dried-up lake bed where hundreds of blackened dead trees still stand.  After our (near) brush with celebrity the day before, we also have to share Dead Vlei with a film crew.  Judging by the ethnic origin and dress of the cast and crew, we seem to have stumbled onto the set of a Bollywood movie - look out for one with lots of red dunes and dead trees!  We are less impressed by the more famous Sossusvlei, possibly because of the endless line of tourists walking up its largest (admittedly spectacular) dune.  On the way back to camp we decide to take the 4WD only 'soft sand' route and rapidly come unstuck.  First Dan's Landy and then ours sink into the treacherous sand.  Serves us right for not taking the short stretch of soft sand seriously enough to let our tyres down - once we've done this, our Landy is soon out of trouble.  A bit of digging and a tow from our Landy are enough to sort Dan's problems out too and we head back to collect Amy.

Our last night travelling with Dan and Amy is spent bush-camping on the edge of the national park - a beautiful isolated spot and a great way to end our time together. Although actually this isn't the end, as we arrange to meet up in Windhoek next week on Dan and Amy's last night in Africa before their flight home to the UK.  For now, though, we part - Dan and Amy heading north-west to Walvis Bay as we turn north-east towards Windhoek.

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia, but it's so small it doesn't feel like a capital city.  We camp at Chameleon Backpackers, which is within easy walking distance of the centre, and settle down for a few days' relaxation.  We spend a lot of time chatting to Wilfrid, from Grenoble, who has driven his Land Cruiser down the west coast and plans to drive back up the east coast.  For the second time on our trip, we meet someone coincidentally whom we've met earlier on the trip - this time it's Paolo, an Italian who's been hitchhiking around the world for 6 years, whom we first ran into in eastern Turkey 14 months ago.  The further you travel, the more you realise it's a small world!

Dan and Amy get their Landy into the container on time and duly arrive in Windhoek and we all head out to Joe's Beerhouse, a Windhoek institution famous for big steaks and game meat (and beer of course!).  We say farewell to Dan and Amy in the morning and also a temporary farewell to Wilfrid - we are leaving Windhoek but we've arranged to meet him in a week's time to travel together through remote north-western Namibia.  We spend that night in Daan Viljoen Game Reserve, just outside Windhoek.  Although we've seen a fair number of antelopes along the roadside - springbok, gemsbok and even the odd kudu - this is our first visit to a game reserve in Africa (on this trip) and it doesn't disappoint.  Within minutes we see wildebeest, giraffe, zebra and lots of kudu.  Better still, as there are no large predators or elephants here, we're able to go for a walk and observe some animals close up.  It's an amazing experience to round a corner and come face to face with a family of giraffe, who stare back at us curiously.

Next day we head to the Trans Kalahari Inn, halfway between Windhoek and the airport, as the following day we'll be picking up Lizzy's brother Richard, who's joining us for a two-week holiday.  The Trans Kalahari Inn was recommended to us by fellow overlanders Emiel and Mirjam as having a nice campsite and a great restaurant.  It's also well-known among overlanders as its German owners store overland vehicles for people who make repeated trips to Namibia and don't want to drive all the way home in between.  At the moment they have about 80 vehicles in storage!  Dutch couple Kees and Jacobien and their three children arrive to collect their converted Mercedes fire truck while we are there and we spend a couple of hours swapping stories.

Richard's plane arrives on time and we start our long drive west to Swakopmund.  Unfortunately, at a routine roadblock not far from the airport we get the second fine of our trip because Roel's not wearing his seatbelt.  The woman police officer initially threatens to keep us there for a couple of hours while the traffic police are called and tells us that the fine will be 300 Namibian dollars (just over ?20 / EUR 30), but when Roel puts 50 Namibian dollars on the counter and takes his driving licence back she just smiles and says goodbye.  We leave thinking we got off pretty lightly!  The drive to Swakopmund takes over four hours but luckily we see some pretty cool wildlife on the way (some antelope, a giraffe, an anteater and a jackal) which makes the time pass quickly.  We check into our hostel and head out for pizzas (which are massive - we have to finish them off for lunch the next day!) before making it an early night.

After a day exploring Swakopmund, Richard and Lizzy head out for a sunset horse ride in the eerie 'moon landscape' on the edge of the desert.  We all go out for dinner with two English guys we've met horse-riding, to a restaurant called Cape to Cairo recommended by the Lonely Planet.  Sadly the food's pretty disappointing - not much game on the menu and what we order is overcooked.  Never mind - you win some, you lose some.  We finish the evening with a couple of beers at the bar upstairs, though Richard stays on with the English guys and makes it a pretty late one.  Surprisingly enough, he's not feeling that fantastic next morning when we set off to go sand-boarding.  Richard's opted to do 'standing-up' sand-boarding (much like snow-boarding), which actually turns out to be very difficult unless you've been snow-boarding before (he hasn't), whereas we've gone for the (less technically-demanding though arguably more scary) 'lying-down' version, which involves pelting headfirst down massive dunes at speeds of up to 75 km per hour with only a thin piece of board separating your stomach (and other sensitive areas) from the ground.  Loads of fun!  That evening is a sand-boarding reunion as we all gather (in the same bar we went to the night before) to watch the DVD of all our hilarious wipeouts (which, surprisingly, is included in the 200 Namib dollar price - 3 hrs sand-boarding, a sandwich lunch and a DVD for less than ?15 has to be a bargain!).  After several beers on an empty stomach, we manage to drag ourselves away for an amazing seafood meal at Ocean Basket (apparently this is a (South African?) chain - visit one if you can!) with a South African guy we met sand-boarding, which totally makes up for Cape to Cairo the night before!

We head north from Swakopmund up the Skeleton Coast, saying farewell to sealed roads for the next week!  Initially the coastline is pretty dull and despite our usual enthusiasm for flat desert landscapes (we love the Nullarbor in Australia) we have to admit it's pretty bleak, especially as (unlike the rest of Namibia which is totally cloudless) this coast is perpetually shrouded in foggy cloud (something to do with the cold Atlantic waters meeting the hot arid land mass, apparently).  We stop for the Cape Cross seal colony, where the sheer number of seals has to be seen to be believed.  It's pretty stinky, too, though not as bad as we were expecting from other travellers' accounts (maybe we have stronger stomachs than most or maybe we've just been lucky with the wind direction) - still, not somewhere we fancy lingering for lunch.  Heading north, we look for somewhere to bush camp - the official fishermen's campsites along the coast are all pretty bleak and we've been told it's better just to drive a little inland behind a hill / big dune - but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much shelter from the piercing wind.  We decide to press on through the Skeleton Coast National Park and immediately we enter the park the landscape gets more beautiful - huge dune-like hills covered in small stones glitter in the sun and create exactly the kind of eerie bleakness we love.  We have to keep going as you're not allowed to camp in the park (the one campsite is only open in December and January) and the sun's getting low in the sky as we leave the park and head for Aba-Huab, the community campsite where we'd planned to stay the following night and meet Wilfrid.

Next day we visit the rock engravings at Twyfelfontein, a few kilometres from Aba-Huab, which turn out to be more impressive than we expected.  Also, the entry fee includes a local guide, which gives us a chance to chat to a local girl from the Damara tribe as we wander round.  We also attempt to visit the 'Petrified Forest' but when we turn off the road at the sign we can see that this is a pretty amateurish attraction.  Richard takes a (roughly three minute) guided tour to see what it's all about and it rapidly becomes clear that this isn't the real petrified forest mentioned in our guide books - there's only one tree!  Out of curiosity we continue down the road and after another 'fake' petrified forest we finally come to the real one, but we decide that it's not worth having a look - Richard was the one who was really keen and he's already seen one petrified tree now anyway.

We're a bit puzzled when Wilfrid doesn't turn up at the campsite, so we give him a call.  Turns out he's decided to give Aba-Huab a miss as he's been there before and is heading straight to Ongongo, where we'd planned to go tomorrow.  It's a shame we didn't get his text as we could have headed up there to meet him today, but never mind.  We get to this pretty community campsite without a hitch the next day, to find that he hasn't made it there either!  We have a few minutes of wondering what he thinks he's playing at, but soon enough he arrives.  After speaking to Roel after dark last night, he decided not to press on and spent the night at a campsite on the way.  He's had an eventful day getting to Ongongo - first he had a puncture and then spent a couple of hours walking to a hot spring only to find he'd passed it without seeing it in the first five minutes (looking for a clear hot spring he failed to notice that the spring was actually the murky pool of rubbish he was passing)!  From that point on, his day takes a turn for the better, as we all go swimming in the clear water pool under Ongongo's (warm!) waterfall and then barbecue homemade hamburgers for dinner - yum!

It's a stiff drive the next day, along some of the worst, most corrugated roads we've seen so far.  We stop for fuel and groceries at Sesfontein and while outside the grocery shop Roel suddenly notices that the rear left tyre is slowly deflating.  After about 70,000 kilometres (c.44,000 miles) we have our first puncture!  Roel quickly drives to a tyre repair shop 200m up the road before the tyre is totally flat, where we get the tyre fixed up.  Although we've got two brand new tyres with us, we know the roads over the next few days are going to be stony and rough, so we'd rather keep the old tyres on until we get back onto tar.  And anyway, we need to get the tyre fixed so we have two usable spares for the remote areas we'll be going through.  From Sesfontein, the road is, if possible, even worse.  We take a detour to look for a waterfall which we never manage to find - a tip from the same people who told Wilfrid about the hot spring - and Wilfrid gets a puncture.  We arrive in Purros in the late afternoon and spend a somewhat frustrating couple of hours getting the tyre fixed (when we finally found the guy who claimed to run the tyre repair shop he behaved as if he'd never fixed a tyre before - Wilfrid and Roel ended up doing most of it themselves!).  Finally, at dusk, we arrive at the Purros community campsite - a beautiful site where each camping site has its own fire place, sink, rustic bathroom and toilet.  Dinner is kudu fillet roasted over the fire, with baked potatoes, green beans and red wine - a relaxing end to a stressful day.

Next morning we get up early (when it's barely light and still really cold - Richard is the only one who braves the (cold) shower) as we've heard that the roads will be even worse and we're aiming to get to Opuwo, the 'capital' of the remote Kaokoveld area.  The giraffe feeding 100m from our camp is pretty surprised to see us, though we see no signs of the elephants for which the campsite is famous.  After a quick breakfast, we're on our way and we're surprised to find that the roads aren't as bad as yesterday.  Soon we start to see the first Himba people, who live in the Kaokoveld - easily recognisable by the fact that they hardly wear any clothes and coat their bodies and hair with clay and henna.  The women in particular look very striking, as they are topless and covered in henna, with heavy braids coated with clay and short leather skirts with many ruffles at the back.  In the more remote mountainous terrain we drive through in the first part of the day people seem genuine and friendly, but as we get near Opuwo everyone we pass is waving to us to stop and pay them for a photo.  We reach Opuwo early in the afternoon and set up camp at a campsite run by an entertaining French guy.

After attempting (and in all cases failing - even Roel!) to finish a huge plate of gallettes (a sort of potato omelette - very solid), we set off north towards Epupa Falls.  Again, the people near to Opuwo are very insistent about us stopping to take a photo (we oblige once and hand out lots of biscuits) but this eases off as we get up to Epupa.  The falls are truly amazing and the deafening noise is constantly in the background as we set up our camp next to the river.  It's strange to think that the other side of the river is Angola - tantalisingly close but it's much too difficult and expensive to get a visa for a quick trip.  While Richard goes off for a walk, I take the opportunity to make a lemon pudding as a surprise for his birthday the next day - no doubt the passengers and crew of the Nomad overland truck I hide out next to think I'm mad, but I'm not taking any chances of him coming back and finding me up to my elbows in lemon juice and condensed milk.

Next day we have a special extended breakfast in honour of the birthday and Roel and I give Richard our present - a wood carving we have bought from a local Himba woman.  We are aiming to get to Kunene River Lodge for the night, which is about 70km east along the river.  However, we've been warned that the road along the river is in terrible condition (one woman said it took her three-and-a-half days last year) so we retrace our steps to the turnoff from the main road and the journey only takes a couple of hours.  We later hear that the river road wasn't that bad and would only have taken about 6 hours, but it is nice to arrive and set up camp early enough to enjoy the resort.  Richard and I take an hour's boat trip along the river - pretty scenic although we didn't see any of the crocodiles that are supposed to live in the river.  Meanwhile Roel has a busy hour finishing off the lemon pudding - whipping the cream with a fork and grating the chocolate with a knife!  After a lovely meal at the lodge restaurant overlooking the river we retire to our own camp fire where the lemon pudding is a great success.

This time we do take the road along the river, which isn't that bad as dirt roads go, though we don't exactly mind when we hit the sealed road 20km before Ruacana.  We now enter a part of Namibia that's completely unlike any other we've seen yet - there are people, cattle and goats absolutely everywhere!  This is Owamboland, home of Namibia's largest tribal grouping, the Owambo people, who are subsistence farmers.  People generally seem very friendly and wave a lot as we pass.  Perhaps they don't see as many tourists as the Himba people, who attract tourists because of their unusual style of dress and seemingly primitive lifestyle.  After passing through several big towns and numerous villages, we cross the veterinary fence that marks the boundary between the northern subsistence farmers and the large farms in the south which raise animals to export their meat.  Suddenly there are no people anywhere!  As one of our guide books puts it, this is the boundary between developed white Africa and the developing world.  It's so deserted that it's easy to bush camp for the night just outside Etosha National Park.

In the morning, Wilfrid heads off - he's been to Etosha before and his goal now is to get to Windhoek, get some things done to his Land Cruiser and get down to see Cape Town before meeting us in Botswana in a few weeks' time.  The rest of us drive into Etosha.  We've tried to book campsite accommodation, only to be told that everything is full.  Still, we try asking at the first restcamp, Namutoni, whether there have been any cancellations at any of the camps, only to get a resounding 'no'.  We head on to visit some of the waterholes anyway - if we can't stay the night at least we'll see something during the day.  We soon start to see lots of wildlife - giraffe, kudu, oryx (known in Southern Africa as gemsbok), springbok, jackals and warthogs to name a few. At one point there are a couple of elephant close to the road.  Some of the waterholes are absolutely teeming with wildlife and we watch, fascinated, for ages.  At one waterhole, a Namibian family tell us that there are lions and show us where to look - about 6 females are lazing under some trees not far from the waterhole where many antelope are drinking totally unawares.  At the second restcamp, Halali, we try a different approach - Roel simply walks onto the campsite and asks a couple (who turn out to be Dutch!) whether it would be OK if we shared their site.  They agree, we pay for three extra people on their booking (each site is for up to 8 people) at the office and give them some money for the site fee and everyone's happy.  The campsite isn't full at all, as it turns out - several sites are completely unoccupied.  In the evening we see lots of elephant (more than 30 at one point), several rhino, jackals and a hyena at the camp's waterhole - fantastic.

The wildlife the next day is equally good - we manage to spot some lions under a tree at a waterhole by ourselves, which we're quite proud of.  Camping is more problematic, though - we want to stay at the third restcamp, Okaukuejo, as they often have lions at the waterhole in the evening, but of course it's full.  We strike the same deal about sharing a site with a South African couple, but the office say that they're not allowed to add extra people to the booking as they have limits on the total number of people which don't correspond to the 8 person limit on each site.  The campsite seems half-empty but there's nothing we can do - there's a guard at the entrance who wants to see our receipt before he'll let us on.  We go back to visit the waterhole and tell the South Africans, who are disgusted with the office as they specifically asked when they booked if they could add an extra person when they were here and were told that it would be fine!  Oh well.  We decide that we've seen plenty anyway, so rather than camping outside the park and coming back in tomorrow we'll just head straight to our next stop, the town of Tsumeb.

We arrive at the friendly Mousebird backpackers just after dark and set up camp.  Next day is Richard's last with us so, while Roel goes off to have a couple of repairs done to the Landy after the bad roads in Kaokoland (both rear wheel-bearings needed to be adjusted and a cracked brake-disc protection plate welded) and wash off all the dust it has accumulated, Richard and I take a wander around town.  In the evening, Richard treats us all to dinner and then we say farewell before he heads off to Windhoek on the overnight bus.  It's been a fun couple of weeks travelling with Richard and Wilfrid, but now it's just us and the Landy again.

The border officials are friendly (especially when we give one of them our half-used Namibian phonecard!), the procedure goes smoothly and very soon we are in a new country, Botswana.  We drive south, along the western side of the Okavango Delta, and plan to stop for the night at Sepupa Swamp Stop and try to organise a trip in a mokoro (a hollowed-out wooden boat, propelled by a single, standing poler - reminiscent of the punts popular with Oxford and Cambridge students).  Unfortunately, when we reach Sepupa, the Swamp Stop seems to be undergoing major works and we are a bit shocked by the proposed charge of 66 pula (roughly ?5.50 or 8 euros - a lot more than we ever paid for camping in Namibia) per person to camp in the middle of what is basically a building site.  There's nowhere else to stay around Sepupa and, as we'd been hoping to leave the Landy at the Swamp Stop during our mokoro trip, we radically rethink our plans and head on to Maun, the main tourist centre for the Okavango Delta.

After a night bush-camping close to the road (and listening to donkeys grazing close to our camp), we arrive in Maun in time for a delicious lunch at Hillary's Caf828the homemade brown bread is amazing, light and fluffy and slightly sweet).  The many kilometres of bumpy, dusty roads have taken their toll on the Landy's CD player, which has decided that it won't play MP3s any more - a bit of a pain as that's all the music we have with us - so we treat ourselves to a new CD/MP3 player.  At 900 pula (approx ?75 or 115 euros) it's a big chunk out of our budget, but the prospect of driving the whole way back to Europe without music just doesn't bear contemplating!

We're expecting to be in Maun for a week and meet Wilfrid (whom we travelled with in Namibia) at the weekend so we can travel north together.  We check in at Audi Camp, a well known spot for overlanders to stay.  The facilities are good but the camping area is disappointingly dusty and the whole place is a bit lacking in atmosphere, so after a night there we decide to check out Maun's only backpackers' hostel, The Bridge, instead.  Instantly on arrival we can tell that this place has loads of atmosphere - we're welcomed by the owners, David and Helene, and invited on a boat trip into the delta that afternoon to watch the full moon rise.  We don't see much wildlife in the delta, but the scenery is beautiful and the moonrise spectacular.  Talking to fellow passengers who've just done a mokoro trip, we decide to save our money as it's not that different from the view of the delta we're getting from the boat.

In our week at The Bridge, we get to know many of the local ex-pats who frequent its relaxed bar and are encouraged to get into some pretty unhealthy drinking habits...  We do manage to fit in a sunset scenic flight over the delta, which is beautiful, in between social engagements with our hospitable new friends.  Finally, on Sunday, we say farewell and drag ourselves away, driving north to Moremi Wildlife Reserve, on the eastern edge of the delta.  Wilfrid has sent a message to say that he's stuck in Cape Town having work done on his Landcruiser, so we head on alone, hoping he'll catch us up later.

In Moremi and Chobe National Park, we again encounter the nonsensical booking policy of national parks in this part of the world.  At the National Parks office in Maun, we could only reserve a spot (supposedly the last one available) at Moremi's South Gate campsite, as all the other sites in Moremi and Chobe were fully booked.  However, arriving at the South Gate, we are told that there's no water at the South Gate campsite (which is totally empty and looks as though it hasn't been used for a long time) and the man says we can go to one of the other campsites instead.  Choosing North Gate, as this is recommended in our Bradt guide and lies on our intended route north, we arrive there to find that it's half empty, too.  The problem seems to be that sites are booked out a year in advance and, as the cost of camping is relatively low, tour guides make copious bookings they know they'll never use, just to be sure of getting a site when they do have a tour group.  Camping fees are paid in advance and you don't get any refund if you cancel, so surprisingly enough nobody phones up to cancel.  A couple we meet at Moremi cynically suggest that tour guides also book the sites out to make it harder for independent travellers to visit the parks and force them to take a tour instead...

Anyway, now we've finally got a site, the campsite at North Gate turns out to be in a great spot.  It's in mature woodlands right next to the river and we can hear the hippos grunting all the time.  Although we know they can be quite dangerous, their grunts sound very jovial, almost as though they are chuckling to themselves!  Just before sunset troops of baboons and vervet monkeys wander around the campsite and the monkeys climb into the branches that overhang our site for get a closer look at what we're cooking!  In the evening shadows, we spot a hyena walking through the campsite and in the night we hear elephants crashing through the trees near our tent to get down to the river!  Next morning, a game drive in the park lets us get up close to lots of impalas and hippos and, taking the scenic route along the river towards Chobe, we pass herds of waterbuck (and, of course, impala - they are everywhere!) and several elephants grazing and taking baths in the river.  One group of three elephants gives us a bit of a scare.  We round a bend to find them having a mudbath very close to the road and, although we stop the Landy as soon as we see them, they seem quite upset by our sudden appearance.  One heads towards us shaking his head and flapping his ears - having heard stories about elephants attacking cars we are taking no chances so Roel slips the Landy into reverse and we retreat round the corner until we see that they have crossed to the other side of the river!

On the way to Chobe, we're very grateful for the GPS waypoints in the Bradt guide (lent to us by Dan and Amy - thanks guys!) as the signposts are pretty much non-existent and there are lots of tracks going off in different directions.  After we leave the river, we don't see much wildlife and the southern section of Chobe seems quite dry and barren.  Again we manage to secure a campsite on entering the park even though all sites are officially 'full' and the campsite at Savuti turns out to be very pleasant (and half-empty, of course).  There's not much water in the Savuti area, though, and the wildlife is definitely harder to spot.  Apart from a solitary elephant and some antelope we don't see much.  The rocky hills, or 'kopjes', near the campsite are supposed to be a perfect habitat for leopard, but we can't spot one.  We come away thinking that Savuti is one area you need an experienced guide to get the most out of.

Driving north, through Chobe Forest Reserve into the northern section of Chobe National Park, the GPS waypoints come in handy again.  In Maun several safari guides warned us about the 'terrible' roads through Moremi and Chobe, but we actually don't find them that much of a challenge except for the navigation.  True, there's some soft sand but the Landy makes light work of that and it's not as difficult as the beach driving we've done in Australia.  We come to the conclusion that the safari guides might have been exaggerating a bit to impress us... 

In the Forest Reserve we start to see clouds of smoke on the horizon and soon we are driving through increasingly dense smoke as a forest fire is raging on the left side of the road.  It's quite frightening to be so close to a fire which is clearly completely out of control.  Worried that the fire has spread across the road, we consider turning round, but the sand road turns out to be broad enough to act as a fire break.  We continue to pass alternately burning and smouldering bush for kilometres to come, so the fire has obviously devastated a huge area of bush.  Luckily this area seems to be uninhabited (by humans, at least - we come across one stunned-looking impala standing in the middle of the road and can't help wondering how many animals have lost their homes) - the National Park is set aside for the wildlife (and the tourist income that generates) but there are quite a few villages in the Forest Reserve which is separated from the park so that local people can continue to use some of the Chobe area.

The northern section of Chobe National Park is quite unlike the Savuti area, as it focuses on the broad, winding Chobe river, which attracts huge herds of animals.  We spot some beautiful sable antelope, which are quite rare, and see herds of elephants that easily number into the hundreds.  The animals are free to cross the river and watching the elephants crossing one by one (at the deepest point all you can see of the baby elephants is the tips of their trunks, held out of the water so they can breathe) is one of the highlights of visiting Chobe for us.

We spend our last night in Botswana just outside Kasane, at a campsite mainly used by overland trucks.  The border formalities to leave Botswana at Kazungula are straightforward and uneventful and soon we are waiting for the barge to take us to Zambia.  We are lucky enough to get on the first barge that comes (jumping the long queue of trucks that are waiting - the barge is so small that it can only take one truck and one car) and as we cross the water we can see the meeting of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers (which separate Botswana from Namibia and Namibia from Zambia, respectively) to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.  Driving ashore in Zambia, we recognise a British Land Rover waiting to cross the other way - it's Andrew and Jaye, whom we've been in touch with by email and were hoping to bump into somewhere on their way south.  We chat for half an hour and exchange our (very few) remaining pula for their Zambian kwacha before going our separate ways to complete our border crossing.  We have a stroke of luck at the immigration desk when it turns out that Irish passport holders don't have to pay for a visa - Dutch citizens are charged $25, which isn't too bad considering that Brits have to fork out $65...

Even with a stop on the way to swap the water jerrycans on the roof and the diesel jerrycans concealed in the back of the Landy back to their rightful places (we'd heard of people having problems taking fuel into Zambia, where it's a lot more expensive than in Botswana - in the event, no-one at the border even looked at our car), it doesn't take long to get to Livingstone.  We stop for a sandwich and, for the first time on our trip, manage to lock the keys inside the Landy - oops.  Luckily we have concealed a spare key under the Landy for just such an emergency, though retrieving it requires the loan of a kitchen knife from the sandwich shop and leaves Roel looking like he hasn't washed for weeks.

Before choosing somewhere to stay, we decide to check out the main attraction round these parts, Victoria Falls.  Even though the water level's fairly low as it's the dry season, they are a pretty impressive sight - the widest and longest falls either of us have ever seen.  The humidity skyrockets as we get closer to the falls and it's a strange experience to be walking along in bright sunshine and light rain at the same time!  We can see by the amount of water vapour at the far end of the falls that they must be even more impressive on the Zimbabwean side, but we can't really justify spending another $55 each on a visa plus $20 each on national park fees to see if this is true.

We decide to stay at Jollyboys, a hostel in the centre of town, which is both the cheapest option for camping and the most central.  We immediately book to go white-water rafting on the Zambezi river the next day, which we've been looking forward to for quite a while.  The trip doesn't disappoint - starting from just beneath Victoria Falls, we cover about 23 rapids in the course of the day.  The rapids before lunch are pretty hair-raising, with quite a few of them being class 5 (the most difficult rapids used for commercial rafting) or 4 plus.  Roel and a South African guy in our raft, Rowan, both fall out at the second rapid (which they seem to quite enjoy) and the whole raft capsizes once (which I definitely don't enjoy!).  The afternoon is a bit less dramatic (though Roel still manages to fall out once) and we all jump out and float through one of the (less difficult) rapids, which is fun though I can't quite shake my irrational fear that the next wave is going to drown me...  The whole day is lots of fun and we meet some great people including South Africans Rowan and Candice, who are also driving a 4WD around Southern Africa.  At Jollyboys we meet Mark, an English guy riding a motorcycle back to Europe through Africa, taking a similar route to ours - hopefully we'll see him again somewhere else along the way.

En route to the capital, Lusaka, a hornet flies in the car window while we're driving and stings me on the cheek - ouch!  After the pain has subsided, I'm left with a ridiculously swollen cheek and have to go round looking quite lop-sided for a couple of days.  Not very attractive.  Lusaka itself seems like a pleasant enough city and has some well-stocked shops (mostly frequented by expats, as far as we can see) in trendy out of town shopping centres.  We don't linger long, though, heading east to Chipata the next day.  It's a long day and the quality of the road is pretty awful in places - lots of potholes to dodge around.  At dusk we arrive at Dean's Hilltop Lodge in Chipata, a pleasant spot where we meet some nice fellow travellers and the friendly English owner, Dean.  He has built himself a fantastic house from local materials but in the style of an Elizabethan manor house, complete with thatched roof!

The road from Chipata to South Luangwa National Park is truly horrendous - so corrugated that we end up driving with one wheel in the ditch most of the way to avoid the worst of the bumps.  Exhausted, we arrive at Flatdogs camp, just outside the park boundary, which, at $10 each per night, is one of the most expensive places we've camped so far in Africa.  The camp has a great location on the river, though, with the odd elephant or giraffe wandering through by day and large numbers of animals (judging by the sounds and footprints) by night.  It also runs night safaris into the park and we are lucky enough to spot a lioness and her cub close by on one of these.  Sadly we don't manage to see a leopard, which we'd been hoping for, but it's a great experience none the less.  Driving the Landy in the park during the day we see a good selection of wildlife, too, including two elephants having a fight (luckily at a safe distance!).

After traversing the horrible road back to Chipata, it's a short drive on good tar to the border with Malawi, where again the formalities go smoothly and soon we're in a new country!

As soon as we cross the border, we notice that people seem much friendlier in Malawi - unlike the Zambians who generally just stared, many of them smile and wave as we pass.  This area seems quite prosperous as the houses are mainly of brick, rather than the simple mud houses that were the norm over the border in Zambia.  This may be because we are fairly close to the capital, Lilongwe, though - in other parts of Malawi we see more evidence of poverty than anywhere else we've been in Africa.  We are also struck by the proliferation of coffin workshops along the roadside - sadly, this reminder of the high mortality rate (mainly due to AIDS) is something we will continue to notice throughout our time in Malawi.

Lilongwe has a strange layout, with a purpose-built and fairly soulless administrative centre several kilometres away from the more vibrant old town.  We stay at Mabuya Camp, in the old town, which turns out to be run by an English couple, Tom and Janey, who also did an overland trip in a converted Unimog, finishing their trip by buying this campsite and settling in Malawi.  They are very welcoming and we have a sociable few days with Aussie traveller John, whom we met in Windhoek, and two couples doing overland trips - Chris and Jackie from England in their Range Rover and Magnus and Marie from Sweden on Honda motorbikes.

From Lilongwe, Senga Bay, on Lake Malawi, is a few hours' drive and a world away.  This massive fresh water lake really looks and sounds like the sea, so it's a quite a shock to dive in and discover that it doesn't taste of salt.  The beach is incredibly busy with local people swimming, paddling and washing in the lake.  From the water, the guesthouse where we're camping looks like a green oasis - with an unlimited supply of fresh water the staff have really gone to town on watering the garden.  It's amazing to camp on lush green grass for a change - we could almost be on a European campsite!

Further up the lake, we find another idyllic spot at Kande Beach, a resort which primarily caters for the organised overland truck trips that run between South Africa, Livingstone and Nairobi.  The English owner, Dave, is a former overland truck driver and entertains us for hours with stories from the good old days when overland trucks would set out from the UK with a cargo of passengers prepared for adventure and only a sketchy idea of their route - during the trip a formerly safe country could turn into a war zone, so there was no point having a fixed route and schedule.  Sadly, this kind of overland trip is pretty rare nowadays - the overland trucks we see are all doing short routes through the safer southern and eastern African countries and the clientele (predominantly young Brits, Antipodeans and North Americans) seem more interested in getting drunk together than in any aspect of the countries they pass through.  Several we've spoken to have even had trouble remembering which countries they've been to!

On our last morning at Kande Beach, Roel wakes up feeling nauseous and weak.  We drive on to Nkhata Bay, as planned, but don't find anywhere to camp that takes our fancy so we go on to the district capital, Mzuzu.  Roel still feels strange and has no appetite when we get there and, spotting a private medical centre, we call in for a malaria test, just in case.  The test turns out to be positive, though he only has stage one plus (on a scale of one plus to four plus).  The doctor prescribes quinine and Roel starts taking this immediately, thankful that we've identified the disease so early.  Although I don't have any symptoms, I get myself tested as well, but this comes back negative, which is a relief.  Meanwhile, we've managed (in the supermarket!) to run into Markus and Belinda (www.2xperience.nl), a Dutch couple doing an overland trip whom we've been in touch with for a while and were hoping to meet up with in Malawi.  We camp for a couple of nights with them at a hostel in Mzuzu and have a pleasant time swapping stories and relaxing together.  Roel is not feeling too bad, although the quinine has the unpleasant side-effect of producing a constant ringing noise in his ears.  Apart from this, and feeling a bit weak, he seems to be fine.

After two nights, we say farewell to Markus and Belinda, who are heading south, and drive north to Livingstonia, a village founded by Scottish missionaries high in the hills overlooking Lake Malawi.  On the twisty road approaching Livingstonia, we round a bend and come face to face with Mark, the English biker we'd met in Livingstone, Zambia - we thought we'd see him again somewhere!  He's staying at Chitimba, down on the lake, and after a quick look round the old mission buildings in Livingstonia and a pleasant lunch overlooking the lake we too descend to the lake edge and check in to the same campsite.  This turns out to be run by two Dutch couples and one couple are from Panningen, 5 km from Roel's home village of Sevenum in the Netherlands!  They make us feel very welcome and we have a pleasant evening in the bar.

Next morning, it's my turn to feel nauseous, headachy and weak.  By now, we know what this means so we pack up and head to Karonga, the next big town, to have it checked out.  We are directed to the district hospital, which gives us an insight into public healthcare in Malawi.  The place is a maze of unlit corridors and everywhere you look people are sitting on the floor patiently waiting, many of them with young children in their arms.  We don't understand the system and in the room labelled registration there are lots of people waiting but no sign of anywhere to register.  Finally a doctor tells us to go to the laboratory and just ask there for a malaria test.  Embarrassingly, when we ask at the lab door we are taken straight in and I am given a seat instead of being tested at the door like everyone else.  I think about saying that I want to wait my turn, but I feel so rotten that I can't bear to delay getting treatment by asking to join the fifty or so people waiting outside.  So much for principles - now that I'm ill and scared all I can think about is getting the right treatment as soon as possible.

The test is, of course, positive and we are told to take the piece of paper with the result and register so that we can see a doctor.  Back at registration, there's still nothing happening - when we ask someone what to do, they tell us to go behind a curtain at one side of the room, but we hesitate to do this as another patient seems to be in there talking to a doctor.  We look round for the doctor who helped us before to see if he can tell us what to do and end up speaking to another doctor instead, who jots something down on the back of my test result and tells us to go to room 3.  We take a seat outside room 3, where a few other people are already waiting, but when we read the sign on the door it says that the surgery in this room doesn't start for 3 hours.  Just then, one of the lab technicians passes and Roel asks him if we're in the right place.  He immediately goes into room 3 and speaks to the doctor, who is there and in the middle of seeing another patient.  The other patient leaves (hopefully she's finished - or has she just been thrown out to make way for the white people?) and the lab technician beckons to us to come in.  By now, I'm feeling thoroughly guilty for jumping every queue, but no-one else seems to find it strange, so I go in and just try not to take up too much of the doctor's time.  He doesn't seem to recognise the test result I put down in front of him because when I tell him I've got malaria he says I need to get a test.  Once I convince him that I've had one and all I need is a prescription and I'll leave him to get on with his other patients, he scrawls a prescription for quinine and paracetamol (to keep my temperature down) on the back of my test result and I thank him and get out as quickly as I can.

We head for the door labelled pharmacy but on the way the lab technician guy points out the dispensary window instead, so we join the queue there.  A double dose of queuing there alleviates my conscience a bit - the lab technician forgot to tell us that we had to register at a nearby desk so the first time we get to the window we are turned away.  Second time lucky, we come away with two plastic bags of 30 quinine tablets and 30 paracetamol.  And all this for free.  As I swallow my first dose of tablets I feel relieved and hugely grateful to the Malawian health service, though I also resolve that next time either of us gets ill I'll make sure we go to a private clinic and pay, so that we're not putting any extra strain on the limited public resources.  I can't help wondering how long it would have taken to get treatment if we'd understood and followed the proper procedure - judging by the number of people patiently waiting at every stage, it would definitely have been a matter of several hours, if not days.  I try hard not to think about how many sick adults and children have had to wait longer for essential treatment because we were given priority.

The campsite in Karonga doesn't look too appealing, so we drive the 70km back to Chitimba, where I spend the next two days on a sofa in the bar area, alternately sleeping and reading, while Roel chats to the friendly owners and fellow guests.  By Saturday I'm feeling a bit more with it, though the ringing in my ears makes me feel quite spaced-out and embarrassingly deaf, and we set off for the Tanzanian border as planned.  We've arranged to stay with Roel's friend Hans at his home in southern Tanzania for a few days from Saturday evening.  The border is uneventful and the free visa for Irish citizens is (again) a pleasant surprise (that makes a total saving of $75 so far - it's definitely good to be Irish!).