Week XII

The week after the Easter break started slightly chaotic since it started on a Tuesday and not on a Monday as usual. The children still needed some time to get used to school again after a 10 day holiday and frankly, so did we. By Thursday however routine had us back. The school days went by normally again and in the afternoons we went grocery shopping and to the gym like always. It is weird to think that all of this will be over next week.

On Saturday we visited the Crocodile Ranch again this time with our new fellow volunteer. It is nice symmetry considering we went there on our first weekend and now we were back on our last. This time we even got to hold a baby crocodile. The feeding was still fascinating and you could imagine very well that they are related to dinosaurs.

In the evening we had a very nice farewell dinner with our boss at Frans Indongo Lodge which is a beautiful lodge looking out over farmland full of game. The food was quite expensive (but only for Namibian standards) but good and we had a wonderful evening.

More pictures will follow as soon as I get them.

It is Tuesday now. In just two days time I will already be in an airplane leaving for Germany. It all seems so unreal. The next post will therefore be from home. I will miss the life and the people here so much and hope to come back one day.

Week X and Week XI

As you know Week XI was spent traveling so the only reason I mention it in the title is for reasons of completeness.

Week X was the last week before Easter break and consequently both children and instructors were looking forward to some free time. After two and a half months of school the holidays were dearly needed. This week we spent preparing for Easter. We colored Easter pictures and blew eggs (which was not quite as easy as we expected). All in all this week was exhausting but definitely nice, too. My fellow volunteer and I left for Windhoek on Thursday since our tour bus would leave early Friday morning from Windhoek. To hear the other’s tell it Friday’s Easter celebrations were even more chaotic than the rest of the week but also a lot of fun.

Tour VII

Day VIII – Drive home

Trip: Vic Falls, Zimbabwe to Otjiwarongo, Namibia (1180 km)

Notes: After breakfast in the lodge we started our trip home. We had booked an Intercape bus to take us there. To avoid paying 50 US$ for a Zambia Visa we took a taxi back to Botswana and from there to the Namibian border where we took another taxi to Katima Mulilo where we finally met up with the bus – which was 1 hour late naturally. All in all the taxis costed us about 17 US$ (paid in three different currencies). The bus was a regular overland bus not unlike FlixBus in Germany that drove us reliably home. It was half past four am when we finally arrived in Otjiwarongo tired but happy to sleep in our beds. A word of warning though to all potential Intercape travelers. Bring a warm blanket with you, the AC is set to freezing temperatures beyond reason.

Tour VI

Day VII

Trip: Kasane, Botswana to Vic Falls (80 km)

Lodge: A’Zambezi River Lodge (http://www.hotelsone.com/victoria-falls-hotels-zw/a-zambezi-river-lodge.de.html?cur=USD&as=g&aid=91678475438&dsti=175619&dstt=8&label=bh175619&gclid=CN2I7Omw5ssCFQ0SGwodJDENLA&akw=a%27zambezi%20river%20lodge%20victoria%20falls&asrc=Search&ast=_a%27zambezi%20river%20lodge%20victoria%20falls)

Activities: Victoria Falls, Bridge

Notes: Today we had an early start since the Zimbabwean border takes notoriously long to cross. Our guide however told us that we made the fastest crossing he ever experienced. With two stamps and a visa more we first went to see the Falls. And they were definitely breathtaking. It is hard to explain the feeling of standing at the edge of a canyon watching a river pour with immeasurable power down into the gorges below and being drenched in mist from the waterfalls. The time went by too quickly. I could have spent hours looking at this raw natural beauty and my heart ached to leave. We arrived at another wonderful lodge wet but happy. As a hotel employee told us: “If you haven’t been babtized it doesn’t count.” After a shower and a change of clothes we had the chance to see the falls once more from the bridge connecting Zimbabwe to Zambia. In the evening we had our farewell dinner which was filled with good food and emotional goodbyes. The troupe had become fast friends and continuing on without them seemed strange. Thankfully we won’t immediately lose sight of each other thanks to modern media.

Tour V

Day VI

Trip: Nata to Kasane (315 km)

Lodge: Thebe River Lodge (http://theberiversafaris.com/)

Activities: Chobe River Cruise

Notes: After an eventful drive where we saw giraffes, ostriches and elephants close to the truck we arrived in Kasane, a city close to the Zimbabwean border. We had a little time to get our bearings, eat lunch and shop in a supermarket and then we were presented with the next event: the Chobe National Park Boat Cruise. This cruise was fascinating in many ways. For one we had the opportunity to see countless animals in their natural habitats such as baboons, buffalos, elephants, crocodiles and hippos. The nature in and off itself was also amazingly beautiful and all was completed with yet another lovely sunset.

 

 

Tour IV

Day V

Trip: Maun to Nata (230 km)

Lodge: Nata Lodge (http://underonebotswanasky.com/camps/nata-lodge.php)

Aktivities: Visit to Nata pans

Notes: Off we were to the beautiful Nata Lodge, where a chalet was bigger than my flat at home. Today’s activity took us to the Nata pans which used to be a lake but are now overgrown with grass with little lakes in the rain season. Pelicans, flamingoes and other birds come here to breed – although we were too early and saw none – and wildebeest hide here from predators. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset near a newly formed lake which looked like an ocean and had an early night.

Tour III

Day II – Day IV

Trip: Ghanzi to Maun (350 km)

Lodge: Sitatunga (https://deltarain.com/index553d.html?page=sitatunga-camp)

Activities: Pool, town, bushwalk

Notes: While most took a trip into the heart of the Okavango Delta, four others and I stayed at our camp for 3 nights. There we had the chance to relax by the pool, shop in town or take a walk through the bush. Or use the internet of course which we appreciated greatly. After an exhausting last school week I was happy to sit around doing nothing much, reading and bonding with the others.

Tour II

Our decision to book a tour and not drive around ourselves has been a great one as it relieved us of a lot of stress. Nomad drove us around in an adventure truck that not only held all of us and our luggage but also food and everything needed to prepare it. The truck is robust and reasonably comfortable. The company including our guide and cook was very good. I will in following present the days in the same manner for a better overview.

Day I

Trip: from Windhoek, Namibia to Ghanzi, Botswana (530km)

Lodge: Ghanzi Trail Blazers (http://ghanzitrailblazers.co.bw/ghanzi-content.php?id=2)

Activities: Bushmen Tribal Dance

Notes: The trip was long, but pleasant. There were zero complications at the border and all of us gained two new stamps in our passports. The lodge only had electricity from 6 pm to 10 pm provided by a generator, but it was nice sleeping without electrical humming and just the sounds of the bush.

Tour I

Post “Week X” will follow as soon as we are back in Otjiwarongo.

Now we are on tour with Nomad. Our tour bus is called “Mike” and we have a cook and a driver who is also our guide. Our fellow travellers are mostly Germans, but we have a few from other European countries. The people are nice, the food is good and our lodges are comfortable and cute. This will probably be the only post on tour as we usually do not have WiFi.

Greetings from Botswana!

Week IX

This school week did not hold any surprises for us as routine settled in. The children are now used to the new groups and they work out just fine. The new volunteer has also gotten used to her work here and is supporting the therapy sessions which is very beneficial for the children. The afternoons were spent with trying to rent a car so we could actually do something else besides relaxing this weekend and after we pestered the local Avis representative enough we finally got a car on Friday.

Our first trip was on Saturday to the Cheetah Conservation Fund. About 90% of Namibian cheetahs live on commercial farmland. Farmars are not always happy about that since sometimes the cheetahs kill their livestock and in turn they kill the cheetahs. The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF – http://cheetah.org/) wants to educate the farmers on ways to keep their cattle safe that will not hurt the cheetahs and on the importance of keeping an endangered species from extinction. However the CCF not only works in education for farmers, schools and the public, but also in raising orphaned cheetah cubs. Cubs that are taken to CCF when they are very young sadly cannot be released into the wild again since they never learned the necessary skills to survive and are not wary enough of humans. Older cubs however are kept as wild as possible so that they can be released again. We learned so many things about cheetahs this day, for example that a cheetah needs to wait 20 minutes after a kill for his heart to slow down again before it can start eating. We also had the opportunity to watch a cheetah feeding and eat a nice lunch of our own. It was a wonderful, educational day that finished with us driving on the dirt road back to Otjiwarongo.

On Sunday we finally went to the Waterberg. We wanted to go there before, but somehow never made it. Now we had a car and packed backs and were ready to go. After a drive over another dirt road (nobody cares about little dents in the cars here, because you cannot avoid them) we reached the plateau which was breathtaking even from the foot of it. The climb up over rocks and roots was exciting and more than worth it, because if the plateau had been breathtaking from the bottom, the view was even more so. You could see so far and wide over green forests. As someone from densly populated Europe this sheer expanse of nature is incredible to see. We never wanted to leave. Maybe also because we knew that the hike back down would be a little more unpleasant than the hike up. We left eventually and as soon as we got home and were ready to turn the car back in it started raining heavily. Good timing.