Hello.

* Hello chaps, there's quite a few images in this update, and a video, so just give it a few minutes to load if you've got a slow connection


I'm back in Gaborone, after quite an eventful few weeks.

Since my last proper post in Zambia, mum and dad flew out to meet me. For some reason they couldn't take their rental vehicle into Zambia so I had to pick them up at the border. After spending a few days around the Livingstone area (and Victoria Falls), then headed into Namibia, staying at Katima Mulilo (the hotel was ...ok, but the food was appalling - that is the only time I've ever had a meal where the chips were tougher than the meat!) and Rundu (right on the Kovango River, which which operates as the border between Namibia and Angola. Dad and I were extremely tempted to nick a canoe and paddle over just to get another country on our lists. We didn't of course as that would be cheating...)

Then, after staying in the middle of nowhere (I can't remember specifically where), we spent 2 days in Etosha National Park (which I've been told is the largest National Park in the world...). Unfortunately we only saw the Eastern side of the park as we had little time on our hands. Then we headed for the coast, to Swakopmund!

Swakopmund was amazing! The road there was through the desert, and it became really difficult to concentrate on the road as you spent most of the time gobsmacked at the view. We were booked into a place called Brigadoon, and we expected just a normal hotel room. When we got there, it turned out to be a full apartment! 3 bedrooms, sofas, a DSTV box (Sky), and a kitchen!! And only 80 quid a night!! Not only that but it was right on the sea. Dad and I dumped our bags and took the 60 second walk to a brilliant sunset...





The next day (after waking up in a sandstorm) we took a drive down to Walvis Bay, the nearest town. Unfortunately we didn't get that far, as we encountered this:




Simply one of the best sights I've ever seen. Absolutely spectacular. That thing goes on for miles and miles and miles...

After this we headed to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Unfortunately Mum and Dad had to go back to Botswana to say goodbye to family, so we parted ways for a few days and I headed down to Keetmanshoop. The next day I had a bit of trouble getting over the border into South Africa. It turned out that despite asking for 30 days on my visa (which I always do, as a minimum in case anything goes wrong), the woman at Ngoma (Northern Namibian border post) had only given me 8. And This was the 9th day.

The immigrations fella (which playing on his phone) was telling me they had to "lock me up". Somehow, after an hour and a half of trying to talk my way out of this, with him pissing about on his phone, smiling arrogantly to his mate who was reading a womens magazine, he decided to let me go. Don't ask me why, perhaps he was just trying to show some authority or whatever, but I was free to go...

So then I stayed the night at the nearest town, Upington, whcih thankfully had a cinema. I paid 11 Rand (84p!!!!) to see Drag Me To Hell, a brilliant return to the Horror genre for Sam Raimi! The next day I headed to Rustenburg to meet up with ma and pa. After a 9 hour drive in which I could draw no money out with which to fill up my car, I rolled into Rustenburg at 8pm desperately trying to find a petrol station where I could spend my remaining 25 rand o fuel (about 2 quid).

After meeting up with the parents and having a horrible meal at the "hotel", dad and I went out to get some cash and to cut a very, very long story short, we had our credit cards cloned.

I've explained this a few times so I can't be bothered to repeat it now. Maybe another day...


So after the cloning, we immediately canceled the cards (luckily I have a spare one). The next day, we went into Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa. We didn't see much, except for a couple of White Rhino (very rare) and a Caracal (even rarer.)



The following day Mum and Dad were flying home in the evening, but in the morning, Richard was flying in. I picked him up from Jo'burg, then we met up with the parents for lunch at Magaliesberg, and later went back into Botswana. After a few days in Gabs, we went up north to Gweta, where Colin died :(.

Three weeks later I'm still waiting to find out if he can be fixed, so we'll see what happens. I don't want to relive that story....

It took 3 days to get Colin from Gweta, to Maun, only 200km away to get it looked at by a mechanic, and to find out that it had to be shipped to Gaborone, which would take more than a week.

So we rented a car from Budget. They originally wouldn't let us rent, because we only had debit cards, not credit cards. The solution from the Budget woman was to have someone (my old man) book it only with their credit card and the vehicle could be ours for the 3 weeks we needed. Unluckily, at that point, Dad was in the middle of a field in Cambridge putting up a tent. Fortunately, Dad takes his laptop everywhere. We got the rental online (at 4,000 pula less than the quote she gave us in person!) and the day after headed to Kasane.

We camped for one night at the Chobe Safari Lodge (about a fiver each), the next morning taking in a 3hr game drive in Chobe National Park. We saw some male lion and some vultures around a dead elephant, but that was about it. We moved to Mowana Lodge later for a bit of luxury, and had a sunset booze cruise in the evening. We saw a lot more there, including a hippo that came up literally a foot away from the boat!

The car company wouldn't let us take the vehicle into Zambia, Malawi or Mozambique (our planned route) so we had to go and do Namibia again (which was no problem for me - as long as I didn't do the same stuff as before..). We got a transfer into Zambia and camped at Fawlty Towers, a backpackers in Livingstone. Sadly there was no Spanish waiters but there was free wi-fi and pancakes!

We spent a day or so in the Zambia side where we got a brilliant view of the sunset just over the falls. There's a point in the Zambia side that leads you right down to the water, although it is very wet and rocky in parts. At one point, I slipped and hurt my foot which brought a big bruise and a cut. This worried me that I wouldn't get to do my bungee jump the next day, luckily this time, NOTHING was able to stop me!



On the same day we headed over to the Zimbabwe side. All in all, the whole day cost us more than US$200 - $105 for the bungee jump, $55 for a Zimbabwean visa, $50 to get back into Zambia.

It was bloody worth it though. Every single penny. I've wanted to do that bungi jump half my life - and I'd do it again in an instant.


The second trip into Namibia with Richard this time was very good. We camped on the banks of the Zambezi in Katima Mulilo, with Zambia on the other side. We were told by the campsite security to lock our belongings in the car, as the Zambians occasionally came over the river to sell you stuff and would subtly nick your belongings.

From Katima, we drove the 700km or more to Grootfontein, and stayed in a mud hut.

We visited the Hoba meteorite, which is supposed to be the biggest meteorite on the planet:



Apparantly it fell to earth 80,000 years ago, though no-one is sure exactly when.

That night we were heading for somewhere to camp before going into Etosha. On the way there a fella jumped out into the road trying to stop me. Foolishly I ignored it, and carried on. A little while later, a policeman caught up to me, took my drivers license and asked me to follow me back to his camera to prove I was speeding. On the way there he himself exceeded the 120km/h limit, which annoyed me quite a bit as you can imagine. When we got to the camera, the other copper had accidentally wiped it, so he had no evidence of my speeding. Regardless, he charged me N$200 for speeding and very nearly more for evading Police capture. When I realised this was only 15 quid I decided not to call him a corrupt bastard and took the 'punishment'.

On the way to the police station we drove into some sort of swarm of flies. You literally couldn't see a thing, as the second the wipers cleaned the screen another billion flies threw themselves into it. Let's just say I've never cleaned a windscreen with shampoo and a beer mat before...

With 2 days in Etosha we saw quite a lot, but the highlight was walking out onto the Etosha Pan:



After leaving the park at sunset, we headed to Swakopmund at night, eventually getting there at 3am. With nowhere to sleep we slept in the car near the dunes. This was the sight of the town at night from the car:




We spent a day quad biking in the sand dunes:



Shortly after he took that video, Richard crashed into the back of me, sending him spinning underneath his quad bike. Very spectacular, although the onlything he broke was his sunglasses.

We left Swakopmund and spent the night at Windhoek again, then went back into Botswana, spending a night at Ghanzi (Camping less that 3 Pounds a night per person!!).

The reason we were heading back into Botswana again was that we were going into Khutse Game Reserve with Ciaron, Sonnette and friends. Khutse is one of the highlights of the trip so far for me. You're camping in the bush essentially, where the campsites are not fenced in and the animals roam freely. We heard lion on the first night, and found their footprints around the campsite the next morning.

Here's the Lion we found:


And the Tropic Of Capricorn, which runs through the park:


Sunset in Khutse:


As you are leaving:

Go Siame is my favourite phrase is Tswana. It literally means "Everything is Ok". Tsamaya Sentle means "On your travels, go safely"


Khutse was so great because you felt absolute freedom to go wherever you wanted (providing you stick to the rules.... ahem..). For me it really is one of Botswana's best kept secrets - You never see any tour groups or safari vehicles in there, mainly because the roads aren't brilliantly accessible. Trust me, Khutse is a very special place!



Richard's flight was on the monday evening, and I had to return the rental vehicle to Maun on the wednesday morning. I did get an extension of 24 hours, luckily, so I could take it relatively easily. I took the scenic route, up through Molepolole, Serowe, Oropa, Rkaops and then onto Maun. I have to say beforehand that watching the sun go down on the pans as you're driving past Rakops was an incredible sight. No trees, no houses, nothing, just a clear pan as far as you can see, and what a beautiful sunset.

Shortly after the sunset, however, I encountered a bunch of donkeys in the middle of the road (I am told that this is Botswana's biggest problem - animals here such as donkeys, cows and goats are unfenced, so at night they gather on the tarmac for some reason). I swerved to miss them, slamming my brakes on and turning to the left. I definitely clipped one of them, as I remember the clunk sound followed by the yelp of a donkey, and in trying to control the car I swerved to the right, going back over the road onto the other side. The wheels hit something, possibly a bump or a slight curb from the bus stop where I came off, and turned over onto the roof of the car, sliding for a few metres and hitting something else, eventually rolling back onto the wheels. To give you an impression of how bad it was (cos it was pretty fucking bad for me), see below:


The only thing going through my head at this point was 'bugger.'

Unfortunately I was 55km from Rakops, and had to wait for 2 hours for Police to arrive. There was a cattle post nearby - the people there had heard my accident and managed to get signal, then helped me to gather my things. I was bleeding from the head with my injuries, quite concussed and confused, bruised in the places the seatbelt had been - though this didn't stop them stealing my phone and sunglasses.

It doesn't matter though - I am seriously lucky to be alive after that. The policeman said that if I were a Motswana, chance would be that I wouldn't have been wearing a seatbelt and we'd be talking about a fatality. The thing I was most worried about on the way to the hospital was crashing again - I could see through the window in the police van that he was driving at 150km/h - DID YOU NOT SEE WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO ME?!?! I was only going at 110km/h when I crashed, and in this van not only was there no seatbelts for me to wear but all the stuff collected from the scene of the accident - my very heavy rucksack for one thing, and a spare tyre - were untethered, and rolling around the back of the van.

I spent the night in hospital in Rakops - a very basic arrangement, trust me, we've got it good with the NHS, managed to get picked up by the Car Rental company and taken to Maun. Annoyingly the one person she sends to pick me up is the one employee she has who claims he has such a bad back that he could be paralysed permanently if he picks up anything heavy. So, limping, bruised and generally not very well, I had to lug my own stuff around. Nice, innit?

I managed to get a flight from Maun to Gaborone for under 50 quid!! So now I am here, trying to get the insurance pickle sorted out with Budget or they will try to sue me. My injuries seam to be healing - I'm having trouble breathing on account of the bruised ribs where the seatbelt was.


Here are some more pics of the last few weeks of my trip:





P.S I forgot to mention that aside from the bruising my biggest injury is a broken toenail. I found this very funny in hospital on Wednesday night. (The doctor thought I was mad)

I'm (back) in Namibia

Hello.. I'll do a proper update soon with info on what has gone on in the past month or so since my last update. There's been a few ups and downs as you may have heard. The best of which is shown below:




Proper update soon, with some great photos, when I find the time

I'm in Zambia

Hello!

First of all a message to all dogs, donkeys, goats and elephants.... STOP WANDERING ONTO THE BLOODY ROAD!!

Click here

Righto, since my last update I've traveled from Gaborone, to Palapye, to Francistown, to Maun (where I stayed for a week, and of course, where my face got sunburnt).

After Maun, I drove to Gweta, which is technically in the middle of nowhere. I stayed at a place called Planet Baobab, which was one of the most bizarre lodges/hotels/places I've ever stayed at! The grounds were full of massive baobab trees, with traditional grass/mud huts (very strange) and an electricity supply that couldn't make its mind up whether it was on or off.

After a night there, I drove to Nata, filled up on fuel (at less than 50p a litre) and drove up to Kasane - which was probably the worst road I've ever been on. Potholes everywhere. The road was like this non-stop for at least 50ks.

I spent about 4 nights in Kasane, at various hotels/campsites, then on Tuesday I went into Chobe National Park with Colin. I camped more or less on the shores of the river. It was probably one of the best places I've ever camped, definitely in the top 3! It would have been better had there not been a bunch of twats on the nearby campsite running a generator...

Sunset over the Chobe River from Mowana Lodge

Me at the campsite. Had to sit very still for a long time to get this one....

Otherwise, it was a brilliant night, with brilliant views of the Chobe River, Namibia, sitting round the fire that I'd built (sitting on the spare tire as the camp chair broke), cooking my dinner and listening to elephants and hippos in the vicinity make noises.

So after a really nice, relaxing camp, I moved my merry way to Zambia and into a whole lot of stress. First of all it took TWO BLOODY HOURS to get across the border. Second of all, while waiting for the pontoon to take you across the Zambezi, there's no kind of official presence on the Botswana side telling you where to go so you just have to guess it's your turn to go onto the ferry. There's also no-one there to stop the people trying to hitch a lift with you over the border - especially the ones that just won't take NO for an answer even if you tell them to fffffff off, wind up your window, plug in your earphones and put on your sunglases, then continue to blatantly ignore them. Third of all, on the Zambia side, organisation is not something they are familiar with. if you're going into Zambia with a car, you have to make several payments - paying for the ferry (US$20), paying for a visa (US$80. Then you have to pay Carbon tax - in Kwacha; they won't let you pay in any other currencies if you don't have Kwacha, you have to have to go to the only Bureau de Change, which closes 2 hours before the border.

Then the problem is that none of the staff know what I have to do next, so tell you you can go on your way. It wasn't until I was stopped by police that I knew that you really DID have to get insurance at the border and not in town a day later. He wanted to fine me but I managed to sweet-talk my way out of it.

So today I've mainly been exploring Livingstone, sorting out insurance and the best places to eat. Only when I came back to my car, I had two very self-pleased car-washing Zambians waiting there, proud of the job they'd done and asking for payment.

Now, there's something I should explain about why, at this point, Rage had grabbed me by the nipples and was starting to spin me round the room. I did a silly thing when I left Gaborone - I left Monkey in the cabin at Ciaron's house. I'm not proud of it, but it was a genuine mistake and luckily Ciaron had him couriered up to me (which is another stressful story in itself). To compensate, on the second or third day (i forget) on the way up to Francistown, I pulled over in a picnic area (they have LOADS at the sides of the road here), and put hand-prints on the back windows. They were sort of like my mascots if you like - I was determined to complete the journey without having the car cleaned.

SO surely, you can understand why I was so furious?! To cut a long story short, they were begging me for money, quite angry that their hard work had gone unapreciated... so I threw 1 pula (about 10p AND Botswana currency) at them and drove away, only just missing running one of them over (unfortunately).








So there you go, I'm in Zambia. It's 8,637 Kwacha to 1 pound, so things are very cheap - for example, it cost me 8 pounds for 3 beers and a steak last night! The exchange rate does change by a few hundred day by day though, so you're paying for something one day then the next it is a pound or two dearer

Here are some photos that don't really fit in the rest of the blog... some are random, some are trying to be arty after playing with the camera....

Taken at Chobe.

Taken at Planet Baobab in Gweta using only light from the moon

Taken at night in Chobe (this was my view!!) again using only light from the moon

Taken at the Sedia Hotel in Maun - Camping cost £1.81 a night.

My face is sunburnt

Just a quick thing to say I'm in Maun, northern Botswana.

And that my face is sunburnt (it had to happen sooner or later).

And that Michael Jackson is dead.

Thank you.

Ian.



PS, I'll do a proper update soon, with photos and perhaps a video, but Internet here is painfully slow (remember what it was like in 1997?)

Kalahari Ferrari

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet my new car....

Colin!


I'll be heading off up North next week as soon as I extend my Botswana visa. I would headed north a week or two back but I've just spent the last fortnight with some mystery illness that even the doctor didn't know what it was. So that culminated in injections everyday last week, which did sort out the problem, whatever it was, but has left me with a massive bruise on the hand because the nurse didn't quite know what she was doing.

So the last couple of weeks haven't really been exciting, and I'm still at Ciarons house in Gabs.

However, now I have Colin (I thought of calling it Patsy but it just didn't suit) I went to Molepolole today....

This one's for you Alex....

.... Molepolole is NOT the same village I knew 10 years ago. It seems to have expanded quite a bit but felt a lot smaller than when I was there (does that make any sense?). Also, even though the Mafenya Tlala Hotel burnt down years ago, I made a visit regardless and they've now built a massive shopping centre over it. Urgh.

So I came back to Gabs where it is now pissing it down. Isn't that nice?

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Mokolodi so there might be some photos in the next blog. Probably.

Ian--

In Gabs...

Just a quick message to say I'm in Gaborone, Botswana (see map below) and currently staying at Ciaron's house!

Packing was rather stressful, I have far too much crap with me that I might have to leave here or send home. Here is most of it:





Spot the cat (he didn't want me to leave).....

There was a bit of panic on the night before I left when we brought the rucksack I was going to use from the garage to find this:



Mice really don't like me.

I'll probably be hitting the road next week and travel North, although theres some stuff in the West of Botswana that I'd like to do. Ciaron has the day off work tomorrow so we're heading into the bush.

I'll update again soon!

Ian--Out

Leaving soon...

Dear... Internet?... World?... Blog?

...Chaps...

I leave the country in....


Forgive the shitty little countdown thing, couldn't find a good'un that worked...


Yes, I'm off soon. I'm still not packed, although I am strangely well-prepared. There's only one or two things beside packing the rucksack left to do, and the only thing so far that comes to mind right away is: get a haircut. And maybe a shave. An inexhaustible income is also needed.

Anyway.
Welcome to me Blog thing.

Here is where I will post stories on miraculous escapes from wilderbeast, hilarious anecdotes about thick-o American tourists and the odd "I'm stuck in ______, please send more money" messages.

Look back here every now and then for updates if and when you can be bothered. (Please don't glue yourself to this page Mum) You never know, I might get eaten by a lion!

Ian--Out.