Southern Africa 2025. Part Two: The Caprivi Strip

 

14^th October 2025 (Day 3)

Up at 05:45, repack everything needed into soft-top suitcase, put stuff not-needed back into hard-shell suitcase, wonder why took other stuff in first place, store hard-shell suitcase at reception to pick up on return.

Baboons everywhere in a dawn raid! They’re harmless, after the palm fruit. A giant male on the roof of our chalet looks down at us in disdain.

The Fellowship is ready to leave at 07:00. West from Livingstone for an hour and a half we encounter a number of local villages that get steadily more desperate. The land is brown and infertile, trees have been chopped down or ravaged by fire and people eke out a living by syphoning gas from trucks and reselling it, or making charcoal. There’s litter everywhere.

The Zambian border town of Kazungula is at the point where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia meet, although there are no roads to Zimbabwe and Namibia here. It has a dirt high street with shops made from old containers, a big newish bridge over the Zambezi and the odd luxury hotel with aircon and wi-fi for stranded truckers. This wasn’t the road I had expected we would take, but Tawanda says the road through Zambia is terrible. So, there’s an unexpected detour into Botswana.

The border post seems reasonable enough and everyone is very friendly. You have to walk across a disinfected doormat because Zambia has foot and mouth and Botswana has a big beef export business, then you have to drag your tongue across the mat (Claire: sarcastic ‘ha, ha’). Then we have our temperature taken in case we have malaria. In the one building you’re able to leave Zambia on the right and enter Botswana on the left. We have our bags scanned pointlessly.

The Botswanan town on the border is also called Kazungula but, comparatively, it’s much more affluent. We stop at a big shopping centre so Jonas and Tawanda can stock up on food at Choppies, and we’re each instructed to buy 5 litres of water for which there is no room in the Red Tank. The supermarket is abundantly stocked with vegetables, meat and dried food although the cheese selection is poor and fish non-existent.

The contrast with Zambia is sharp. Botswana is green with irrigated fields, there’s very little litter and they have a Travelodge and a Nando’s. We only have a transit permit and the short-cut is through Chobe National Park. It’s the main road to Namibia so you would expect the animals to steer clear but that’s not the case. There’s a giraffe by the roadside! Huge ugly hornbills, zebras, kudu, elephants and there’s a pride of lions! We’re not supposed to stop but do when we can i.e. when rangers are not around. Otherwise, it feels like being in a video game, spotting animals at high speed.

We descend into a lush field beside a river which is full of cattle and a solitary wildebeest. Leaving Botswana is not a problem but then there’s the Namibian border.

It’s not helped by the fact that an air-conditioned coach (the Red Truck is not, by the way) full of Old Retired Crauts (ORCs) has got there before us. The combination of this, five of us not having sorted their Namibian visas in advance, lack of staff and staggering bureaucracy, means we’re there for two hours. It’s 38c.

Namibia feels completely different again. Trees are green but there are no fields of crops. The earth is quite barren. Traditional round huts made of mud with reed-thatch roofs in bamboo-fenced enclosures are common, and there are numerous termite mounds.

It’s another hour to our accommodation near Katima Mulilo, generously self-described as a ‘resort and spa.’ It’s beautiful: on the banks of a lagoon in the Zambezi, it’s been hippo and croc-proofed by some non-obvious method and its bar/restaurant is sculpted around an ancient tree. The pre-fab cabins are basic but comfortable with aircon, fridges and superior mosquito nets, and the owners are a lovely couple - a man of Cornish descent who wears a ripped t-shirt and stained shorts - and his Zimbabwean wife.

Our all-inclusive package includes all breakfasts, most lunches and some dinners, so this is the first time we get to sample a disappointing sandwich lunch. Do not eat sliced chicken loaf under any circumstances. Tawanda is told by the two veggies in no uncertain terms that he is not to buy vegan baloney ever again.

We’re given the usual not-enough time to unpack and freshen up before the next activity, another river boat cruise, although this one is a basic barge with an outboard and no free bar. No bar at all, actually, and we’re the only craft on the lake unless you count a few fishermen and their canoes.

We encounter swimming hippos a few hundred metres out, their heads slowly rising from the water to stare at us menacingly, like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now. There’s about 20 of them. I did film them so you could experience their magnificent ‘bark,’ but all you’re going to hear is inane chatter from the Fellowship debating what the collective noun for hippos is (future Steve: It’s a ‘raft.’)

I should mention at this point that all the good photographs were taken by somebody else.

Then we go on a croc hunt which reminds me of our Daintree cruise in that we didn’t see any there either. It goes on an hour and a half too long at the slowest speed imaginable and everyone without exception is falling asleep, including the boatman.

We return via the hippos, who have not moved, and there's a glorious sunset.

All this time Jonas has been cooking wonderful stews, meat and veggie versions, which are gratefully devoured. Then, because we haven’t decided on a system yet, too many of the Fellowship get in each other’s way to wash up and go to bed at 8pm. We drink with the Aussie sisters (Susie and Jenny) until the bar closes, which is 9pm.

 15^th October 2025 (Day 4)

Another early start (get used to them) hearty breakfast, say goodbye to our lovely lodge and its staff. In Katima Mulilo there’s more stocking up on petrol, camping gas, food, and DOOM (insect killing spray) as if this is the last bastion of civilisation we will encounter again.

We’ve a long drive west down the Caprivi Strip. If you’ve ever looked at a map of Namibia and wondered why it has a weird panhandle, it’s because in the late nineteenth century the Germans, new to colonialism but in control of South West Africa and Tanzania, wanted to link the two by railway. They also wanted to annex the Zambezi and its delta in Mozambique, as part of a devious ruse to control the whole of Southern Africa. So, they ceded Zanzibar to the British, the jewelled spice island, for the (at the moment) very dusty Caprivi Strip. Their evil plans were thwarted by Cecil Rhodes and something called Victoria Falls which they hadn’t bothered to check out.

(You will appreciate that there’s not a lot of free time on this trip, so I’m typing on the move and the Red Tank on Namibian roads is akin to being in a plane that’s constantly landing. Also, wi-fi is scarce and weak, so I’m not always able to check facts).

After a few hours of bumping in the searing heat we take a detour to a Kwando Traditional Village. Okay, so this is 11 on the tourist scale, and it’s just one home that they all pretend to live in and not a village, but where else would you get to see inside one of these stockaded settlements? Apart from the hundreds of other traditional villages I’ve seen signs to today.

A very beautiful young woman from an indigenous tribe whose name I will look up when I can (future Steve: Mbukushu, an Angolan tribe), wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt, is our guide. The stockade is about 25m square and walled by 3m high bamboo fencing. This is to keep predators away, particularly mongoose which eat the chickens. We are shown a trap where putrefied mice are used as bait, a string is tripped and a log falls on their heads. We are also shown a lure - a drum with a stick inside is manipulated to imitate the noise of a baby hippo, although they're not allowed to hunt them anymore. I have a go and pull the stick. No, no, no, you have to wet your hands and massage it so, the girl says. The contraption sighs a soft moan. It feels like I’ve wanked off a goat.

 

We’re also shown how to make arrow tips and grind millet. Then there’s a cabaret.

The music, singing and dancing is pretty good, but make the mistake of stopping filming the Medicine Man, as both Claire and I did, and he drags you up for a frenetic dance. We're told he's the wisest person in the village, but he predicts that I will have a long and healthy life, so what does he know?

There’s a gift shop where the kitchen is supposed to be.

As bad as the finished road are, they’re better than driving on the ones which are under construction, which we do for a further 50km. Then we reach Bwabwata National Park, a small game reserve with few visitors. It’s our first as a group.

The Fellowship are falling over themselves in excitement. “Stop! Stop!” screams one when she sees a small white Ibis, which promptly flies away. Those with the biggest lenses on their cameras push the rest of us away with the vague promise that they’ll share via a WhatsApp group, a pledge that is eventually honoured.

Apart from some kudu, warthogs and a possibly dead zebra, the animals are all on the plain by the watering hole, obvs. It’s a beautiful sight - giraffes, buffalo, zebras, kudus, impalas, wildebeest, oryx, elephants all in harmony, no big cats. It doesn’t matter that they’re all very small… I mean far away.

We see an elephant with a fifth leg. Wait, is that….? We learn elephant for ‘piss off!’

We get to Ngepi Camp near Divundu about six pm. It looks lovely on the banks of the Cubango/Okavango (depending which country you’re in) with jetties for dining and general viewing, a lush bar and even a swimming pool within the river.

We’re in treehouse five and a half. It’s accessed via a wooden walkway below which is the riverbank - I briefly spy a small bushbuck. It’s a three-sided hut surrounding a bed with a mosquito net and there’s an open toilet and basic shower behind. The view across the river is stunning.

Slight problem. (1) the bed is very small, perhaps a little romantic for us; (2) the tree next to it is full of bees; (3) there’s no physical barrier at the end of the terrace, which is only a few metres from the bed, and there’s a sheer drop of about five metres into the river. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the river is full of crocodiles and hippos and I sleep walk.

We notice that bush hut five is vacant and I ask the guy delivering our bags if we can have it instead. ‘Sure.’ It’s a bit more ‘deep-in-the-jungle’ than its nearby half-brother. Mosquito nets are fitted, but the hut hasn’t been used recently judging by the insect life within the bed. I give it massive dose of DOOM.

Which is unfortunate for Gordon the over-sized resident lizard who I had assumed was an ornamental zip-fastener. I tried to coax him out but he won’t have it so I take the other twin bed. He's still there when I leave, albeit a bit greener.

Never has a beer tasted so good. I talk to Alan, one of the Kiwis. "Which football team do you support?" he asks. "You won't have heard of them," I reply. "Queens Park Rangers." "Parkes, Clement, Gillard, Webb, McLintock, Hollins, Francis, Masson, Givens, Thomas, Bowles." Did he just name the starting eleven of the 1975-76 League One runners-up team?!

Towanda and Jonas cook up another storming meal after which there’s a touching round camp fire moment where everyone finally formally introduces themselves and says why they wanted to come on the trip. Luckily, nobody has a terminal disease.

16^th October 2025 (Day 5)

We’re up at dawn to watch the animals on the other side of the river come for their morning drink. We think we can do this from five and a half but someone’s sleeping there which turns out to be Tawanda. We find another spot.

We’ve been asked to form teams of four to clear and wash up on alternate days. We’re Team OzPom with Susie and Jenny, the others being Team Kiwi and Team Europe. After breakfast we go for a short, uneventful and slightly pointless nature stroll.

It’s a fairly easy three-hour drive today but we still need to stock up at another huge supermarket as if we’ll never see one again, and it must be 50c in the Red Tank as we wait for another refill of petrol. All that water we’ve been told to buy is near boiling point, and the ice in the cooler lasts barely an hour.

N’Kwazi Lodge in the Rundu region is a community enterprise. I ask the owner Simon whether it’s a Namibian football shirt he’s wearing, but apparently it’s Barcelona. In the briefing we’re asked if we want to visit a local village with all profits going to the community, or see native dancers with all profits going to the community, or buy local art with all proceeds etc… Trouble is, we had our traditional village yesterday and instead everyone opts for a river cruise.

The bungalows are lovely. They’re built by the community in the style of traditional chieftain dwellings and have all the luxuries except the ones you need - aircon, a fan, a fridge and wi-fi. The two locals who’ve nabbed our cases hang around for a tip and look in disdain at the pile of coins I find in Claire’s purse because they’re probably Botswanan Pula. The 20 Namibian dollars which I thought was worth a fiver but is actually less than a pound fares little better, but they leave. Guess we’re carrying our own bags back.

The cruise is not as spectacular as the two previous ones - we see the head of a baby crocodile and some birds. It’s more about observing the villagers as they wash their clothes at dusk, or watching the children play and swim in the river. The boat stops by a sandbank on the Northern shore and the gangplank is lowered. There’s a group of kids there.

Without being asked I’m the first on shore and I stand awkwardly, feeling like Captain Cook, as the kids start to sing. It sounds like it’s in a local tongue but then I discern the words: “Welcome to Angola.”

I’m in Angola!

Gradually the others come on shore, with the exception of Claire who disapproves of me being in Angola.

Of course, I knew we’d be going to Angola, it was one of the first things I asked Tawanda in Livingstone. “You want to go to Angola illegally?” he said. “Yes, please.” Tawanda and Jonas are on this river trip for the first time and they’re straight up the hill to pose with the sign, laughing like schoolboys.

I feel a little tingle of joy. It's a spiritual moment - the people on each side of the river are the same tribe - they speak the same language, have the same customs and many are from the same families. Why should borders be determined by colonialism and defended by dictators? Why do we need certain vaccinations and visas on one side of the river and different ones on the other?

After we leave, the kids walk back to Namibia across the shallow river, tips held high.

Dinner is provided at an unspecified extra cost (“Probably cheap,” says Tawanda without bothering to find out). The dishes introduced, we fear they may have over-compensated for the two pescatarians: five meat-free salads, seven hot vegetable dishes, two hot meat dishes. There are no ribs. Then two plates of fish appear ‘for the vegetarians,’ which neither of them eat. Food is good, there’s steamed sponge pudding and custard for afters and a common genet enters for scraps, only to be surrounded and scared off by the Fellowship’s photographers.

There’s local dancing afterwards which we would have watched had it been free and had Tawanda not told us what time we’re leaving tomorrow.