Booby Traps in the Caprivi

Crossing the border into Namibia, compared to Zambia, was uneventful.  It took us 2 hours and 32 seconds to be exact.  The only issue we came across, was lack of knowledge regarding car insurance. We have our COMESA yellow card, which covers the car in all countries with the exception of Namibia, so the idea was to get local insurance at the border.  We asked tons of people, were directed to three different offices – including the road authority office, which contained a very officious looking man, but he was preoccupied with the lady sitting on his lap, and the plate of chicken he had in front of him, to get involved in our attempt to get some cover. It became apparent that they don’t do Insurance here? 

 

Uncomfortable with the idea of being on the road uninsured, we made a beeline for a café with wifi, and thought we would do some investigating of our own.  We had obviously put the vibes out into the universe when a portly fellow wearing his uniform that had ‘INSURANCE’ written across it, walked into the same café.  We asked him (Hannes) – he too had no idea. The long of the short of it is that after a good half hour calling all sorts of experts within his offices – he could not sell us a local insurance, as we were in a foreign registered car – but he learned that the little random piece of paper, we paid for at the border (which we thought was road tax) is in fact a form of third-party insurance…? We tried – now let’s hope that information is correct.  In the meantime, we are driving very carefully!

 

A buddy from Serengeti days, who is now based in Windhoek, pointed us in the direction of some fabulous campsites along the Caprivi Strip (which to my surprise is not all desert!).  Our first stop was a lovely camp, about 100km from the border.  Here we met a group of Brits from Devon (from a wee town called burry-your-neighbor?) and joined them for an afternoon on a boat safari down the Kadzondwe river.  Despite bordering community land, we saw all sorts of wildlife, including plenty of hippos, elephants, sable, and a croc feeding on a cow, which got the excitement going.   We also quickly learned, there had been an attempt to break into our neighbor’s car the evening before we arrived.  Petty theft, kids, they didn’t get anything, but the idea of sleeping in your roof tent and waking up to torches peeping into your car was an uncomfortable one.  We asked one of the night watchmen, does this happen often? The reply was a couple times a month….. say what now?

 

So, what does one do, when potentially there are shenzies lurking in the bushes looking to steel from you?  One sets up a booby trap.  Nothing a bit of fishing wire, strung out across all the trees around the car, and then tied to the metal kettle couldn’t sort out.  Colin had set the whole thing up under cover of darkness.  Trap was set, but we were still on alert. Now we just had to hope like hell that a bushbuck didn’t venture into our trap – we had visions of it running into the night with a kettle tied to its horns, causing all sorts of panic – that did make us giggle, and helped take the tension out of the whole scenario.  We were totally fine – no break inns.  We spent two days cooking up a curry, swimming, sipping rock shandys, catching up on journals, reading, and planning the next couple of days.

 

Our next stop was two nights at the quirky Ngepi camp which lies on the shores of the Okavango River.  A cage in the river offers you the chance for a swim to escape the mid-day heat (man alive it is seriously hot here!) and not end up a hippo or croc snack – that was very pleasant!  We didn’t go into Bwabwata national park, but we almost didn’t have to.  Our last night here, there was tons of commotion on the shores of the river, that separated us from the National park.  Lions had chased a herd of Buffs into the river, and from what we heard – a murder took place.  The lions roared all night, and in the morning, we watched three males leg it, as the buffalo herd chased them off – all the whilst still roaring.  It was intense. Loved it!

 

From Ngepi camp – we based ourselves at Grootfontein for two nights, to watch the rugby and get ourselves SIM cards, a very boring job, but as we are still running Intent on Safari, it needed to be done.  The Namibian government has now made it a rule that every person needs to get their SIM card registered before the end of 2023, and it felt like every Tom, Dick and Harry opted to do this on the very day that I went to the phone shop. I am a numbers person – this is what happened: I arrived, and was number 56 in line.  After an hour – and 26 people being served and on their merry way, I was number 58 in the que.  How is this possible you must be asking yourself?  It seems, in Rundu, its perfectly acceptable to enter a line for two minutes, and then leave – do your shopping, have a coffee, catch up with your buddies, have lunch, shop a bit more, and then make your way back to the line – march to the front, and claim you were here before.  The most surprising fact: no one argued it! As the only mzungu in the shop – I wasn’t going to kick up a fuss, but the thought: use it or loose it, did come to mind.  Then I caught a lucky break – someone asked if I was a tourist – I said yes, and was whisked to the front.  Did I feel bad? A little.  Did I feel bad enough to take the moral high road, turn down the offer, and opt to wait – for only god knows how many more people to come back from their breaks, and jump in in front of me? No chance. I instantly became a shameless opportunist, got my SIM card, got one for Colin too whilst I was at it, and went back to the car.

 

Next Up: Etosha National Park