Botswana & Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Our overland group, whittled down to 6 plus our 2 guides, leaves Windhoek, Namibia crossing into Botswana for the final leg of our 3 week odyssey – everyone gets a window seat! Botswana gained independence in 1966 from the British through peaceful negotiations. Their first elected president was Seretse Khama, subject of the 2016 movie A United Kingdom about his reign and his romance with Ruth Williams in the time of apartheid. With a population of only 2.6 million, one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, their economy is driven by mining (diamonds, copper), agriculture (beef), and tourism while expanding into automotive manufacturing, and the Botswana Pula (which means “rain” in Setswana, honoring this valuable resource) is one of the strongest currencies in Africa.

We overnight in a San tribe village, the local bushmen featured in the 1980 film The Gods Must Be Crazy, who were banned from hunting in 1994 and forced to relocate from their villages thereby undermining their cultural heritage and livelihood. Dressed in traditional outfits and demonstrating in their native language including click consonants, they explain their culture of hunting skills, fire making, turning hides into clothing, and medicinal plants: what grass gives protection against malaria, what grass relieves diarrhea, what root to use as a toothbrush, what plant provides poison for arrows, and what root acts as soap. After watching them perform, the tables are turned when they “teach us” how to make the click consonants by putting a seed pod under our tongues, watching us in anticipation, which explodes in our mouths with a surprising pop, generating an expletive from me and amusing them to no end.

Next we enter the Okavango Delta, another highlight for me since selling these trips in the early 1990s at Mountain Travel Sobek. Our idyllic Guma Lagoon Camp is accessed using their rugged vehicle to drive through the deep sand and low water areas, guided by white-tipped stick road markers and elevated by underwater sand bag tracks in deeper sections, an exciting entry to paradise. Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Okavango Delta flows from the Angolan Highlands crossing Namibia into Botswana but never reaches the sea, dissipating into the Kalahari sands. We explore the delta in our mokoros propelled by experienced polers, transport originally hand carved from a tree trunk but now regulated to be fiberglass for conservation purposes. The early morning ride is tranquil through the tall reeds and papyrus dotted with lily pads and lotus flowers, gliding in channels forged by elephants and hippos. Lily pads flip as the mokoros pass, leaving a breadcrumb trail of traffic, as we hear elephants trumpeting in the distance. Our guide explains that these reeds are used by locals to build huts and fences plus wrap cigarettes, and papyrus are used to make sleeping mats and rafts and act as fly swatters. Also lilies are edible once pollinated, known as the Delta Onion, and papyrus provide water in its stem, an alternative when crocs line the banks. Birdlife thrives in the delta, and we spot the colorful bee-eater and kingfisher, the African sacred ibis, and the African fish eagle, among many others.

Having enjoyed the delta at water level, we take to the skies in a helicopter with doors removed, our first heli ride ever, giving us a sense for the expansiveness of the region. The vivid greens veined by liquid paths, the broader bodies of water accented with fields of lily pads, and the occasional island housing the beefy baobab trees sheltering elephants and hippos take our breath away as the pilot banks and drops to highlight the sites. We even document and report on what is believed to be a poacher’s camp deep in the delta hidden by foliage.

Heading East across Botswana, past flat topped acacia trees encountering elephant and zebra herds alongside the heavily potholed highway, we reach the Makgadikgadi Basin, providing one of the largest salt pans in the world attracting a variety of wildlife, however due to last month’s excessive rains, we find the pans flooded with water but still enjoy a vibrant sunset over the savannah. Our drive north brings us into the most fertile areas of Botswana with fields of sorghum, maize, and sunflower drawing migrant workers for harvest as well as industrial scale farming.

At the small town of Nata, the markets are bustling because it’s their monthly payday when they stock up on maize milk, washing powder, and cooking oil for the month, buying fresh items as needed. The typical monthly salary in this rural town is 3,500 Pula ($260) which doesn’t go far. Those living in shacks may not pay rent but those with steady employment could spend 300-900 Pula ($22-30) renting a 3 meters square room for all their living needs. The government has mandated a minimum wage of 4,000 Pula ($300) starting July 1st, which will cause many employees to be laid off. 

We head on to Chobe National Park, the second largest park in Botswana with 11,700 square kilometers housing 30% of the elephant population in Botswana. Unlike South Africa and Namibia, the landscape here is unfenced, allowing villagers to graze their animals throughout and wild animals to roam out of the national parks, putting them at hunting risk. Across two game drives including a 5:45am start to best view cats, we experience throngs of elephant, giraffe, antelope, impala, baboon, Vervet monkey, warthog, greater kudu, lions, Cape buffalo, and even a leopard, completing our search for the Big 5: elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, and Cape buffalo.

Our cruise on the Chobe River, bordering both Botswana and Nambia and also touching Zambia and Zimbabwe further downstream, was relaxing and exciting with up front encounters of elephants bathing, swimming and eating; hippos basking on the beach; crocodiles sunbathing; baboons and impala drinking; and Karibu storks and African fish eagles manning the airspace. We toast to our experiences with some local drinks: Amarula (like Irish cream) and Springbok (mint flavored served with cream, the shot of choice during Springbok rugby games).

We cross the border into Zimbabwe where they conduct a quick protocol temperature check due to the Ebola outbreak in neighboring D.R. Congo before heading to Victoria Falls. Like Botswana, wild animals aren’t fenced in here so we’re advised not to walk the streets at night due to roaming elephants. Zimbabwe was colonized by the British in the 1890s, naming the territory Rhodesia after its founder Cecil Rhodes. Famous for starting the De Beers diamond company and creating the Rhodes scholarship, he dreamed of uniting Africa with a Cairo to Cape Town railway. Known as the Bread Basket of Africa, Zimbabwe farms were owned by the whites but worked by the enslaved blacks until their revolt, lead by Robert Mugabe who took power in 1987 and ruled for nearly four decades, first as a freedom fighter but soon thereafter as a dictator. In 2000 Mugabe gave black war veterans the authority to violently seize lands from the whites, leading to bloodshed, mass inflation and famine, yet he retained control through rigged elections until 2017 when ousted by a military coup.

Upon arrival in the town of Victoria Falls, we visit their 1,200 year old baobab tree with its expansive girth before walking the rim of the falls wearing our protective raincoats. Victoria Falls is the largest sheet of falling water in the world, spanning 1,708 meters and dropping around 90 meters over durable basalt rock. From the rim we view the 8 cataracts getting progressively more soaked until there’s water sloshing in our shoes. We enjoy a sundower river cruise above the falls and also take to the skies with another helicopter ride to view the falls and the gorge with the churning Zambezi River, videos running nonstop capturing all the beauty.

This overland trip has been everything we’d hoped for, combining a variety of destinations each with unique culture, wildlife, scenics, activities, and history, covering a daunting 4,704 km (2,925 miles) during which ebooks/audiobooks were key. Every day was a thrill packed with new experiences and we’re grateful to our travel mates and guides for making this the trip of a lifetime!

 Next up: Rwanda & Uganda