After Chobe, we headed to Kasane for provisioning. Shopping was hectic and I was glad to finish and be on our way. We crossed into Namibia and camped at Nambwa in Bwabawata National Park for four days. It was a nice campsite with a powerpoint (luxury!) and a new private ablution block. When they designed the four campsites, they decided to repurpose glass bottles, which made up the walls for the shower and toilet alcoves. The outdoor kitchen had a glass art piece that looked like a wind chime and the back board above the sink was framed with fairy lights. A poem was written on another part of the wall. It was quite artsy. The kitchen extended out as a covered deck and clean sand spread out in front. You could actually take your sandals off and walk to the rig without anything stinging or sticking you in the foot (except the glass from the wind chime, which seemed sometimes a casualty of the wind) The soft sand felt so good! The only drawback, if you’d call it one, is that there were a lot of spiders, as there are through much of Botswana and the northern areas of Namibia. We had three big flatties in the shower area. They appeared and disappeared along the walls, but they never bothered you. Here some pics with a quick selfie we took at the Nambwa Lodge when we were desperately searching out a wifi connection.
At Nambwa we had a picturesque view of open fields in front of us. One night we heard a lion in the distance and every night we heard what we thought were very loud, energetic warthogs just over the small mound on the opposite side of our camp. So unusual! We’ve never heard warthogs like that before, grunting and snorting so loud and random and nonstop in the evening and night. It turned out that we actually had a small lake just to the side of us that was full of hippos. We couldn’t see them because of the mound and bush that separated us, but we could sure hear them! At night they munched the grass in the fields in front and to the edges of our campsite, munching all the way to the braai. We could hear them and, in the morning, we could see where they mowed their paths.
Bwabawata was an interesting place. It is full of migrating elephants at different times of the year. We just missed the beginning of the migration back toward Angola from Botswana’s delta and other wet season water sources. Another thing about Bwabawata, the driving is hard! I don’t know if Richard agrees, but I think it was some of the deepest sand we’ve encountered.
After camping at Nambwa, we headed to Ngepi, just a few hours. It was a strange, but nice place that reminded me of some of the 60 and 70s retro you find around Big Sur in California. The campsites are tucked into the trees and walking paths run through jungle like growth–low-hanging vines that you duck under as you wind through big and half fallen trees to get to the shower and toilets. In the showers, leaves and branches hang over the fencing and sway with the wind. The shower spray feels like it’s from the trees themselves. It’s nice, but very earthy in good and not so good ways (toilet flushing, for instance, left much to be desired.)
Ngepi had a little bar and restaurant that you reached along the walking path in the opposite direction of the showers. We sat a couple of afternoons enjoying a beer and trying patiently to get a little bit of wifi–not much success, but we were always hopeful.
Ngepi also had a swimming pool that I thought about using. It was blazing hot after all. I investigated the pool, a cage in the river with barrier all around. I thought for a minute. Crocodiles? Yes, several in this river. Hippos? Check. Holes in the cage?? A river water dip? It’s not standing water, so it’s probably ok. It’s moving fast, so maybe no microbial dangers. Did I jump in? No way! I’d have a heart attack if I saw a crocodile next to me, cage barrier or not. Too many possible bad outcomes. I’m such a chicken!
From Ngepi we made our way to Simanya River Lodge, another short drive (4 hours or so). We were unsure about this place when we first learned a while back that the previous owners were selling the property. The neighbor who was looking after the place had accepted our booking, though, so we figured we were good to go. We were good to go in that someone answered at the gate and the neighbor running the camp and lodge was around in the office. There were some staff around, but otherwise there was no one. No campers. No one renting a room. After some puzzled looks from the guy at the gate, we got in and found the office and were shown to the campsites. We had our choice of any site that we liked. I should have known, however, that it was a bad sign when we got out of the rig on our arrival and the swarms of ants ran over our feet and sandals and started biting. They were everywhere. I was swatting them off my feet and legs with every step, saying “ouch!” a lot. The manager, who was truly nice, apologized for the ant problem, but miraculously didn’t seem distressed himself with the ants on his feet and legs. I guess I am not at all the hardy type. When we got to the campsites, we found even more ants. They were everywhere. We swatted at our feet and assessed the situation. There were flies, there were ants. All of them were biting. Nope. Not camping. We drove back to the office and asked if there was a room we could look at, as it was too late to begin looking for another campground and we’d be lucky to find one anyway without doubling back. Luckily the room turned out to be quite lovely and ant free. Everything turned out well in the end. We paid some extra, got the room and enjoyed sundowners at the pool, which we had to ourselves. The room had a deck overlooking the green forests and fields of Angola just across the river. We had air con! When we wandered down to the pool, I took a dip to cool off. We had a couple of beers. In the morning, we enjoyed our coffee on the deck and then got on our way.
The drive was long this time, but we were well rested. The next campsite was Omunjandi, outside Ruacana. The final stretch of road to the camp was a bit rough– gravel, troughs, holes and a few steeper edges, but it wasn’t terrible. We found Omunjandi to be a lovely place with campsites right on the river. The mother/daughter team that ran the camp were great. The daughter showed us our campsite and warned us about the monkeys and crocodiles (go no closer than 4 meters–in my mind, I’m doubling that of course, no need to take risks). The two days we were there, we didn’t see any crocodiles and that, of course, worried me even more. The weather was hot and sticky, as was the entire Zambezi region. The vegetation there is much more like jungle than desert. We camped under huge trees and I watched the undergrowth very carefully. :-). One note: anyone looking to camp along this route, Omunjandi is an excellent stop. The campsites are beautiful and the ablution blocks have clean, spacious showers and toilets. Everything is well maintained. We asked for dinner our second night, and the mom cooked an amazing meal for us. It was delicious! No one else was there that night and we had our three-course meal by candle light.
From Ruacana we traveled to Epupa Falls, a place we were both looking forward to, and it didn’t disappoint. The drive from Opuwo, the last stop for food and gas, is about three hours of corrugated, rocky road that goes up and down and up and down as you dip into the hundreds of dry river and stream beds and the dried up troughs that guide the rain when it comes, an impossible drive if there’s a lot of water around. With the undulation, you have to constantly get up to speed and then slow to almost a stop, dip into the low and then pick up speed again. You do this every couple of minutes. It makes for a long and tiring drive. You also go through the outskirts of some Himba villages and children often come to the road to sell you things or people try to flag you to stop. All of it makes the drive especially slow going.
We stayed in Epupa Falls for four nights. We had a campsite on the river (always keeping 4 meters away!) and could see the mist from the falls that were about 100 meters away. We enjoyed the river and watched the agama lizards go up and down the Makalani palm trees. Our first night we had a crazy wind storm with thunder. The wind tore off fronds and fruits from the palms. The unfortunate French couple a few campsites down from us had to move because so many fruits and branches were falling on them. All the trash cans went flying. Luckily we didn’t loose anything and only had to put up with the tent flaps whipping around most of the night. In the morning, calm returned, the sun was full and it was hot and sweaty weather. We went to the pool.
We celebrated my birthday in Epupa and Richard arranged a special sundowner for us at one of the best lookout points for seeing the falls. We had our gin and tonics, watched the sun lower and felt amazement looking at these falls. There isn’t just one fall, but about fifty, most on the Angolan side, but you can see them all from the viewpoint. It was beautiful. When we returned, I found that Richard had arranged a dinner, birthday cake and a happy birthday song that the staff sang, first in Herero and then in English. It was lovely.
