Setefani

It had been an epic few weeks on safari, and we had now reached the turnaround point of our trip. But "turning around" took a bit of thought. Behind us lay the rough road back through Savuti, to our west was the impassable Okavango Delta, and to our east would have been the challenging journey back through Zimbabwe. Don't get me wrong, we thoroughly enjoyed option 3 last time, but we thought it might not be the best idea with P&J in tow.

So instead, we decided to loop north through Namibia, which would allow us to circle back into Botswana on the western side of the Okavango Delta, in an area known as the "Panhandle" (due to its shape relative to the rest of the Delta). This had the benefit of adding another country to our list, as well as ticking off some new and varied highlights. But first, we needed to sign out of Botswana and into Namibia.

Leaving Botswana was relatively simple: get an exit stamp from Immigration, then fill in some basic driver and vehicle details on a clipboard that probably never gets checked. Namibia was a bit more fun, and it went something like this:
1) fill in an Immigration form with details from your passport, plus some other irrelevant information,
2) pass that to an Immigration Officer who gets most of that information again when they scan your passport,
3) watch them "file" the form, never to be seen again,
4) get passed over to the Road Desk to pay an import permit and road tax for the cars,
5) fill in a form with details about the cars, including engine number,
6) receive an official import permit containing these details,
7) try to pay the fees, but the credit card machine wouldn't work,
8) try other cards, which also don't work,
9) Ask if we can pay by US Dollars, or EFTPOS,
10) get told "no",
11) Ask if there's an ATM or somewhere to exchange money,
12) get told "no" again, and that there's no other way to pay except in cash in Namibian Dollars or South African Rands,
13) machine connection eventually restarts, and we pay by credit card, thankfully saving us from the awkward situation that would have eventuated,
14) ask if we need to go to Customs or buy Insurance, like you do everywhere else,
15) get told "no",
16) go back to cars and drive past the empty Customs station, then get stopped by the guard at the boom gate,
17) get asked to step out and fill in all the information from our Import Permit onto a paper spreadsheet, except this time we're asked for Chassis number, not Engine number, which sends us delving back into our documents,
18) wave goodbye to the guard and drive into Namibia,
19) smile and wonder what happens to all this paperwork.

Although they were only separated by a dry riverbed, we immediately noticed some differences between Namibia and Botswana. On the plus side, Namibia had access to a much wider range of fruit and vegetables (owing to Botswana's restrictions on South African produce). On the flip side, the animal sightings were much more sparse.

We stopped for lunch in Katima Mulilo and had a beautiful meal in the Green Basket Cafe. We also stocked up on the supplies that we would struggle to get once we were back in Bots. This included mushrooms, beans and leafy greens. We didn't need much, though, because our upcoming week would be hopping from one catered accommodation venue to the next.

Happily, the first of these turned out to be a lovely spot called Kazondwe Camp. Our original plan was to visit some of the national parks while we were in the Zambezi Region (previously known as the Caprivi Strip), but the absence of wildlife made us think that this wouldn't be a fair comparison after the abundance in Botswana. So instead, we took the opportunity for some R&R. Perched on a hill, overlooking a floodplain, Kazondwe had a beautiful outlook. Add in the amazing food and a beautiful swimming pool, and it was a perfect place to drop anchor for 2 nights.Read more