T Exploring Some of Africa - A Road Trip

Early in November we left the boat to do a road trip up to Victoria Falls, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. We rented a car at the local airport to get unlimited mileage and shared the expenses with Cats Paw 4. It was over 1600km one way to drive there and we had two borders to cross. The first day we got as far as Mokopane in Northern South Africa. We were off at first light the following morning to drive over the Botswana border. It took almost an hour to get over the Botswana border as you first have to exit through S Africa border control and then enter Botswana and they all have a slow process and there were a few people ahead of us. There were also a number of road construction delays in both countries so we arrived after dark at Kasane in the NE corner of Botswana. It took a while in the dark to find the Iyla guest house where we had decided to stay. That night we had a nice dinner at The Old House restaurant and with their help we found a place to book a shuttle bus for the next morning that would go over the Zimbabwe border to Victoria falls.

The shuttle left at 8am the following morning for the falls about a hour away. It is not recommended to take your car into Zimbabwe if your just going to the falls, also your rental car company may not allow it. It took us again a hour to get our group over the border due to paper work. They also charged us commonwealth country people $75 US each for a visa and everyone else $30. Zimbabwe currency is worthless so they use the Rand or US dollar. Actually we were able to buy a 50 billion Zimbabwe note for just one dollar. The old Zimbabwe currency seems to be a popular souvenir. The falls were spectacular even though we were seeing them at their lowest rate of flow, at the end of dry season. The falls are not the highest in the world but are the grandest. It is about 3 times the height of Niagara falls and much wider. We spent a couple hours on trails looking at the falls from different angles. Afterwards we went to the famous old Victoria Falls Hotel and had a expensive lunch while enjoying a view of the bridge over the Zambezi river. Earlier we had seen people bunjee jumping off the bridge, but we weren't tempted to give it a try.

The driver then took us around to a craft market where they try very hard to separate you from your money. They did have alot of very nice wood and stone carvings which you could get for very reasonable prices if you had good bargaining skills. Then we returned to our lodgings after more tedious border crossing paperwork. The next morning we were off at 6am in a large four wheel drive for a tour into Chobe park. We saw 8 lions eating a water buffalo they had just killed on the shore of a large water hole. From the same spot we could see hippos and crocodiles nearby and in the distance wildebeests, elephants and a whole herd of water buffalo.

After the 3 hour tour of Chobe we immediately started back towards South Africa. Botswana is very flat, dry and not very scenic, just lots of small brush and trees. Occasionally there was elephants alone the road. We saw very little traffic on all the highways we drove in Africa making me think the average African cannot afford a car. There is lots of cows, donkeys and goats though and they often decide to walk across the road as you come along, so care is needed. Botswana is safer than South Africa and more prosperous than some of its neighbors due to it's diamond mining.

The speed limits on the roads seemed very sporadic, constantly up and down. Anyway we ended up getting a speeding ticket (Brian wasn't driving), apparently we were doing 89kph in a 60 zone. This was on our way out of Botswana and they would only take their local currency Pula for the fine. We had very little Pula left so the cops were very accommodating and adjusted our speed on the ticket to 69kph so we would be able to pay the fine. We were surprised to find that some accommodation prices were also negotiable. We had stopped at one hotel in South Africa and when we got inside we realized the place was far too fancy for our budget. The reception clerk seemed anxious for us to stay and kept reducing the price and finally asked what we were willing to pay. After a quick call to the manager we ended up paying only about half of the original rate.

We decided to drive back through the world famous Kruger park and spent one night inside the park. We saw lots of game and also finally completed our big 5 sightings when we saw a leopard. The big five are the elepant, water buffalo, rhino, lion. leopard. The leopard is the hardest to spot being largely nocturnal. We were lucky to spot two elepants mock fighting in a river and watched them for awhile pushing each other around, locking tusks and often ending up under water. We were thrilled to once again see lions. This time they were eating a water buffalo right beside the road. No binoculars required to enjoy this show and we could even hear the sound of crunching bones as they ate.

Leaving Kruger our route back to Richard Bay took us through Swaziland, a different country. The border crossing was uneventful though you still have to get out of car and go inside to fill out a form. Border crossings in Africa are not like the modern world where you just drive up to a gate and the official ask a couple of questions and waves your through. We spent the first night here in the Road house lodge just outside Manzini. The second day we decided to try a cultural tour that was advertised in our Lonely Planet. Our guide took us way up to the top of the hills to an area where people still live in a traditional way in small family villages. We had lots of interesting conversations about Swaziland life and even learned a few words of the SiSwat/Zulu language. We had a traditional dinner and breakfast and slept in a mud and grass hut on a mattress, no showers or electricity but the outhouse had a great view. He also took us to a local school to visit with the kids. The kindergarten class sang their national anthem for us, so cute.. All very interesting though we felt like he charged too much for the experience. Driving though Swaziland we saw many sugarcane plantations and also lots of trucks filled with sugarcane on the road. One time when we had to stop for a construction delay, we noticed lots of local kids munching on sugarcane and then realized they we taking advantage of the stopped traffic and stealing sugarcane from the trucks carrying huge loads of the cane. It must be a tasty treat. That afternoon we arrived back in Richards Bay which had finally warmed up and we were happy to see the boats were okay. Great trip!