Gem and Stu’s World Tour

Please note there are no piccies for this yet as we had our camera stolen in Namibia (hopefully we will get some pictures from other people on the trek soon).

Botswana was a bit of a let down for us - we had so been looking forward to getting there but as soon as we crossed the boarder from Zim it started to rain! We did not do a few of the game drives while in Etosha Nat Park as we wanted to save some English pounds and it was a good job as people did not see much more that we had seen earlier on the trip.

Our drive from Etosha was very bizarre - just one long road for about 9 hours driving. We then got to a nice campsite just outside the Okavango Delta (in the grounds of a hotel so there was a pool etc). It would have been relaxing but when getting into her tent Maria (a lovely Ozzie girl on the trip) found a massive tarantula in amongst her stuff!!!! I have never seen anything so huge and hairy! We all had to go and investigative and then we decided it was a baboon spider (very poisonous)!!!!! Needless to say every tent was well checked and all the zips well and truly zipped up tight that night!

Our trip to the Delta (the next day was quite strange) - we drove to where the delta started and then loaded all our stuff into very small Mokoro canoes (made of real wood) - we also had to take all our food and cooking gear as we were cooking for ourselves while in the Delta. Anyway, the journey through the delta on the boats is amazing. You just lie back (2 people to a boat) and your guide punts you though the reeds and water (takes about an hour) - very relaxing. However, on arrival at our bush camp (i.e. we were camping in the middle of the Delta with no facilities (apart from a large hole)) we quickly realised there was not much there. I had a swim but then quickly got out when I realised that there could be crocs in the water! I also tried to punt on one of the boats until I realised I was rubbish at it. After a boring day we then went on a game walk and saw no animals - the only thing we did see was about 4 thunderstorms closing in on us. We did not get back to camp on time and got totally caught in them, I have never been so wet. I had to strip off before getting into the tent as to not get the inside of the tent wet. The rain continued all night long so we just stayed in the tent and went to sleep (thank god i had brought some spare (and dry) clothes).

The next morning Stu went on another game walk but I stayed in the tent, feeling very miserable as we had had a couple of puddles in the tent overnight (and I had managed to get 63 mozzie bites). Soon after breakfast we then left the Delta - we had paid extra to do this trip so we were very disappointed when it was not so good but hey ho!

That afternoon we dried all our stuff in the sunshine (luckily it cam out for a bit) but we had left our shoes outside the tent and Stu’s shoes managed to walk off on their own accord!! On the plus side, that evening we had a fab buffet at the hotel (so no-one had to cook) and some African dancers came to dance for us.

Another long drive followed the Delta and the rain continued. We were planning on seeing some bush paintings in the Botswanan hills (just near the Namibian boarder), but as we got closer to camp the roads were so bad. We decided to skip the bush paintings and try and get onto better roads again (or we may have been stuck for days had it continued to rain) and try and get to Namibia that night. When we eventually got to the boarder though it was closed and then we spent about 2 hours driving around trying to look for somewhere to camp. Luckily we were able to camp in a guest house grounds and had a very later dinner (in the rain). Roll on Namibia!!