18.01.2017 Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe

Now we are on the bus again to go from Zimbabwe to Johannesburg. After the Okavango Delta, which was really a highlight, we made our way to Victoria Falls through Namibia towards Zimbabwe. The landscape is incredibly impressive, especially Botswana has impressed me a lot. The population density is one of the lowest in the world, 3 people live on 1 km2. So it is quite possible to drive for 3-4 hours without encountering a soul. I already thought it was incredibly deserted in the USA, but I experienced Botswana even more extreme, which may also be due to the fact that there are no signs of civilization here except for a more or less well-built road, while in the USA you can always discover road signs or similar. Since we currently have rainy season here, everything is very green and beautiful to look at, even the Kalahari Desert. Fortunately, it is not excessively hot now, as it is mostly cloudy and rainy.

Another highlight was a game drive and sunset cruise in Chobe National Park. We saw an incredible number of elephants, which surprisingly had very little fear of contact.

Unfortunately, we only saw very little of Namibia as we just drove through.

But we were able to really enjoy Victoria Falls. We arrived here in the late morning and immediately made our way to the water. The walk along the waterfalls was very impressive. We would have liked to take a hike across the borders of Zimbabwe, because it is possible to reach Devil's Pool via hiking trails on the Zambian side. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to the high water level. But that's not too bad, I firmly believe that this visit to Zimbabwe was not the last one.

Instead, Isa dared to do a 'Bridge Slide', where she slid on a rope over the river. I walked to the bridge from where I could watch and take pictures of her. Corina, Patrick and Kevin accompanied us, we met them through the Nomad tour and spent most of the time with them. The rest of the day was very cozy, we had coffee and relaxed a bit. After the hustle and bustle and the long drives of the past days, that felt very good.