Pension Omeg Allee Tsumeb

Patty:
Sorry we are writing so little about our daily travels. Each day seems to out-do the next in terms of pictures, adventures, camp luxury, food, history, nature, wildlife and family stories. We have not had phone or internet for 8 days and we are trying to download and update as quickly as we can on 8-14.
I am updating these next two days, because for each of us they were Unbelievable! As you know, I have travelled to many ...

... I wandered back to the waterhole, which is incredibly busy during the day! I spotted zebra, kudu, wildebeest, impala, springbok, jackals and giraffe, and that was just in the small amount of time I was there!

Later Dave had to go with Sue to pick up Puk, so I went back into the park with the Swarts. We drove around Ficher Pan, but apart from giraffe and the usual animals we didn’t see anything different. When we got back we stopped ...

... so small it was not much bigger than the springbok in front of it!

After we got back I went to watch the sun set from the top of the fort and then joined the others at the waterhole. This waterhole has to be one of the noisiest ones in the world! Thousands and thousand of birds roost in the reeds and they are constantly moving from reed to reed and shouting at each other. Add to this the sound of thousands of frogs and the noise is magical, if rather loud!

Destination 362

km180'053

From Etosha N.P. I am at the point to move from the western side to the eastern side of Africa. This was involving another gravel road to take, where I have seen first traditional huts of bushmen. I will head west driving along the "panhandle" of Namibia.

We made our way to the final campsite Namutoni. It is the site of a fort that was originally a German police post and later as a place to hold English prisoners in World War I. The original fort was destroyed shortly after its construction in 1904 and rebuilt a year or two later. The current fort was restored to its present state in 1957. The fort now largely serves as a lodge for visitors to the Park. No, they did not have a pool in the original fort or the guest lodges!

Zambia Zambia is one of the least populated countries in Africa with 16 people per sq km. There are vast stretches of country with bush and some smaller settlements while there are very few larger cities. The northern copper-belt is denser populated with people working in the mines. Our travels were through the Eastern province, Lusaka and the Southern province. This region has an elevation around 1000m. The capital Lusaka has an altitude ...

If you've ever seen Norman Rockwell's paintings and illustrations, you know he painted an America in the 1940's and 1950's that was so idyllic, so "Golden Age"-ish that you have to wonder if it was ever like that. Well, if Norman Rockwell had been African, he might have come up with Tsumeb. Despite an unfortunate name (sounds like some gelatine desert that ...

... of great things. We had to hire a car, because they won't let us in on our bicycles. But, look at what we rented, is that a lot safer from a charging elephant then our bicycles? The two highlights were seeing a lion with his fresh kill. He was hard to miss, because there was a stack of other parked cars on the road near him. While we got to watch he was just hanging out watching us watching him. He seemed to be done ...

... car, and might even outweigh our fully loaded bikes. Might. Car is an interesting cross of old and new; the frame, and engine are clearly from the original line - I couldn't get it to start until the rental guy showed me where the choke lever was. Dang, last time I needed a choke was on a lawn mower.... But it also had a key-less entry system, and a car alarm possessed by minor demons from Hades which resulted in the alarm going off at ...

... 450km to plant ourselves in Groontfontein, followed by a quick bike to Tsumeb, the gateway to the (hopefully!) astounding Etosha national park. We crossed into Namibia after about 200k of biking from Livingstone, the last 150k of which were very flat, and the population density went through the floor, both of which were a good precursor to the Caprivi delta to come. But Zambia didn't have the sand; I haven't the faintest idea how anything grows here in ...