Category: Kasane, the Chobe River and Livingstone

On July 16th we departed Chobe Marina Lodge and headed to the Kazungula border where the Zambezi River separates Botswana from Zambia.

The crossing between Botswana and Zambia was at one time notorious for the time it could take to cross, especially if you had a rented vehicle.

It was chaos in the customs building and it could take two or more hours to clear customs, but you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the drivers of the semi-trailers that lined the road for literally kilometres before reaching the edge of the Zambezi River, where two barges operated to ferry two to three semis per crossing, plus maybe one or two cars. It was nuts, and we were told it could take over a week for the semis to finally cross into Zambia.

Well, a new bridge and customs facilities were built and there were no road signs pointing the way to the border crossing. We couldn’t believe that this beautiful new bridge didn’t have good signage. We weren’t sure if we were going the right way and our Garmin GPS pointed us to a turn I didn’t think we should take and fortunately I was right but there were still no signs!

We made it to customs around 8:50 am.

We withdrew some Zambian Kwacha from an ATM near to where we parked (we knew we needed Kwacha for our excess vehicle insurance purchase) and proceeded into a brand new “ORGANIZED” customs terminal.

We were pretty well the only people in the facility, and the Botswana customs exit, Zambia customs entry, TIP (Temporary Import Permit for vehicles) process, carbon tax, road tolls, etc., took a grand total of about 1 hour. We were so happy because typically it can take over two hours. Being there early helped. If the area was busy, we could see that the process could still take a couple of hours, as there would be long lineups at each process counter. Free and clear, we made our way to Livingstone, about a 50-minute drive away.

We booked one night at Fawlty Towers Hotel in central Livingstone. However, our Garmin GPS didn’t have the hotel in its database, and we hadn’t yet purchased a SIM card for Zambia, so we couldn’t use Google Maps.

We weren’t sure where the place was located, so we pulled into a Shoprite parking lot to get our bearings and ask for directions.

We hopped out of the truck, had a good stretch, looked across the road and, lo and behold, Fawlty Towers!

What a perfect location.

After check-in, Kristina and Lucy headed out on a private tour to Victoria Falls while we hunted down a SIM card.

We had success with getting a SIM card, and the girls had a great two-hour tour of the falls.

We decided to break up our shopping into two trips. In the late afternoon we walked across the street to Shoprite and picked up everything we needed except water, meats, bakery, booze and ice. The heavy stuff and the essential stuff.

Everything was strategically packed into the truck, and we again walked back across the street for dinner at the Hungry Lion, a KFC-style fast-food chicken place with very good chicken and extremely good prices.

Bedtime was early, and the next morning we had our breakfast, checked out at 8:00 am and did our final shop at Shoprite to get ice, meat, water, booze and bread, then headed out on our journey north to Kafue National Park.

We flew from Johannesburg to Kasane, Botswana, on the 14th of July and made our way for a two-night stay at Chobe Marina Lodge, a four-star lodge located along the banks of the Chobe River.

On the evening of our arrival, the lodge featured their open-air buffet BBQ. There was a good selection of food with some exotic wildebeest, fire-roasted pork, sausage, chicken, etc., but to be honest, the food was not very exciting and the meat was tough and so-so. The ambiance, however, was excellent.

On the morning of the 15th, we were picked up by a Bushlore rep (our truck rental company) and driven halfway to the Zambian border (exaggerating) to pick up our Toyota Hilux Bush Camper, which we will use for the next 21 days of exploring and camping.

Once we got our shit together with the “New Version” of the truck we had 5 years previously, I immediately turned the wrong way in their compound and looked forward, looking for the exit.

I didn’t see the giant drainage gully in front of me (everyone else did!), crashed down into the pit, everyone screamed, drove out and felt very embarrassed.

“Just checking the four-wheel drive,” I sheepishly told the reps who came running out wondering what the hell was going on with this old man they just rented a truck to, crashing around their compound. It was fun. TFB.

The lodge is very close to the border of Chobe NP so with cool drinks in the cooler and some small appies supplied by our captain NT, we hopped on board our private little pontoon boat at 3:00 pm on our second day at the lodge and headed upstream on the Chobe River into the park to explore the shore line and very large island that separates Botswana from Zambia.

There has been drought through the region for some time now, so the landscape has changed for the elephants, but we did still have some great elephant sightings and close-up water crossings, along with crocs sunning on the shoreline, Cape buffalo hanging out on the island and hippos being their noisy selves with the waterbuck, impala, African openbills, etc., etc. It was a great three-hour tour.

Tomorrow we head to Zambia.