Botswana in a Nutshell  II
Written by Terry Baker

Chapter 4

Figure 15 - The writer - drenched after going the full hog.

Many wonderful photos were taken - too many to put into a brief summary such as this.

The Robbery

After spending a wonderful couple of hours at the falls we decided to see some of the other sights of interest to tourists and proceeded to find the Lookout Tee, which is shown on our tourist map. We took the turnoff from the Livingston / Vic Falls road, but instead of proceeding straight to the tree for a couple of hundred meters, we followed the tar road past the Zambia Power Station toward a couple of other sights of interest along a canyon. It is here that they offer abseiling into the ravine and a canyon swing, or a trip over the canyon on a rope. It looked interesting and we were the only visitors but not brave enough to try any of activities. One of the workers, waiting for tourists, explained to us where the tree is and so we proceeded to Look Out Tree.
There it was, a large boabab with a ladder leading up to a platform at the top. I couldn't wait to get up there. Hilary decided to stay in the car as she had a slight headache. I had to take a picture of the tree from the ground, just for record purposes of course. After taking this picture I scrambled up the ladder.

Figure 16 - Look Out Tree

What a magnificent view from the platform.
I was in the process of composing a picture when I looked down. I'm not sure what made me look down but what I saw almost "froze" me. Three guys had appeared from nowhere, out of the bush and were approaching the car with Hilary still sitting in it. My first thought was that they were going to beg for food or something but then they approached directly and fast, with the first guy pushing his head into the drivers window which was open and the others going around to Hilary's side. I shouted at them but I could see they meant business. I found myself on the ground shouting to Hilary to get out of the car.
Hilary sprang out with my cell phone in her hand and the leader, who a few moments ago had his head in the driver's window, came around to our side and threatened us with a large what looked like a "home made" knife. He threatened to kill us with the knife if we tried to stop them and also demanded the cell phone that Hilary was still holding. I told Hilary to give him the phone and move away from the vehicle. We stood watching them load all they could carry into plastic boxes which we had brought along to carry food and clothes in. After what seemed forever the leader came back to face us and demanded money. I told him we had none on us and that it was at the "hotel".
I did not know if we had money or not on us at this stage. He looked me up and down but did not notice that I had stuck the small Canon camera that I had up the tree with me in my jeans pocket whist they were ransacking the car.
They then turned and ran into the bush in the direction from which they came, and away from the main road. I told Hilary to get into the car while I picked up a couple of tins and other things that they dropped in their get-away, and tossed these things into the back of the car. Thank heavens they did not take the keys, which were still in the ignition. We dashed back the 2 or so km to Vic Falls where there is a police station. The police were very helpful but so desperately under resourced. One policeman grabbed his rifle and started putting bullets into the magazine, whilst another asked me if I would transport them to the scene, whilst Hilary stayed to give a statement. There was not anyhow enough room for 3 passengers in the car in spite of being burgled.
Back at Look Out Tree the 2 policemen started tracking the culprits after asking me to pick them up later. I was wondering to myself what they would do if they actually came across the robbers. Two against Three. Leave one policeman to look after the robbers whilst the other goes for help? I think not. Without a radio or transport?
I left them there, and returned to the Police Station where I had to do a separate report. (I now know why they call it "The Look Out Tree")
The afternoon was spent trying to get through to the SA and UK Consular offices in Lusaka to get travel documents as our passports were among the things stolen. We also needed to draw money as that had also gone. It was hopeless. The banks were closed. In desperation I suggested to Hilary that we go to the lady at the Information office to see if she could help some way.
This time we met, Carina, the owner of Wildside tour operators and she was most helpful. She let us phone Lusaka and also phoned the local moneychanger to see if he would let us draw money against our credit cards, without proof of identity, no passport. Mo Money as he is known was very helpful and said it would be ok for us to draw some money. That was where we had been the day before and they had seen Hilary's passport on that occasion. The Consular offices insisted that we drive to Lusaka to get travel documents. They are only open from 8 am until 11 am weekdays, so we were planning to leave Sunday to get there for Monday, there was no possibility of making it in time for Friday morning. The lady said the road to Lusaka is good. We started looking forward to the trip although we had not planned to spend so much time in Zambia.
Sleep did not come easily that night but we had got the knack of keeping the mattresses inflated and that certainly helped a lot.
Friday morning we decided to take it easy and were up at about 7am just sitting in our camping chairs enjoying a cup of early morning coffee, when I noticed a guy walking with the gate guard towards the reception and they both casually looked our way. I said to Hilary "Here come our passports".
The receptionist was a large very dark African who spoke very fast with a soft voice and he reminded me of a former president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda. So we called him Kaunda.
Hilary replied "They won't find our passports that soon". Two minutes later Kaunda approached us "I think someone has found your passports".
Still in my pyjamas we went to the reception area where a guy was standing holding our passports. I was not sure if I should smack him or kiss him. Was he sent by the robbers and part of their plot?, or was he really an innocent discoverer of the passports? After hearing how Sylvester found our passports, I was happy that he was just a very Good Samaritan. We were ecstatic.
I took Sylvester to the Police Station where they heard his story and took his details and then I took him into Livingston to where he runs a small computer Training school. He did not want a reward or anything for finding the passports.

Figure 17 - Sylvester Mwambo in his Training Centre with students.

When I got back to the camp, I was still wearing my pyjamas.
Back at Marumba River Lodge we were excited about getting our passports back and decided to return to Botswana the next day, Saturday, sticking largely to our original time table.
We went to Mo Money to draw enough Kwatchas to give Sylvester something for his efforts and to pay the ferry back to Kazankula. We also went to thank Carina for her efforts in helping us the previous day and to tell her the good news. After paying Sylvester a visit (I had to show Hilary his little training centre with 2 computers and 2 printers) and to thank him again, and take his photo, we headed for the Police Station to collect the police report, which we required for insurance purposes. The police do not have typing or a computer facility, so had to write their report long hand and this took a while and was not ready as yet. (cost K15 000) I asked them if we could go through customs & immigration to take a look at Victoria Falls from the bridge.

Chapter 5

Who should we see walking on the bridge?, You guessed it, the Canadian we saw in Panda and Kasane, once again. We walked along the "downstream" side of the bridge until we got to the other side, said "Hi" to the Zimbabwean customs guard with the AK47, then crossed the road and returned on the falls side of the bridge, where we took more photos with the remaining camera.

Figure 18 - Zambezi from the Victoria Falls Bridge - Downstream

Figure 19 - Victoria Falls from the Bridge - Upstream

When we eventually returned to the Police Station the report was ready for us.
The report had to be rubber-stamped and this also turned out to be a problem because the stamp-pad had not seen ink for a long time. I thought the poor guy was going to lick it to get some moisture to the dry ink. I jokingly offered to bring ink on my next visit to Zambia, and the officer took me seriously and said he would appreciate anything like that; even pencils and ballpoint pens would be appreciated.
In the afternoon we went to the Livingston Museum, after having asked Carina whether we would be safe there. The museum was very interesting, and mostly about the birth of the town of Livingston and the missionary David Livingston whom it was named after.
We later relaxed over a quiet drink at the Waterfront over the Zambezi River before returning to our campsite for the night.

Figure 20 - The Zambezi Waterfront

I have always been interested in the missionaries having been born in Kuruman in the Northern Cape where the missionary Robert Moffat established the first Mission Station in the area. David Livingston married Mary Moffat, Robert's daughter at the Moffat Mission in Kuruman. I have had a long association with the Moffat Mission as my grandparents lived on the Kuruman River very close to the Mission Station and were almost neighbours.
I stayed with my grandparents for a while near the Mission Station to attend school in Kuruman before going to boarding school in Kimberley.
My mother was christened in the Mission Station Church and when she passed-away her funeral was held in the same church. I recently read "No Cross Marks The Spot" by Stella E. Kilby and if you are interested in this history you will find the accounts of the hardships encountered by missionaries in these early days from the Kuruman area travelling North,
through Botswana, very interesting.

Back to Botswana

Saturday morning we packed up and headed into Livingston and then on to the border post and ferry crossing into Botswana. The trip to the border post was uneventful except for one routine police stop.
After doing the necessary at customs and immigration we proceeded to the Zambezi Ferry Engineering Company office to pay the ferry fee. The lady was very unhelpful and uninterested when we told her that we only had 5000 Kwatchas to pay the ferry fee. Although the amount was enough she insisted on being paid in US$ ($10) or SA Rand (R120)only. She referred us to a young moneychanger who wanted K60000 for US$10, the official rate being K42000 / $10. Eventually after a few nasty words an American travelling from Botswana to
Lusaka pitched up and joined in the foray. He told her off in no uncertain way and offered to pay our fee for the K 50000 which in his words was "worth it" as long as she gave him his change in US$ instead of K's.
The wait for the ferry was only about 20 to 30 minutes as both ferries were now operating and we were pleased to back in Botswana, where the customs & immigration procedure was effortless. We headed straight to Spar in Kasane to replace our provisions, filled up with fuel, and then set off south toward Nata, Maun being our destination.
It was a lovely drive and the 180 km to Nata seemed like a breeze. A couple doing the trip by bicycle was seen about halfway to Nata and I wondered how they managed to camp with the limited goods they were carrying.
At Nata we filled up with fuel and turned due west toward Maun. It was late afternoon so our intention was to stay over at Planet Boabab, which is about midway between Nata and Maun.

Planet Boabab

We arrived at Planet Baobab as the sun was setting. The place is fascinating and we really did not want to drive at night. The staff were left on their own and seemed rather disinterested; the owner had taken guests on a drive. The lovely chalets are a long walk from the parking area, and there was no way of getting the vehicle any closer. After lugging and dragging a couple of suitcases through the sandy path and the thought of doing the same to the rest of our goods was just too much. We both just decided to proceed to the next accommodation, a motel. We had seen the sign and it should have been within a few km from Planet Boabab.

Figure 21 - Sunset at Planet Boabab

The turnoff to the Motel was soon located and the sign indicated it was 2km down the road toward a small village. Well, after 2 attempts to find it, and almost getting stuck in the sand, we decided to push on to Maun.

Maun

The trip to Maun was rather hairy to say the least. We both took turns at driving but did not feel safe at a speed above about 80 km an hour. The wide grass verges on both sides of the road are home to hundres of donkeys and cows, who eat at night and wonder across the road looking for greener pasture. About 20 kms outside Maun, with Hilary driving, two vehicles overtook us and sped off, then the second one slowed down to our speed and we followed him at a safe distance but he could see we were nervous of all the stray animals. If he saw an animal on the left, he would flick his left indicator once, if the animal was on the right, he would flick his right indicator once, and so proceeded to guide right into Maun.
It was close to 9 pm when we arrived at Maun. Maun Lodge happened to be the first accommodation we came across and we used one of their lovely little chalets for the night. Too tired to look for campsites or erect tents.
Sunday morning, after a really good sleep, we went into town and found that Riley owns the place. There was Riley' Hotel, Riley's Service Station, Riley's Pharmacy etc. etc. So we ended up at Riley's Service Station Shop where the lady found the last map she had of Maun. (That was ok we only needed one.) A cup of coffee was had over the map at Riley's hotel. Now that we had an idea of the lie of the land, we proceeded to find a campsite and decided on Audi Camp, even though we only had a Mazda.
Audi Camp comes highly recommended in all the literature we found. There was a nice lively and fairly large crowd camping here. The rates are good and we received a 20% discount for being such nice people and for coming from SA.
Maun, as well as Audi Camp, are situated on a river, which was dry this time of the year, but will be flowing by June or July. The river is fed by water from the Okavango Delta (or Okavango Swamps), that in turn receives water from Angola when it is their rainy season. Maun is also the gateway to the Okovango as it is situated close to the South East of the Delta.
In the afternoon we were trying to arrange a trip into the Delta to spend a day on the Mokoros' (wooden canoe) for me. Hilary was not too keen on the idea.
We were talking to the lady manager, Sonya, when a couple checked in and also wanted to do the Mokoro thing. It did not seem possible because of driver and co-ordination problems so I wrote the idea off. Then, while we were relaxing at the pub, Sonya came up to us and said she has managed to arrange the trip with the couple that arrived earlier, and that I should be ready to leave at 7 am the next morning.

Chapter 6

And so it was. At 7 am we met at the reception where our driver loaded us into the 4x4-viewing vehicle and started toward the swamp. After about an hour we arrived at a gate where a woman presented a register to the driver and there was a sign indicating that we were now entering a nature reserve.
A few km further along I spotted a herd of elephants in the distance. One could see the signs of the water level at "high tide", which happens every year, but it was very dry and dusty. A bit further on we arrived at the river where the mokoros, or boats, were lying in the shallow water and were being cared for by the "polers". The family that formed the rest of my team
consisted of Hennie, his wife Petru and their daughter Narina. It turns out that they live in Pretoria and had done the same trip as us to Zambia, but came to Maun via Chobe National Park in their Landrover Discovery.

Figure 22 - The Mokoros with a "Poler"

Hennie and Narina took one mokoro and Petru and I took another and off we set in a northerly direction. Our Poler's name was Alex and he had been doing "polling" for the past 2 years since finishing at school. He was thinking of becoming a game ranger and already knows a lot about the fauna & flora as well as about the animals in the area. He has never been to Johannesburg (Lucky Chap), and has never seen the sea. The other poler was Richard.

Figure 23 - Hennie and Narina in their mokoro

Ones bum gets rather numb after sitting in one of these too long, so we opted for a hike where we came across a pool of hippos.
After our hike we returned to the mokoros and went in the opposite direction.
The schools were on holiday so some kids were doing their own thing with a mokoro. Our two guides, because of the dangers involved, told them off and sent them on their way. The water was flowing strongly as the swamp was filling up. A little further on we came across a lone elephant in the river ahead of us.

Figure 24 - Hiking in the swamp

Figure 25 - Kids will be kids

Figure 26 - A lone elephant leaving the river

We stopped for lunch under the shade of a clump of trees close to where the elephant was. After lunch we returned to the mokoros and went back to our rendezvous. Our driver arrived at the same time that we got there and Alex came back with us to visit his girlfriend who lives close to Audi Camp.

Ganzi and Home

The next day we packed up early and headed south for Ganzi. Hennie and his family departed as we were busy packing and they also headed home but via the Salt Pans, toward Francistown.
On entering the outskirts of Ganzi we tried the first Rest Camp, which was very new. The campsite was too new for us. The water had not been turned on and plumbing fittings were strewn all over. We also were the only occupants and got ourselves stuck in the sand. Hilary phoned another campsite about 4 km other side Ganzi and we opted for that one instead.
Thank goodness we still had one cell phone left after the robbery.
Gabarone was our next destination and we had a lovely but long drive passing the diamond-mining town of Jaweng on the way.

It was getting dark when we neared Gabarone and we noticed a sign to the Livingston Mission Station, but we did not want to stop that late in the evening. I now know where the mission station is, as mentioned in the book "No Cross marks The Spot", and will visit it on our next trip.
The hotel in Gabarone was good. We treated ourselves to the restaurant before retiring for the evening. We arrived home via a few places I have heard about but never been to.
One was Groot Mariko. It is a bit run down but has a lot of tourist potential.
Would I do the same trip again - You bet.

Footnote
Two weeks after we returned home, the following article appeared in the Sunday Times of
May 18th 2003 :

A 56 YEAR-old Dutch tourist died of dehydration after he and his wife were stranded without petrol for almost two weeks in a remote part of northwestern Namibia.
Police found Jan Snel's body on Friday. His wife Marie, 55, was disorientated but alive. The couple apparently ran out of petrol two weeks ago and hoped that someone would pass by, but no help turned up. - Sapa-AFP

I said to Hilary , "Could this have been the couple with the foreign accent that were on the ferry with us on our return from Zambia?" They were also in front of us in the queue at the Botswana customs post and were battling with the English language.

My original idea was to go from Zambia into Namibia via the Caprivi Strip, and then pass back into Botswana north of the Okavango and then down the west side of the swamp, but because of time constraint we decided to save this trip for next time. Many tourists go to Cape Town via this route and Namibia.
That reminds me ----- We must tell you our theories about the guy that was our neighbour at Marumba River Lodge. That is a whole story on it's own.

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