December 5 and 6 - Shakawe - Caprivi Strip

We planned to leave early for Shakawe, a drive of about 120 kilometers. We thought we should get an early start so that we could have a bit of time at Shakawe, which lies at the top of the swamps, on the Okavango river. Yeah right, an early start!

  I think we eventually drove out of the camp at about 11AM. We need to have a bit more practice at this packing up activity; oh my gosh, this lot is worse than any team we have brought up before! Admittedly kids don't make the job any easier, and in fact sometimes they make the whole process go backwards. In all fairness Mark had to pack up his whole van plus the awning which was a bit of a learning process. I guess we can only improve but at this rate we won't get further than Zambia.

  The trip out of Guma was one that Mark will not live down for a while. He took a little short cut (to try and beat us) and went down in very thick sand, even with his super duper Dodge. Eventually, after a lot of revving and going backwards and forwards, we managed to persuade him to let Guy pull him out... I think he would have eventually got himself out on his own, but time was not on his side and we needed to reach our destination before nightfall. The man truck just popped him out of the sand like a cork and we were off again, making sure that we kept away from anymore thick deep sand.

  The main road up to Shakawe was, as usual, full of those huge craters (potholes) in the middle of the road and this time there were always three to four donkeys or cows drinking out of the craters, which were full of water from the rain the night before... Only in Africa. This time Ernest had no choice other than to slow down – when a donkey is drinking he ain't going anywhere.

  We arrived at the camp site at Drotsky's well after 3PM and had to make our way down a narrow road to get to the chosen campsite. The last time we were here we had to cut down branches and a few trees to get there; we were hoping that they would have kept the road open but there has been significant growth in the vegetation since then and we had to repeat the process again. We even had to pay some local guys to actually chop a whole tree down. Guy had managed to slip past it without doing too much damage but he was certainly not going to get out – it was a case of cutting the tree or spending the rest of the holiday at Shakawe, and the tree came off second best.

Phew and all this time it is hot, really hot, about 36 degrees!

  We all headed for the swimming pool to cool off and then relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful campsite with huge 100 year old trees. The kids soon had their motor bike track set out with jumps and all the right sounds from their miniature bikes. We tried to get the kids to bed early but that doesn't ever seem to work.

Again we tried to get an early start. We had about 280 kilometers to do this time and judging from yesterday's performance we’d have to push. The kids spent some time chasing off the monkeys which, through many years of practice, have become very adept at stealing food from the campsite.

  Ernest and I decided to go ahead of the bunch, to do a bit of shopping at Shakawe, which might save a bit of time because once you get Guy and Mark in a shop it takes a long time to get them out! Well, we went with a list and got half the stuff! Shakawe is not a bustling metropolis and just to find the hardware shop takes a mountain of time. We went to the service station in town. Eish... No Diesel! Any other service station ... Eh, nooooo. This was a bit of a problem as we didn't have enough fuel. We were about to leave for Popa Falls and then the border in the hopes that we would find fuel there when Guy radio’d that he was at the other fuel station in town where there was diesel! Oh well, that is Africa – not sure if the attendant didn't know of another fuel station – which is highly unlikely – or he didn't want us to know that there was a competing service station, or the most likely: he just doesn't speak English.

  We eventually left Shakawe after Mark spent some time driving around the two shops in town trying to find Christmas crackers for Eve. Oh boy, as I said a bunch of self-determined stubborn kids. The only way to get through this is to relax and go with the flow. We thought the golden oldies were bad but this lot takes the cake.

  The Namibia border post was a dream! In and out in about 30 minutes and then off to Muduma, a reserve that sits on the Kwando river in the Caprivi strip. It is really a lovely small "big five" reserve that few people know about, so it’s quite easy to get into any of their camp sites.

  We had spent an hour or so shopping at a community craft shop in Kongola, a little Namibian town. The little lady didn't know what hit her when we all walked into her shop! I think she is used to dealing with one customer at a time but when she had four adults and five children all buying things, she went into overwhelm. She painstakingly wrote down every item that we bought which took an awfully long time. I think everyone was shopping for little things that they can use to make our Christmas presents that we have to create.

  At a family dinner that we had a few days before we left on the trip, we all pulled a name out of a hat and whoever's name you got is the person that you have to make the present for. I think it’s going to be a bit chaotic as half of them have forgotten who they drew out, so Tracy is going to have to be the ombudsman and give everyone their name again, or someone is going to get two or three presents and others will get nothing.

  The other part of the present thing is that you have to write a poem about the person that you have made the present for. Ernest and I took Garrick and Aiden to school just before they broke up and Ernest asked the boys what their poems were (they, by the way, remembered who they were making the present for) Their poems were so funny and so appropriate for their intended recipients, that we knew exactly who they were talking about! So not all is lost!

  We finally made it to our 'number one' campsite, a huge clearing in the bush, beautifully-lawned and overlooking the river. Quite beautiful!

  In no time we had seven or eight hippos right in front of the camp. They are very curious animals who are attracted by the voices of the children and they proceeded to bob up and down making their typical honking noise and showing us their huge teeth, as if to say "don't mess with me!" We settled down to enjoy what we love most about Africa: the noises of the wild, a beautiful sunset and a G&T. (well for some of us, all the kids put up their noses up at our G&T; Coca-Cola blows their hair back. 

Next entry will be after Christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone following us on this journey! 

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