Our destination after the salt pans and the Makgadikgadi National Park (don’t worry, I still can not pronounce that name either) was Maun, the tourist capital of Botswana. Its location between all the famous national parks at the edge of the Okavango Delta, which makes it a hotspot for all tourists. Therefore, we had plenty of camps and lodges to choose from. Barbara, Urs, Tom and I agreed to stay at the “Audi Camp”. Our first mission, however, was to get our cars clean. We emptied our vehicles at the campsite and asked at the reception to leave our valuables, then we drove into town and left our empty cars with some guys who did a great job cleaning them inside and outside. In the meantime, we enjoyed some lovely food at the “Dusty Donkey”, a nice little restaurant downtown. That’s where we also met the famous Nelly; he is from the UK but has been traveling around Africa in his Landy for a few years. He is the one who started and administrated the huge Whatsapp group chat “Overlanding Africa,” where all the African overlanders can become members and where we have already received many useful tips along the way. Nelly was interested in buying our small drone (Tom wanted to buy the latest drone, but since we were already carrying two drones with us, we needed to make some space int the car, we therefore sold both drones we were carrying with us). It’s always fun to finally meet someone you have been in contact with for a while but never met in person. Nelly was happy with the drone after he did a small test flight. He also helped us to get some stuff sorted in town; he showed us where to fill our gas bottle, get water and the best diesel; it was a very efficient trip around the city. We returned to the campsite where Barbara and Urs were already waiting for us. For dinner, we tried the lodge restaurant, which was a great idea; the food was delicious.
The following day, Tom and I went into town to buy groceries. When we entered the mall where the big supermarket was, there was another little shop that sold everything and nothing. Of course, we couldn’t pass it without stepping in (you remember Tom’s addiction to gadgets of any kind). We exited with a new lighter, a new plug for the car, and a small FM transmitter, which was a gift for Barbara and Urs. They could not listen to their music from their phone because their car radio didn’t have Bluetooth. When we returned to the campsite after buying our groceries, we gave them the little present, and they were thrilled. For the rest of their trip, they enjoyed listening to all their favorite songs :)
The next day, Tom and I organized a little date day for ourselves. We enjoyed traveling with company a lot, especially with Barbara and Urs, but from time to time we like taking time just for the two of us. We started our date day with a small lunch at “Hilary’s”, Urs and Barbara gave us a ride into town because they had some things to do in the city. After the lunch, we then continued to the “Duck Cafe Bar” to enjoy a glass of wine, before we went next door to Helicopter Horizons, where a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta was waiting for us. We were just about to pay for the flight when the lady at the desk asked for our passports, which we didn’t bring with us. Since the flights were leaving from the airport, it was necessary to have the passport with you. Maybe they forgot to tell us when we booked the flights the day before, or maybe we were too euphoric and didn’t hear it, it didn’t matter anyway, our flight was supposed to leave in 20 minutes and our passports were at the campsite another 20 minutes away. Also, we didn’t have our car, there was no way we would have made it back in time. Just in that moment, Barbara and Urs came around the corner. They stopped at the airport because they wanted to check if they could see us leave in the Helicopter. We told them about our problem and Urs quickly offered to drive us back. Tom went with him to grab our passports while I sorted out another flight time with the lady at the desk. She postponed our flight for another hour and we still got to do our scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. And it was maaaagic! What a great experience this was! It was only from above, that we realized the size of the delta. Besides the spectacular scenery, we could also spot many elephants who were bathing and drinking, as well as some zebras and buffaloes and elands and - we could not believe our luck - we even spotted a lioness under a tree, it was just breathtaking.
After the flight, we went back to the “Duck Cafe Bar” for another drink, before we headed to “Marc’s Eatery”, an excellent restaurant, where we treated us to a very nice dinner. It was a perfect date day and we came back happy and tired (and a little bit tipsy).
The next day, it was time to get going again. Our last mission together with Barbara and Urs (for now) was the Moremi National Park. The two of them had been there many years ago and it was a big dream of them to go back for another visit. However, the first challenge was, that you’re only allowed inside the park for multiple days with your own vehicle, if you have a reservation for a campsite, and they are hard to get. Luckily, we managed to make a booking for two nights and were all set to drive in the park. We had already heard some stories about the bad roads inside the park, and when we arrived at the entrance gate, the lady explained to us which route we should take, which roads were possible to drive and she also informed us, that there was a bridge which collapsed, so we were facing at least one river crossing. Nevertheless, we drove into the park enthusiastically, ready for another adventure.
Unfortunately, there were not too many animals around. We saw giraffes and elephants and zebras, but the rest of the wild life seemed to be hiding or staying in a different part of this enormous park. On the other hand, the park itself was beautiful. Our cars manouvred smoothly on the sandy roads and soon we reached the collapsed bridge. Since we knew, that we were supposed to cross the river, because the lady at the entrance told us so, we dared to do the river crossing and successfully reached the other side.
We drove to our first campsite “Third Bridge Camp” and set up our rooftents for the night. Urs and Barbara cooked a delicious meal for dinner. The next morning, we left our camp very early in the morning, hoping we would have more luck seeing some wild cats in the early hours. Unfortunately, we didn’t spot them, but the ride through the park in the cool morning hours was still very nice. We returned to our camp, enjoyed a small breakfast and continued our trip to our second campsite called “Xakanaka”. When we arrived at the our camping spot, there was a hippo grassing around our cars. We dared to get out of the car and slowly set up our camp, the hippo couldn’t have cared less about our presence. Our neighbors on the campsite were some South Africans who had been camping here for almost a week. They informed us, that they saw two lions the night before at the campsite, which again had no fence. Apparently, the lions were chasing a buffalo and ran between the cars and tents. They advised us to not walk to the ablutions after dark, and we of course took their advice. Tom and I went for a short evening game drive while Barbara and Urs took a rest. After we returned, Tom and I grilled some burgers for us all for dinner, it was another feast.
We spent a quiet night without any lion action and again left early for another morning game drive the next day. This time, we were rewarded for getting up early; shortly after we had left the campsite, a group of wild dogs crossed our paths. It was the first time Tom and I saw these endangered animals in the wild. We returned to the campsite for breakfast and had to talk to the lady in charge. We realized that we were charged four days park entry fee instead of 3. She told us that we could stay another night at the campsite <, even though we did not have a reservation and apparently, it was all booked out. We stayed in the shade of the camp during the hot afternoon hours and went for another evening game drive. When we returned, the campsite was still almost empty, there were only two other parties, and we had more than enough space to set up our camp again. On our last day in Moremi National park, we slowly made our way to the North Gate, where we exited again. To drive back to Maun, you must drive through the Khwai Reserve, where wildlife is also around. They do not charge entry, however, all the campsites in this area belong to the Khwai community and are relatively expensive; that’s how they make their income instead of charging entry fees. This was a bit unfortunate for us since we already did our game drives in the Moremi National Park and only wanted to transit through Khwai. We stopped at a campsite where they charge 350pula (28 US dollars) for absolutely nothing, the camp wasn’t very nice, and the ablutions were super basic and so far from the different campsites that they told us we would have to take the car to go to the toilet because it was too dangerous to walk that far because of the wild animals. We decided not to spend the money there and continued our trip to another campsite outside of the Khwai Reserve. This resulted in a very long driving day; the road was terrible, we couldn’t drive more than 30 km/h, and it was boiling hot. We were exhausted when we finally reached the “Maako’s Rest Camp” we found on IOverlander. Luckily, the owners were super friendly and the camp was nice. We jumped under the shower, cooked Spaghetti for dinner and when we were sitting around the fire with a glass of wine before going to bed, a hyena howled extremely loud just next to our cars. We didn’t have any torches handy, so we couldn’t spot the hyena, but just hearing her howl so close was enough for us to quickly finish our drinks and go to bed to get some well-deserved rest.
On the bright side, our way back to Maun the next day was shorter. We reached Maun shortly before noon and headed straight to the car wash again. We got some groceries, and this time, we decided to stay at a different campsite on the other side of town called “Sitatunga”. It was a very nice campsite with a lovely pool, and we enjoyed two peaceful days with Barbara and Urs before they had to continue to Windhoek to catch their flight back home. Tom and I planned to stay a few more days in Maun because we had a lot of picture editing, blog writing, and movie making to do and needed a good internet connection.
For our last night together, after more than one month of traveling together, Barbara, Urs, Tom, and I went back to “Marc’s Eatery”, the restaurant Tom and I already visited, and we spent a lovely evening with fantastic food and wine. The next day, it was time to say goodbye. We were all very sad but promised to meet again, either at the beginning of next year when they return to South Africa or back in Switzerland when we would all be back from our travels.
After Barbara and Urs had left the next morning, Tom and I took our laptops and started with our “work”. It went ok in the morning, but later during the day, more and more people came to the campsite and restaurant, so the wifi was running very slowly and it was almost impossible to get anything done. We decided to follow Urs and Barbara the next day to a campsite between Maun and Windhoek, where they told us that the internet worked very well. The next morning, we were just packing up our stuff, when I was shortly scrolling through my Instagram Feed and saw that Marco, a friend of ours from Zurich, was on a holiday in Botswana with his family and his girlfriend Belinda. I texted him and asked about their travel plans and he told me that they were just about to get on a plane back to Maun and from there they would fly to Johannisburg in South Africa. Tom and I took the chance to make a little detour back to the airport and just when we walked into the airport building, they were arriving too. They had time for a drink in between their flights and we took the time to catch-up.
After they had left again, we went to get some groceries and drove to the “Symponia Guesthouse and Campsite”, where we surprised Barbara and Urs. We cooked another nice dinner together (by now, we were professionals in preparing delicious meals with whatever we could find in our two fridges) and enjoyed the company once more. The next morning, they left very early, we got up to say goodbye and then moved to the restaurant and pool area of the lodge, where finally, the internet was running very smoothly and we got to get some work done. In only one week, my parents would already arrive in Windhoek, where we would continue the trip with company again. The campsite was the perfect place to rest a few days, it had super clean showers and great infrastructure, the owner was very friendly too, we had lovely neighbors from Italy who had been traveling for two years already and to top that, there was the cutest dog who seemed to like us a lot as well. He stayed around our campsite day and night and wanted to play, it was almost impossible for us to do our workouts in the morning :)
