week 71 - 72 - along the Garden Route with our friends Dylan and Flurina

After almost three months, which we spent in the Western Cape and mostly in the Cape Town area, it was time to move back into our Defender and continue our trip. For the first bit, our friends Flurina and Dylan joined us. They flew to Cape Town and after rescuing us by bringing the right Diesel filter with them, the Defender was finally ready to hit the road again. We enjoyed one last dinner together in Cape Town and left towards the Garden Route. Flu and Dyli had a rental car and stayed in guesthouses and Tom and I went back to camping. Our first stop was Stellenbosch - of course, we had to enjoy a wine-tasting tour together with the two. We opted for some different vineyards this time, our first stop was J.C.Roux, where we tasted some bubbles, and then we drove to Babylonstoren, where this time, we had some more time to visit the wine museum and taste their selection of wine as well as the nice cheese and meat platters they offer. We took a stroll through the beautiful gardens and returned to Stellenbosch, where we ate dinner at Post & Pepper, a fabulous restaurant we can definitely recommend as well. Flu and Dyli slept in a nice little guest house and Tom and I stayed on a beautiful campsite called Beef’n Liki, which just recently opened. We had lovely company, a couple from South Africa, who were very enthusiastic about overlanding as well. It was nice chatting to them, and getting excited about many palces we haven’t seen so far.

Our first stop along the Garden Route was Wilderness, quite a long drive away from Stellenbosch. We agreed with Dyli and Flu to take Route 62 and drive inland instead of along the coast, so Tom and I would see something else than a couple of weeks ago, when we were driving with our other friends. Of course, we had to stop at the legendary Ronnie’s Sex Shop, a bar along the way and a tourist hot spot. Ronnie, the owner, intended to open up a little shop to sell fruits and vegetables, but his friends played a joke and changed the writing at the shop from “Ronnie’s Shop” to “Ronnie’s Sex Shop”. This turned out to be excellent unintended marketing; a lot of curious people were stopping at the shop. He had to explain the story and usually handed out a beer; that’s how he finally came up with the idea to open a bar. Today, almost everyone stops at his bar to write their name on the wall and drink a beer with Ronnie.

Up next was Oudtshoorn, where we wanted to visit some ostriches. We were running a bit late but were still lucky and had the chance to feed the ostriches at the Highgate Ostrich Farm - it was quite scary to stand next to the fence with your back facing the fence, waiting until these huge birds came from behind to pick their food out of a bucket we were holding. The force they have is unbelievable! But it was a fun experience. Of course, we also bought some ostrich fillets and an ostrich egg, which we wanted to make for breakfast the next day.

We arrived in wilderness a bit later, where Jonny, one of Tom’s old friends who we met a couple of times while we were in South Africa, organized a little braai for us at a very beautiful campsite called Wildfarm Backpackers. Flu und Dyli got to experience a very South African braai with the most amazing view - the sunset from the campsite was amazing and we had a blast together with Jonny’s friends, cooking the ostrich fillets on the fire.

Since we were in Wilderness again, we took Flu and Dyli to the cool waterfall hike which Tom and I had done already, but since we really enjoyed it a lot, we were very keen to do it one more time. After a refreshing dip in the river (actually, Dyli was the only one who jumped in) we had a late breakfast at a coffee place and drove to Robberg Nature Reserve, to go for another little hike around the peninsula. We were all pretty exhausted after all the hiking, so Flu and Dyli went to check into their hotel in Nature’s Valley to take a small nap before dinner, and Tom and I checked in at the campsite close by called the Arch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most beautiful of campsites and there were a ton of mosquitos, so instead of taking a nap, we went next door to Enrico’s Pizzeria, and hung out there. Dylan joined us later for dinner, while Flu stayed at the hotel because, unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling very well.

The next day, the three of us drove to Stormsrivier’s Mouth, another Nature Reserve, where we went on a small hike. Flu stayed home to fully recover, luckily, she was already feeling much better.

Tom and I decided to already continue to Jeffrey’s Bay, our next and last stop together, while Flu and Dyle enjoyed there very nice hotel in Nature’s Valley for one more night. We camped at the Island Vibes Hostel for one night and went to the Mexcian, a restaurant at which Tom used to play music a couple of times the last time he was here and therefore knew the owners well.

The following day, Dyli and Flu joined us in Jeffrey’s Bay and together we moved into a very nice Airbnb to spend the last two days altogether. Dyli and I decided that we wanted to give it a shot and rent a surfboard to try and catch some waves - no better place in South Africa than Jeffrey’s Bay. Luckily, we also had the best possible teacher at hand - another Dylan and professional surfer, who Tom and I met a few weeks earlier in Cape Town, happened to be in town as well and he was very happy to take us out and push us into a few waves. Also, Flurina tried to catch some waves for her very first time, Tom, unfortunately, had to pass since his bruised rips were still not fully recovered.

Time flew by again, and we had to say goodbye to our friends after these few days well spent together. Flu and Dyli were driving back to Cape Town and Tom and I continued east this time. We drove to Bergrivier, a private small private nature reserve with a beautiful campsite, where we intended to spend two nights and plan our further trip. Little did we know that we would be stuck in the rain for quite a while. Just when we were cooking dinner that night, a huge thunderstorm appeared and we quickly had to move our cooking and eating under the shelter they luckily provided at the campsite. We thought this would pass quickly, just like all the other times we experienced rain and thunderstorms along our trip. But now, it was like we had passed through a magic curtain when leaving Jeffrey’s Bay, the rain didn’t stop anymore. We checked the weather forecasts but there was no place close which seemed to be more dry in the next couple of days.

We hoped for the best and stuck to our plan, after all, you cannot change the weather: our next stop was Addo Elephant National Park, a quite famous and big national park famous to do a safari. It has been a while, since we last saw the big five, but the weather was not very promising. However, the drive through the park turned out more interesting than I would have imagined. We saw many elephants, they seemed to enjoy the rain a lot, and some other funny creatures we have never seen before, like for example, a giant snail that crossed the road. The campsite was ok, we even could do some laundry, but we weren’t sure where we wanted to drive to the next day. We decided to make plans in the morning and went to bed.

week 53 - 54 - wild life, wild hikes and good-byes in Namibia

It was already the last week we spent with my parents, but a few more highlights were waiting for us. For the next night, we drove to the Hoada Camp, another campsite run by a local community. It was a nice place to chill; there was a small pool where we cooled off in the hot afternoon and met some fellow tourists. For sunset, we climbed up some hills and enjoyed the view before we returned to our cars to cook dinner. The next day, we wanted to leave very early to get to the entrance gate of the Etosha National Park before noon. The entrance gate was quite busy. While we filled in all the necessary forms and paid the entrance fees, we also prepared some coffee and a little breakfast before we were ready to go on a safari. The national park roads were surprisingly good, against everything we had heard. Unfortunately, this was only true for the first few kilometers, but at least that 😊 We spent our first night in the park at the Olifantrus Camp. When we called there to make reservations a few days earlier, they told us they were booked out. Still, after Tom played his Austrian charm and kindly asked if they had any space somewhere at the camp for us, they let us stay at the picnic site, which turned out to be an even a nicer spot than the actual campsite, which was very crowded. We had a very private place.

At the Olifantrus camp, there is a big waterhole with a hide, where the visitors can sit and enjoy the view. Since it was the dry season, many animals came to the waterhole, and we spotted a lot. We even saw a group of lions when we returned after dinner in the dark.

The next day, we had to make our way to the Okaukujejo Campsite, where we had made a booking for another two nights. The roads got worse and worse as we drove into the park. On the bright side, the rain still hadn’t started yet. It was like all the animals of the Lion King movie were meeting up at each waterhole. Never have we seen this many elephants, oryx, zebras, springboks, ostriches, jackals, giraffes, and lions in just one spot at the same time; it was spectacular! The roads, on the other hand, were very tiring, and our two cars were covered in sand inside and outside. When we finally arrived at the campsite, we had to clean our cars and then ourselves before we dared to drive inside the gate. We were delighted to get out of the car, opened a bottle of cold white wine, and sat by the waterhole to watch the animals who came to drink. None of us felt like driving around in the park again, so I suggested going on a game drive with one of the safari cars from the camp the following day. Everybody found this a good idea, so Tom and I quickly booked a tour for the next day. We cooked dinner and then went to bed because our tour was leaving very early the next morning.

Our safari guide picked us up at 6 o’clock and gave his best so we would see a lot of animals. We soon passed a pack of lions chilling right next to the road. We stayed with them for a while and learned much from our guide about these royal creatures. Unfortunately, we were not lucky to spot a leopard, but we also met some elephants, and on our way back to the camp, we came across a spotted hyena, which was very impressive as well.

After we returned to our campsite, we all felt like enjoying some time at the pool instead of driving around the park again. We got hold of four sunbeds in the shade and enjoyed our little siesta at the pool. While Tom edited a million pictures, we took on this trip, the rest of us planned how and where to spend our last couple of days together. We decided to drive to the Waterberg Lodge and campsite, a nice and historical place where my parents could return to Windhoek the day after. Tom and I would drive north towards the Angolan border, our next destination.

When we left the Etosha National Park, our cars were thoroughly checked. When we asked the guards what they were looking for, they explained that they were checking because of poaching. We would soon better understand that this is still a big issue here. We drove on the perfect tarmac road to Outjo, where we stopped at the bakery to get lunch. Tom and I tried to find a place to fill our gas bottle, which we were not able to do throughout all of Namibia. Luckily, we could use our parents’ gas bottle to cook, but since we were soon on our own again, this became an issue. We could refill our European gas bottle all over Africa, but no one seemed to have the necessary adapter in Namibia. We continued and tried our luck in the next town, Otjiwarongo. We stopped at the Afrox shop, and these guys were finally able to help us. They had the correct adapter and refilled our bottle in no time.

It was not much further to the Waterberg lodge. When we arrived, my parents booked a rhino trekking for the following day, the last highlight to end their Namibia adventure. Tom and I had already done such a trekking in Uganda and decided to go on the (cheaper) historic hiking trail instead of the rhino trekking. Unfortunately, the rangers had to inform my parents that they could not guarantee they could go on the trekking the following day. The reason was that poachers had killed one of the rhinos just a few days ago; therefore, the herd was still very upset. We couldn’t believe who would do such a thing just because of the horn. But unfortunately, people still pay lots of money for such “treasures.” What made the story even sadder was that the rhino they killed was pregnant. The rangers told us that they needed to check on the rhinos the next day to see how they behaved towards people and then would let us know if my parents could do the trekking.

We drove to the beautiful campsite with private ablutions. It was still a few kilometers to drive from the reception to the camping spots. We enjoyed a shower and started packing up our cars, my parents would give all the leftover food to us, and we gave them everything we wanted them to bring back home for us. It was unbelievable how quickly the past four weeks had passed. We wanted to enjoy dinner at the lodge restaurant for our last night. This was still a two kilometers-hike away from the campsite. We decided to walk there, and instead of walking along the street, we wanted to follow the hiking trail. This turned out to be an actual hiking trail over rocky terrain and through thick bushes; our Birkenstocks were not the well-chosen shoes for this, and by the time we reached the restaurant just before it got dark, we were all sweating again. Well, one last adventurous memory for my parents, we thought and ordered a nice bottle of wine. The restaurant was a bit more basic than we expected, and there was only one fixed menu, so there was nothing to choose from, but after our first slight disappointment about this, we had a surprisingly lovely dinner; they had a good chef.

After dinner, we still had to walk back through the dark. We followed along the road this time, which was a great idea. Trying not to think too much about the leopard that would sometimes visit the lodge, we walked back to our cars. Instead of a leopard, we spotted a few scorpions on the way, which was also worrying but at least nothing we had to run away from 😉 We made it back without being stung or eaten and fell asleep very soon.

The following day, we enjoyed breakfast altogether, and then my parents left for their rhino trekking, which took place. Tom and I packed up as well and went on the historic hiking trail, where we could read and learn a lot about the horrible battle which was fought here between the Germans and the local tribes that lived here before the German settlers arrived in Namibia. We all met again at the reception; my parents were fortunate and spotted a newborn rhino on their trekking, one which even the rangers hadn’t spotted before. They told us about their experience and showed us some pictures.

We couldn’t change anything about the fact that the time had come to say goodbye ☹ But we all spent four amazing weeks with lots of highlights and great memories to bring home and along the journey. After many hugs and kisses, we sat in our cars and drove back to the main road, where my parents continued to Windhoek, and Tom and I drove up north. Our destination was Tsumeb, a town before the border to Angola, where we also heard of a very good mechanic. It was time to recheck our car and get a service for our Defender; after all, we had driven more than 3000 kilometers in Namibia alone, and the roads were not always very smooth.

We arrived in Tsumeb and first had to bring our laundry for washing and then also had to wash our car. After everything was cleaned again, we drove to Kupferquelle, a campsite, lodge, and resort. We spent a few nights here to prepare for Angola, we had to apply for the visa, I had to catch up on a lot of writing before making new memories, and Tom wanted to work on a video from Namibia. We also could pass by Frank, the car mechanic, who was very friendly and could do a service the next day. We spent the day at a cafe next to a gym, and I joined a Cross Fit class in the afternoon. Tom couldn’t participate because he didn’t bring sneakers (some say it was on purpose). I could barely move for three days straight after this gym experience, but it was still fun.

After four nights at Kupferquelle, we had a clean car, clean laundry, a Defender that had been given all the necessary treatment, and two approved e-visas to go to Angola. Therefore, we drove to Oshikango, the border town, where we spent a night at a hotel to go straight to the border the following day. We slept at the Piscas Motel and were very surprised when we entered the gate. The place looked awful and shady from the outside, but inside the gate waited a little oasis with very friendly and helpful people. Martha, the receptionist, printed many documents we needed for the border crossing and even offered to help us if we would get stuck at the border the next day. The vibe was already very different here as well. Most people at the motel spoke Portuguese, and on the menu were many Angolan dishes we had never heard of. We were excited to cross the border and learn about a new country.

week 45 - 46 - two amazing weeks in Zambia, our first country in Southern Africa

Having learned our lesson from the last border crossing, we left in the early morning again to cross into Zambia. We were rewarded with the fastest immigration and customs on our trip to Africa. In Zambia, we headed straight to South Luangwa National Park and only stopped quickly to buy a Simcard. This as well, was a very straightforward process. Maybe because everything went so smoothly, we were a bit euphoric and agreed to exchange our leftover Malawi Kwachas for Zambian Kwachas with one of the fixers who came and offered his service. We should have known better, but when he even agreed to a not-too-bad exchange rate, we handed over our Kwachas, and he gave us the Zambian money. When we counted the bills, he told us that he needed more and that this wasn’t the amount he had agreed to (which was not true). However, we told him we would not agree to a lower exchange rate, so he asked for his money back and gave us our Malawi Kwachas. Only later, after he had left, we realized that he had kept 20'000 Kwachas (worth 20 US dollars) to himself. Of course, we were frustrated, but a lesson learned: never do business with these guys on the street; they are professionals in tricking their «customers» - looking at it that way, you could even say he had earned his money. Well, Hakuna Matata, it could have been worse. We went to fill up our Diesel tank and continued to South Luangwa.

Our first stop was at Wildlife Camp, which had been recommended to us by many Overlanders we met along the way, but they told us they were fully booked when we arrived. After seeing our disappointed faces, they offered us a spot for one night, and we were able to make a reservation at the neighboring campsite Croc Valley for another three nights. We set up our camp and quickly jumped into the pool overlooking the South Luangwa river, where many hippos and crocodiles were also taking a bath. Before dinner, we sat in the hideout they had built overlooking a waterhole to observe the animals who came to drink. When we arrived, a big group of elephants came by to drink. It was so lovely to see these majestic creatures from very close. The following day, we returned to the hideout with a self-made cup of cappuccino. We saw the same group of elephants come back to drink, but also another group joined, as well as some giraffes and lots of monkeys. It was like watching Discovery Channel live.

We weren’t rushing to leave since we only had to go next door, but most of our neighbors packed up early. When a Landcruiser passed our campsite, we only realized it had a Swiss License plate. We waved and the couple driving it stepped out of their car to come over for a chat. That’s how we met Urs and Barbara from Solothurn, who have traveled almost everywhere in their Landcruiser. They bought it ten years ago and have made trips to Asia, North and South America, and now they are traveling in Africa. They were leaving South Luangwa after staying here for a week and going to Lusaka, so we exchanged our contact details and made plans to catch up again in a few days when we would also drive to the capital city of Zambia. Our other neighbor was a young French lady traveling alone in her car named Rafiki. When we started talking, we realized that we had already been chatting about how to ship the car from Europe to Africa. We both were in Europe around the same time last year, wanting to go to Africa, and like for many other Overlanders, the options of getting to Africa by car were not many.  It was lovely chatting with Charline and exchanging some of our travel experiences. She was on her way up north, and we were going south, so there was a lot to share. It was already early afternoon by the time we finally left the campsite.

We arrived at the Croc Valley Campsite next door, where they had saved a spot for us – luckily because it was jam-packed too. Our neighbor here was Erwin, a Dutch guy, who had also come almost the same route as us from Europe to Africa, but he was traveling on his motorbike! Tom also spotted an Intrepid Travel bus, the Company he made his Africa Trip with back in 2017. He went up to the two guys just preparing food in front of the truck for their tourists and asked if they knew Victor, who was the tour guide on his trip. The two guys started laughing, and Victor stepped out of the bus a few seconds later. What a coincidence! Tom, of course, was thrilled to run into the man who got him infected with the «African Travel Virus,» We enjoyed some Malawi Gin together and were even invited to join them for dinner.

The following day, we spent inside the National Park, driving around in our Defender. We went in at 6 am and stayed until 6 pm, and it was a great experience and a perfect self-drive safari. It has been a while since our last game drive, which we did back in Uganda, and we enjoyed spotting all the animals again. Most of them just had their babies; we saw baby hippos, baby elephants, baby giraffes, baby buffaloes, and even a baby crocodile. The park was lovely as well; it stretched along the Luangwa River. We dared to drive close to the riverbed, where -  for the first time on this trip – we got stuck in the sand 😃 There was nothing else to do but get the shuffle and the max tracks from the roof, and we started digging ourselves out. Tom did the hard work while I was ensuring no animal was approaching us, lol. Luckily, we were out very quickly and got to continue the game drive. We spotted countless elephant families at the very far end of the park. Sometimes, it was tough to see them because of the trees and bushes on the side of the roads. It’s unbelievable how quickly they can hide in the bush, given their size. Even though we were driving super slow, we once got surprised by an Elephant-mom and her baby who suddenly stood in front of our car only a few meters away. The mother, of course, got scared for her baby and started running towards our car. We quickly reversed and backed off, and she slowed down again, making one final loud sound with her trunk to tell us to stay away. We didn’t need to speak elephant-language to understand her message, and our heart rate increased slightly.

It was time to drive back to the entrance gate again, and just a few kilometers before we were out of the park, we saw two cars that obviously had spotted something. We saw a beautiful leopard chilling in the shade next to a waterhole when we got closer. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were and enjoyed the last half an hour in the park observing the leopard – what a safari day!! We returned to our camp and cooked a nice dinner with our neighbor Erwin. The following day, we also made him some coffee which he enjoyed since he travels very basic due to the limited space he’s got on his motorbike. Tom and I spent one more night at Croc Valley, but all the other campers left that day, so for the last night, we had the camp to ourselves - almost… Maybe, the quiet campsite was why a group of elephants decided to visit us; they crossed the river during the day and stayed around the camp all night. When I wanted to go to take a shower, an elephant was blocking the entrance, and I had to change my plans. I was hoping I would not have to go to the toilet at night because it would not be a nice encounter to walk into an elephant in the dark. But the elephants were very friendly, and I slept like a baby that night.

The next day, we packed up and continued our trip toward Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It’s a very long stretch, and there is not much in between except for one camp halfway, where most overlanders spend a night. We left early in the morning and arrived at this camp early in the afternoon. Since we were both still fit to drive some more, we decided to pull through to Lusaka, where we arrived just after dark, around 7 pm. We were more than happy to get out of the car after 12 hours. We were warmly welcomed by Harry, the owner of the «lodge,» which actually is his private house with a huge backyard, where he decided to make a campsite after some of his friends asked him if they could camp at his home for a few nights. And he had a great eye and many beautiful ideas; the campsite was heaven on earth for us and many other overlanders. Good ablutions with hot and strong showers, a lot of space to camp, and many nice spots to have a little barbecue. Even though it was already pitch dark, we started a fire to grill some meat we still had in the fridge. Urs and Barbara, already waiting for us, joined us for a bottle of wine, and we had a great evening together.

The next day, we had to clean our car. After driving around in the National Park and getting stuck in the sand, it was indispensable to clean it thoroughly. We emptied the whole vehicle and took out all the drawers and the bed. Tom drove the empty car to the closest car wash. While waiting for it to be cleaned, he went to the China Mall next door, where he wanted to shop (if you know Tom, you know he loves shopping, especially for all the gadgets that no one actually needs. He had high hopes of finding some Christmas Lights for the Defender (I told him that I’m a big fan of Christmas Lights, and yes, we know it’s way too early 😉 ), but he couldn’t find what he was looking for and returned empty-handed but with a spotless car. I stayed at the campsite and washed all our laundry. It was great, having a clean car and clean clothes again. Geke (Harry’s partner) was cooking for everyone at the campsite for dinner. There were 16 people at the table, six from Switzerland, some from South Africa, and some Dutch.

Barbara and Urs told us about their further travel plans; they had their flight back home to Switzerland from Windhoek just a few days before my parents would arrive in Windhoek. Tom and I hadn’t researched our ongoing route until Namibia, and we found that the plans from Urs and Barbara sounded great. We decided to leave the next day together and continue the trip with them for a bit.

We spent the next two nights at the Itezhi Tezhi Lake at another small Lodge offering Overlanders camps. The view over the lake is beautiful, and the sunsets from their terrace are just spectacular. While we were sitting together and enjoying our rest day at Itezhi Tezhi, a Danish Lady on her motorbike turned up. Henriette was traveling with another woman named Sonja from South Africa, who had an accident and couldn’t get her motorbike up to the lodge. Tom and Brad (the lodge owner) quickly went with her, and Brad brought Sonja up in his car while Tom was driving the motorbike up. It was a huge and very heavy BMW machine. Brad took Sonja to a doctor to check on her leg, which got in between the heavy bike and the ground when she fell. Henriette was pleased to have some company in the meantime. Luckily, Sonja felt better quickly. She went to bed early, and the rest of us cooked a nice dinner. The following day, Barbara, Urs, Tom, and I continued to Livingstone, where the famous Victoria Falls were waiting for us.

Tom and I heard of a great Defender mechanic in Livingstone and stopped there to ask if they would have time to do a check-up; it has already been a while since the last service in Rwanda. They offered to squeeze us in the next morning, which was perfect for us. The next day, we left early to grab a coffee and bring the Defender to the workshop. They checked everything, changed the engine oil and filters, and rotated the tires to be used more evenly. After four hours (our shortest mechanic stop so far), we were all set to go straight to Victoria Falls. Barbara and Urs had already visited them on their way up, so they didn’t join us. It was truly spectacular to see the falls; we loved walking up and down and exploring them from every angle on the Zambian side. On our way back to the campsite, we stopped at the Waterfront Lodge, where they have a nice restaurant and bar overlooking the river. We enjoyed a drink and took out the bao game from the car we bought in Malawi, but we couldn’t remember all the rules we had been taught. Soon, all the waiters from the Restaurant were around our table trying to help and explain, but we discovered that there were many different ways of playing this game, so it wasn’t very helpful but funny anyway. In the end, Tom and I agreed on a set of rules, which probably is a good mix of the Malawi and Zambia rules 😊

Back at the campsite, we cooked dinner with Barbara and Urs and got ready to leave the following day to cross the border into Botswana. It was a very short stay in Zambia, but we greatly enjoyed it. Zambia surprised us with its infrastructure and excellent roads (not all, but some!). When we reached the border to Botswana, we didn’t believe our eyes when we saw the border post. It was a massive site with very modern buildings, and it all went smoothly and straightforward. It was not the African vibe we had gotten very used to. We realized that Africa’s chaotic but very colorful part was now ending. The South of Africa is much more «westernized» and similar to what we are used to in Europe. A bit sad but also excited about what to expect next, we crossed into Botswana.

week 26 - 28 - safari camping, Maasai culture and a lake get-away

Mara West is a camping site outside of Mara West, but when we arrived there, it was like driving through the famous national park. There were zebras, impalas and giraffes in front, behind and to the left and right. We were cooking dinner and a herd of zebras was grazing next to our car, the secenery seemed so unreal. Andrew and Francis, an American couple who run Mara West, were very helpful and gave us many tips about the area, and they told us that we could drive through the Masai Mara National Park without paying the horendous entry fee, if we would ask for a transit permit at the gate. This allows you to cross the park in your vehicle within a certain timeframe for free. So after two days of enjoying our neighborhood with the lovely giraffes and zebras, we drove through the famous Masai Mara.

It was not a problem at all to get the transit permit, and eventhough we only spent 2 hours in the park, we saw so many animals - besides the giraffes and zebras, we also spotted some hyenas, elephants, a crocodile, a big group of hippos in the water, many pumbas, austriches and other birds. We spent the night at Aruba Mara, another campsite just outside of the National Park on the other side. It was a nice spot at the river but there was not a lot to do other than going for game drives, therefore, we left the next day already. Eric, the lovely Massai guard of the camp, told us to drive to Maji Moto, a town on our route towards Lake Naivasha, where they have a camping site which is run by real Maasais, a great place to learn more about their culture.

When we arrived at Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, we were welcomed by the Maasais in their beautiful red dresses. They showed us where we could park our car - in between a forest of huge cactus-like trees - and offered to show us around the village and the camp and take us to the vulcanic hot springs, where “Maji Moto” has its name from (it translates to “hot water”). We walked up Loita Hills and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, they showed us their warrior skills, like throwing a speer. Tom tried as well but found it was not that easy. When we came back to our camp, we decided to do a quick workout before taking a shower, to the amusement of all the Maasais who were watching us doing mountain climbers, push-ups and sit-ups next to our car. After a nice hot shower (they take the water straight from the spring) we enjoyed a drink at the bonfire, which the Maasais made for us in the original way, without any matches or lighters but only by rubbing two wooden sticks against each other. Salaton and Susan, the owner of the camp, joined us as well and we talked about their project here. Susan originally is from the United States but came to Keny for charity work over 20 years ago, fell in love with Salaton, who is a Maasai Community Chief. Together, they run Maji Moto Maasai Cultural Camp, where they try to share the ancient Maasai culture with their guests and support Maasai tribes to live as a self-sustaining communitiy where they can keep their traditions but also to positively impact the lives of Maasai people by providing free education for children, or teaching them how to plant and grow their own fruits and vegetables. It was very interesting to talk to them about all the challenges they face while trying to combine the good from the traditional Maasai world and the new modern way of living. Salaton told us that the next day he would go to the Maasai kettle and sheep market, which occurs only once a month, and he invited us to accompany him, For the Maasai, their kettle and sheep do not only serve as food, it’s also their “bank”. When they need money, they will go to the Maasai market to sell a sheep or cow in order to buy whatever they need.

At Maji Moto, there were also two volunteers, Zara and Jessica, who stayed and worked with them for a few weeks. Zara studied bee-keeping and her mission was to teach the Maasai how to keep bees, so they would not have to go and “steal” the honey from wild bees (and distroy the hives while doing this) but to sustainably gain honey from bee hives they keep. Zara and Jessica invited us to help them check on the hives during the night - they need to do it when it’s dark, because African bees are very aggressive and they are a bit more calm when it’s dark. This didn’t sound very promising to me, but Tom was all in and I didn’t want to chicken out. Later that night, when we were about to get ready for the bee action, we found that Tom didn’t fit into the bee suit, he was too tall. Because they needed 4 people to go check on the hives, I had no choice but to get dressed (wear as many layers as possible so the bees can’t sting you - was their advice) and go into bee land. It was scary but very impressive too stand in the middle of thousands of bees (desperately praying that there is no whole in the suit) and listening to this enormous sound they are making. My task was to hold the torch, Jessica held the smoker, which imitates a forest fire and therefore makes the bees either leave the hive or stay attached and calm in order to protect the honey. Zara and the 4th guy were checking on the honeycombs. They were not ready to be harvested yet, the experience was still unique and defiinitely one to remember.

Our next destination was Lake Naivasha. On the way, we stopped in the town of Naivasha, a quite big and touristy place with many shops where you can get all the groceries our European stomach was craving. We stocked up on food and drove to Camp Carnelley’s, a camping site at the southern part of the lake, which enjoys a very good reputation. We weren’t disappointed at all, the place was beautiful and there were not many people, in fact, we had the whole lawn to ourselves and chose the perfect camping spot directly at the lake. There was only an electric fence a couple of meters in front of us, scaring the hippos away at night. From the fence, we got to pull a cable into our car, so we had electricity, there were bathrooms with hot, strong showers just a few meters behind us, we had our own fireplace beside our Defender and enough privacy, since we were at the one end of the camp - it was the perfect spot and since we were in so many different places for the past weeks, we decided to stay for 5 nights. The first morning we woke up and there was a hippo very close by, eating the delicious gras. We cooked coffee and made some breakfast and enjoyed watching the hippo having its own brekky. I must admit, I was a bit nervous, knowing that hippos are very dangerous and responsible for the most death of human by animals in Africa. I wasn’t quite sure how much effect this electric fence would have, if the hippo would get angry or scared. Luckily, it was a very chilled hippo and we got to enjoy a very close and unique experience with it. During another night, we decided to hide inside the car though, when we were watching a movie outside on our beamer by the bonfire and suddenly two hippos started fighting only a few meters away. The noise they were making was very loud and scary, and when we got the torch and saw how fast they were running into each other over and over again, we decided to move our movienight inside the Defender ;-)

We had many people admiring the Defender and coming up to us to ask us about our journey, two of them were Max and Sonja from Germany, two friends who were travelling in Kenya for some weeks. We got along very well and decided to cook dinner all together. We shared a fun night making burgers and sitting by the fire and making plans for the next day, which was to rent bikes and cycle through Hell’s Gate National Park. Ironically, it is the park from where they took a lot of inspiration for the movie Lion King, however, in this park there are no lions nor other predators, which makes it safe for hiking and cycling. It was a great experience, cycling in between Zebras, Giraffes and Buffalos eventhough we went for the long route which turned out to be quite tough. When we were back at Carnelley’s, we really enjoyed the cold beers and pizza they serve.

Our anniversary was coming up and we therefore decided to treat ourselves with a nice, cozy Airbnb cottage. We found a lovely place a bit further south on Lake Naivasha. Sam & Alicia, the owners of the cottage, are a couple from England who have been living in Kenya for a few years and decided to build a house and a cottage to rent out on Airbnb. They invited us to a barbecue on the first night when we arrived, and we had a great evening together with their friends who were also joining.

On our anniversary, we went for a late lunch at the Ranch House Bistro, a nice restaurant by the lake. We had a delicious meal and a nice bottle of wine.
Sam and Alicia invited us to stay a bit longer for free, since they did not have another booking and of course, we accepted gladly! We really enjoyed the luxury of having our own bathroom and a bed in which you don’t have to climb up to for a few nights.

We started planning our trip up north to Lake Turkana. Since this area is quite remote we asked in the Overlanding Africa Group Chat if someone was around who would maybe like to join us. We actually found a couple from Germany, who was interested in joining us, they were just on holidays and did not have a lot of time, but they still wanted to drive up with us, however, they intended to to the east side of the lake, Tom and I were planning on going up the west side, since there was a community project we knew about that we wanted to visit. We dicussed our options and came to the conclusion, that we would just do both sides, driving up east fist together with the Germans Jana and Malik and afterwards drive up the west side, since we had plenty of time and were in no rush. Janna and Malik still needed a couple of days until they were ready to start, they were traveling with their families at the moment, so Tom and I drove to Lake Elementaita, a place which is famous for it’s flamingos and camped there for 2 nights until we met up with the others.

There was one problem left to be solved - Kenya was suffering a fues shortage and it was almost impossible to find petrol and diesel. The reason for the shortage was, that the government was behind with paying out subsidies. We had to wait in line for over 2 hours and the maximum allowance was 20 litres per car only. Luckily, the guy at the petrol station let us fuel up our tank, since diesel was a bit less required than petrol. We were ready for our Lake Turkana adventure and drove towards Maralal, where we were meeting Janna & Malik, to start our trip.

week 9 to 17 - pole pole, pumzika-tu and hakuna matata

If you are wondering, why we have been so quiet for the past 8 weeks on our blog, well, it doesn’t have anything to do with us not experiencing anything interesting. On the contrary, during the last weeks we were slowly getting to know and adjusting to Africa, or Kenya at least, which came with a lot of new, fascinating and sometimes challenging impressions, however, they all happened without our Defender. Currently we are still waiting for our baby to finally arrive and to really start into our adventure we’ve been dreaming of - overlanding Africa. But one of the many lessons we have learned so far on this trip over the past 4 months is, that barely anything goes according to plans. Very often, this has lead us to amazing experiences like unexpected beautiful places and people we met. And on the other hand, it has led to a few situations where our patience was tested. In Kenya, they will tell you “pole, pole” wherever you go, which means “slowly, slowly”, and trust me, this is not just a saying here (just like “pumzika-tu” which translates to “just rest” and “hakuna matata” which means “no worries”). So here we are at the moment, after 7 weeks since our arrival in Kenya, sitting on a beach and still waiting desperately to receive the message that we can finally go and pick up our beloved home on wheels. We have definitely had our moments when we were bored out of our minds and just wanted to take off and hit the road (we even considered to buy a Tuk-Tuk and start a small roadtrip on 3 wheels - but everyone here advised strongly against it :D ). Good news so far: the ship with our container has arrived at Mombasa Port, now we just have to wait for the costum clearance (which may easily take another week), but we are optimistic that we will be reunited very soon with our Defender. And in the meantime, I’m taking the time to tell you about what we have been up to during the past weeks.

We arrived in Mombasa on 3rd December and embraced the hot weather after the cooler ad sometimes freezing days in Europe. On the plane, we met Claus, an expat from Germany who has been living in Kenya for over a decade. He offered to share a taxi and gave us many helpful tips for our upcoming weeks in Kenya, like where to get a local simcard, what apps to use for payments, where to go eat and so on. He also agreed to store a big box we have brought with us to put on top of the Defender (since we placed the spare wheel on the back, we gained some space on top for light things, like for example our two big blankets which we definitely won’t need for the start). Claus kept the box at his place not too far from Mombasa, so we wouldn’t have to take it everywhere we went until the car would arrive.

Our first stop was Mombasa City for a few nights. It is a very busy city, a bit overwhelming and we soon had enough of it. After a trip to a mall to get a sim card and a bit of sight seeing, we headed up north to Watamu, where we found a beautiful place on AirBnb close to the beach, where we decided to spend a week. The villa belonged to an Italian couple, like many other places there. Watamu turned out to be quite the “Italian hotspot”, a lot of restaurants serve great Pizza and Pasta and many locals were fluent in Italian. Steven was the guy picking us up from Mombasa and he showed us a few nice places to eat and also introduced us to an old friend he grew up with who now lives in Switzerland (his mother was Swiss). Eventhough we started getting to know locals we struggled with fighting off souvenir sellers and tourist guides and people who just asked for money whenever we left the house and were walking around. Of course, we knew we were in a touristy place and of course as a Muzungu (white person) we couldn’t hide that we were most likely not local, but it was tiring us out at times when we just wanted to get some groceries or go for a walk on the beach without explaining to everyone we were not interested in buying anything and we also could not just give our money to everyone who asked for it. We also learned that it was essential to always always always agree on a price for anything beforehand, even if it is a “friend” or the brother of the friend taking you to a place. One example was, when we went from Watamu to Malindi (a 20 minutes drive) and Steven offered to take us - he then asked us for almost the same amount we payed him a few days before when we picked us up from Mombasa (2,5 hours drive). He said he wouldn’t charge anything for the ride but he needed some money for the fuel (the amount he asked for was enough to fill up his car twice). On the other hand, Steven showed us some nice restaurants and told us places to check out that we probably wouldn’t have found on our own. We did learn quickly, however, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that everyone was trying to make a business with us, which didn’t mean they were bad people, it was just a fact we had to accept and be aware of.

In Malindi, we only stayed for two nights since there was literally nothing going on. We were walking down the beach to find a restaurant the first evening and we just passed one closed hotel after the other - Covid also hit tourism in Kenya very hard. From Malindi we took the plane to Lamu, an island up north the coast. There, we were meeting our friends Jenny and Céleste a few days later, who came to visit us. We were very much looking forward to having our friends come visit and Lamu was a beautiful place to spend some time together and celebrate Christmas. We rented a small villa together (Shela Garden House), which (like most houses you can rent in Kenya) came with a chef (Enouch) and a housekeeper (Abu). The two were amazing hosts and Enouch spoiled us with lovely local dishes and a lot of fresh seafood. If you ever visit Kenya, we can highly recommend to visit Lamu - make sure to stay in Shela, the town closer to the longest beach I have ever seen. Tom and I actually walked to the end of the beach one day, which took us 4 hours and resulted in a bad sunburn (we did pick the worst time of the day to do so, I can only recommend this walk if you start very early in the morning).

In Shela, there are no cars, the only means of transport are donkeys who carry everything around the island. There is a very layed back vibe to this place, which lets you relax and just enjoy your time. We went to yoga classes at Banana House, enjoyed nice cocktails on the terrace of Peponi’s, went on a sunset cruise on a traditional dhow (sailing boat), visited Lamu town, where we got some nice souvenirs and visited the donkey hospital. We spent a few days at the very nice pool on the other side of the island at Majlis Hotel and we enjoyed some more amazing cocktails after our extended beach walk to Kizingo, a very beautiful hotel with the friendliest staff and best barkeeper. After almost 2 weeks on Lamu, we flew all together back to Mombasa, where we met Fabri and Patricia, two other friends from Switzerland, who joined us for the next two weeks. Our first accommodation was Swahili House, a small villa right on Tiwi Beach. In the middle of the first night, Tom woke up because he heared water pouring. First he thought it must be raining cats and dogs outside, but then he realized that the sound was not coming from the roof but from the bathroom. He quickly stood up and his feet already landed in a puddle of water on the floor. Our whole room on the second floor was already flooded. We quickly got up and turned on the light and saw the water spilling out beneath the sink in the bathroom. We rushed downstairs and outside to find the night guard who was sleeping on a bench. After trying to explain to him what happened he couldn’t help us much because he didn’t know where the water switch of the house was. So Tom started looking for it all over the place and eventually found it, but by the time, the water was already floating down the stairs to the lower floor, the house was literally under water. After we managed to stop the water, we went back upstairs to check on the damage - at first we thought we were very lucky, there was a spare bed in our room where we placed all our luggage and bags on so nothing got wet - nothing expect Tom’s MacBook who we placed under the bed after watching an episode of Netflix the night before. There was nothing we could do to safe it :( The bedroom downstairs thankfully stayed dry and the house staff quickly prepared another room for Tom and myself to sleep in so we all could go back to bed and get some rest. The next day of course we were a bit devastated and started looking for other places to stay, but it was Christmas and peak season and every hotel along the coast in Diani and Tiwi was sold out or redicolously expensive. In the end, we had to stay one more night in Tiwi and were able to move to the place we had booked for New Years the day after.

Our new home was in Kwale, a place a bit further up in the Shimba hills. The villa had a stunning view over an Elephant Reserve, it was breathtaking, The house was called Pumzika-tu, which is Swahili and translates to “take it easy”. Again, we were spoiled by the house staff (eventhough Enouch and Abu from our house in Shela did set an almost unreachable level of standard). We celebrated Tom’s birthday and New Years Eve on 31st December and enjoyed the quality time with our friends.

Then already the last few days we had together with our friends were coming up. We moved back to the beach into another beautiful house: Tiwi Waterside Villa. The hosts, Aussiemike and Sabine, a couple from Australia and Germany, who have also lived in Kenya for plenty of years, built their own little paradise at the coas of Kenya. Waterside Villa is a beautiful place we would defenitely come back to spend times with friends. We had an amazing 4 weeks together with Jenny, Fabri, Céleste and Patricia, but unfortunately, time flew by and their holiday (as well as ours) was coming to an end - it was time to say goodbye :(

During these past weeks Tom and I have treated us to all the nice houses we were staying in with our friends, since we also thought of it as a “holiday” from camping. Of course, we couldn’t afford to keep on travelling like this, but we enjoyed our time a lot together with our visitors from back home. If everything would have gone according to the plan, the Defender would have arrived just in time after our friends left, but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. This was the time that started to pull on our nerves. After 6 weeks, we’ve had enough time to chill on the beach and we ate enough of all the nice food and we didn’t want to spend another penny for pricy accommodation. All we wanted was to pick up the Defender and hit the road and go explore the rest of Kenya, while sleeping in the car and waking up in different places every morning and finally start into our adventure on and off the road.

Since it didn’t look like this was going to happen very soon, we had to make new plans. We decided to stay in Diani Beach and get a cheap apartment where we could cook ourselves in order to spend as little money as possible. Furthermore, we also had the possibility to get the booster vaccination for free at the Diani Beach Hospital, which we did (thank God we were staying in an apartment with A/C, the two days after the vaccine we barely were able to leave the bed). The rest of the time we tried to research and plan things for the upcoming weeks, like planning the route and looking up nice camping spots, applying for the visa for Tanzania and so on. After 10 days in Diani Beach we desperately needed a change of scene and went to the very southern part of the Kenyan coast, Shimoni, where we spent a week at Wasini Lookout, a cozy little Lodge just across the channel of Wasini Island. We stayed in a tent, a luxorious one we must add here, it was equipped with a bed and a fridge and a ventilator, but still it was a tent. Monkeys were climbing around the trees and would steal our food if we didn’t properly close the tent and we could hear all the other animals and the waves of the ocean when laying in bed. We had to adapt again to looking for the headtorch and go outside in the middle of the night if we had to go to the bathroom (the only thing I really don’t like about camping ;) ).

Wasini Lookout hosts a very interesting NPO - REEFolution. Their mission is to protect coral reefs and grow artificial corals and plant them out again to restore habitat for fish and other animals of the sea. We had a chance to meet the Dutch founder, Eric, as well as some of the local reef rangers, who explained their work to us and also took us to a sea weed farm close-by, where they grow sea weed which is then processed into soaps, shampoo, lotion and also food.

Finally, 3 weeks later than scheduled, the ship with our container arrived at Mombasa Port. We were very close to reunite with our Defender and didn’t want to wait another minute. The agent from Mombasa port pormised that we would be able to come pick up our baby two to four days after the arrival at the warehouse of the shipping agent, already released by customs and ready to drive off. We went back to Diani Beach for another night or two in the apartment we already stayed in the week before and waited for the magic phone call. But it didn’t happen - we waited and waited and the agent told us every day that tomorrow would be the day where the car would be released from customs. At least, the container made it to customs, one step closer, but from there, nothing happened. After five days the agent told us that we would have to come in person to have the car released. So on Friday, one week after the ship already arrived, we took a Matatu (public bus in Kenya on which I could write a story by itself) and after an Odyssee arrived at the customs, where the officers opened the container together with us. There was our baby, safe and sound tucked in - we were so happy! We drove out of the container and waited patiently until the customs officer checked all our belongings and compared them with the packing list we handed-in in Athens. After another four hours in the heat (it was noon and there was close to no shade between all the shipping containers) they told us, it would take at least another two to three hours until they would release the car, so we decided to leave and go grab some food. When we returned 3 hours later, we were accompanied to our car and asked to wait a little bit longer. We weren’t allowed to touch or open any door of the car until customs would release it. Time went by and at around 5pm our agent showed up to tell us that they would not be able to release the car today, because they had to wait for an approval which came from the office in Nairobi and after 5pm, chances were zero to receive such an approval. Meaning, we had to go on the same Odyssee (TukTuk, Ferry, Matatu, TukTuk) back to Diani without the Defender. I will not elaborate on the mood we both were in, it was sooo frustrating. At least, we managed to get the confirmation of the custom officer that, as soon as he would receive the approval, they would stamp the Carnet and hand the car over to our agent so we could just pick it up from him and we did not have to come back to cusoms again. The next day, Dylan and Flurina, two friends from Switzerland were already arriving in Kenya, so we told our agent that we would come either Sunday or Monday to pick up the car, because we wanted to welcome our friends first. Also, we didn’t really believe that they would receive the approval the next day after all our experiences and we were certainly not in the mood to come back to Mombasa for nothing one more time. By Saturday night, our agent informed us that he was able to pick up the Defender, so we arranged for Sunday morning to come and pick it up. Besides the Carnet, which was stamped on the export section instead of the import section, everything went well. We finally were able to take the Defender with us and drive on African ground for the first time. Our agent took the Carnet and went back to customs the next day, to get the stamps right, and sent it to us afterwards - just in time before we took off on our first Safari.

We enjoyed a couple of nice days at the beach and went on a whaleshark snorkeling trip together with Dylan and Flurina, we saw two of them - it was breathtaking to swim with those huge creatures. There were a few final things we had to sort out and pack up and get the Defender ready and then, together with Boniface, a Kenyan Safari tourguide who drove our friends in his Toyota Landcruiser, we left the coast and drove towards Tsavo West Nationalpark, where we would spend the next three days all together on safari. We were amazed by all the exotic animals we saw, giraffes, zebras, hippoes, crocodiles, impalas, dikdiks and all their relatives, elephants. Dylan and Flurina stayed in a beautiful lodge and Tom and I parked on a official “camping ground” of the nationalpark. There was nothing more than a sign post, which told us we were on a camping ground - no facilities, no fence. We were indeed a bit nervous when we drove to the spot in the darkness after dinner with our friends at the lodge. When we turned off the engine and shut off the lights we couldn’t even see our hands in front of our eyes, it was pitch dark. But nothing helped, we had to leave the car to open the roof tent, which we did as quickly as possible. Then we hopped into our bed, turned off the lights and listened to the various sounds from all the animals around us. We couldn’t really believe that we were actually finally in Africa and spent our first night in the Defender in the middle of nowhere in a nationalpark - it was unreal. The second night, we already felt a bit more comfortable. When we woke up in the morning, I heard something very close walking by in the bushes. When we looked out the “window” we saw a hyena pass by just 2 meters away from the Defender. I desperately had to pee but waited for another hour until I dared to quickly leave the car ;) Our two first nights in our Defender in this national park offered all you would expect from Africa: bumpy dirt roads, wild animals, countless stars, wilderness and absolute solitude.