Travel Tips

I went on a 21 day overland tour with Nomads. The tour takes us from Capetown, through Namibia and Botswana, to Victoria Falls. Here is the itinerary:

Cedarsberg, Namaqualand, Gariep (Orange) River, Fish River Canyon, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Spitzkoppe, Etosha NP, Rundu, Okavango Delta, Chobe NP, Victoria Falls

On the tour, we had 5 Americans, 3 English, 7 Spaniards, 6 Dutch, 1 German, and 1 Korean. The participants:

Bea & Sonia (Spain), Stefanie (Holland), Alex (UK), Dave & Claire (UK); Anna, Rosa, & Carlos (Spain); Mar & Raul (Spain), Tom (US), Beth & Jill (US); Esther (Germany),Chang (S.Korea), Katharina & Roger (Holland); Perveen (US), Diana K. & Liane (Holland); Linda (Holland)

Our guides were from SA and Zimbabwe: Johan (driver and lead guide), Linkie (cook), and Dumi (trainee)

There were several opportunities to do some game viewing. Although I had already done a lot of game viewing while in South Africa, I was happy to see something different in Etosha NP and Chobe NP. Check out my album on 'African Safaris' for more details and animal photos.

One of the first activities we did was a 6 hr canoe ride down the orange river. Most of us had never canoed that long, so we were hurting by end of the day. Yet, the stunning views, excitement down some rapids, and relaxing atmosphere on the river made it all worth the while.

16 of the nights were spent camping, 3 in the bush with no faciliites. Our nights in Swakopmund and Victoria Falls were spent in a bed in a hostel. Each night we pitch our own 2 man tents and each morning we take it down.

Most of the camp sites had decent facilities with hot water. Some were rustic, some just plain poor. It was easy to get into the routine, and after a while, it didn't matter that you couldn't stay clean. We had opportunity to do our own washing by hand in most places, but it didn't take long for you to get dirty again. Bringing light colored clothing is definitely a bad idea.

In Soussuvlei, Namibia, we all hiked up one of the tallest sand dunes in the world - the Dune 45. We started early so that we could catch the sunrise from above. The scenes up top at sunrise were like those we see on the covers of National Geographic. Check out more photos on my Namibia page.

I got to climb some more sand dunes in Swakopmund for my Sandboarding trip.

We took a guided walk in the Soussuvlei deserts. Our guide was a Japanese woman, Yuri, who was very knowlegeable and entertaining. She gave us a lot of useful information about the wild life in the deserts, and the cycle of life there.

3 of the days on our trip was spent in the Okavango Delta. 2 nights bush camping amongst wild animals such as hippos, elephants, and lions. We took a speed boat and mokoros to get to our camp sites. We had a tour of a village in the delta, as well as a game walk where we saw tons of elephants and bucks.

The tour ended in the Savannah Lodge in Victoria Falls. Most of us went rafting on the Zambezi river our second day there. The rapids there are mostly class III, IV, and V. I got thrown out once, and on rapid 18, our entire raft flipped! It was definitely the most exciting white water rafting I've done, and a major highlight of the trip.

The tour cost about R6000, but I ended up spending about another US$500 in optional activities, snacks, and 2 extra days in Victoria Falls.