Where in the World is Bob Jack?
Where in the World is Bob Jack?
Southern Africa
(December 2010 - January 2011)
Introduction
I fancied a decent trip over the normally stagnant Christmas and New Year period and when I discovered return flights to Johannesburg with Air Egypt for £460, I was set. To be honest, I wanted to get back to South Africa to finish it off before Nelson Mandela died. The white people who I had met there were very pessimistic that there would be a civil war or a Zimbabwe situation when he passed on and tribes were left to fight out the power vacuum between themselves. Wendy had never done a trip like this but wanted to give it a go. She was treating it as a ‘Trip of a life time’.
South Africa had the added bonus of two small countries within it – Swaziland and Lesotho. Excellent diving was next door in Mozambique, I had friends I could visit in Zimbabwe and there was also Botswana and the increasing fashionable Namibia to see as well. Six new countries was a very appealing road trip. The planning for this trip started in March and it took three months to hammer out a route and car hire.
The first challenge was the route. I had a couple of ideas – driving through Lesotho and then Swaziland, up through Mozambique, into Zimbabwe, up to Victoria Falls, down though central Botswana and into Namibia for a circular route and back to Johannesburg.
Once I started to research car hire, I came across a major problem – some would not let me into Mozambique (which I could skip if necessary), but only one company would let me drive through Zimbabwe and they were charging double the normal price and with a huge excess. Another problem was paying for the paperwork to take the car across borders. Some were charging £92 a border (1000 SA Rand).
Eventually, with a lot of research I found Africarhire.com (agents for Hertz), which would let me take the car everywhere except Zimbabwe, even on gravel roads with no excess and a one off payment of 1000R for all border paperwork.
It seemed a shame to miss out Zimbabwe and I tried to find a way of getting in, but the only option was a 16 hour overnight bus ride to Harare at either the start or the end of the trip outside the car rental. We would lose up to 4 days just to make the trip and then we’d be reliant on public transport inside the country. I had to regretfully let my friends down. But it would be a shame to miss Victoria Falls, which was the biggest highlight on the itinerary.
Another problem was that we would be arriving in Johannesburg on Dec 21st and four days later, everything would shut down for one or two days. The same might happen on New Year’s Day. So my new route had to cope with this as well.
In the end, I came up with the idea of driving straight to Swaziland and then into Mozambique for a long drive up to Tofu for a day’s driving and then another long drive back into South Africa on Xmas Eve to Graskop. Blythe Canyon nearby had public access on Xmas Day and we could cross over into Botswana afterwards.
In Botswana, it was a case of how far up should we go. We would only have 2WD so the National Parks interiors were off limits. When I looked at Victoria Falls, I discovered it was only 70km from the border and there was public transport to it. We could leave the car in Kasane in Botswana. I also discovered that the Caprivi Strip in Namibia near to Kasane had an excellent tarred road, so we could head west across to Etosha National Park without having to come back down through Botswana and back up inside Namibia. This saved us some time.
On first impressions, Namibia seemed to have a lot to see and do, and most accounts I read suggested 2 or 3 weeks. But when I started to look at what I really wanted to see, there were only half a dozen things with a lot of driving in between and I felt it was feasible on this trip. It would also mean I could take another look at the Kalahari (this time in a car instead of on foot) before heading to Kimberley, Lesotho and the Drakenburgs which I had missed last year.
It would be a long dusty road trip of 26 days through 7 countries.
Once I had the broad route established. I could reserve the car. Wendy, on her first real road trip was worried about finding accommodation over the Xmas period so I compromised my principles of ‘we’ll find something’ and started researching. I got the impression that Tofo in Mozambique was very popular. There was also the issue of having somewhere in South Africa after a gruelling 700km drive back from Tofo and somewhere on Xmas Day.
I easily reserved a Rondavel hut in a wildlife sanctuary in Swaziland. Accommodation in Tofo was expensive and the cheapest place called Fatimas had good and bad reports. They wanted 50% up front which meant an expensive money transfer. But at least they organised the diving and snorkelling trips (I had failed miserably to get any contact with the dive schools). I also found a decent hostel for Xmas Eve in Graskop.
The sticking point was Botswana. Accommodation prices in Botswana are much higher than the surrounding countries. I had been recommended Nata Lodge half way up but it had burnt down in 2008. Supposedly rebuilt in 2009, no one replied from its website enquiries. Until I sorted this one out, I couldn’t plan the other nights. In the end, I contacted its sister lodge in Kasane who gave me a different email address which worked. I then had to fax credit card details across to them. Once this was booked, I could work on Kasane. Again, the place I fancied could not be contacted and the Xmas period prices for most places were out of our league. I found a cheap hostel in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and eventually went for the cheapest lodge option in Kasane which was still £60 a night. The final Botswana jigsaw piece fell into place when our potential but full Boxing Day accommodation finally confirmed that they had a room (made available by a cancellation).
In Namibia, the major headache was Etosha National Park. We would be there on Jan 2nd and 3th (another peak period) and would need to stay at a lodge. The National Parks Service is supposedly responsible for the lodges inside the park, but they had a terrible reputation and never replied to my emails. In the end I used the Cardboard Box Agency in Windhoek who were extremely efficient and I thoroughly recommend them. The expensive lodge (£117) meant we had another major highlight secured and I could fill in the previous two days – one was a cheap hostel 70km from the Park gates.
After leaving the park, we could be more flexible on the route and where we could stay. I must admit, it had been quite fun to do so much research on potential accommodation. One thing I would say is that the guidebooks have very limited listings. I started with them and also used recommendations from the Lonely Person’s Thorn Tree forums. But when I started to check them all out on the internet, I would come across many better and cheaper options. As usual, I will list out all accommodation details on the website for future reference.
Other considerations were what jabs were needed. Wendy needed pretty much everything and would be infected with cholera one week and typhoid the next in the couple of months before departure. An auntie had donated unused malaria tablets which saved a fortune.
We were fortunate with visas on this trip. Most were free and available at the borders. But Mozambique had drastically raised theirs to US$82 on the border. It was cheaper to get one from the Mozambique Embassy in London even with the £11 registered mail. Mozambique also had new road laws. Two reflective vests, two red triangles (and a SA sticker) were required for South African cars there with ridiculous specifications. I would have to wait to find the red triangles in South Africa. European ones were different.
All in all, it was a mammoth task to organise the logistics for this trip. To some extent the problem is too much information. You have to prioritise and try and establish a route which may need adjusting according to time restraints and accommodation possibilities. We had set our budget at £1500 each – excluding the flights and some accommodation costs were frightening. It would be interesting to see if firstly, we achieved our planned route and sights and secondly, within budget. You never know with Africa – anything can happen, especially with the traffic police.