Day 6: 27 June
Botswana – Chobe Safari Lodge
We slept in tree houses overlooking the Kavango River at Ngepi Camp last night. I could hear the hippos and the fish eagles calling in the distance. I braved the cold and rolled up my blinds. The mist was thick. It slowly burned off and exposed the river, which ran just in front of my treehouse.
I wanted to do a “˜tour’ of the toilets as Sarah Duff had recommended we do this. I didn’t have time to find them all but found a view with a loo, boskak, the Tarzan and Jane loo, the Royal Flush and my absolute favourite wasn’t a loo – it was a tin bath which overlooked the river. I loved it – it’s hard to find accommodation these days that really has character, places that still have soul.
I wandered back to the guys who had ordered breakfast. I was being a total nerd and named all the bird species I could hear in my head on my walk back. I added a new one to my list, a Hartlaub’s babbler. Otherwise I felt completely at home with the black-collared barbet calling, a crested barbet bouncing around the main lodge area, and fish eagles in the distance.
We needed to cross a border today so we had to leave relatively early. We crossed the Kavango River and headed into the Caprivi Strip. It’s a long road through the game reserve but we didn’t manage to see any game. We crossed the border at Ngoma Bridge and entered Botswana – country number three. We watched mekoros make their way across the river as we filled out our border paperwork. The Silly Buggers team kindly lent us money for the border as we’d forgotten that we could only pay in Pula on the Botswana side – oops (we got a fine for that!).
We pulled into the Chobe Safari Lodge campsite in Kasane just in time for sunset. The paparazzi had arrived. The Put Foot teams were all here for Checkpoint 2 and had their cameras ready to capture one of Africa’s most sensational views – sunset over the Okavango Delta.
We had dinner at the main lodge, which overlooked the Kavango River, and then meandered back to camp and sat around an enormous bonfire. I then bumped into a friend, Dan Green, who’d flown up to play a gig at the next checkpoint. Many of you might have heard him playing as part of Me and Mr Brown at Café Roux on Sundays in Noordhoek. We had a few beers, caught up on all the rally shenanigans and then hit the hay.
For anyone who has ever been nervous about travelling on their own through these countries, I can’t recommend a better way to do it than on the Put Foot Rally. We’re one big unit, travelling independently – if that makes sense. It’s fun, it’s safe and it’s a total adventure.
Victoria Falls next – yeeehaaaaa!!
Singer of the day: Kurt Darren (the boys just love him) Kidding!
Enter our Bobs for Good Foundation competition by donating money for shoes that we’re dropping off on the Put Foot Rally and stand the chance of winning a three night stay in Livingstone.
Follow our trip on twitter @Evan_Haussmann @christiefynn @going_homeless @Put_Foot_Rally or search on Twitter for hashtag #putfootrally to see all the tweets from the rally teams.
The Getaway team would like to thank:
4×4 Mega World for their fully kitted out VW Amarok
K-Way – the official gear partner to the Getaway team on the Put Foot challenge
MapStudio for their Southern and East Africa map
