Christiane Dicken
We have now been back for just over 2 weeks, busy washing and cleaning for Africa ! Anyway it's time to let you know that we had a wonderful time. We loved every minute of it. All camps you booked us in were very nice and well managed. We had one favourite though, Ngepi in the Caprivi Strip where we decided to spend an extra night, thus skipping Tsumeb. Everything blends with nature there and a lot of imagination has been used in the building of bathrooms for example. By separate mail, I am sending you a few specimens of some fun photos.
Chobe is fantastic. In all our travels in Africa over many many years, we had never seen such a large concentration of animals and birds when we took a 3-hour guided boat trip . And our camp site was by the river from where we could admire the beautiful sunsets and be charmed by the unique cry of the fish eagles.
Fom Mankwe Tented Camp, it took us 9 hours to do 285 kms ! We had to cross a temporary bridge made of logs floating in the water, then carry on deep sand tracks. (the bridge on the "main road" had collapsed in the floods caused by heavy rains in Angola in March). Anyway we were lucky not to get stuck at any time.
As I had mentioned, we had been in Namibia 20 years ago when it was still South West Africa. We had fallen in love with the country then and this time we fell in love again ! It's so vast and empty that you sometimes feel you are on a different planet. It's hard to describe the landscape that surrounds you when travelling from one place to the other. The roads are extremely well maintained, including the secondary roads, and the officials friendly and competent.
In all, we travelled a total of 8000 kms. On our way back we spent 3 nights in the Richterveld which is wonderful for its rock formations and unique flora.
I am sure I have wetted your appetite and hope that you will be able to visit all the wonderful places you booked for us.
Cosentino family
Hi James
Hope you are well.
Just wanted to give you some feedback from my cosentino passengers you kindly helped with. This is what he sent me:
The hotel in CT was perfect (New Kings Hotel). Nice people, cool place, good location and food. I'd really recommend it.
The place in Franschoek was just fantastic (The Villas at Le Francshoek). Those villas are beautiful and the spot is great. I'd have spent the whole vacation there, and no regret!
The Log-inn in Knysna was the weak point. It is nice and clean, but no comparison with the others. We were actually packed the 4 of us in one relatively small room and I am not sure that this is really good value for money. But Knysna is great spot and we spent 4 beautiful days.
Finally, Kuzuko was beautiful too. The only regret is to have spent only one night there. Kind regards
Helen
Mr and Mrs Stulpner
We are back in Cape Town after our extended trip.
Firstly thank you so much for organizing this wonderful time for us!
Everything went very well and we had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday!
Our flight from Cape Town to Livingstone went without any hitches and with plenty of time to spare in between the flights.
Unfortunately our luggage did not arrive at Livingstone when we arrived, but the gentleman from Wild Horizons that picked us up helped us to find the SAA lost and found and fill in the relevant forms. Apparently it happens every day and so the locals are quite prepared with all the paperwork. We were assured that the luggage would be brought through the next day.
Crossing the border and transfer to the hotel was not a problem and took about 1h 30 min. The staff at the Vic Falls Safari lodge are very friendly and immediately helped us out with some basic toiletries and made sure we were comfortable.
We explored the town in the afternoon and had the Boma dinner in the evening. This was excellent. It is an open air restaurant with a spit braai and grilling area. They serve Warthog, Impala, Crocodile and other local delicacies such as Mopani worms. For starters they welcome you with some local beer. There is song and dance entertainment and one can join a drumming circle throughout the evening. I think we were there for about four hours – it was great fun! Eventually the bus carts everyone back to the hotel, although it is only about a 500m walk, but there are many snakes on the way we were told.
The helicopter flip was the following morning – again the transfer there and the whole experience was like clockwork. Donovan managed to get the front seat and hence we have some awesome pictures. It is really amazing to see the falls from the sky!
We were hoping that our luggage would arrive by the time we returned. The guest services lady, Lynn, kept phoning the airport to find out what was going on. We really must commend her for her efforts, but we had no luck. So off we went to go and do some shopping and go to the falls on foot. This was possibly the only disappointing afternoon of the trip. We caught the shuttle into town (there is one every hour). We were told we could spend 75 USD pp per day of delay of luggage. Unfortunately there is just nothing to buy in Zim. The shelves in the shops are empty or they will have maybe one size of a garment. Things like deodorant, sunscreen, underwear, batteries are just not available. We managed to buy a few T-shirts at least and then decided to walk to the falls (about a 2km walk). However when we got to the entrance they wanted to see our passports (which we didn’ t think to take along) and it costs 20 USD pp to get into the park from where you can walk onto the bridge. We thought this was excessive, as for all the other activities we paid only 5 USD to go into the park.
So we took the shuttle back and decided to treat ourselves to room service. Prices for food and drink were very reasonable, even at the hotel: A Coke or a tot of alcohol is 2 USD. A burger (big with lots of chips) is 15 USD.
The sunset cruise in the afternoon was magic. All drinks are free on the boat so by the end of it we were quite toastieJ We saw mostly crocodiles and birds and just enjoyed the sunset.
The next day was white water rafting, which we were very excited about. It was absolutely fantastic! Not for the faint hearted as the rapids are mostly grade 5. We managed not to flip our raft, but Donovan did fall in during one of the rapids. It was really exhilarating and our guide was awesome. A half day was enough though and we were happy to have lunch and be driven back to the hotel at that point.
The following day was Canoe day. This was much tamer than the white water rafting but we kept paddling in circles as we just could not co-ordinate our paddling. Most entertaining for the guide! I even managed to fall into the river as we were getting out at one of the rest points! It was a hard day of paddling, but lunch was served and we saw many Hippos, Elephants and birds and were suitably relaxed for New Year’s eve.
We had the Makuwa dinner, which was a five course meal. Donovan had Lamb cutlets and I have grilled chicken for mains. There was so much food that we just could not finish and it was really good. Friends of mine who were staying at a hotel up the road came to visit and together with the rest of the hotel guests we all went to the Boma for the countdown. It was very festive!
Off to Botswana, again without a problem. The transfer took about 2 hours. Still no luggage so we were hoping to be able to get some more clothes at Chobe.
Chobe is amazingly beautiful. The lodge is very luxurious and you can literally spend the whole day eating. It was VERY hot so we mostly relaxed by the pool or on our room which was airconditioned. We went into town (a short walk) on the Saturday morning. Most shops were closed and our credit cards did not work at the ones that were open. We also could not draw money from an ATM, as the cards were not accepted. The shops do not accept USD so we were a bit stuck. Eventually we went to the Spar where we bought some toiletries and they were kind enough to change the money to Pula for us. Finally – clean underwear.
The game drive and sunset cruise were both awesome. We saw elephant, buffalo, lion, wild dogs, hippo, crocs and many different types of birds. All transport and organization was seamless and the guides were very good.
Then it was time to go back. It felt like we had been away for such a long time. We were both rested and felt very relaxed, even after all those activities!
Turns out our luggage had arrived at Livingstone airport on the 30th, but because of phone line problems they could not contact us to send it on. Unfortunately ¾ of Donovan’s stuff was stolen out of his bag, so we had to go to the police and spend some time haggling with the airport manager in Livingstone and at OR Thambo to get the claim in for the stolen and the delayed luggage. I must say, SAA were most unhelpful and really couldn’t care less, but eventually we were paid the money for the delay at least.
