Summary of our trip

We've created a 25 minute summary slideshow of our trip
Click on this link to see it.
We cannot wait to continue traveling.

Back in the US.....

Back in the US…… After driving 29,335 KM
Our plans changed a little bit. When we were driving through the Caprivi we decided to take a break from our trip and return to the US to enjoy Boulder and maybe go back to work. When we came out of the Khaudom national park we discovered that we may have a problem with one of the axles. We need to get this taken care of before continuing our trip. Initially we had planned to spend a month in western Zambia but with a possible problem with the axle we did not think this was a good idea. We still wanted to see a bit of the Caprivi and drove to Mahongo national park. It is a small and nice park but it was too busy for us. It felt like Disneyland - To get a permit we had to stay in line behind several safari vehicles with guides and lots of tourists.
We were too spoiled after spending two weeks in Khaudom and often having the entire park to ourselves.

Rare Sable Antelope

The plan was to spend several days in the park but we ended up staying only one day and decided to start heading Windhoek to find a place where we could store Duma and get the necessary repairs done. For those of you that are also looking for a place to store your vehicle, here is the link to the place www.transkalahari-inn.com

In the Caprivi we met up with Rika, a Japanese woman travelling by herself through Africa (all the way from Japan). We had met her in Abuja-Nigeria where she was also trying to get the visa for Angola.

Here is Rika

It took us about three days to drive to Windhoek (we stopped at nice campgrounds to enjoy a few more campfires and fresh baked bread). Thanks to Rika we found a good place to store the Unimog and someone who would be able to help us with the repairs.

Who needs a bakery?

We are back in the US after spending almost 3 moths in the Northern part of Namibia and don’t know when we are going to continue our trip. As soon as we do we will update the blog.

Good-bye Duma

On the way home

Here some of the friends we almost took back with us....

Namibia - 2nd month

After restocking the fridge and enjoying Oppi-Koppi restcamp for a couple of nights it was time to get back to the desert. We wanted to spend some time in southern Damaraland around the Brandberg area. We heard again from Jeroen and Sonja who were on their way back from Botswana and decided to join us for one more week before heading to South Africa.

We met up in Khorixas on Saturday and planned to leave on Sunday morning. However on Sunday Marc noticed that the exhaust was broken. Apparently the rough roads of the last few months finally took its toll on the unimog, the exhaust was coming lose and needed a good welding job. Sunday in Namibia means that most places are closed but usually when you let word out that you have a problem with your car there is always someone who wants to make some money.

We ended up in a small open air workshop that had something that could be used to weld. If it had been any other part of the unimog that would have required welding we would have left the place right away but we thought what can be done wrong on welding the exhaust.

We stayed on top of the guy as he was planning to weld with the complete exhaust still under the car while the battery was still on. We made him take off the whole exhaust and do the welding away from the car. After about an hour he was done and he actually did a good job (we are now 5 weeks further and the exhaust is still hanging strong emitting an overdose of co2 in the air.

So we left Khorixas late afternoon and we spent a week driving around and wild camping in Damaraland. Below are some of the pictures of this incredible week.

Full Moon camping

On the last day in Damaraland we noticed that one of the brake fluid reservoirs started to leak. A quick call to our off-shore mechanic Koen got us less worried as we can continue driving with only one brake fluid reservoir, especially if you don’t need to brake a lot.

And driving in the desert or anywhere in Namibia does not require a lot of braking. But again something that we needed to take care off. We were planning to go to Khaudum national park and before going there we needed to stop in Tsumeb to pick up our new credit cards and books that were sent to us from the States. Now we also had to get the brake reservoirs replaced.

We ended up at Hohenfells garage in Otjiwarongo where a very nice German guy named Rudi helped us out. Besides replacing the brake fluid reservoirs and doing an oil and diesel filter change he also entertained us with giving us some insight on the “life of a white men in Namibia”. At night his garage turned into a “whites only” bar where every night Rudi and his friends would have a couple of drinks. Difficult to describe this place but let us say it is the “Cheers” version of a bar but then in Namibia. A place of character, full of characters. In the end we had two fun nights in the bar with Rudi and his friends.

Rudi's bar

After the car was repaired we also had the air-conditioning checked again, no leak could be found so they filled up the ac with new gas. It seems that the air-conditioning problems keep following us through the whole of Africa and so far we only had about 4 weeks during this trip when it really would have been nice to have a working AC.

We stayed near Otjiwarongo for another 5 days before we headed into the Khaudum game reserve. We again met up with Jeroen and Sonja who changed their plans after they heard that we were going into Khaudum. According to the website you can only get in if you are with two cars and if you are carrying at least 100 liters of water per car. Also no trailers are allowed. When we arrived in the park we found out that none of these rules were enforced. Khaudum is a really nice park, the camping facilities are basic but you can get water. The nice thing about the park is that it is so remote and just gets a few visitors each year. In the end we spent almost half a month in the park (had to drive out once to fill up the unimog). We got to know some of the lions at the different waterholes and we saw cheetahs, which was very special. We believe the animals got to know us as well as the first few days they seemed nervous with the unimog sound but in the end they would just look up with that look "Ah, the blue unimog again...."

Elephants in Khaudum, many elephants!!

"What's on the menu bro?"

If the rangers don't do their job, we turn on the pump at the waterhole...

Right now we are in Rundu stocking up again and planning to drive further into the Caprivi. This time we plan visiting the Mahango National Park.

Namibia - 1st month

As mentioned in the previous blog-entry being in Namibia is like being back in civilization and vacationing in any other tourist destination. We can get money again, there are many hotels/lodges/campgrounds, each town has a decent supermarket and anything you need it can be found in the bigger towns and they speak English!!!. However keep in mind that Namibia is huge and with only 2 million people, the towns are spread out, so you can drive for hours or days (depending what area of the country you are visiting) before you get to a decent size town.

Our first stop was Odangwa, together with Oshakati designated by the current government as the next economical center of Namibia. These towns are in the north of Namibia and the current president is from the area. We actually almost got arrested because of the president. On our way from Oshakati to Odangwa we did not get off the road quick enough when some police cars came from behind us. We slowed down and gave them plenty of room to pass. But when we did not get off the road they came driving next to us and indicated that we had to get off the road. So we did, also because we noticed that all the locals went off the road. We still did not know why, was there a new oil crisis and they did not want any cars driving around anymore? When we pulled over we asked a local and he told us that the president had attended a birthday party and was on his way back to the airport. And yes a couple of minutes later some big SUVs came racing by. We waved to the president and we are very proud to say that he waved back to us. He did not stop nor did he slow down for us, but we think that it was because he was about to miss his flight, so he was excused.

Any way we stayed a couple of days in Odwanga to resupply Rosana’s food storage compartments, buy little things for the car, look for a place to refill the gas bottle or LPG tank (was not possible), get the computer fixed, catch up on e-mails etc.. We stayed at Odwanga rest camp and enjoyed some nice dinners and biltong there.

After a few days we drove into Etosha where we spent 12 days driving from waterhole to waterhole watching animals while having breakfast, lunch and coffee with freshly baked caked. Yes, all from our mobile home!! Rosana was wondering if a cake was ever baked while watching some elephants drink and play at a waterhole…

Below there are some of the pictures from the animals we saw in Etosha. For more pictures go to the page "Photos/Info - Per Country" from our main page then click on Namibia

"These trees are bloody far away"

With Sonja and Jeroen at the Etosha pan

"I own this waterhole"

Grumpy black rhino chasing away zebra

It was great as always. Already on our first full day we saw lions for breakfast, mating leopards for lunch and cheetahs during sundowners. We also treated ourselves to a stay at Dolomite camp at the western end of Etosha. You are only allowed to drive in that area if you have a reservation for the lodge. We wanted to leave Etosha on the western exit because it was closer to Kamanjab where there is someone who claims that he is an expert in Unimogs.

The drive in the western part of Etosha was nice, there was a waterhole every 10-15km, although some of them were dry, and we saw lots of animals. Dolomite camp is set on a hill and our chalet had a beautiful view over the plain and we could see lots of animals.

Dolomite Camp

The next day it was an easy drive to Kamanjab, where we stayed for almost a week. The owners of the Campground/lodge Oppi-Koppi are from Belgium/Holland and they let overlanders stay for free. We had a nice campsite all the way at the back of the property with a covered area, braai, water, light and electricity and a very clean ablution block with hot showers.

We spent a day at the Unimog garage where we had the car checked and some minor things fixed (splitter gear, leaking oil pump, leaking wheel hub, new brakes). The rest of the time we spent reading, being lazy, cleaning the car, installing 12volt charger in the box, re-sealing the bathroom, fixing the heater in the box etc.

After this relaxing week it was back to the bush. We spent 6 days in the Palmwag conservancy area and drove from Palmwag to Sesfontein. It was very nice, the nature is very rugged desert terrain but with animals (we saw black rhino, desert elephants, kudu, springbok, steenbok, gemsbok, giraffe, mountain zebra, baboons and jackals). We heard lions but we did not see them. It was all wild camping, we stayed in some amazing spots, and best of all we hardly saw any other people. The first three days we saw two cars, the last three days we did not see anyone.

Damaraland

Viewing deck

On the last day we found the desert elephants

After we left Sesfontein we stayed at a campsite in the Khowarib Canyon. We had a nice spot with a view of the river (although after the drought in Namibia it looked more like a creek).

The next day we wanted to take a shortcut back to Kamanjab by following the Khowarib river upstream. Normally we ask locally about the condition of the road, but this time we forgot (well… Marc actually did not want to ask anything… as always), mainly because the road was on a map and it was numbered. However, after about 2 km we had a river crossing with a very steep and bad uphill on the other side. You can see on one of the pictures below that the Unimog was on three wheels.

"Put your tyres in the air"

Duma goes anywhere

 It was very slow going the next three kilometers as well and then the riverbed widened and was one big hardened mud pool with deep tracks and low trees. We had difficulty finding the right track and after about half an hour Rosana had enough because at this speed it would take us three days to cover the 70km to the main road to Kamanjab. So we decided to go back to the lodge and inquire about the road. At the lodge the owner asked whether we did the river crossing? yes we did, did you we get past the steep rocky part with deep drop off? yes we did, did we get to the place where the river bed widens and you have all the deep tracks? yes we did. OK then you have driven the worst part of the track. So back we went to find out that we had turned around only 100 meters before the roughest part of the trail finished. We lost about two hours but at least Marc had a fun time driving (Rosana, not so much)

Towards the end of the trail in the middle of nowhere there was a veterinary gate where they check for meat and dairy products. We knew about this so we had removed the meat from the freezer. It is just incredible that they have this checkpoint in a place where there are maybe two or three cars a day passing by.

Right now we are back in Kamanjab, the splitter gear has been fixed and we will head back into Damaraland the day after tomorrow.