5, 6 & 7 May 2016 - Leave n’Kwazi at Rundu, drive to Katima Mulilo (KM), and back to Rundu.

5 May 2016  - Leave n’Kwazi at Rundu, drive to Katima Mulilo 

6 May 2016 - Drive from Namwi Island, around Katima Mulilo

7 May 2016 - Back from Namwi Island, Katima Mulilo, to Rundu

Views at Namwi, east of Katima Mulilo on the Zambezi River

Before going into this, a few details:

•         On our way to Epupa falls we were on our most Western part of our journey.
•         On the road to Epupa falls we were almost 500 kms West of Cape Town, this is as if you sail 500 kms west into the sea right west from Cape Town.
•          We are now roughly due north of Knysna and at Katima Mulilo, Port Elizabeth will be roughly south of us.
• We are still heading away from ‘the house’ and have done more than 5000 kms already.

From Rundu we drove east to KM, 518 km.  This is all good tar road.  Most of the road is 120 km/h with only towns and villages marked down to 60 km/h. 

 Local villages are common along the road but then for 10’s of kms there are no villages, lots of the Caprivi Strip (Zambezi district) is national park.  Where the settlements are, it is called ‘multiple use’, and the less populated areas ’core’. 

It is mostly ‘savannah like’ with areas with larger trees.

We reached KM at 2pm.  It is a smaller town than Rundu (areas wise) but cleaner and more sophisticated.  Most of SA shops here as well.  Prices are the same or slightly cheaper than in SA.  All the real towns, even small ones had fuel.  No worries there.  If there are no towns on your map, don’t expect any!  Or fuel.  I wanted to buy a camera charger in Rundu or Katima, but that type of technical/electronic sophistication is hard to come by here. Pubs and ‘shebeens’ are common, however.

We arrived at Namwi Island Camping and Self Catering. We were somewhat apprehensive as we generally booked the cheaper accommodation.  You know,…three quotes, budget, etc, etc.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a well maintained, huge tree dominated ‘lodge’.  The gardens are impeccably maintained.

The camping sites are on the Zambezi River and the chalets set further back. The Zambezi is roaring past and a few hundred meters wide. Fish eagles and hippo calls entertain us.

“All” the lodges lease the land from the locals and I wonder how they keep their lease expenses stable. The craft trade seems to be almost non-existing.  Only from Rundu we saw some wood carvings, mostly elephants, and some walking sticks.  I wanted to buy Marula trees but could not find a nursery in KM.  We’ll look out as we go south, and west again.  I don’t feel the hostility from the locals that I felt in Ovamboland.

The usual signs and road numbers

The Zambezi River views were exquisite.

The roads, again, was excellent, all tarred.  We drove about 600 km today. The MapStudio tourist map we bought from MapStudio in January have many mistakes. Today's route (C49) it showed as gravel, but it was tarred quite long ago. It was scenic, but not much different from the B8.  The B8 had many lorries on Thursday, few today.  The C49 was very quiet. The villages along this route look very clean and very need with reed fencing about 2.5 m tall and trimmed into perfect lines. 
We saw only two speed traps so far in Namibia; i hope more did not see me. But usually we travel on the speed limit.

Our basic bedroom

We reached Kaisosi, outside Rundu, about 2pm.  Wi-fi is available and i am up to date with the blog!

Our double story, overlooking the Okavango.

I prefer more African accommodation, fitting into the environment, but it has all we need.

Sunset over the Okavango.

Sunset over the Okavango.

We saw three big rivers so far on this trip:

• the Kunene flowing into the Atlantic Ocean (Ruacana area).
• the Zambezi flowing into the Indian Ocean (Katima area).
• the Okavango not flowing into any ocean...but disappearing into the Okavango Delta in Botswana (Rundu area).

Okavango

Okavango

Goats and cattle grazing on a football field next to the Okavango.

This fig tree took over a Combretum.

Tomorrow, 8 May, we drive to Okahandja, via Grootfontein, but we'll visit Tsumeb as well.