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"No, there is no unleaded!"
Despite nearly 12 continuous months in Southern Africa and a total of 16 months experience, Angela and I can still forget the basics sometimes. We'd driven past several petrol stations on the panhandle road from Maun to Drotsky's Cabins, fully expecting to have a choice of petrol stations in the "large" fishing town of Shakawe, our last Botswana stop before Namibia.
The Shell "petrol station" at Shakawe turned out to be 2 pumps near a termite mound and predictably when we are short of fuel, they'd run out of unleaded! Establishing when the next delivery was due proved as easy as arranging a meeting between the US Marine Corp and Osama Bin Laden, so we crossed the border to Namibia hoping that Divundu, 40kms away, would have fuel.
The Shell "petrol station" at Divundu was already known to us, they had no unleaded when we last drove by in April, and they were hand-pumping diesel then due to a lack of electricity. This times things had changed; they had no petrol or diesel and no electricity! Added to that there was a handwritten note on the toilets to say they were blocked due to a lack of water. Remind me to email Royal Dutch Shell one day!
The lady we woke up at Shell Divundu suggested trying the new Engen petrol station 2 kms down the road. There we joined a queue of cars for the single unleaded pump and it was a tense 20 minutes until the golden nectar started pumping in to our hungry tank.
Those of you planning a trip to any of these countries in future, stimulated by our travels (or not as the case may be) please bear in mind the fact that you can't pay for fuel by credit card in Namibia or South Africa but you can in Botswana. You can pay for fuel by garage card in the aforementioned countries, but you need a bank account to get a garage card. The alternative is to drive round with a stash of money and risk losing it or being relieved of it. Joined up thinking by the Namibian and South African governments?
Thanks to our SA friends Pat & Roger De La Harpe, we have a South African bank account and garage card, though we've mentioned in previous missives Nedbank's legendary ability to charge for that account. As you might have already guessed, the forecourt attendant at Engen Divundu was unable to take our garage card, probably because both hands and pockets were stuffed full of cash! As it happened we didn't care, we were just grateful to have fuel as we handed over nearly all our Namibia dollar reserves!
After 59 mostly busy and exhausting days in Botswana, and with 90 day visas for Namibia, Angela and I parked up at Mahangu Lodge campsite, still alongside the Kavango River, and crashed out for several days R&R. It may seem strange to read but we actually enjoy a couple of days of vehicle and trailer maintenance, interspersed with cleaning, sorting and washing, it is our equivalent of a "work" break from our holiday!
During these cleaning days, the backseat of our Landrover Discovery is approached with much trepidation and due deference, we have no idea what is lurking in the depths there! Every couple of weeks, as more things disappear on the backseat than we can find, we are forced to mount a co-ordinated surgical strike from both doors.
It is a strange pleasure to realise you have 8 more bottles of wine than you thought and another4 x 5 litres containers of drinking water. The backseat turns up odd socks, pants and other laundry, some of it well past a "use by" date, and rarely (but imagine the exhilaration) a packet of long lost sweets or biscuits.
Mahango National Park, south of the Mahangu lodge and forming the border with Botswana, was flooded with Angolan rainwater on our last visit in April, creating a swampy antelope infested 4x4 course. Now, in late October, we hardly recognised the place, dried up and parched and with many of the elephant clearly border hopping to Botswana.
Our best wildlife experience in the area turned out to be at our Mahangu Lodge campsite, as elephant gathered on the opposite bank of the Kavango River at sunset to feed, and a lone bull hippo drifted downstream a stone's throw from us, doing a perfect imitation of a moving boulder. He stopped opposite where we were sitting having sundowners and treated us to a couple of major yawns (threat display) and calls. The call of a hippo is our favourite African wild sound; it is a heart thumping noise when close and we will miss it as we travel in the rest of Namibia (too dry for them).
From Mahangu we headed west along the grandly named Trans Caprivi Highway to the unremarkable town of Rundu, also on the bank of the Kavango River. Sadly here, the human population has rendered the river relatively lifeless; there are no hippos, few crocs and not many birds.
Nkwazi Lodge looked a quiet oasis in this mass of humanity until a party of Dutch overlanders decided to camp all around us. They also commandeered our sunset boat trip (thanks guys) so we weren't able to have a farewell river trip watching the sunset along the Angolan border. The upside was that we were able to enjoy the pre-arranged tribal dancing at the lodge free of charge.
Ralph & Angela
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