With a backpack through Africa: Livingstone

Jep, I am on the road again!! ... my trip through Africa goes on!! ... travelling around is quite easy here, but sometimes it can also be quite exhausting and tiring ... however the hard part is over now and the lazy part begins ;-) ... Why? - Because I booked an overland tour from Livingstone to Cape Town.

There are a few companies which are offering these special overland tours through Africa. I booked my tour with G-Adventures and it was a really good choice. The tour was operated and guided by Hetti and Kobus, a lovely couple from Cape Town. Kobus was driving the truck and Hetti was responsible for cooking and everything else ;-) ... she was an excellent cook and made delicious meals in the small mobil kitchen ... and sometimes we had also a small lunch-break along the street. The trucks are modified - a little bit - so that they carry up to 22 people instead of goods ;-) ... it looks like a normal bus inside and below the passenger cabin there is a small luggage space and a small mobil kitchen.

So, instead of crowded minibuses and delayed trains I got a fully organized adventure tour with plenty of space in an overland truck. The tour started at Victoria Falls / Zambia and led us through Botswana and Namibia where we visited the following highlights ...

Chobe National Park / Botswana
Okavango Delta / Botswana
Kalahari Desert / Botwana
Waterberg Plateau / Namibia
Etosha National Park / Namibia
Namib Desert & Sossusvlei / Namibia
Fish River Canyon / Namibia
Orange River / South Africa

... and finally we ended up in Cape Town!!

As I already mentioned, the overlander tour was well organized ... we were driving in a truck, sleeping in tents and cooking and eating outdoors ... during the long drives we had a lot of time to relax, enjoy the beautiful landscape, read a book and talk with each other ... however, at the camp there were some duties (eg. setting up the tents, helping in the kitchen, cleaning the truck, ...) and everybody had to help each other ... and sometimes we had an open fire where we sat around, drank some wine and had fun ;-) ... and so I met Isla, a *quite old, but funny* Scottish girl, who lives in Australia ... and so it came that *Dark Dude* meets *Red Ninja* (see picture below)... or Austria meets Australia ... or *bebe young care* meets *V.S.O.P* (for insider only ;-)

The *Victoria Falls* or *Mosi-oa-Tunya* (*The Smoke that Thunders*) is a waterfall on the Zambezi river, which is located between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone was the first European who had seen the Victoria Falls on his Africa expedition in 1852 - 1856 ... he gave the falls the name *Victoria Falls* in honor of his Queen Victoria, but the indigenous name of *Mosi-oa-Tunya* - literally meaning the 'Cloud that Thunders' - is also well known. In 1989 the falls were declared as a world heritage site.

The falls are really huge and very impressive. After the rainy season there is a lot of water thundering down the falls ... it's nice to see, but you are getting really wet ;-) ... There are two national parks, one on the Zambian side and one at the Zimbabwean side ... I visited both, and the views are really amazing!! ... enjoy the pics from the falls!!