Namibia: Nice to Meat You!

One of the travel rules that we have lived by is to make the most of wherever you are. Chobe and Victoria Falls are quite close to the northeastern section of Namibia, known as the Caprivi Strip, and since we don't suppose that we will ever be in Namibia again (unless we get to hike the sand dunes at some point), we wanted to visit. We knew almost nothing about the Caprivi Strip, apart from that there is one village called Kabbe on Google maps, which we thought we would try to find. We figured that if we found nothing there, we could write it off as Bucket List item #7: Be in the middle of nowhere.

Funnily enough, as we were about to leave for Namibia, we were approached by a Japanese guy called Kotaro who wanted a ride into Kasane. When he found out that we were headed to Namibia, he asked if he could tag along and be left at the border. No problem! He was a really cool guy, but Alastair wishes that he hadn’t asked to look at Kotaro’s passport. It was so impressive that it made Alastair feel like his was weak! Kotaro was about half way through his world tour. He had some really cool stories, and listening to him was really quite inspiring.

After seeing some Baobab trees at the border, we entered Namibia and headed into the unknown towards what we hoped was Kabbe. This was rural Africa. Mud huts were everywhere, long tall grass lined the road, and cows wandered the villages. We took a turn down a long dirt road in the hopes of finding some children to play football with.

About ten miles from the border, we saw some people sitting under a tree in front of a village. We pulled over, and got out to talk to them. They were selling meat, which was basically just a skinless cow on the ground in front of them. Flies were everywhere, and it smelt pretty bad, but it was cool to be standing in the middle of that, even if guts were hanging from the tree. It was also interesting to see really primitive, blunt tools all over the place.

They took us to the school, which was really close to where we had found ourselves. We were introduced to some teachers, and eventually we were chatting to Michael, the main guy. He let all of the children out of their classes, and Alastair got to play football with the boys (about half of the one hundred and fifty students), while Lain and the parents chatted to the girls and took pictures. Kotaro did a bit of both, playing with the guys and making the girls laugh. He was really fun.

We played football in the white sand/dirt for about half an hour, and Alastair got hacked right away. It was all fun though, even though he did leave with bloody shins!

Michael really liked our visit too, and even helped us round up all of the children for a great group photo. We love spending time with children. They were so happy, and so fun to be around. Some of our great memories are with children, in China and now in Africa. They have no agenda, and make you feel so welcome. Just an hour at the random school in the little-known Caprivi Strip will be remembered forever. Fantastic times.

We dropped Kotaro off at the border and headed back to Botswana, arriving in time for our river safari. The road there and back, the A33, goes right through Chobe, and elephant poo is all over the surface. In fact, on the drive to and from Kasane, we saw about a dozen elephant, one of which was about five meters from the car, and we also saw four or five giraffe. More than some people see in a lifetime, and that was just driving to and from our tents!