We traveled from Johannesburg up to Botswana, entering the country from just below Lobatse. Lobatse happens to be the town that my grandparents spent many years in, possibly the dullest town in Botswana. Not much seemed to have changed from the last time I saw it, which was probably 12 years ago.
We crossed the border at around 6pm, but realised pretty quickly that we weren't going to find anywhere to stay that would accept the animals too. So we decided to just carry on driving as long as we could. The trip to the closest border post to our goal of Tsumeb took us along what is known as the Trans-Kgalagadi highway. This roads heads straight through the Kalahari Desert, a rather boring, repetitive piece of countryside, redeemed by it's stunning sunsets and sunrises and abundance of game (apparently, though we only saw jackals, mostly very close up while avoiding running them down). You can't lose focus for a second due to all the cattle and game not fenced off from the road, which made for a rather strenuous night's driving.
Ended up getting a couple of hours sleep by the side of the road. Just before we napped, we foolishly released the cat for a couple of seconds so that she could pee behind a bush. She promptly decided she'd like to live in the Kalahari. Ensue hilarity, which almost ended tragically under a truck...anyway, eventually we got her back :)
Crossing over into Namibia was such a relief - the freezing cold night drive was over, we could see a few metres down the road, the animals had finally exhausted themselves, and the border was a dream. No funny questions, no bribes - just straight through, with no trouble, as long as your paperwork was sorted. What a difference from the chaos that is Beitbridge (SA to Zim), or even Ramatlabama (SA to Botswana)! And then we got past the border, and there were fences on the sides of the roads. Joy of joys...
Several very hot sweaty hours of driving took us through some fairly uninteresting country, and then we neared Otavi and the mountains appeared. To go from flat expanses of pretty much nothing, to one of the prettiest little mountain ranges around was so unexpected that we both just started grinning. And then we finally arrived in Tsumeb...we had been told it's the loveliest town in Namibia and they weren't kidding. Full of parks and well kept historical buildings, with a colonial edge, but desire for modernity, Tsumeb is a marvel!
Well, that journey took place in February, so quite a bit of time has passed, but still loving Tsumeb...
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