At haphazard

Read / lees in : Nederlands

Still wet behind my ears we drove, with the still faltering cilinder, from Livingstone in Zambia to Etosha National Park in Namibia. One of the largest and most populair wildlife parks in southern Africa with a ridiculous amount of animals. Because of that it’s usually so crowded that you have to book, a place to sleep within the park, with weeks of anticipation. But that’s not really my thing, I prefer to travel ad-hoc and at haphazard. The Argentinians fortunately had given me some golden advise. It’s totally unnecessary to book the campsite in the park upfront, as long as you make sure that you arrive there around closing time. Because at that time they can’t send you away, even if there’s no place available. Due to the fact that after seven o’clock it’s forbidden to drive around in the park, and the exit is at least an hours drive from the campsite. Now, there’s some information that they won’t tell you in the Lonely Planet, but you can find right here on this website.

Practice makes perfect

Our safari in the park was a big succes by the way. Of course, we had already practiced in the Lower Zambezi park, and therefore we could shoot down check of our list one animal after the other. Impalas, oryxes, giraffes, a hyena, ostriches, zebras, it just wouldn’t stop. After a while we actually got sick and tired of all those animals. But we kept driving on around so we’d arrive at the campsite around closing time. On hindsight that was totally unnecessary, there was more than enough space. So we could’ve been drinking for a while, but instead we were setting up our tent in the wind that had just started to blow at hurricane levels. Good for us that we had recently practiced setting it up in front of the gate to hell. It was barely set up or, on top of everything, it began to rain and thunder, which made Lucía lose her sleep that night. I’ve got lots of experience with that, so I sacrificed myself once again and dreamt for the both of us. The next morning we drove around a bit more to spot lions, but after that we really needed to continue to Windhuk, the capital of the country. In the first place because the problem with the faltering cilinder had to be solved. And secondly because I had been forced to promise Lucía, before she came to Africa, that we’d go to Malaysia.

Another visa thriller

One of her very best #BFF lives there was going to turn fifty. Her husband had organised a surprise party on the occasion, and for some reason I Lucía couldn’t be missed at it. Fortunately I found an expert in diesel engines opposite of our hotel extremely fast. He wanted one of the diesel injectors, whatever that may be, changed. But those bastards are fucking expensive. Without blinking an eye he asked me five hundred USD, a piece! But because we were going to travel anyway I ordered a set of four on ali-express in South-Korea. For the price of one. When that was organised we could finally occupy ourselves with getting Lucía a new visa. She would need it in order to be able to travel back with me to Namibia after the party. Before leaving Colombia she admittedly got a multiple entry visa for Zambia, but on my orders suggestion we already left there. Because I never expected the Namibians to be difficult about giving her a new visa. And they weren’t per se, it just cost a lot of time and hassle. Which in the end made Lucía afraid the whole thing would go wrong. So I comforted her with the fact that she could always go back to Colombia after the party. But what do you know, after four visits to the office she got her new visa that Monday afternoon. And that was, like it always is when you travel at haphazard, in the nick of time. Given that we flew that very Wednesday.