Kongola to Katima Mulilo – Circling the South Travel Blog

Posted by Circling The South on 22 April 2010

13-21 April (Day 45-53) Kongola to Katima Mulilo – Leaving Namibia and entering Zambia plus a quick detour into Botswana

After time spent in Kongola it was time to move on to Katima Mulilo, we took the road early in the morning and had a good cycle towards this border town. Whilst having breakfast at the roadside a French couple on a tandem bike came cycling towards us from Katima’s side. These two started their journey in Paris fifteen months ago and went all the way through Africa from the north. They have covered over 16,000 km and were now on their way to Cape Town where their journey will end.

We spent two days in Katima, camping at the Zambezi River Lodge. The campsite is great, right on the banks of the mighty Zambezi River. We once again did some fishing without any success, but a least I saw a baby crocodile, hardly a foot long, finding his way between the reeds at the water’s edge.

After our two days in Katima it was finally time to say good bye to Namibia. The country has been great to us and the month we spent there is surely a month to remember.

The morning we left Katima we were a bit slow out of the blocks and nearly paid for it. We had a stiff distance of 150 km to cover for the day, the plan being to stop at Kazungula on Zambia’s side for the evening. After going through the necessary formalities at the border we had a bit of bike trouble which took about half an hour to sort out. We got going after that and were going well for about 55 km when disaster struck. Lodie snapped four spokes on his back wheel and it took another hour and a half to get this fixed. By now we were well behind our planned schedule for the day, but just pushed on in the hope of getting to our destination as soon as possible. To make matters worse we had another flat tyre with 30 km to go and the sun was slowly starting to set. We ended up finishing the last 20 km or so in pitch darkness, certainly not ideal and not very safe either, but we had no choice and just had to make the best out of this sticky situation we found ourselves in. We finally reached Kazungula, and looking a bit lost we entered the bustling street market, still very much alive and doing business despite the dark. A friendly local guy showed us to a guesthouse and we were just happy to get of the bikes after a long day, relieved that we managed to find our way in the darkness. The guesthouse itself was not exactly the Ritz, but at least we had a roof over our heads for the night.

We took the ferry over to the Botswana side the next morning. Once in Botswana we took the road south and headed to Pandamatenga. We only cycled for a while and then got a lift with a big truck – partly because this was not part of our intended cycle route and partly because of the dense bush and elephant dung that was to be seen everywhere. Although the area is not officially a game park, it is right next to the Chobe with no fences in between. We later spoke to people who told us that in the past they have seen lions on this road during daytime, so taking a lift were probably the right option!

In Pandamatenga we were very generously hosted by Piet Strachan and his wife Rita, old acquaintances from back home. They are part of a group of about 20 commercial farmers producing sorghum and sunflower on farms set aside by the Botswana government for this purpose. These farmers alone are responsible for almost 80% of the grain produced in the country. This is a great testamony to the skill and expertise of these farmers, mainly from South Africa and also a few expatriates from Zimbabwe. It is wonderful to live in these wild parts, in the two days we spent there we were fortunate to see amongst others roan and tsetsebe antelopes and also a wild cheetah, all roaming free on the farms. After two wonderful days, the Stachans took us back to Kasane and we crossed back into Zambia again by ferry. It was late in the afternoon when we finally got going from Kazungula and we decided to just push on for about 30 km and then find a place to sleep. This proved to be easier said than done. We eventually found a sign pointing us to The Islands of Siankaba River Lodge, 7 km in from the main road. This is a five star lodge which does not exactly fit into our budget, but since we had no choice we pushed on and hoped for the best. As it was getting dark we struggled towards the lodge on the sandy road, not very easy to do on a bike. We got there just before dark, expecting our poor little budget to get stretched to its absolute limit. It turned out our fears were unfounded. Pete, the manager of the lodge, put us up in a guide’s room, gave us dinner and when we wanted to pay refused to accept a cent. What a great and helpful guy!

The next morning we cycled our last 40 km to Livingstone and finally reached this great milestone on our journey by noon. We met our girlfriends at the airport and booked in at Jollyboys Backpackers, a famous backpackers in these parts with lots of activities, beautiful facilities and a great vibe. We will spend a week here and meet up with some more friends from home, visit the Victoria Falls and just relax before we take the long road to Lusaka.

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