NAMIBIA AND BOTSWANA 2025 : SHAKAWE AND MAUN

Thursday 15th May and Friday 16th May

We were making excellent time on the easy tar road to Divindu; even stopping for Hanlie's chicken pasta salad for brunch but at the Mahengo border we took over 45 minutes to exit Namibia. Some problem with tourists ahead of us in the queue who probably overstayed their visa. 

On the Botswana side we bumped into Henry. What are the chances!

Askiesbos is an awesome forest lodge on the western side of the Okavango Delta. The translation from Afrikaans is literally an apology to the bush for carving out a place for human habitation.

Buckingham Palace was towed in to campsite 1 and left diagonally and hitched to the cruiser for the night. We didn't even need to raise the roof to sleep.

We ate dinner and breakfast at the lodge.

Neil's expert reversing skills with the rest of us pulling aside branches and yelling instructions got us turned around and out of the campsite in 6 minutes!

The road from Shakawe to Maun is notoriously bad.

They have started remaking it but digging up a few hundred kms of busy road all at once is crazy!

Botswana must be the donkey capital of Africa.

On a 6 week trip some days are just admin. Driving,refueling, buying sim cards, drawing cash and shopping. In Maun we had to go to 2 different supermarkets to find what we needed.  Even then we had to stop at a roadside stall to get tomatoes.

And being World Whisky day, we had to find a bottle store selling single malt whisky!

We spent the night at Drifters Lodge. Lekker campsite, lekker braai, lekker bubbly for Hanlie and I and lots of whisky for Andrew and Neil. The camp is a bit run down, especially the ablution block, which is a pity because the riverside location is great.