Windhoek, Namibia - 10 000km

Hello everyone!

We have concluded a very long section of the tour from Livingstone, Zambia to Windhoek, Namibia. In just 10 riding days, we covered approx. 1500km so if you do the math, that is an average of 150km per day which is a long time to spend on a bicycle seat, especially day after day and with uncooperative winds. This section also included the longest day of the tour, a whopping 207km. They told us that in the past there is most surely a tailwind for this day...there was not. The last riders got into camp JUST before sunset. BUT, we made it safe and sound to Windhoek and are enjoying what is essentially the "first world" again.

On our last update, we told the story of how our cameras were stolen and our adventure with going to the police, etc. so we just thought we would update further on this. The morning that we got all the police report sorted out, we had been planning on going to Victoria Falls in the afternoon and to do so without a camera would have been a bit of a downer, and we could not find a camera to buy in town either. Luckily, a fellow rider, Allen, lent us his camera so that we could go take many beautiful shots of the falls and ourselves there, which was very kind of him. If that wasn't generous enough, a different rider, Peter happend to bring two cameras on the trip so he lent us one of them indefinately until we can find another one. This has turned out to be an absolutely invaluable act of kindness considering all the things there were to take pictures of along this section.

On the day we left Livingstone, we crossed the border (by ferry) into Botswana. Interestingly, because the countries of Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe all converge at this one spot, we actually crossed into Zimbabwe while on the ferry. We were not expecting to go to that country, but we can now say we did. We are even bringing home a 100 Trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill which is worth essentially nothing. In fact, the Zimbabwe government redenominated the ZWD again on February 2, 2009 at a rate of 1,000,000,000,000 old ZWD to 1 new ZWD and the rate is still 279 ZWD to 1 USD. Crazy. On the night we got into Botswana, we went on a river safari on the Chobe River. It was a very incredible experience. In just 2 short hours, we saw an elephant bathing in the water, two familes of 10 and 2o hippos respectively, a crocodile and many beautiful birds and ungulates. It ended with a spectacular African sunset which we probably took about 20 pictures of. The next day, we saw about 6 elephants on the side of the road while riding and sadly, a little further on, we saw a dead elephant that had been poached (its leg had been snared and the whole face had been cut away). You do not want me to try and describe the smell of that experience...Judy almost vomited. The NEXT day, we saw 3 giraffes crossing the road but they were very timid and ran incredibly fast into the forest. And don't worry, we are coming home with pictures of all of this (thanks to the generosity previously mentioned). So, as you can see, Botswana offered us all the sites of animals that we could have wanted and one of the reasons is because there are almost NO people. It was an incredible contrast from most of the trip so far, as ever since Ethiopia (which was the worst) we have been going through heavily populated countires. It was a nice break to never see any people, anywhere...just animals.

Near the end of our time in Botswana, we both (again) developed a bit of a sickness. This time, it was nothing that affected our GI tract, which was nice because that is what has been happening off and on since Eithiopia. We just had some high fevers and aches, but nothing that Tylenol couldn't fix. Judy had it a bit worse, so they did a Malaria test on her, but it was negative...phew. At the same time we developed this feverish sickness, Judy also happened to pick up a worm infestation in her belly. Yes, worms. Actually, a few of the people on our trip had worm troubles throughout Botswana, some in their bellies, some just under the surface of their skin. Judy affectionatly named hers Harold and Josephine and then took "Worm Stop 500" and killed them and their offspring off. The effects of taking the worm medication were incredibly swift and as soon as she had, the aching belly went away. These sicknesses did keep us from riding a few days, the most dissapointing of which was the 207km day, but that is just how it goes sometimes.

Since getting into Namibia, we have spent most of the days crossing the Kalahari Desert. I am not sure what it is with our group and getting bad luck with rain and deserts, but two nights ago, we had an incredibly rain and wind storm overnight while camping in Witvlei. We ended up tying our tent to a tree in the middle of the night so that it didn't collaps/blow away. This was very effective, and luckily, even after 102 days of camping, we and all our stuff were 100% dry inside. Seriously, we think this tent is magic. If anyone is looking into buying a tent right now, buy a Kelty. Yesterday, while riding into Windhoek, we saw more animals! Just after passing the international airport, we saw about 30 monkies sitting on the fence along the side of the road and not long after that, 3 warthogs (or as we call them, "Pumba"s) crossed in front of us. We sang "Hakuna Matata" for about a half hour after that. It then rained AGAIN on the last few km into the city and we got a little wet. The terrain in the Kalahari desert and around Windhoek looks a lot like interior BC near Kamloops and the rolling hills as we went into the city, really brought us back to Canada.

Well, after 10 000km, we are getting ready for the last section of our tour: Windhoek to Cape Town. We leave here tomorrow (April 25) and ride over to the Namib desert and then south to South Africa and should arrive in Cape Town on May 9th. We can't believe it is almost coming to a close but after four and a half months travelling, we are pretty excited and quite ready to get home. We look forward to seeing you all when we do!

Lastly, you can read a newspaper article about us that was in the local Canmore newspaper here: http://www.albertalocalnews.com/rockymountainoutlook/news/42760627.html

Victoria Falls - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Well, more days of travelling across Africa, and many more interesting stories. Last week we had a rest day in Lusaka, Zambia and spent the days there enjoying a lot of western amenities. We even went to the cinema and saw a movie ("Slumdog Millionaire", which I would deffinately recomend as a must see for everyone. After having spent some time in India this year, it really hit home.) We enjoyed some great western foods and went out to celebrate our friend Mark's birthday. All in all it was a great few days of pampering and relaxation. Andrew & decided (for our sanity & so our butts could have a break) to not ride our bikes for the three days between Lusaka and Victoria Falls. Turns out it was a wonderful 3 days of relaxation and book reading, which is good, because early yesterday morning (April 11th, the first of our two rest days in Vi Falls) our cameras were stolen out of our tent while we were eating breakfast. Quite unlucky really, but also our luck was that we had decided to inventory our money & charge my iPod, so those were not in the tent at the time. Could have been much worse, so we have spent all of yesterday and most of this morning sorting out our insurance claim, trying to get ahold of new cameras (unfortunately to no avail). We also went to the village which is a stones throw from our Lodge with one of the local security guys to plan a 'sting' opperation. He posed as our guide, and we bought a few locals some beers (and by beer I mean the local fermented corn mulch, which smells and tastes awful, kind of like a mix between bad beer and the early fermenting stages of rye). And found a guy in the village who sold cameras. Unfortunately, he did not have ours, but knew a guy who had a few and would meet us later. I think he caught wind of what we were doing however, because he didn't show up at the designated time. Today we spent all morning with the Zambian police, which really was an adventure all unto itself. We went to the police station, only to find out that police reports are only written up on Tuesdays, typical Africa. But after pleading with the guy behind the desk (who did not at all look like a police officer in his boardshorts and hawaii print shirt, except for the army boots he was wearing), he consented to call his boss, who sometimes came in on Sundays anyways, so the boss shows up, looking even less like a cop in a blue jumpsuit and sandals and they chat and so they call in the guy (who's name is Kelvin) that writes the police reports. So he interviews us, calls his partner (named Andrew) and they tell us that they can write a report for us today, but its going to cost 50,000 kwacha (about $10) to write the report, plus the costs of the internet cafe and printing because their police station doesn't own a computor. So off we go with them to the "crime scene" and they interview the security guards at the Livingstone Safari Lodge and nothing surfaces except what we already know, that often cameras and cell phones are stolen from tourists & then sold on the black market. (Infact just outside our internet cafe a guy approached us asking if we wanted to buy a camera, so we questioned him about the brand, but alas they were not our cameras. But I digress.) After that we spend some time with the police officers getting our story straight and they write up a report. Next we hop in a cab to the nearest internet cafe and there Andrew & I type up our own police report (only on account that Kelvin started typing it up, but I anticipated that it would take about an hour for him to do as his keyboard skills were slightly lacking). So we typed our report, correcting the spelling mistakes and making it look a little more eloquent in english, printed it they stamped it with their Zambian Police Service stamp, signed it, we handed over the K50,000 and then we were on our way. We stopped at a few placed and tried to buy cameras (from a store so as not to support tourist camera thieving) but couldn't find anything, so we've resorted to borrowing one from our friend Allan on the tour so we can (finally!) go to the falls this afternoon & enjoy the last few hours of our rest days (which were not so restfull). All in all, it could have been worse, we still have our money and passports and credit cards, and we've contacted our travel insurance company (hence needing police reports), which should cover the cost of our cameras. The sad part is that we lost the last 2 weeks worth of our pictures, which really is the part we are missing the most. Fortunately however, we are travelling with 50 other people who all have taken pictures over the last 2 weeks, so we can always get those. Also quite fortunately we changed out our memory cards 2 weeks ago, so we're lucky we didn't lose more. All in all, we both agree that we still love Africa, and have vowed not to let a few bad experiences ruin our trip. (think back to our days of stone throwing, stick wielding children in Ethiopia, it now seems almost a cute distant memory. *almost*) We're planning on taking a picnic to the falls this afternoon & enjoying the day. Other than that, we're less than a month from Cape Town & will be back on Canadian soil in 31 days. Quite exciting as we are starting to miss home a bit (we've been on the road for exactly 4 months today) and can't wait to see everyone.