Hallo,
Wir haben vor unsere Reise viel von dieses Forum gelernt also wir wollten etwas wieder machen. Hier finden sie schon 1 Teil unseres Trip Report: das \"praktische\" Teil. Eindrucken, Erfarungen etc....kommen nog.
Meiner Deutsch ist leider nicht gut also habe ich es in English geschrieben. Ich hoffe das das ok ist...
Dates:
5/6/2009-3/7/2009, 28 days in Namibia-Botswana
Car rental:
VW Chico Citisport 1400cc from Budget Rent a Car via Sunnycars.nl for 625€ + 75€ for the Botswana border crossing permit
&
Landrover Defender from MacKenzie, Maun, 3 days to go into the Moremi at 870 pula per day (a SUPERB car!)
Flights:
Air Namibia London-Frankfurt-Windhoek 490€ / person + Eurostar to London 75€ / person
Booked in advance:
3 nights Etosha (1 Okaukejo – 1 Halali – 1 Namutoni), 1 night Sesriem & Kuangu Kuangu for the first night
Total distance covered:
5500km with the Chico + a good 300km with the Landy Maun-Moremi (average petrol consumption of the Chico was 7l / 100km)
Tour overview:
Windhoek-Kuangu Kuangu(1 night)-Sesriem(1 night)-Swakopmund(3 nights)-Brandberg(1 night)-Twijfelfontijn(1 night)-Palmwag(2 nights)-Kunene River Lodge(2 nights)-Epupa Falls(2 nights)-Otjitongwe Cheetah Farm(2 nights)-Etosha(3 nights)-Treesleeper Community Camp(1 night)-Ngepi Camp(2 nights)-Tsodilo Hills(1 night)-Maun(1 night)-Moremi(2 nights)-Maun(1 night)-Ghanzi(1 night)-Windhoek
Accomodation overview & evaluation:
Kuangu Kuangu (between Solitaire & Spreethoogte pass)
Superb place! Total isolation, beautiful surroundings, absolute romance. 110€ / night.
Sesriem campsite
Mediocre campsite, nothing wrong, nothing special & totally overpriced at 600N$ for a tent & 2 persons. Only advantage: you can get to Sossus an hour before sunrise.
Sophia Dale (Swakopmund)
65N$ / person, OK campsite 10km outside center Swakop. Nice & clean, nothing special or scenic though. Just changed ownership to a nice German couple.
Brandberg White Lady Lodge Campsite
Very nice, basic campsite. Big sites far from the neighbours. Nice views on the mountain. Springbok & other wildlife visiting, good nature site. Around 60N$ / person.
Aba Huab Community Camp (Twijfelfontijn)
110N$ / car +2, nice site next to (dry) riverbed. Elephants where there the night before…didn’t see them. Nice bar gave us a late night with the locals…
Palmwag Campsite
90N$ / person, campsite is totally separate from lodge with own, little, swimming pool. Sites are, to Namibian standards, rather small. Nothing against, but certainly not the best camp site at 90N$ / person. The organized AM gamedrive here, at 375N$ / person, was well worth it as we took our time from 7am ‘till 1 pm. Palmwag concession IS beautiful.
Kunene River Lodge
Bungalow at +- 70€ for a double with breakfast. Chilled, relaxed atmosphere, nice location at the Kunene river. Good place to relax a couple of days, also did a fun half day rafting trip on the Kunene here at 365N$ per person. The bungalows in its own were not much special though, you can as well camp here. Take care driving here! The last piece coming from Opuwo was a true challenge for our little Chico (rocky!).
Epupa Falls Community Camp
60N$ / person, excellent place right above the falls! New facilities include a bar deck overlooking the river & the top of the falls + new ablutions.
(Hobatere Campsite)
Planned to stay here but when we arrived there was no one there, neither guests or at the reception, so we continued to Othjitongwe.
Otjitongwe Cheetah Farm Campsite (near Kamanjab)
50N$ / person, 100N$ / person to go and drive with them to feed the cheetah’s.
Real working farm, camp site is runned by the 2 sons. Nice guys who turned the campsite bar into an ‘alterno’ spot…Good fun. We were the only guests on the campsite, so we had to make a fire under the water if we wanted it hot. It’s a fun, no frills place to watch cheetah’s. They also had 3 cubs…
Etosha camp sites
All 3 excellent facilities! And they’d better….at 400N$ / 2 persons + car.
As a campsite I preferred Namutoni (grassy pitches & nice infrastructure in the white fortress). For the floodlit waterholes however Okaukejo was unbeatable (gave us 13 rhino’s in total). We thought the east side of the park (between Halali & Namutoni & around Namutoni) was more beautiful (both in terms of scenery & animals) then the west side (around Okaukejo).
Treesleeper Community Camp (Tsintsabis, on a short cut road from Etosha to Rundu)
Beautiful, huge campsite with private ablution, putting your tent on a wooden deck build over a three at 90N$ / person. Money well spend (community run). Had a San dance performance at night & a bushwalk in the morning, both fun and interesting at respectively 150N$ & 100N$ / person. Good atmosphere, a San community project worth supporting!
Ngepi (between Popa Falls & Mahango NP)
Travel guides say you need a 4x4 to get there….you don’t, no probs in our Chico.
1 night in their wonderfull Treehouse, a completely open room with a deck over the Kavango river facing sunrise…WAUW! +-80€ for the double with breakfast.
1 night camping also by the river. Ngepi is a real ‘traveller’s haunt’, a meeting place, not for the quiet-seekers…We loved it.
Tsodilo Hills Campsite
We preferred here (right under the hills) in stead of day tripping out of Drotsky’s fe.
Campsites mediocre, dusty. Ablution OK but nothing fancy. However, we didn’t even had to pay & the experience of sleeping at the hills was far more relaxing then day tripping here.
Sedia Hotel (Maun)
Good, long standing hotel in Maun. Good hotelroom (with a hotel-ish and not a lodge-ish feel though…) at 60€ for a double with breakfast. Good comfortable place for before and/or after your Okavango/Moremi safari.
Moremi Campsites (Xakanaxa & North Gate/Kwhai)
South Gate looked a bit boring and, especially, deserted. Both 3rd Bridge & Xakanaxa were super, especially the location (next to and even on the best wildlife area’s).
The Kwhai area was scenically very beautiful, however animal density was a lot lower then in the Xakanaxa/3rd Bridge area while we were there.
Ablutions were renovated and thus OK, but nothing compared to, much higher, Namibian standards. However I preferred the unfenced ‘right in the middle of it’ campsites in the Moremi over the ‘security & comfort ‘till you drop’ campsites of Etosha. They were also way cheaper at 30 pula per night per person. If I would go back…it would be to the Moremi, if I would go back, say with young children…it would be to Etosha. It’s a totally different experience. But AND for the scenery AND for the close animal encounters AND for the sheer adventure I preferred Moremi over Etosha.
Tautona Lodge Campsite (near Ghanzi)
50 pula / person, campsite was OK, so was ablution. Restaurant/bar was nice but a bit ‘large scale’ (there was a big group South African youth when we were there).
Swimming pool. Some caged lions, cheetah’s, wild dogs. As a stopover fine, staying here 2-3 nights, not good enough.
und die tollen Bilder
