Africa - An Incredible Journey: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe & Beyond

The incredible journey started without any planning whatsoever. One dreary, cold, wet English evening we were really fed up with the typical English winters. We took out a map of the world, opened it on the table, then my husband closed his eyes and stuck a pin randomly in the map. This was where we would go. Well, it was Africa, Zambia to be exact. It took less than a month for him to find a job there. The incredible adventure had begun. It was just the beginning of a journey that was to take us to seven countries in southern Africa and we ended up living in four of them. From the stunning rivers and waterfalls of Zambia, we went on to Zimbabwe and a bush war with guns going off all around us and the ever present threat of land mines on dirt roads.  The scenery was amazing and the game astonishingly abundant.  We were lucky to have viewed the incredible Victoria Falls from both the Zambian and the Zimbabwean sides of the river. The falls are spectacular as they thunder down into the mighty Zambezi River. We fished the Zambezi for the elusive tigerfish. All around our small boat we were surrounded by groups of hippos and crocodiles. In Namibia our little tent was surrounded by hyenas. We heard their terrible laughs as they seemed to gang up near our tent. We visited the ghost town in the desert and moon valley. We saw the colony of seals at Cape Cross in Namibia. We also got stuck in the sand and waited for over an hour before we even saw another vehicle to pull us out. I believe we went to almost every game park and saw massive herds of elephants, leopards crouched in trees as if ready to pounce on the car, monkeys cavorting overhead and warthogs dashing through the bushes, tails up as if they were tiny antennas. It was a journey that also took us through a small portion of the Congo where we were threatened by officials, then on to Angola.  Next came the bustle of life in South Africa, followed by the almost tangible peace of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, where we camped out in a small tent. It was the journey of a lifetime and, despite the dangers, I would not have changed any of it. So here is the story. Let us begin.