We stayed two nights in Botswana. By this time we had spent almost 40 days on tour of Southern Africa. It was mostly because of me that we came home; Derek wanted to continue traveling to Tanzania but I was worried about my children that were at home and my ailing mother. My responsibilities were calling me.

I don’t know if you ever feel like this when you have been traveling or on holiday and on the last few days you just want to get home. We were feeling like this and we decided that we would rather do another complete trip into Botswana and southern Namibia in the future to do it justice. I am glad we decided on this. One day we will visit Southern Africa again.

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Derek loves aeroplanes (he was once in the air-force) so he was very keen to get a trip around the Okavango delta in an aeroplane. I, on the other hand, could think of anything worse and will only go in an aeroplane if we are traveling somewhere, so we decided that he would go on his own. These photos above don’t do it justice and hopefully one day we will go back and I will blog about it in the future.

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The roads through Botswana were straight, flat and monotonous except that we had to keep an eye out for crossing animals as there are no fences and wild animals are allowed to roam freely. The tragedy was that there were many many carcasses strewn along the way side – I found it heart breaking. I cried a lot on this leg of the journey, maybe because I was tired or because I had been dealing with sad news from my family but seeing all the dead animals really set me off.

We stayed one night in Namibia and you can see how the landscape has changed. If you know Namibia you will know that there are many sand dunes too but we never got to see them and this is another part of Southern Africa that we would like to see in the future. Somebody wants to go hot air ballooning and I guess I will go along too.

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Just before the South African boarder were more straight roads and then we drove down into the Orange River valley. It was amazing to see green foliage and water again but soon on the South African side as we climbed out of the valley we encountered rocky mountainous terrain.

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The Olifants River and Clanwilliams dam was a treat to see and we felt like we were nearing home.

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I love the geological formations that we saw on our way home; also driving through the tiny towns reminded us that we were almost home.

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Cape Town’s landmark of note, Table Mountain welcomed us home. Anyone who doesn’t know Table Mountain can still see why it is called that. Some days when the wind blows from the south it covers the top with white clouds which looks very much like a table cloth.

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And that is that for this trip through Southern Africa. Next year I will tell you about our short trip in Canada. Keep well over the December holidays, and whatever you celebrate I hope you find a new way of celebrating with your community despite the virus, Covid 19.

Hasta la vista or take care, till next year from this Travelnista.