TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Guest Blogger: Peace Corps Volunteer Elaine Sweet Writes about Namibia

My Guest Blogger is Elaine Sweet, American Peace Corps Volunteer, who had served in Azerbaijan and the Philippines, is now in Namibia, a country in southern Africa.

She says, "I need to wrap up the vacation odyssey because I have gotten a green light from the Peace Corps to set up funding for the Library Resource Center for my school."

Here is one of her final reports about her stay in Namibia.
I have her permission to reprint the following:
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The CRAZY trip and 36 hour MARATHON

By Elaine Sweet

“All is well that ends well,” I keep telling myself. As I write this I can hardly believe that I actually DID some of these things.

I flew from Windhoek to Katima to avoid a two day trip by bus or Kombi. Lindsay was supposed to be my travel companion but then she could NOT accompany me on this trip. She was to be my travel guide because she has made the trip to Vic Falls many times. She did meet me at the airport in Katima. I had already decided that I would go ALONE if I had to. I spent the night in Katima with her and planned to take a van to Kisane, Botswana which was supposed to leave at 6 a.m. Her Namibian friends assured her that it would not really leave until 7. We arrived at 7 and the van had left.

After much deliberation, Lindsay and her friends found a car to drive me to the Namibia/Botswana border. They wanted to accompany me across the border to find a ride to Kisane, Botswana, but the border guards wouldn’t permit them to do that because they didn’t have their passports. So I scribbled down the names Kisane and Kazungula on a piece of paper in my purse so I wouldn’t forget where I needed to go. The border guards told me to hitchhike a ride to Kisane. Two German tourists entered the immigration area as I waited for a good prospect for a ride. The one official kept giving me a “thumbs up” sign as I waited in the background for an opportunity to speak to them. When I asked for a ride to Kisane they were very reluctant to take me. It was a middle aged son who was taking his father on a safari. I promised them that I could hold my backpack on my lap if I needed to. They agreed to take me, but still, VERY reluctantly.

Lindsay had told me to get a ride to a shopping center in Kisane and then take a taxi to the Kazungula border crossing into Zimbabwe.

My reluctant German friends left me at a shopping center in Kisane where I found a taxi to take me to the border. What amazed me during all of this “unknown” travel was that all of these people spoke English, except for the older German.

Finding taxi drivers is really easy. Everyone wants to get a fare from a foreigner. The driver took me to immigration at the border of Botswana. I had to get “stamped out of Botswana” and then meet the driver on the other side where he had another car which he used to take me to Kazungula to enter Zimbabwe. As I walked across each International border, I felt like I was walking in to “Never Never Land.” Next, at Kazungula, I had to get a visa, walk in to Zimbabwe and find another taxi to take me to Victoria Falls. I got a visa which was valid for both Zimbabwe and Zambia. I was supposed to meet a batch mate, Devin, in Livingstone, Zambia, for the trip back to Namibia. Thank GOD!!

My taxi driver at the Zimbabwe border wanted to charge me $50 USD to take me to Vic Falls. That was for taking me alone. I said I would wait until he filled the taxi. My fare was then $10.

I arrived at the backpackers which Lindsay had chosen. It had the essentials: a small restaurant, a bar, a tour office and it was within walking distance of the town of Vic Falls and also the Falls Park. Plus I had a private room because she had not come. I looked at the available tours as I had a burger and a beer in the restaurant and decided that I had to do it ALL THE NEXT DAY.

I scheduled a walk with the lions in a lion rehabilitation preserve, the helicopter ride over the falls, and a sundowner cruise on the Zambizi River. Then I would walk to Vic Falls Park the following morning before I left to go to Livingstone to meet Devin for the trip back.

It was an AMAZING trip. I am glad that I did it even though it was compressed into a day and a half with various unknowns. I actually walked across three International borders: Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Devin and I took a nice bus from Livingstone, Zambia to Katima, Namibia. The return was sooo easy with no stress.

All is well which ends well.