We giggled. It was surprising, and faintly ridiculous, seeing all our earthly possessions (for the past 6 months, anyway) shoved into one tiny locker. Franz and Helga never looked so small. If it fits so easily in there, how come all this stuff is such a pain in the ass to carry?! Travel Day We were in Martigny, Switzerland, halfway through our travel day from Chamonix to our next stop, Zermatt, Switzerland. We’d taken the train to Martigny, then had…
“I want to go there,” Erika said, pointing at a picture on her friend Celia’s Instagram feed. It was of a beautiful Alpine landscape, in Chamonix, France. And as simple as that, thus began the transformation of our Switzerland trip from a brief visit of Geneva and Zurich, into a two-week tour of the Alps along with those two cities. So much for getting out of Switzerland as cheaply as possible. I’m glad that transformation happened. Because, though it wasn’t…
Since Namibia, we’d been chasing that feeling we’d had from doing the self-drive safari. We wanted awesome camping trucks again, and the ability to chart our own path without taking expensive tours. Originally, we were looking to do something really crazy–get awesome camping trucks in Harare, Zimbabwe, drive/camp our way to Victoria Falls, across the border to Zambia, and loop all the way around to Lusaka, Zambia. However, we couldn’t find any reasonable availability for awesome camping trucks. The ones…
We were in front of our hotel the next morning 5 minutes before Frank was scheduled to pick us up. We still felt badly about leaving Frank waiting for us a few days ago, even though it wasn’t our fault, so we made sure to get in front of the hotel a little early. Problem was, there was also a behind the hotel, and that’s where Frank was. So fifteen minutes later, Frank came in and found a hotel worker…
Frank was there, at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp, bright and early at 7am to pick us up for our day-trip to Hwange. The only problem with that was we’d been told by the tour company that pick-up was at 7:30, leaving Frank standing around in the cold for half an hour. Not to worry, Frank waved off our apologies, welcomed us warmly, and we were off for the more than an hour drive to Hwange National Park. Frank said…
After a great couple days in Harare, John and I flew into Victoria Falls, the town right next to the namesake falls on the Zimbabwe side. From the air we could see the spray of the falls, and were eager to see them the next day. We settled into our lodge at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp, which was spacious–cavernous even–though uninspiring. The walls were cinder block, the kitchen table something out of a kindergarten classroom. But, the bed was…
Our start came early again, as usual. Fortunately, Erika and I were sleeping well in the tent now. Exhaustion helps with that. We were even better at getting camp packed up this time, and were easily able to hit our planned 8am departure time. We had a date with the dunes, and Erika, especially, was excited. The dunes were all I really knew about Namibia before this trip, and that’s because Erika has long wanted to come see them. It’s…
Wiping all the dirt off (literal and metaphorical) that we felt like we’d picked up in Kolmanskop, we were back in the cars. We took back to the B4 and headed east, retracing the path we’d taken last night, back toward the town of Aus. From Aus, we’d say goodbye to paved roads and start heading north. Day 4 Day 4 was, thankfully, considerably less driving than we’d done the first two driving days. But, as I mentioned above, it…
Namibia is a big country, it turns out. And, we saw an awful lot of it thru the windows of our cars. No more so than on day 3 of the trip, a day we spent almost the entirety of in the car. Most of it on low-quality dirt roads. Day 3 After fueling up in Keetmanshoop, we got back on the B1 heading south, before switching to the B4 west, another of the few paved roads in Namibia. Day…
Our “relaxing” time back home was anything but. It was, maybe, the most stressful time we’d had all year. We had just under two weeks before leaving for Namibia, which we were looking forward to using to reload and recharge. But in the days leading up to leaving Mexico, our to-do list grew and grew. We had to buy new toiletries and supplies for Phase 2, and get my phone fixed, and fully catch up on laundry, and actually book…
