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An Ill Advised Return for a One Year Overland Pandemic Tour of Africa

Why is this photo interesting? It is not a rad Land Cruiser charging through the rain swollen rivers of Zambia, nor a photo of us crossing the Namib desert or anything equally exotic. But it is Interesting. That is my friend Paul, who bought my car (all electric Nissan leaf, it’s rad). I sold it because WE ARE GOING TO AFRICA FOR A YEAR.

Yeah, that’s right. And if you’re thinking, “Uh, this doesn’t seem like the best time to travel in Africa. You know, there is that covid thing.” then you’d probably be right. There is a global pandemic. Africa is vastly under vaccinated for covid. Health care is not spectacular in most parts of Africa should we get sick. All of this is true. 

What is also true is that we are losing our minds a bit back here at home. We have it good compared to so many, don’t get me wrong. But our country is busy tearing itself apart over [insert any issue here] and we are busy tearing ourselves apart watching it all happen. For whatever psychological reasons this has amplified my stress on various issues, and progress seems, I’ll be generous, modest. 

All of us are nostalgic for the heady freedoms of 2019, but those days are gone for now, and who knows when they will return, so it’s time for Jenny and I to take a break and reset. Not many people get a chance to take a year off. In our case, a combination of savings and a narrow window of opportunity from our employers, to our surprise, made it seem like this might actually be possible. We are grabbing this with both hands. In mid October we will fly to Namibia to dust of the Land Cruiser and set off to spend a year appreciating the world, the people, places and wildlife in it. 

Typically it seems that when most set out for a overland safari starting in Southern Africa and heading up to East Africa, they start in April/May/June; this works well with the timing of the rainy seasons. We’ll be starting in October, a little out of sync, but I’m not worried. In my early days of seagoing about various parts of the world I visited all sorts of dusty ports and out of the way islands at the “wrong” time of year, and there was always some great discovery, no matter what the guidebook’s advice was on avoiding the low season. I’m thinking about this trip the same way. It’s time to appreciate what we have. Not the rose colored past or the future as we hope it will be very soon, but the world as it is right now with all its messiness, and also with all the good parts that are so easy to forget about. 

I listened recently to a podcast describing humans natural negativity bias, that we need roughly four pieces of good news to counter one piece of bad news. Apparently this stems from evolution. The risk of one poisonous berry eaten makes you wary of all berries, even if many of them are succulent and sweet. So we will work on overcoming our own negativity bias. Step one, simplify our world to a land cruiser and the company of my lovely spouse.

With that said, I bring The General Plan.

Step one – Fly to Namibia and pick up the vehicle. 

The cruiser is stashed in Windhoek, where we left in something of a hurry last time, March 2020 (remember way back then?). We had been in Kaokoland, one of the remotest parts of Namibia, and we received a text on our satellite phone from a friend saying that if we wanted to come home, we should come now. After making a multi day dash to Windhoek, we stored the cruiser with Manfred, and made the last commercial flight out of Namibia to the States. 

Side note, Manfred is a retired big game hunter who now is a taxidermist, curio/coffee shop proprietor and vehicle storage guy. He stores vehicles for embassy staff, for locals and for foreigners like us who have a vehicle in Africa. He is a story unto himself. He told us he came to Namibia during the 1969 Apollo moon mission and hasn’t been back to Germany since. Interesting fellow. He also told us that he is deaf from the high powered rifles he used to hunt with, though we did notice his deafness seemed to be more severe when talking to Jenny, so he is perhaps a bit old school in that department.

We have a date to meet friends in Zambia in short order, so we have something like ten days to pick up the vehicle and take care of some logistical odds and ends. We’ll need a new auxiliary battery and maybe start battery. We need to confirm all the service work was done, oil change, etc. We’ll probably need to take another PCR test for entry into Zambia. 

Then it’s back on the road to head north and also do a few days of camping on the way. Our route is TBD, but probably stopping at Ngepi Camp or Nunda River Lodge and Mudumu National Park. In this scenario we’d cross into Zambia at Katima Mulilo. Alternatively we might try Khadum National Park, or if we are feeling crazy, we’ll go into Botswana first and cross at Kazungula. We have demurred on making firm plans in this covid environment, and with a long trip we’ll mostly have the flexibility to adjust on the fly, excepting a few goal posts that we are really looking forward to.

Next up – Zambia

We’re meeting our good friends Pete and Melissa in Livingstone. We cancelled our 2020 plans with them, so here we go giving it another try. They are flying into Lusaka, and we are shoehorning all four of us into the cruiser for a Zambia tour. We’ve had four people before for 10 days, but this will be longer. We’ve traveled closely with them before, sailing in Croatia and canal boating in France, so I think we’ll manage. If you’re thinking, “Wait, what? Sailing Croatia? Canal boating France?” Yes, you should do both those things. Canal boating requires less (like almost no) boating knowledge if boats aren’t your thing, and isn’t as expensive as it sounds.

The Zambia plan is more or less as follows: Visit Lower Zambezi National Park, South Luangwa National Park, transit up the notorious “05” road on the cusp of rainy season, Kasanka National Park to see the bat migration and lastly Kafue National Park, where we plan to camp in the Busanga plains, which you can only camp, as opposed to more expensive lodges, in November.

Could the rains start early and crush our plans to drive the “05”? Yes, they could. I’m already a bit stressed about that. Could we get Covid-21, Marburg or Eblola from the millions of bats roosting at Kasanka? Let’s hope not. We are pretty pumped, I think Zambia is going to be great. 

After that our friends will fly home, and our plans become more flexible and also more vague. After a logistics and rest stop in Lusaka we’ll head north, perhaps stopping at Mutinondo Wilderness, Bangwelu wetlands if rains permit, Kapishya Hot Springs, some of the northern waterfalls, Ndola Bay and Mpulungu. Or maybe we’ll save those for the trip south, who knows? From there we’ll make our way to the Nkonde/Tunduma border and into Tanzania.

Into Tanzania

On our last visit we enjoyed the luxuries of camping at the Lakeshore Lodge on Lake Tanganyika and the wilds of Katavi National Park. This time we’ll wander east, probably to Ruaha and Nyrere National Park (formerly Selous Game Reserve), and time permitting, visit the UNESCO listed Kilwa ruins on the Tanzanian coast. Up from there, we’ll head to Arusha to meet a couple of friends for a visit to the Serengeti. They are renting a vehicle, and we’ll make a classic northern Tanzania loop, Lake Manyara National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Serengeti National Park and exit at Kleins gate to see Lake Natron.

I am not looking forward to the sky high expenses of the Tanzanian Parks, but given the very low number of anticipated tourists in normally busy places like Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, it seems too good an opportunity to pass up. 

After that…

After that our plans become quite hazy, and we will go where the urge takes us. On the menu is visiting Uganda, which we have not done, or at least not as independent travelers in our own vehicle. Also we’re very excited about Kenya. We’re going to the trouble to get a Carnet de Passages en Douane, or CPD (It’s French – more on this later) to make that possible.

Sometime in March in East Africa the long rains set in, and we plan to move south to avoid the rains. Also the next goal post is Morocco. Morocco?! No, we’re not going to drive there. This is to meet Jenny’s family for a twice postponed trip sans Land Cruiser. We’ll store the vehicle somewhere and fly to meet them, covid permitting, for a two week trip. Assuming it goes as planned, it will be lovely to see them, and also it is a tour that someone else has planned at a, ahem, higher standard than we are used to. So we’ll certainly embrace a bit of luxury by them I’m sure.

Returning to the vehicle in April will give us over five more months to travel. We want to see if more friends can visit us, maybe renting another vehicle to travel in tandem for a bit. I would love to realize some previously thwarted Zimbabwe plans, to return to the wonderful Central Kalahari Game Reserve, to visit the Marienfluss Valley and Kaokoland in May. Namibia calls again with it’s riverbeds and wide open spaces. Will Angola’s borders be open by mid 2022? Lets hope so. Will we get crazy and head back to East Africa to see the migration in the Masai Mara that we haven’t seen before? Who knows. 

We have certainly been reminded a lot recently that plans are unmade much faster than made, so we are not focused on trying to plan each day but instead on making the most of the time we have and opportunities that present themselves. Such is the luxury of long term travel. 

I’ll be blogging as time permits and also sharing some photos on instagram (@mckee_travels). If you have questions/comments/ideas send us an email, I’d love to hear from you.