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17 days and 7000 km. We put it into our mind that we wanted to see Namibia and Botswana and test the Cruisi in sand dunes and swamps. And we made it. No question that we spend a lot of hours driving and refilling this thirsty engine at innumerable petrol stations, but we were rewarded with some of the most fascinating sceneries and experiences.
We arrived in Namibia by driving in a straight line North from Cape Town on the N7. A rather monotonous route which however, during dawn and dusk reveals its beauty, like many stretches we have been driving along, making those times our favourites.
With having our goal in mind we drove all the way through to Etosha on excellent roads in about 2 full days and many full tanks... The campsites on the road were rather unspectacular next to petrol stations on the highways of Namibia. The long driving hours were pleasantly passed by listing to GERMAN radio, yes ok, Namibia was a German colony, but I truly did not expect guys with accents from Berlin and, my favourite, from Cologne to be accompanying us through the roads of Africa. To my even greater surprise it was Carneval!!! My mood was booming, Fred was on the opposite not so much thrilled by the traditional German Carneval songs...
Da sind wa dabei, dat is prima, Viiiiiiivaaaaaa Cologniaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
When we arrived finally in Etosha, the radio was switched off, driving through the herds of elephants and giraffes while listening how the FC Koeln did perform last night, was then truly a bit too much.
Etosha is a very pretty National Park which distinguishes itself from the others by its Salt Pan. The Salt Pan is a saline geological formation which resembles a white desert, stretching over 5000sq. Around this unique barren land lay many waterholes which attract over 470 living species and like always a fair number of the one and only species which takes pictures of its cohabitants on this planet.
We arrived late at night and were lucky enough, as always, to get a camp site without prior booking on the overly packed Etosha Rest Camp. We arrived at dark and also set off at dark again to be as early as possible within the park. The gates were opening at 5am and we were there. Alone. Where is everybody? After 45 minutes finally some more people started arriving at the gate and informed us that in the night the time had changed. 
So we had been there since 4am, that was a good opportunity to check some minor things on the engine with the help of the Cruisi Manual, what an amazing invention!
The park was beautiful as we drove through it while the sun was rising. We stopped at a waterhole and finally had breakfast. Although it is forbidden to get out of your car in parks we, as quickly as we could, climbed on top of cruisi and had our muesli, tea and coffee on the roof rack. To be honest, it was not the most relaxed breakfast one could have as the thought that a big claw was getting you from the back was hard to get rid of.
As the prices were ridiculously high for to spend a night in the park we opted for a nice camp site just a few kms away, the Sachsenheimer camp, “where strangers come and leave as friends”. Fred was able to get a fresh steak of the beautiful Gemshok (Antelope species) which were farmed on the huge forests that the Sachenheimers owned. The farm lady, as all the others we had met along the way, could simply not apprehend that I would have butternut for dinner and no meat. She double checked in German with me, just in case she had not fully understood in English. 
We saw the most amazing sunset that evening from the top of the Cruisie.
The next day the journey continued towards the Caprivi. The drier climate of central Namibia gave way to lush vegetation and even more surprisingly huge palm trees growing alongside the road. Obviously we were getting closer and closer to the great Kavango River.
The Caprivi is a very unique stretch of land, it is officially Namibian land but due to its unique geographical location it borders not only with Angola in the North as Namibia does, but also with Zambia to the North-East, Zimbabwe to the East and Botswana to the South. The Caprivi is a good example of the monopoly-like games the European colonisers used to play with Africa. In the 19th century, the Caprivi was part of the British protectorate while Namibia was under German rule. At some point in that time Germany decided that it would be nice to own the beautiful island of Zanzibar, the waters are a bit warmer, the climate a bit friendlier. Claims like this were settled back on the European continent in form of big Conferences. Germany was not granted Zanzibar as the queen of England won the dispute and got granted the island. Germany in return got the Caprivi strip which was named after German chancellor General Count Georg Leo von Caprivi di Caprara di Montecuccoli (typical German right?!). It was only 20 years after this decision was taken that the people of the Caprivi found out that they were under German rule!
We arrived in Rundu at dark (of course). Looking for campsites in the dark is never the best option and not recommended but this seems to be one of our destinies. Most sites were not accessible because the roads were flooded already so we ended up in a central camp site of the town. We slept as it felt next to an Angolan discothek. The Caprivi due to its proximity to Angola is inhabited by a mixture of people. Angolans, having Portuguese influences due to their colonial past, entertained our sleep with Salsa Rhythms up into the early morning hours.
In the morning the degree of flooding became obvious. Whole stretches of the town were covered in water for as far was the eye can see. The Kavango River floods once a year, bringing the rain down from Angola’s plateaus, passing briefly through this unique little stretch of Namibia and then releasing its full volume into the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
Our next stop took us to the most beautiful Camp Site we had seen so far. Ngepi Camp. Situated almost in the river and accessible only with a 4x4 it offers the ultimate nature experience with a laid back sense of comfort. The river seems to be everywhere. The same applies to the hippos and the crocodiles, you hear them constantly moaning somewhere, not seeing them does not help feeling more at ease. We took a wonderful mokoro ride (Botswanan style canoe, shaped out of a tree trunk) which could have easily been cut out of a BBC documentary.
The water lilies were half a meter in diameter and helped to spot the hippos as they moved them from underneath.
Getting to close to those huge animals is something to be avoided by all means. We fully trusted our guide, not that we had any other option anyhow, who looked relaxed but alert at the same time. Only once we noticed him falling silent and paddling our mokoro franticly towards the current of the river and away from a moving bush just meters distance away. We realised that even with his many years of experience he did not like getting to close to the hippos. On the other side of the river bank, elephants started to show coming to have a drink. The area is not under the status of any national park or nature reserve thus, those elephants were as wild as it gets. That such a thing actually still exists! A wild elephant, not within any sort of man-made border!
The next morning we woke up and discovered that Cruisi, with us on the top, was neatly circled by fresh, huge hippo footsteps. No comment. 
The next day off we went to cross the border into Botswana. We chose the crossing through the Mahango Game Park. Again, getting out of the car is not recommended but seeing a termite tour almost 2 meters high is simply too irresistible not to conquer.
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