Day 15 - Rundu

Point of departure : Etosha National Park

Point of arrival : Rundu

Accommodation: The rooftop tent - Sarasunga Lodge on the Kavango River (www.sarasunguriverlodge.com)

Km travelled today: 484km Cum: 3 386km (gravel 40km cum 1207km)

Countries so far: 2/16

Where to next? Namushasha Lodge, Caprivi

Total number of photos taken 19 (cum 589)

Smooth and early departure with a last visit to Klein Namutoni waterhole and more giraffe!

On our way to Rundu we did a detour to the Hoba Meteorite just outside Grootfontein.Hoba Meteorite - at 3x3x1m and weighing approximately 60 tons makes this the largest meteorite in the world.It was discovered in 1920 (having arrived on earth from outer space +/- 80 000 years ago) and is 82% iron and 16% nickel.It is truly an impressive piece of space junk.

Travelling north today we felt we had left some of the colonial past behind and entered true Africa, with the rural villages, huts with thatched walls and roofs, wooden fences and hedge rows, the inevitable goats but also donkeys and cattle, but all looking well kept and proudly maintained by the owners including their proudly Namibian flags.Even the schools looked well maintained, with pristine but gravel grounds and the school crest emblazoned on the one wall.What we saw was lots of trees to provide shade (in S.A. trees are cut down for fire wood).They certainly need the shade - the temperature today hit 40 degrees, and this is not even the height of summer.

We arrived in Rundu as the heavens opened and the rain came down - the first rains we have seen since we left Johannesburg.Immediately after the short burst the temperature dropped to 30 degrees - what a relief!

Rundu lies on the Kavango River (known as the Cubango River in Angola), with Angola on the opposite side of the river.It travels for 400km and plunges over Popa Falls and passes through the Caprivi to enter Botswana and starts fanning out into the Okavango Delta.

Marina was last here in 1980 when she visited her cousins Jose and Luisa and their children when Jose was based at the S.A. military base.The town has certainly changed, to be expected.

Our campsite at Sarasungu is on the river and very pretty.Sarasungu is a word from the old Kavango language (a forgotten language that is no longer spoken anywhere in Africa).It means "women fishing" and over time the meaning has changed to "fish trap".A lake nearby has been named Sarasungu and the locals are quite happy to keep it that way as it's the only word left of a forgotten language.

Tomorrow we are off to Namushasha Lodge which is 20km south of Kongola.The Caprivi Strip is new ground for us as the farthest north we have both been was Grootfontein (apart from Marina's short visit to Rundu in 1980).