Driving 'The Beast' through Africa
Zambia and Botswana
door Isabelle Demaeght, September 7th, 2025
We drive straight across Namibia, along the northern border with Angola. The road is easy to drive on. I take my place behind the wheel (it's my first time driving on the left this trip); Adriaan settles down with a laptop on his lap, supposedly working, although I know he occasionally glances at me and the road while I let the kilometers slip by.
In two days, we cover 700 kilometers on asphalt, which is a lot for us. At the end of that second day, we choose a place to sleep on the Cubango River (which forms the border between Namibia and Angola). During the night, we hear the grunting of hippos passing by; we decide to take a boat trip to see more wildlife. One night turned into three (also because Adriaan quickly ‘became friends’ with the freshly tapped beer in frozen pots and I wrote the blog episode about Angola).
We reach the Caprivi Strip, a narrow, ruler-straight strip of Namibian land that squeezes between Botswana and Zambia. We meet 73-year-old, flamboyant Frenchman Luc, who settled here after many wanderings. He has created something beautiful from a spot along the Kwando River, where we are camping. Luc enjoys every European company that passes by. We hardly need to ask any questions; he keeps talking as if the silence would be too great without his voice. Luc turns out to be the father of children aged 3 and 5 who live 40 kilometers away. (We feel it would be inappropriate to ask him about the age of his African wife.)
The next morning, we get up unusually early to visit Bwabwata National Park. We are the first to enter and feel like the park is ours. Collecting entrance fees is easier than providing information or maps: we drive around a bit, come across a military site, and turn back. We promptly spot a cheetah, stalking along the sandy path in typical cat fashion. Next to her, a male animal appears and promptly attacks a herd of antelopes. Unfortunately, this happens in the bushes, so we cannot see the outcome. We drive around for seven hours, searching, peering. In the afternoon, a herd of elephants emerges from the bushes and strides determinedly toward a waterhole. A little later, along our “let's just drive around” route, we see hippos that have come out of the water, languid and massive, but still irresistible to watch.
After crossing the border with Zambia, we reach Livingstone. Adriaan has already picked out a lodge with a small campsite. The swimming pool turns out to be a blessing in the humid heat, although we are driven crazy by the mosquitoes attracted by the water from the river and waterfall. In the evening, we enjoy an aperitif with a view of the Zambezi: the river that swallows the sun like a slowly moving mirror.
Helen and Wayne, a New Zealand couple, give us a ride to the Victoria Falls. On the Zambian side, we walk in peace, while on the other side (in Zimbabwe) we see hordes of tourists shuffling around. Our curiosity to cross over to the Zimbabwean side immediately disappears. Livingstone is teeming with operators offering rafting, bungee jumping, and helicopter flights—the whole spectrum of adventure on demand. We opt for a different kind of luxury: an aperitif in the garden of the Royal Livingstone Hotel, overlooking the river. Serene, stylish, timeless. Enjoyment. The room rates – from 1000 (to 6000) euros – quickly send us back to our tent on The Beast.
Temperatures inland are already rising—the dry “winter” is almost over and people are waiting for the first (cooling) rains. We decide to drive towards spring: to the southwest coast of South Africa, to Cape Town. That route runs through Botswana. In a few months, we will head north again along the east coast, where it will still be warm enough, closer to the equator.
Botswana welcomes us in its own way: shoes off, soles disinfected in a container with a dubiously dirty liquid, and The Beast having to drive through a puddle of disinfectant. The country targets wealthy tourists, who have to pay road tax and are required to take out liability insurance, even if you already have it (like us). The first lodge we settle in is expensive, busy, and not very hospitable. Fortunately, we meet Ine and Wim from Duffel, fellow travelers. A pint, a nice meeting, and valuable tips later, we decide to drive on.
On their recommendation, we drive through the northern side of Chobe Park in one day, along the mighty river after which the park is named. We struggle with the Beast, which is (once again) rewarded with beautiful images of nature and wildlife: the elephants for which this park is famous, giraffes that stay in view for too long, and impalas that seem to be going nowhere. Along the banks, crocodiles lie motionless, waiting for an animal to be more thirsty than cautious.
Lazy Hippopotamus Giraffe In the park, you are only allowed to get out of your car at carefully selected spots. Around noon, we encounter a Belgian family with two twenty-somethings at one of these spots. As we nibble on our sandwiches, a scene unfolds that seems to come straight out of a colonial postcard: a picnic table with a snow-white tablecloth, porcelain plates, and a local guide (of color) serving snacks. They are very curious to know how we managed to drive all the way here from Belgium in our car. We often get questions about the logistics, the route, sometimes even about the dangers. But no, the first pressing concern is from Mamma: “And how do you wash your clothes?” (Well, for some people, washing clothes and traveling don't go together.)
Continuing to plod along a nasty sandy road, we take advantage of the following tip from Ine: the Khwai Community Camp. Fifteen camping spots, very far apart, on the Khwai River. In Botswana, there are no fences around the campsites (as there are in Etosha, for example). The showers and toilets are two kilometers away as the crow flies—it is recommended to drive to the shower and not to leave your vehicle or tent at night.
Just as we are about to light our (mandatory!) wood fire, a herd of elephants passes by. A young male elephant shakes his head and raises his trunk. We often see this adolescent aggression behavior, which is funny from a distance. In this case, we decide to retreat to the trunk of the car. One of the adult females, which are over 3 meters tall and much calmer, passes by six meters away. It is terrifying, and my dear husband has a bruise from my frightened grip on his arm. When Adriaan quickly lights the fire, the stragglers walk neatly around our camp. It is as if the fire draws a kind of invisible boundary.
At night, we hear some noise nearby and later a lion roar. In the morning, I walk a short distance in the direction of the nighttime noise. A group of travelers and guides has already found the lions. I return to our camp, where we fold up the tent and go to look by car. The lions have killed a male springbok. The male lion is guarding the prey, while the four lionesses are lying further away in the shade with six cubs. They sleep all day while digesting their meal. By evening, a queue of safari vehicles has formed, with visitors coming to see both the lions and us—campers in their habitat.
We grill boerewors, that delicious South African sausage with a hint of cloves. Adriaan stokes the fire as night falls. We wake up to the sound of lions growling even closer. We are aware of their presence and stay safely in the roof tent. In the morning, it turns out that they have passed close by (10 meters) our campsite and moved on to a spot further away.
We cross Botswana as we started at the Namibian border: driving for miles, this time through the Kalahari. I am already quite used to driving on the left. At the border with South Africa, everything goes remarkably smoothly – passport stamping, car import, money exchange, new SIM card. And then suddenly we are in a mall with supermarkets that seem bigger than those in Europe. The contrast is immense: from bush camp to air conditioning and full store shelves.
Africa shows itself again in all its diversity. It is not a country, but a continent with endless faces. I feel like I want to leave the animals and safaris behind for a while. Time to look forward to spring by the sea, wine routes, and who knows what else.
See more pictures and the route traveled.