Popa Falls rumbled in the background as I watched a perfect sunset over the Kavango River. My partner Steph Perrin and I sipped sauvignon blanc as the sky turned orange. Hippos grunted and a fisherman in a mokoro glided through the scene.
We were in a part of Namibia that used to be called the Caprivi Strip – that odd little finger of land that stretches from the Kavango River towards Zambia. Today, the official name of the eastern half of this strip is the Zambezi Region, and the western part is called Kavango East.
For self-drive tourists, these regions offer incredible camping opportunities along rivers. Added to this, the entry fees into parks in Namibia are considerably lower than the rates of Botswana parks, which makes this a budget friendly leg of your holiday.
But can you get a wild, Botswana-like experience on this side of the border? That’s what we wanted to find out.
Rumbling around Rundu
If you’re holidaying in northern Botswana, there are two border posts that give you access to the Caprivi. In the east, you can cross from Kasane via the Ngoma border post, and in the west you can cross from Shakawe at the Mohembo border post.
We were already in Namibia – we’d come from Windhoek and driven north to Rundu, where we had to do some repairs to our Toyota Land Cruiser.
Our introduction to camping on the banks of the Kavango came at Taranga Safari Lodge, about 35km west of Rundu on
