The journey takes us from Johnannesburg northwards via Modimolle, where we spend the night and through and shop to Mapungubwe NP. Towards the border with Zimbabwe it gets wilder and dangerous - there is a warning against street crime. The area is beautiful, Mapungubwe was a big city of ancient peoples and there is a lot to see here at Limpopo besides nature and animals.

The accommodations in both parts of the park are excellent, the drives - including a rough 4x4 route - are exciting and the museum about the culture of the ancient peoples is absolutely worth seeing. Birds and wild animals can be observed from the hides, but this again shows how difficult it is to maintain the infrastructure, as some places have been destroyed by the elephants.

The long route on good roads to the west is exciting and varied. Lusaka is a crowd in the midst of modern skyscrapers and small huts.

We penetrate the national park along the river and are harassed en masse by biting tsetse flies. We learn to deal with these, but not with the heavy rain that reaches us. A little earlier than planned we leave the great Kasabushi Camp, where we spend a leisurely Christmas party. A river trip shows us the water landscape with many water birds, finally we discover a porcupine for the very first time, even if only briefly and on the way out of the park we meet wild dogs.

Kafue has a lot to offer and would be worth even longer exploring trips if the time budget is sufficient ...