The last stop on our journey was Cape Town, South Africa. As most are aware, Cape Town has a very colorful history, full of a lot of racial, ethnic, and religious strife. In fact, many roads have changed names because of the political strife in the past. We were told that one of the reasons that the residents of Cape Town are so kind is because they are trying to overcome their negative past. The information in this section is split up into history of Cape Town (which includes general information about Cape Town), history of Robben Island (including information about the Sharpville Massacre and Nelson Mandela), information about the…

To access Lesotho (leh-soo-too), we flew from Eswatini, through Johannesburg, to Durban (in South Africa). We were then driven 3 hours (in the most dense fog I’ve ever experienced – it was scary how poor the visibility was!) to Underberg, which is a town at the base of the Drakenburg Mountains, which span about 200km (125 mi) from North to South (we were in the south). There are Bushman paintings in the mountains and, as a result, the mountains are a UNESCO World Heritage site, which protects those paintings. When the fog cleared the next day, the scenery was stunning! Underberg (with a population of 100,000 people) is the closest…

Eswatini (which changed its name from Swaziland in 2018) was a 50 minute flight from Johannesburg, South Africa. Eswatini was the original name of the land, but it was not pronounced properly when it was under British Rule, so, they changed their name to Swaziland. Swaziland became independent in 1968, and it was not until the King’s birthday in 2018 that it was changed back by the king because “enough is enough.” Eswatini is 17,000sqkm (6563sqmi), with a population of 1.3 million people. While Manzini (the town we landed in) is heavily populated because of job opportunities and industry, it is not the capitol. In Manzini is a new airport,…

Zambia is in the south central part of Africa and is landlocked (has no seaport). It is surrounded by 8 countries: Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, and Botswana. Zambia became independent from British rule (after 70 years) on October 24, 1964, at which point they changed their name from Northern Rhodesia. Zambia means “land of many rivers.” There are 16 million people in Zambia, made up of 7 tribes, with 72 different spoken languages, the official language of which is English, which is taught in schools. Their main industries are mining copper, agriculture (depending on the season), maize (which is a cash crop), and…

The portion of Namibia that we went to was an area called the Caprivi Strip, which is a strip of land that extends from the country, and is bordered by Angola, Zambia, the tip of Zimbabwe, and Botswana. We took a speed boat about 2 minutes to Botswana Customs, and then another five minutes to the Namibia water border. Impalila Island (where we were; 26x15km [16×9 mi)) is the area of land where the four countries (Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana) meet, and is the reason we chose to focus on this area when planning our trip. Namibia was a German colony and, as a result, there is still some…

Sawubona! (Greetings!) We visited the town of Victoria Falls (VFA), which was established in 1964, well after its Zambian counterpart, Livingstone, was established, which is why VFA is smaller than Livingstone. David Livingstone was a missionary from Scotland, who arrived in Zimbabwe in 1855. He saw the Falls, and was the one who made the Falls known to others. People started coming to see the Falls in 1876, but there was no road on which to access the Falls. As a result, in 1904, they started to build a train that would provide access. VFA is the only town situated within Victoria Falls National Park. VFA, named after Queen Victoria,…

Greetings! My husband and I recently returned from a wonderful two-week trip to Southern Africa, during which we were able to visit 7 countries! We flew in to Zimbabwe (where we visited the majestic Victoria Falls, which a fellow traveler referred to as “waterfalls on steroids!”), were driven to Botswana (where we did a river safari and land safari, only managing to see 2 of the Big Five), did a short day trip into Namibia (Impalila Island, which is on the Caprivi Strip – a narrow stretch of land that extends from Namibia, between the Botswana and Zambia borders), were driven to the Zambezi River to do a short boat…

Botswana is the size of France or Texas, and has a population of 2 million people. Their biggest industry is diamonds (discovered in Botswana in 1966), followed by tourism and beef. In fact, we disinfected our shoes at the border in order to control for foot and mouth disease (primarily found in Zimbabwe), which impacts the beef industry. Botswana was liberated from the British in 1967, and has maintained a stable economy due to very little corruption. Their currency is the Pula, which means “what you can see around,” and the Pula is stronger than the South African Rand (10 Pula vs. 14 Rand to 1 USD). Most of the…