Wandergreed

Eight years ago, I went on my first backpacking trip through seven Southern African countries in six weeks. I particularly loved Botswana and Malawi. People told me that if I love Botswana, I would surely love Namibia. But, since I was travelling by public transportation, the best places in Namibia were hard to reach without a car (preferably a 4×4) and I didn’t make it to Namibia. Since that summer, I made the plan to come back to Botswana one day and to travel through Namibia as well.
Finally, eight years later, I made it back to that part of the world. I rented the smallest 4×4 they had available, drafted a route and I was on my way.

Below is a highlight of all the beauty of Namibia and Botswana. Namibia became an instant favourite: horseriding in the desert of the Namib-Naukluft, visiting the gorgeous Sossusvlei (ever since I saw that famous photo of Deadvlei by lucky bastard Frans Lanting, I wanted to go there) and Etosha. But most of all, I felt so much while being there. Driving around, my eyes would occasionally tear up, touched by the beauty around me. When I was standing in the middle of nowhere at Desert Homestead, my first thoughts were “Wow, one day I want to bring my kids here!” Immediately followed by “Wait, what? I don’t want kids. What the hell was that?” Crazy. Botswana’s Chobe National Park was full of elephants, just like I remembered. Actually, elephants were everywhere while driving around in Botswana. Perhaps the best part of this trip was all the fun and amazing people I met, good experiences shared (horse riding, skydiving and getting hooked, surfing or attempting to) and lessons learned (picking up hitchhikers is not scary but nice, how not to get stuck in the deep sand or to get yourself out when you do).

I thought wanderlust could be satisfied by travelling more, but my wanderlust seems insatiable. Or perhaps I suffer from wandergreed, cause the more I travel, the more I want to keep travelling… Will this ever end? I hope not! 🙂