Let´s go to Africa

The Weltreisebär's 11th year of life kicks off with a trip to the continent that, by far, still holds the most terra incognita. A whopping 38 out of 55 countries here have never been visited before. So it came at just the right time that Justus, whom I know from the EKSG in Freiberg, would be travelling to Botswana with his family. Even before the trip, he told me they'd also be stopping in Zambia, Eswatini, and possibly Lesotho. The list of upcoming countries kept growing. Zimbabwe might be joining the mix too.

The first new country was Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). Here, the hire car broke down, but luckily it was fixed in just 10 minutes thanks to this young man:

Justus's African journey continued on to Botswana via the Kazungula Bridge. Even though the sign reads „Border“, it's already clearly standing on Botswanan territory.

The bridge sits at what's almost a four-country junction. Here, Namibia (left) and Zimbabwe (right) are only 100m apart from each other. Botswana and Zambia share a direct border.

Since Victoria Falls lies right on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe luckily got ticked off too. Though that wasn't entirely certain: technically, you need at least a visa-on-arrival for this country. But for the bridge, which crosses the Zambezi border river, there's a so-called „bridge visa“. Accordingly, the bear was only briefly – and only a few metres – on Zimbabwean soil.

Finally, it was off to Lesotho with Justus's parents. The Katse Dam was once the highest-altitude dam in the world, and the country as a whole is quite mountainous. The highest peak stands at almost 3500m, while the lowest point of the country sits at around 1400m. That gives Lesotho – drumroll, please – the „highest lowest point in the world“… and Justus's dad even got to drive the Mafika Lisiu Pass.

With 125 countries now under his belt, only 73 countries remain in total, 33 of them in Africa.

With 5 countries, Justus climbs straight to 4th place among the most successful fellow travellers… and earns the Weltreisebär badge in silver for it:

The presumably next country is likely to rank very high as well. Stay tuned to find out where the journey continues!