Nov 18, 2008

On the little stretch of Caprivi, where the colonial politics of the past have arbitrarily divided the land into Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Angola, wildlife knows no borders. The river here serves as the divide, and its name changes every hundred miles or so. Birds here are as colorful as I’ve ever seen. Carmine bee-eaters sunbathe on low branches, and

At Ondangua, northern Namibia, I met up with the convoy I was travelling with into Angola. We encountered no border controls and continued on past Ruacana Falls to Xangongo, which was once a prosperous Portuguese town, but now most buildings had no roofs and the town was quiet and overgrown. Many of the crumbling buildings’ white-washed facades were riddled