Team Tana Netting has completed their overland journey from Amsterdam to Cape Town.  This is Liz and Laura’s final blog entry for Tana Netting:

30 May- 11 June
We arrived in Chitimba after a long day of driving and passing the Malawi border.   The Chitimba Beach resort is a beautiful and peaceful place with a little bar and restaurant at the beach of Lake Malawi.  We were so happy to have some time the next day to rest and reload for the drive to South Africa in two weeks.  

The next coming days were everything but peaceful.  Henk, a team member of Team Massif, drowned the next day in Lake Malawi.  Everyone was shocked, sad and overwhelmed by the situation; the occurrence hit us like a bomb.  Thankfully the organizations of the Trophy and Team Med. Adventures, the doctors, handled the situation very professionally.  After a beautiful ceremony and some days of mourning, we drove off towards Zambia.

In Livingstone, we had one day to rest and see Victoria Falls- so impressive!  I flew with a micro-light airplane over the falls which was amazing, being able to see everything from above: the power of the water, the swimming elephants in the Zambesi River and other games in the national park in Zimbabwe.  It was like flying over a movie scene.  We all took a hike with the group through Victoria Falls Park and got as wet as possible, which was not so difficult.  

Some teams of the group decided to take an alternative route through Zimbabwe towards Botswana while others took the normal route.  We passed the border on a boat on the Zambesi River, bringing us to Botswana.  Several men on the boat asked for bribes, tolls, taxes and other non-official costs which we refused to pay. Driving through Botswana is like driving through a huge game reserve- the wild animals crossed the roads all the time.  We slept in a deserted campsite named Elephant Sands which is named after the elephants drinking out of the water pool daily.  So logically, during our preparation of the dinner ceremony (hours of cutting vegetables for 40 people, collecting cooking gear, fixing enough Coleman stoves, etc), we were ‘disturbed’ by two big elephants checking us out and drinking from the swimming pool which was 2 meters away from the stove.  Forty people froze and stared with amazement at these beautiful creatures who wanted to know what these tourists were doing in their natural habitat.  After having seen we were quite ok, they took off.  

We prepared ourselves for the crossing of the final border the next day.  Everyone was excited!  This process took only half an hour and we realized were back in the touristy world.  We drove to Elisand Campsite which is near halfway between the border and Pretoria.  That night, we prepared our ceremony of entering Pretoria and finally reaching the Orange Camping.  For about 8 kilometers before reaching the city, we drove in one big caravan decorated with flags.  Everyone recognized us from the newspapers and started to flash lights and hoot! So funny!  Finally we saw (and heard) the fufuzelas, the famous South African music instruments that make sounds like a scared elephant.  After seeing all the media at the Orange Camping, we drove to the Embassy where we watched the first opening match between South Africa and Mexico.  We realized we have reached our destination and the official Orange Trophy part of the journey was over.  

The next two weeks, we drove together with hundreds of Orange Camping campers to Durban and finally to Cape Town.  It has been an amazing adventure which was not possible without the help and support of our sponsors: Tana Netting, Crocs and Cor Millenaar, thank you all so much for everything you did for us!  We are very thankful and loved being a part of this Trophy.  It has brought us many beautiful things that would have been impossible to see without the organization of the Trophy. Again, thanks and who knows what the next adventure might be?

Catch more of Team Tana Netting’s journey on their blog (in Dutch) or on Malaria No More Netherlands’ website.