Since the killing of three French tourist children and medical aid workers in separate incidents on January 3, the tourist industry in one of southern Africa's fastest growing, exclusive wilderness lodge destinations, the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, has taken a hammering. The truth is that most of them have closed.
Fishermen still ply their trade on the Zambezi River.
It was only in the late mid-nineties that the Caprivi started developing as a tourist destination. Vast, open tracts of savanna, through which elephants migrated and ancient rivers coursed, lent themselves to heavenly eco-tourism opportunities. At Impalila flexibility rules and you can fish, go game-viewing in Chobe National Park and even go birding at night. Luxury establishments like Impalila Island Lodge went up in the far eastern end of the Strip, a 20 minute boat-trip from Botswana's Chobe National Park and the tourism hub of Kasane, where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia share a border. The western Caprivi Strip has been slower in developing as a tourist destination until recently, mainly because it borders Angola, where a civil war has been raging for 25 years.