Rory and et al:
I'm sure others who've made several trips over the years will tell you this same thing - go and go now or as soon as you can. The reason is Africa is changing SOOO fast - some for the better and some.....not so much.
I've keep in constant contact with my friends there in Namibia, Botswana and RSA. Between the prolonged drought in much of Namibia, the WuFlu lockdowns and travel bans, the hunting industry as well as most other tourism sectors have been seriously devastated. Tourism and hunting are usually in the top 2-4 business sectors driving many African economies.
While there is at least a little hope in some loosening of travel, the email I just received this morning regarding the entry and travel requirements/limits for Namibia still make international air travel in/out too onerous for most, even me and I've been there a LOT.
On the other hand, the exchange rates for US dollar, Namibian dollar, Botswana Pula and South African Rand are the best I've seen in 15-years. My contacts there have said that their prices (daily and TF's) are staying pretty much unchanged for 2021.
My personal belief is that most of these travel restrictions will be pretty much lifted/gone by the end of this calender year. The reason is the mortality rates have not been anywhere near where they were predicted and the national economies that rely so heavily on the tourist industry can't maintain the financial (tax) losses.
Here is one example that comes to mind - Kruger National Park. KNP normally records nearly 1M visitors per year. This year it's had virtually no one. On the downside, no review to run/maintain the park and poaching has skyrocketed. On the other hand, the millions of tons of garbage and millions of gallons of sewage and the "carbon foot print" created by tourists is nearly zero as well.
Of all the external influences, from what I've read, heard and seen first hand, the Chinese have had the greatest negative impact on all of Africa as any other factor. No time this morning to go into a lot of details but I clearly remember the first year we went to Namibia 15-years ago. Not a single Asian (Chinese) person, shop, store or restaurant anywhere. Then the Namibian govt agreed to let them build a cement factory north of Windhoek in 2009-2010. Now, there are nearly 300K Chinese in the country that has a total population of only 2M. There are Chinese stores, shops, restaurants everywhere and they are buying up everything they can get their hands on. Including the controlling interest in the country's uranium mine. For those who don't know, Namibia is the fourth largest uranium producer in the world and that is just for starters.
Anyway, as they say in Africa, "make a plan" and get there as soon as you can.
