GOOD-BYE TO THE WILDS OF BOTSWANA

WEATHER: Hot and 30C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Receiving an awesome text message from Cheify

BUMMER OF THE DAY: That we didn’t get more time at the camp to chill

BUYS OF THE DAY: My packet of BBQ chips to get of my last Botswana money

WORD OF THE DAY: Lets proceed….

CAMP SITE RANKING: Awesome – back to Rainbow 5 out of 5 stars, even if the Wi-Fi didn’t work this time

A lazy morning this morning with a wake up at 7.30am and breakfast at 8am.  Since I was in bed and light off by 9.30pm last night, I woke at 6am, went for a toilet stop and I did fall back to sleep again, so it was great to get nearly 10 hours sleep.  I forgot to mention that we actually ate dinner at a table last night with chairs that had backs!  What a luxury and the small things we take for granted.  I have been carrying a tube of Vegemite with me which I bought from home and I have only just started using it on the second half of this Africa trip.  So it has been sitting in my bag for the last 4 months untouched!  Now that I have cracked it, I am happy to use it, as I will be able to buy another tube in London when I head back in October.  There is just something that reminds me of home when you have Vegemite on toast – delicious.  As there are only 2 Aussies on this trip, which is pretty strange, Lisa the Kiwi is the only other person that eats the stuff, so I know at least that not 100 people will be asking to use it.  I have tried to get Ben and Simon to have some, but they tasted it a few years ago and won’t touch the stuff.

So after packing up the kitchen stuff, we were back in the mokoros for the last time to get us back to the truck and to poor Ben who had been on his own for the last 2 nights.  After this 30 minute journey we have been in the canoes for over 8 hours in 3 days.  That is massive for me and I have to say I actually enjoyed it.  I wouldn’t have been so worried about falling out if it wasn’t for the camera’s we had on board and I even left my IPod and laptop at the truck in case I fell out and lost all my electronics, imagine that!  So if I had of said I was going to be sitting in a canoe for 8 hours, no-one would believe that I would have done it!  But I did and I didn’t fall out and it was an amazing experience.  A special thanks goes to Ken who also kept us dry and put up with Lisa and my ramblings about love and life.  Poor fellow. 

So we reversed our travel of a few days before, drove for nearly 3 hours to get to the ferry (that looks like it shouldn’t float at all - wait for the pictures) the on to the Botswana border, no-man’s land to the Namibia border and then the 45 minute drive back to Rainbow Safari where we had the afternoon free to catch up on outstanding things.  People did washing, re-organization of their bags, Pam and I went to go onto the internet, but the Wi-Fi was down, so I just started to update my blog from the last 3 days in the Delta.  I also re-organized my bag and got my washing ready for the next stop.  There is something to be said about feeling that you are organized and everything is where it should be.    

It was a low key night where after dinner we had a few quite beers at the bar and were in bed by 10pm.  It was a great chance for us to meet the new couples and I have to say they are both pretty cool.  Bernard and Jill are from England.  Bernard is also known as Bern, so I have nick named him B2, not because he is older than me, but he joined the tour second and there is Sonya and Rolf from Kelowna in Canada.  After speaking with them, I now can add Kelowna to my list to visit in North America next year, and we are going to go and try and taste as many wineries we can in the Okanagan region in a 5 day period.  Sounds good to me.  I know what it is like to be a newbie, and you do just have to give them half a chance and these guys have fit right in and we are going to have a great 14 days left of tour.  Each person brings their own qualities to each trip I do, and even though no-one replaces the people I have met so far, it enhances my belief that it takes a lot of people to keep the world turning, and I continue to meet weird and wonderful people on my travels and need to accept them for who they are, no matter how weird they seem right!?

OKAVANGO-THE RIVER THAT NEVER MEETS THE OCEAN

WEATHER: Hot Hot Hot 32C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Checking into our tented camp with ensemble beds!!!

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting in the sun for a further 2 hours to get back to the truck

BUYS OF THE DAY: Botswana necklace for 9AUD

WORD OF THE DAY:

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Elephants, pumbas, baboons, cows, donkeys    

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Permanent tents with beds, great bar, flushing toilets and cold showers 5 out of 5 stars

Good morning from the wilds of Botswana.  We weren’t allowed to leave our tents last night for a toilet run unless you had a buddy to go with you and you had to do a reccy to make sure that there were no eyes looking back at you when you unzipped your tent.  Sean rekons he saw a hippo in the early hours when he popped his head out of his tent not far away, and had footprints in the sand to prove it the next morning, but we are not too sure, we think it could have been a cow – but he is adamant it was only 20m away and it was a hippo.  Lisa and I are pretty good with the local calls after bed time and we both went last night before going to bed, so I finally had my first wild wee since arriving into Africa last night.  Now there is a mile stone for you!  So knowing that we weren’t really going to have another toilet stop, I had to do my second one of the trip this morning, too much information?  Tough.  Am I seasoned wild wee’er now?  Do I like it now that I have done it?  It is an emphatic no, but when you gotta go you gotta go.  The guys were talking about their al fresco international calls, but that for me could wait till this afternoon when I had a proper toilet.  I know just call me Princess, but it’s all about the baby steps.

Wakeup was at 6.30am and after a light breakfast we left camp at 7am.  We were coming back to camp after our wild walk, so we were able to leave our tents up and we hopped back into our mokoros for the 30 minute pole to Huckleberry Island for our nature walk.  Even though we went the same way yesterday the colours with the sun in a different spot just changed the whole delta, I have taken so many photos of this place, but they all look so different and wait till you see the sunset ones I took yesterday, looking back on them this morning they are just magic!  We passed the group of hippos again, so we gave a wave as we poled past them to get to the island.  We got the usual safety drill.  If a WILD animal confronts you 1. Don’t scream 2. Don’t run – the animals think like us and they know we can’t run (umm okay..) 3. Walk single file 4. Keep 25-60cm between each person 5. There were 4 hand signals to watch out for, the stop signal, the wild animals running signal, the dangerous animal signal and the quiet signal.  The guide was hilarious using the stop signal the whole 3 hours and we only saw like 3 animals.  It was good to stretch the legs, and as I preached a few days ago, you just never know when you are going to see animals, it really is a luck game, so we were pretty unlucky that we only saw a troop of baboons, a family of pumbas and a single elephant as we walked back to the mokoros nearly 3 hours into the walk.  Throw in a few birds I suppose, but I am glad I went; we just didn’t see many animals. 

Back to base camp and a brunch that Simon had prepared for us and then it was time to pack up camp.  We then poled, with our mate Ken, the 2 hours back to the truck.  The post evaluation of peoples sunburn from yesterday was pretty high, everyone had a real red glow about them, and so heading back out into the burning sun for day 2 was an effort.  Leaving at midday, everyone was a little more careful, lubed up with sunscreen, long sleeve shirts, hats and Lisa also shrouded herself with her scarf for a portion of the way, as her legs got quite a bit of colour the day before.  So 2 hours poling back to the truck, with a stop to watch a herd of elephants on the bank.  I really can’t believe how clear the water is here.  It is amazing, you can see straight through to the bottom.  It is awesome to just run your hands through the water, albeit briefly, don’t want to go losing a hand to a hippo, but the temperature is so warm, and when we are all so hot it is almost a tragedy that we aren’t allowed to swim in it, but once again we don’t want to get taken by some wild animal, so it keeps us in check and in the mokoro.  The water lilies are all now open, they were still closed this morning when we passed them this morning, Ken made Lees and I lily necklaces, which were beautiful and there are heaps of dragonflies flying around.  I had one land on my nose and another one land right at the top of my shirt and I just watched him as he kept rubbing his eyes, it was pretty surreal and I rekon he was there for over 5 minutes, he was so beautiful, an electric blue colour.  Man I am in the Okavango Delta – pinch me please!!!

We had 20 minutes at the truck to grab a change of clothes, say hi and bye to Ben and then back in the mokoros again to take us further upstream to our camp for the last night in the Delta.  We could leave our sleeping bags, tents and mattresses at the truck, as George has upgraded us to permanent tents!  Yee ha grandma!!!  This ride was only 20 minutes, and had us pulling up at 3.30pm – how cool to not have to put a tent up this afternoon.  So after the guide showed us all the facilities, we had free time till dinner.  A few of the crew wanted to go for a swim, so they were sped boated to a ‘safer’ spot of the Okavango, where it had a sandy bottom, and they could see better if something dangerous was in the water!!  Then some of them got a chance to try poling themselves and I am happy to report that no-one fell into the drink!  Well done guys.  I was happy to be photographer and watch from the river bank.

The bar area was a dirt floor, with heaps of magazines to read and games to play.  I played a few games of chess with Sean, (which I let him win, just between you and I) to which one of the polers challenged Sean and in the first game he beat him in 3 moves (makes me feel better) and then the second game was a tussle to which Sean lost that too!  So then Filter (chess champion) challenged George to a game and GG lost as well.  Needless to say I didn’t bother to play Filter; he would have kicked my butt!!!  Instead Lees and I played a few games of Speed (which I let her win, just between you and I) till it was time for me to go and help with dinner.  I was cook tonight.  I am now in Team A, so I have had to say good-bye to the Dic Dic’s (my last team) and we are now called the Arse Muffs.  Now this isn’t as rude as you think, Manu bought some rolls in Botswana and they were literally called arse muffins on the label, so we have just taken that for Team A’s name.  Pretty cool right?  Team B is Barbara Streisand (which is the tour song and Dave’s fav song) Team C is Chooi ( Cheeta in Swahili) and Team D have rolled over the Dic Dic Dic’s name (small African deer like animal) from the last tour.  Jill, Sonya and I are happy with Team Arse Muff, being all ladies – so pleased to meet you!

Manu and I were pretty tired after dinner, so we decided to head back to the tents for an early turn in.  I was going to read for a while.  Once again we have been warned about the animals here, and for some reason Manu was already jumpy, but just as well, cause as we were walking she screamed and I freaked and we saw a black snake the size of 3 pencils right in our path, lucky we had our head torches on as we would have stepped right on him if we hadn’t.  So we are a little freaked out now, when we got to the tents, which are located right on the river, we heard a massive splash and some movement which freaked us even more, Manu was about to run back to the bar, when I told her I’d walk her back to her tent and make sure she got safely zipped up inside, luckily we were next to each other, as I may not have been as brave if it was further away.  With Manu in safe, I ran to my tent, with Manu shouting if I was in safely, not that she would have saved me should the hippo have come for me, but it was sweet all the same.  I was safe in my tent and you could still hear the animal outside splashing around and then the unmistakable ‘old man laughing’ of the hippo.  I rekon we would have been only 5m from where he was.  I am not sure how much time passed; I was still reading when we heard footsteps. Manu yelled ‘who goes there?’ to which a reply came Miyuki and then Manu yelled for to run to the tent as there was a hippo around and she had already unzipped the door so Miyuki could just dive through and it was immediately zipped up again when she was in.  It was so funny to hear, as Manu was telling her to run quick, hurry up and the urgency of the zip up and down was hilarious!  Poor Miyuki didn’t know what was happening, but did as she was told.  Big brave Manu was a mess and it was hilarious!!!  We did hear hippos all night, and it was kinda cool, as long as we were zipped up safe and sound in our tents, what harm could become of us?  How lucky are we to get a great night’s sleep in a bed and not just any bed, an ensemble – pure heaven and a great way to finish off 2 days in the Delta.

OKAVANGO DELTA AND OUR WILD BUSH CAMP

WEATHER: Hot, Hot Hot 36C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting into a Mokoro (canoe) and not falling out

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of one – is that 2 days in a row?

BUYS OF THE DAY: Didn’t buy a thing – this day is shaping up to be okay

WORD OF THE DAY: Mokoro

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Stork, ellie, hippos, cows, donkeys    

CAMP SITE RANKING: Bush camp – no facilities, oh except a camp chair converted into a toilet seat so that will give it a 1 out of 5 stars for the facilities but a 5 out of 5 for ambience

We only had 250km to travel by road today.  We then had additional travel on a ferry and then in a mokoro (canoe) to get us to our ‘wild’ bush camp tonight.  Up at 6am, 7am breakfast and a 7.30am departure.  After a fairly big night, I am glad I stuck to beers most of the night.  Besides the 3 MASSIVE vodka’s that Pam mixed for us over dinner, I stuck to the angel drink (beer) and only dappled the devils drink (vodka), so this once again was my savior and we felt all right waking up at 6am.  We really did have a lot to drink last night; it would have to be around 8 beers and 3 large vodkas, so we are quite surprised how well we feel.  High five us!!!!

It only took 40 minutes for us to get to the Namibia border and then only 30 minutes to get processed through there, through the Botswana border and out the other side.  I think that has to be the quickest crossing we have had since arriving into Africa and in the history of African border crossings!!!  We only had to drive around 15 minutes to get to the ferry that was to take us the 10 minute ride over the Okavango River to the other side. We are now in Botswana proper and it seems really sandy, we are driving on a sand road, no bitumen at all, but the sand would give the Whitsunday’s a run for its money.  The colour is awesome and it is so fine.  We are passing a lot of villages, they are small thatched huts, and fenced in with handmade fences usually a few in a compound.  The strange thing is that there doesn’t seem to be many people about.  It is hot, so I am guessing that they are staying out of the heat and get a lot of things done early in the morning and late in the afternoon when it is cooler.  There are a few people around and a few children as well and it is good to be able to get back into the swing of waving.  I have missed that the last week, and I still believe it has therapeutic values in a wave.  It is a shame that it can’t be bottled and sold somehow.

We got to our truck stop at 11.30am.  This is where Ben and the truck were going to stay for the next 2 nights while we ‘wild’ camped in the Delta.  We had overnight bags packed to take with us and after a delicious lunch we helped the guys pack the speed boat that was to take all the food and prep stuff to the camp, and we were to follow in our mokoro which are traditionally wooden canoes, but the government has banned the locals from using the trees now (looking after the environment), so these ones were made of fiberglass.  I am not a canoe / small boat person at the best of times.  I lost count the amount of times that Drew bugged me to go out on the water back home which was always a blatant flat out no, so for me to be getting into a mokoro now was a pretty big deal and to find out it was going to be for 2 hours, made me a little nervous inside.  Lisa was a rower back in the day, so I know she will have the balance to keep in the canoe, I just hope I literally don’t rock the boat and we fall out with our cameras.  That was probably my main concern, not so much the falling out, but the electronic equipment getting wet and how to get back in again would be of a little concern as well now that I think about it.  The mokoro’s are a flat bottom canoe and are about 8m long and there is what they call a poler, which is a guy that stands on the end of the boat with a pole and he is the one that steers and drives the canoe.  So there were 2 people to a canoe and we got Ken as our poler for the next 3 days.  Poor Ken!!  He spoke pretty good English, so we were going to get along with him just fine.  Before getting into the mokoro’s we were given the safety tips, which pretty was not to immerse your limbs in the river, as crocodiles or hippos could bite them off, no sudden movements as this could up end the canoe and tip out our poler and no standing in the mokoro.  Yeah well I think we would be okay on the last one!  We loaded our day bags into the front of the mokoro, Lisa got in first and then I followed to sit in the front.  They had converted the mattresses that we sleep on into chairs for the journey, so it was actually quite comfortable.  Some of the mokoros already had seats in them, but we were okay with our soft mattress seats.  So at 12.50pm, Ken pushed us off the river bank and we were on our way up the Okavango Delta.  Even though the canoe was a flat bottom, it was still quite touchy when you moved.  So then when I moved I tried to make the weight ratio balance by moving the other way, which gave us a rocking motion and a very concerned Bernie!  Lees came to the rescue and told me to distribute my weight eg: legs and arms even on each side and to just go with the motion of the canoe rather than trying to right it myself as I was just making it worse!  Funny how when I did do this it actually worked!  I was still a little twitchy, but after about 20 minutes I was starting to get the hang of it.  It wasn’t like I was doing anything though, poor Ken had the job of pushing us along, but we were heading downstream, so he has this in his favour going literally with the flow! 

The Delta is an amazing place.  Once I had got rid of my fear of falling out of the mokoro, looking around and seeing the crystal clear water passing us by, the small fish you could see swimming, the beautiful water lilies, the amazing reeds that in some places we would have to part with our arms as Ken steered us through was very ‘safari’ like.  The sun was blazing on us though, and this was probably the only complaint we had all day.  There wasn’t any shade, river or mokoro wise and not a cloud in the sky, it was a perfect day, but the sun had some bite to it and we all knew we were getting burnt.  But the serenity of our surrounds was amazing.  It was so peaceful except for the tweets of the local birds, the calls of the hippos and the cows that we passed knee deep in the water eating their lunch.  They didn’t even flinch as we passed them.  I wonder if they know how deep it is out there and if they ever get stuck?  As they say from the movie The Castle ‘ah the serenity’………

We saw an elephant also knee deep pass about 100m in front of us at one stage and we also stopped to watch a hippo, which did a great performance of giving us a massive yawn and turning for a full frontal yawn.  Now I know it’s not a yawn, it is a sign of aggression, but all trip we have wanted to see one, and I was lucky enough to get the first of the yawn (whatever) with his mouth open, but I didn’t get the frontal, but I was happy with the side shot, it is an awesome close up.  It is all about luck with a yawning (whatever) hippo and after 6 weeks, it was worth the wait.

After 2 hours in the mokoros we arrived to our wild bush camp.  Wild bush camps are exactly that, no showers and no toilets and we are in the wild.  We were a little spoilt that there was a camp chair that had been converted into a toilet seat, so it sat over a hole and when you had finished your international call you just scraped some sand into the hole and wallah you were done.  This is the only thing I hate about camping is the toilet facilities and to date I have not had to take a pee in the bush the whole trip.  I know that this will change today, as I am drinking so much water as it is so hot, so I am just going to have to suck it up, drop my pants in the bush and let it all hang out.  I think the fear is that as I am doing my business and some-one comes along, OMG, how embarrassing.  This is camping and this is TIA. 

When we arrived our tents were already set up and a fire was getting stoked, all the gear had been unpacked from the speed boat.  It is amazing how much stuff we need as a group to carry for one night, but I am pretty sure that Simon wouldn’t want to travel with nothing less than what he needs, so there was a lot of crap.  Going with that is the staff also required for us as well, with 7 mokoros and the main guide to total 8, there was quite a posse of us. 

We had some free time till 5pm when we all loaded back into our mokoros and headed out to grab ourselves some sunset shots in Botswana, on the Okavango Delta.  AWESOME.  Good ol Ken got stuck poling us (does that sound rude) and we spent just over an hour back in the Delta and we got to watch a group of hippos huffing, puffing and making the ‘hippo’ noise, which is quite distinctive and not what you would expect a hippo to make.  It sounds like a group of old men laughing to give you an idea on how it sounds. If you know Sean, ask him for his hippo rendition, it is right up there with his baboon call.  Hilarious.  The sunset was absolutely AMAZING.  The colours were amazing, the sun was an amazing, and it was an unbelievable red ball setting into the yellows, pinks and blues of the Delta.  I really can’t put words on the serenity, as all 7 mokoros were quiet, all taking in this amazing experience.  There seemed to be a pecking order in the group of mokoros and we ranked the second to last, so as we made our way back to the camp site, we had Sonya and Rolf behind us, when Ken click clicked to their guide and they passed us and we floated there for a few minutes when we asked him what was up and he had lost the bottom of his pole in the water.  It wasn’t a huge problem (apparently) as the water was that clear he could see where it was, he just had to try and get the mokoro lined up, for him to be able to re-attach his top bit of his pole.  So as the time ticked, the sun was setting, the weather was turning cooler and we were floating alone on our own, with the hippos getting active and we could hear them all around us, we were thinking of how long it would take us to be saved when Ken got the connection and we were on our way again back to camp.  Thank goodness, we were worried on what dinner we were going to miss out on, and we talked about meatballs and pasta so you can imagine our joy when we were getting spag bol for dinner. 

There was a great fire raging when we got back and all our chairs all set up around it, so after dinner, Pam bought out the marshmallows and they got roasted over the fire with Killer and the main dude telling some stories about Botswana.  The night wasn’t too cold, but to have a fire to warm up was really great and we were all in bed by 8.30pm. 

What an awesome day – we are in the Okavango Delta and it is everything I expected and more.

Oh yeah, for the record, I had to make my first domestic call in the wild just before bedtime.  Lisa was kind enough to come with me and as we found our patches to do our squat (not too close of course), we turned off our head torches and when we were done there was a feeling I had conquered my last mountain.  Peeing in the wild bush.  Too much information again I hear you say – tough but that is what I call a friendship.  Love ya Lees xx

NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY ANIMALS-CHOBE STYLE

WEATHER: Hot and 30C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Having 5 hours free time to chillax by the pool

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of anything

BUYS OF THE DAY: Beers on the channel cruise for 3USD

WORD OF THE DAY: Elephant schmelephant

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Impala, Helmut head guneie fowl, red billed francolin, sable, elephants, giraffes, yellow billed storks, hammer cock, tropical boo boo, kudu’s, African data, hippos, open billed storks, spoon billed storks, Egyptian geese, white fronted be eater, Nile crocodiles, fish eagle    

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same as last night

It’s dark; it’s time to get up.  We have animals to see today.  That makes it worth getting up even before the sun.  We aren’t the first ones awake through, you can hear birds chirping, yes even this early and also all sorts of other critters moving around in the scrub.  5am wake-up, told you it was early, 5.20am light breakfast for a 5.40am departure to walk to the reception of the hotel to board out jeeps for the game drive.  I should actually work how many game drives we have been on to date and how many hours we have actually spent in the jeep.  I would have to say we have clocked up around 7-10 game drives, which in hours based on min 3 hour drives, excluding the Serengeti, would be around 35-40 hours and we still have 3 more game drives I think, so we will be close to getting to 50 hours in total.  That is a lot of animals if you base it on we see something every time.  The only place we didn’t see too much was Hwange on the morning drive and Matopo was a little on the skinny side, but other than that, that is a lot of animal photos and we are trying not to take the animals for granted now, you know, you’ve seen one elephant you’ve seen them all type of attitude and just wanting to see the cats now, or pass right on by the zebra’s as we have seen hundreds of them as well.  Well this hasn’t stopped me from taking a gazillion photos, especially of the elephants and giraffes, you can never have too many of these awesome animals and I will apologize in advance for them all on Facebook, as even though they may all look the same, the experience was different for us each time.

So we set off with our guide for the morning Poloko at 6am from the resort for the short 5 minute drive to the gates of Chobe National Park.  The weather is so much warmer than our last game drive in Hwange.  The jeep had blankets that we used on the highway as we were getting some speed up, but in the park we were able to discard the blankets quite early in the piece.  I love Botswana already just based on the weather temperature.  So we drove around the park for 3 hours and the highlight was getting within 2m of a herd of Impala, these guys are usually really flighty, so to get that close with them still munching on breakfast is pretty special, and the other highlight has to be a herd of elephants that were heading to the road, so we backed up to where they were going to cross and they came within 4m of the jeep before changing direction and crossing over just behind us.  Fort a split second it looked like one of the elephants was going to come right up to the jeep.  It was amazing!!!  They are AWESOME creatures, and to get that close in their natural environment is something that I will take away with me on my Chobe experience.  Worth a mention is we saw a Sable for the first time and also some Kudu’s close up also for the first time.  Man they have massive and cute at the same time ears.  We stopped at 7.30am for a tea break, which a little table came out of the jeeps bonnet, and a table clothe laid out and tea served in porcelain mugs, a bit hoity toity to what we are used to, but we lapped it up all the same.    There are lots of birds in Chobe, so if you are a ‘twitcher’ then this would be a paradise for you.  We had a great morning returning back to the camp at 9.15am for a brunch that had been prepared by Simon, Ben and George. 

So we now had some free time till 2.45pm when we had cruise on the Chobe River booked in.  We would be crazy to not make the most of the pool and lounge chairs that also had a view of the Chobe River.  So we togged up, books, diaries and laptop in hand we headed to the pool area.  The great thing getting there early we got our pick of lounge chairs and area, as the morning wore on there was a shit fight for the lounge chairs.  The morning was spent updating my previous day’s blog and plans on catching up on my diary entries, as I haven’t touched it for 24 days!  Now there is nothing like to trying to catch up on journal entries, but 24 days is a little out of control, so I have decided to rip out my notes from my little notebook and I am going to stick them in to the relevant days.  Consider my diary updated, well that was quicker than first expected.  I have a few blank days, but when I am keeping a blog, a diary and my note book, it is a bit hard to try and keep it all up to date as it really is like a triple record.  Well I do like to be thorough I spose!

The resort is quite busy, and there are a lot of people around.  There seems to be a lot of Germans in residence and Europeans as a matter of fact.  It’s a nice feeling that the resort is busy.  I feel sorry for hotels that aren’t busy, so it was a great to have people around.  The resort also has its own residence of monkeys, I am assuming not by choice, as they are cheeky devils.  If you have a piece of food, soft drink cans or anything that looks edible, they will swoop into the pool area and steals whatever they can.  If you try and put up a fight, as they are used to humans, they will either Fake a lurch at you, so you turn brave guy to scared guy in 2 seconds flat, or give you a ‘I’m going to get my friends’ look and run off with the goods anyway!  There were some dumb arse Germans that were eating bananas and apples and were hand feeding one of them.  Idiots, its people like you that makes them so cheeky in the first place.  All it would take would be an accidental scratch from the monkey and god knows what you would catch.  Dumb arses.  So it was funny for the rest of the afternoon watching these monkeys steal people’s food and cans from the tables and even more brash stealing food from the people eating lunch at the restaurant.  We didn’t have any food around us, so we were quite safe from any monkey hands coming near us.  We got a swim in the ice bucket aka pool, I think it may have been 3 degrees warmer than yesterday, but it was quite hot, so I managed to stay in for around 30 minutes talking to Sean poolside before my teeth started to chatter and it was a sign that I had to get out before I got hypothermia.  It was a great way to spend our free time and we are feeling quite rested.

Our 3pm cruise was on a boat that held around 100 people.  We got on first, so we had a pick of where we wanted to sit, son we decided on a table at the front of the boat.  The Chobe River has 2 channels that run into Botswana and Namibia, so we stayed in the Botswana channel for 3 hours cruising up and down.  We saw herds of elephants, a lot of Nile Crocs, 2 of which were MASSIVE, and then the usual baboons, impala, hippos etc…  It was a beautiful day, but we had seen a lot of the same same over the last 5 weeks, so we just enjoyed the scenery and getting some river shots from the river was also pretty cool.  Lisa and I decided to hit the beers, as they were so cold, so we had 4 in the 3 hours.  Man they were good.  It sounds like we were a bit blasé about the cruise, we weren’t, well maybe a little, but it was worth doing and a nice way to spend an afternoon in Botswana.  Man I can’t believe we are in Botswana.  How many people do you know have been here? 

Back to base camp, dinner, and a few vodka’s before people started talking about the English / US language / spelling and knowing I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation took myself off to have a shower and then bed.  We leave Botswana tomorrow, into Namibia, but we will be back into the country again the next day for a few more days.  It sounds weird, but it is quicker to do it this way, than to drive around and enter Namibia from another crossing, time and money wise.  Makes sense to me and you just do what needs to be done George. 

So there is no such thing as too many animals and I look forward to boring you with my next gazillion photos I take on the next game drive we will have in a few days time.  This is Chobe National Park after all.