Chobe Game Lodge Chobe National Park

... our boat for a Chobe River game ride. It was actually a pretty good boat ride. We saw the usual wildlife, but it was from a different perspective so it was really neat! We saw crocs, buffalo, hippos, birds, deer things, and elephants. The best thing we saw was a huge herd of elephants crossing the river together. It was about 20 adult male elephants crossing together and they just had to walk across it and they were good. The water came up to the ...

... temperature in the delta yesterday was a whopping 43 C. (109 F.). Talk about hot, hot, hot! I'm hot, you're hot, everybody's hot, hot, hot. Our ride back to the lodge lasts a half an hour and the wind rushing by us as we navigate the wider channels feels orgasmic.

We head back to Maun for a quick lunch and then head due east for 300 km. (186 mi.) to Nata which is half way to Kasane on the east side of Chobe ...

... after 6. We quickly confirmed our reservation for the next morning game drive as well as the afternoon game drive before our buffet dinner. Dinner was good, but it was funny to see that Julie and I were the youngest ones in the restaurant. After dinner, Julie taught me how to play Rummy and we spent the rest of the evening playing Rummy.

Tomorrow we have our morning game drive. We need to be up by 5:30 to get ready and leave for 6am. So early!

... 5 or 10 minutes went by and then the lions rounded the bend and walked slowly towards us, we were in a perfect spot. There were two female lions and two baby cubs. The lions hesitated about which way to walk and then made directly for our truck. We held our breath as the first lioness got closer and closer. Gabe had been videotaping this whole time and as she got to within 5 feet of him he ...

... hippos, a crocodile, a lion, a leopard (that had just gotten beaten up by a lion), guinea fowl, impala (doing crazy gymnastics for us), an immense family of baboons, a HUGE herd of water buffalo and a multitude of birds: marabou storks (they're never going to win any beauty contests), fish eagles and a very colourful bird (purple, green, pink) whose name escapes me. Amazing day of viewing! It was as if we were watching a National Geographic Special, as all ...

... brings back good old memories and the music remains totally pleasing. This was what we found at Hwange.

Warm water, as is the case often in these camps, is made by stoking a donkey. As soon as we arrived the gentleman in charge of keeping the grounds in order jumped into action and stoked two huge fires for our hot water. He then came over, greeted us and deposited another mountain of firewood for our braai, no charge. The bathrooms for the ...

... Shoprite. Thankfully run into Sarah and Martin sitting by a water fountain eating delish lasagne so bin the pies and indulge in that and roast chicken. Much better.

Hit the internet to look into flights. Can fly from Nairobi to London for US$1,025 for both tickets. Happy with price so try and book but credit card declined. Stupid bank. Not sure if it's the website or Lloyds putting a stop on the card again. Very frustrating as took about ...

... had clocked 7200+ kms; visited four countries, several national parks, and a raft of wonderful lodges, chalets and guest farms. We bid farewell to some of our companions in Pretoria and then pulled up at the Jo'burg airport - a bit dusty, but so enriched and thrilled to have had the opportunity to get to know a bit of the wonder that is Africa

... We saw a lot of elephants at this waterhole and we got real close to them; several of them mock-charged us to chase us away. Hwange National Park has around 40.000 elephants, which is unfortunately twice as many as a park their size should have. Normally a culling programe would in place to control the population, but due to various reasons this has not been the case for quite a few years. Many national parks in southern Africa has this problem ...