Chobe Marina Lodge Kasane

... we could tag along so they could show us which track we needed to follow.. The chap in charge of the group was not really happy however as lock would have it their 2nd vehicle suffered engine trouble not long after the 1st river crossing.. again the WD40 came to the rescue.. now i had earned enough browny points to be accepted by the safari boss man (his name is Inspector) i even got the secret African handshake.. all was ...

... lunch and shopping for dinner for the day, we continued to drive. We were stopped every hour or so to take all our shoes off the truck and walk through the antiseptic for foot and mouth disease. They also got on the truck and asked us if we had any meat or dairy products. When we responded no, they gave us a guilt trip about how they are "only trying to keep their country safe." I think they knew we yelled "CHECKPOINT!" and hid all the meat and dairy products under the back seat ...

... 8217;s help and he was very polite and courteous. He too offered to sell us some Pula for US dollars; everyone is a money exchanger over here. This ferry point is very busy with the lorries having their own ferry; only 2 lorries at a time can be ferried across the river. We were to go on the small ferry which meant we had a short wait before being told Neil could drive on whilst Paul and I walked on with the other foot passengers ...

... have told us! The boat trip was lovely, we motored upstream for a while, and then sat and drank a Savanna for breakfast! Oh dear!

11.23

We have just gone to bed to the sounds of the bush! Outside this evening we heard ele, hyena, some very high pitched screams which could have been something being eaten and maybe even lion! The eles are very ...

... creating much excitement.

We did a Namibian village visit at 12:30 and it was quite brief and pretty steep for what we saw. Fortunately I didn’t have to pay since I was the group leader, but I thought the trip was otherwise overpriced for everyone else ($30 apiece, with no discount for having 18 people going ...

... reduced volume and less fog with the warmer temperatures. For this time of year our group had visited at just about the best time, near the middle of the day when the sun was near its zenith shining more light into the gorge, and also with warmer temperatures to counteract the cool spray.

I had paid the entry to Victoria Falls on three days at $20 a pop, a sort of contribution to the Zimbabwe economy. Perhaps I shouldn't have visited ...

... empala. We also got a decent look at a couple of Kudu which were far larger than I'd expected.

In the afternoon we went for a cruise down the Chove river and saw a bunch of hippos and crocodiles as well as a massive group of Elephants some of which were crossing the river as we got there.

Our goal was to make our way to Chobe National Park, in northwest Botswana, which has one of the largest concentration of animals in Africa. We came looking for hippopotamus, which we had not seen so far on the trip. The best time to see them is on a sunset river safari, we purchase 2 tickets for a small motor boat of 14 people and went out from 3:00pm to sunset. It was one of the most amazing parts of the trip so far, not to be forgotten.

... had booked us to share their camping plot at Savute on the 19th & 20th which was brilliant. They invited us to join them for a curry which we did. Half way through cooking a hyena decided it too quite fancied lamb curry and pushed its luck to within 5metres of the fire before we shooed it off. It and 2 mates spent the rest of the evening circling us hoping to get an easy meal but they were no bother at all, just a little nerve-racking especially when walking to the ablution ...