Muchenje Lodge Chobe National Park

... to Cape Town. So I made my way early before we would set off back to the barber from the previous day and told him to shave it all off. I brought a friend and he took some pictures of the process. It was first trimmed down to its lowest level and then he gave me a shave with a dual disposable razor blade. It really felt weird to have the beard be completely off since I spent a lot of time growing it and not caring about it. But it was finally off ...

... of them were play fighting for the camera which was a lot of fun. It was midday and the sun was quite hot. You would think that we would have been complaining about the heat but we weren't. The scotching temperatures worked out super well for our wildlife viewing. Many of the animals were at the water's edge for a drink. We were even lucky enough to see a herd of elephants trample down the slopes towards the river. There must have been at least a hundred of ...

... in alarm as another big truck approached spewing huge cloud dusts in its wake and we would all jump up and close all the windows. Regardless, it was a hot dusty drive and we were happy to get out of the truck when we arrived.

Every night we fall into a routine when we arrive. Everyone pulls their tents and poles out of the truck and begins setting up. Then, the packing team begins ...

... direction to check if they were still there and yup, just laying under the tree all night. Keep in mind this is one of the "Big Five"; a 2000lb giant cow with horns 3 feet wide and sharp as nails. Lone, old male buffalo (hmm like the ones staring at us??) are known for their unpredictable nature and can charge unprovoked. Buffalo are known to kill more people in Africa than any other animal (it's a close race between ...

... felt incredibly soft after the drive through the villages. After 5 minutes driving into the park we started seeing animal life again, hooray! Our spirits were slowly lifting. Then our route started descending down a huge hill towards the Chobe River, which is a year-round river that divides Botswana and Namibia...and what happened next was nothing short of a celebration!

All the dust, bumps and car-sickness are suddenly forgotten ...

... we press that tells Ryan/Juliana (our guides) that we need to use the loo, so we can pull over either to a service station or the bush.
A s we're driving up the highway there are signs saying "do not stop". Ryan later told us it was because the area is rife with car hijacking...........(i'll be back when i next can...ok i'm back)

We stopped for lunch at a town called Lydenburg which means town of mourning/crying. We stocked up ...

... hour or so, then the call went out that lions had been spotted and we bounced our way across the park to where other vehicles were amassed in view of a male and female lion. A pair of buffalo were in the vicinity and just seconds after our guide had finished explaining that the buffaloes would see off the lions as soon as they spotted them, the lioness decided to prove him wrong and turned around and chased them and they chose to run ...

... hostel, although unluckily we shared our bus with some of the Irish that had lost all inabitions. One of them was sick and just missed us, as we saw it coming and were just able to move out the way in time. This really put us off an after party they invited us to so decided bed was the best option.

The next day when we got up an we met a group of school children at breakfast and as we talked to one of their teachers. They ...

... night, because the animals roamed freely around the lodge. If we had an emergency we needed to blow a whistle and security would come to our aid. At this lodge the electricity would be turned off one hour after dinner and turned on one hour before breakfast. At this point I knew I was in for an experience of a lifetime. The following morning I awoke to the beat of drums, this was our alarm clock. During the night I could ...