Botswana & South Africa

Sorry for the long pause, being in Australia is sorta like being back home in America, so I've been bad about sitting down infront of the computer to write, since the weather has been sunny & warm every day!!!  But since today is our "planning" day & the weather is cool and rainy I decided to jump on here quickly and give you an update since I left you in Zambia, which is now quite a few days ago and a whole other continent away!

Where were we?  Oh yes, relaxing on the Zambezi River, oh how lovely that was.  It had stopped raining for the first time in a long while & our tents were starting to dry out (YEAH!)  We were prepared for our last 6 nights on the way to Joburg.

In order to get to Bostwana from Zambia you have to take a REALLY old ferry which hardly looks like it will hold people let alone MACK trucks, but This Is Africa (TIA) and of course it all works out with only a half hour wait.  WHen crossing, you're actually in the Zambezi river, just before it changes it's name to the Chobe River and there are different countries on all 4 corners of the river, Zambia, Zimbobwe, Namibia and Botswana.  On the other side we passed through immigration without any problems and then had to walk over this mud covered sponge to "clean" the bottoms of our shoes, cause they have a large fear of foot & mouth disease entering since they have a large beef industry & export!

About an hour later, we arrived at the Thebe Lodge, which was a nice campsite with a pool, so after lunch all of us jumped into our suits and veggitated by the pool until it was time to go on our Chobe River Safari.  Which was suppose to just last 3 hours . . . as some of you have already heard, it's only thanks to the Botswanian military that we all came back alive!  Our guide was trying to get us close to a fish eagle which was sittign in a tree branch in the middle of lots of grasses & water lillies.  The wind had picked up and I remember thinking if we get blown into their it's gonna be hard to get outta there, but what do I know, right, I'm just a customer, not the person who does this tour on a daily basis . . . further & further into the grasses we get blown, I think I notice the guide trying to reverse out, but he still looks calm & all others are snapping photos & have no clue what's going on.  After awhile everyone is done with photos & says okay lets move on, which is when I realised we weren't going anywhere!  Pulled the motor up & it's COMPETELY full of crap, so I help to clear it out & he attempts to push us out with his one paddle (did I mention this is a boat which holds 22 people so not exactly small).  Pushing on one side only turns us side ways & every time he puts the motor back in & attempts to turn it on, we just collect lots more weeds/grasses/etc.  Another boat similar to ours offers to help & thinks if we get on their boat he'll be able to get out more easily cause there will be fewer people on it.  We give this idea a try, but the problem is, in order for us to get onto the other boat, he must come into the same grassy area & probably needless to say, he gets stuck as well!  The Botswanian military which is on border patrol as we're in the section of the Chobe which is opposite to Namibia, sees us struggling & comes over to assist us.  Now I don't have time to rewrite everything which I just wrote, all you need to know is they got stuck in the grass as well, since the wind has only gotten stronger since we started this adventure.  After ten minutes of struggling & a wooden paddle breaking in half, one of the military guys jumped into the water & started to push all of the boats out to safe water.  Now you might think this sounds easy, but understand there are tons of crocs & hippos all over the place so this is SUPER SUPER dangerous, especially as it's breeding season so you don't want to go near a nest as the animals are overly protective of their children!!!  Plus he was up to his armpits in water, so not exactly easy to push a boat which has 10 passengers on it through thick grassy water, but he did & saved our lives!  Had I mentioned it was around 6pm at this point, so starting to get dark & non of our boats have lights on them?!!?

Back at camp about an hour late, we had lovely bbq steak dinner and went to bed early.  Half way through the night it started to rain and kept up for the next day and a half.  Following day we packed up camp & headed on to Elephant Sands campsite, where the week before 10 elephants had come over to the pool and drank out of it while people sat around the pool in chairs!  We were not so lucky since the weather was pouring rain the ellies were able to find water without looking into pools, but it was a neat campsite & one I would have loved to explore more if the weather had been nicer.  That night, Steph heard something outside our tent & worried it was an ellie who might step on our tent, we looked out, but instead of seeing a large animal, we just saw two bright eyes in a tree.  Steph insisted she "knew" it was a leopard, I wasn't so sure, but wasn't going to test it!  We waited till the sun started to come up around 5am and looked again, turned out to be the smallest monkey in the world, but some how it was able to make lots more noise in the tree, so much so by the time the sun was coming up I was starting to worry it night be a leopard as no other animal could make that much noise in a tree (or so I thought).

That morning we crossed into South Africa and stayed at the Bushmans' Safari Game Park for the night, where the rain stopped & I got a great photo of the sun rising the following day.  That afternoon I learned to play Texas Hold'em Poker & actually won (Beginners luck for sure!)  After our days of rain we knew the ants would be out in full force & fearing a repeat of our ant infestation, we covered our tent inside & out in ant/insect powder and even slept with Raid Ant Spray, which Steph & I had each picked up a bottle along the way - nothing worse than waking up to ants EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!

Woke the next morning ant free - YIPPPPEEEEEEEEEEE!  We headed in the direction of Kruger National Park.  Arriving in the mid afternoon.  The weather had stayed nice & we were super excited about not having to worry about rain sheets & maybe not even ants after one night of ant free sleeping :-) when they announced they had no more room in the campsite so they would be upgrading us for free, into their lodges.  OMG, they were wonderful, real beds, real white tiled showers, and a real toilet, things we'd not seen for just about 30 days!  We stayed here for 2 glorious nights & visited Kruger Natoinal Park the day between for a full day (6am pick up and 6pm drop off) game drive, where once again we saw the Big Five and assorted other animals.

After leaving there, we had a long 7 hour drive (thanks to traffic in & around Joburg) to our FINAL destination The Backpackers Ritz (a hostel) where we all had a shower & went out for dinner at the Rosemont Mall, where we had a cup of Earl Grey tea (another first since beginning this African adventure).  The next day my flight was at 6pm, so I spent the morning with Steph, Jess and Jonny before heading to the airport for my 12 hour direct  flight to Sydney.

All in all it was a FABULOUSLY WODERFUL trip, I know at times it might not have sounded that way, but it was all good fun, just trying at times when you're soaking wet, cold, and covered in ants ;-)

So this section of the trip was 7 countries (Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa) in 41 days (Jan 20 - March 2).