Saturday 26 February - Tuesday 8 March.
An epic tale - sorry it's so long! Got to make use of the wifi when I can get it!!
Saturday – Durban to Johannesburg
From Durban we took the bus past the Drakensburg Mountains – the amazing mountain range that holds Lesotho – and up to Johannesburg where we met our Intrepid Tour Group.
The bus ride was eight and a half hours so I was pleased that we didn’t start our camping tour in tents in Johannesburg and instead had a room with a lovely bed with lovely sheets and a lovely en suite and even a TV! After the way we were spoilt at Mziki and in Durban the tents were going to be a big comedown!
We packed up on protein at a steak house that night and got to know the group a little better, before peeling away to bed to get ready for the 5:30am departure.
The Tour Group:
Chris (a Pom) and Jamara (an Aussie), met and live in Saudi Arabia. Chris known to be handy at fixing slippery windows and Jamara an excellent stand-in Camp Nurse.
Fraser (also a Pom), taking time off between jobs as a business consultant, lives in London. Known for his snoring and ability to sleep anywhere.
Fred (83 years old, lives in California) and Charisse (daughter to Fred, lives in Scotland). Fred has done nearly everything life can throw at you and has the stories to match. Charisse was Camp Chiropractor and an absolute treasure!
Patti and Terry (Michigan, US), newly retired and new to travel. Commonly heard saying ‘Whaaat did he say’ or ‘So whaaat are we dooing?’.
Lorelle and Cecil (Pretoria, RSA). Lorelle works for Intrepid’s marketing team in South Africa and Cecil is in IT. Lorelle was Camp Cultural Adviser and Cecil was the quiet achiever, always helping with the tents and the truck.
Gabby (German), was a late starter – missed the bus on the first day and had to meet us in Maun. Very German.
Johannes – Camp Leader. Lovely, gentle creature that still managed to whip us out of bed and into the truck before sunup most mornings!
Goodman – Did everything that Johannes didn’t – drove the truck, told the stories at dinnertime and made sure our camp was ship shape. Good old Goody!
Sunday – Johannesburg to Rhino Sanctuary
We packed ourselves into the overlander bus and made our way to the Botswana border and up to the edge of the Kalahari Desert. It’s another eight hour drive on top of yesterday’s eight so we’re knocking out some kilometres. On the way we pass Serowe, where Seretse Khama was born and is buried in and finish the journey at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. Before the Sanctuary was created for rhinos in Botswana there were only four rhinos left in the country (and while we’ve been travelling through Africa, in particular South Africa, there has been fierce publicity about rhino poaching on reserves - fuelled by the Chinese market after their horns. Park Rangers are permitted to open fire on poachers, and do).
After setting up our tents for the first time and listening to Chris trumpet away and hoist his Flag of England on his and Jams’ tent we’re warned about the puff adders and black mambas that might lie on the track between the camp and the ablutions block. We split into two safari vehicles and took a drive around the sanctuary.
At the water hole a sole male rhino was having a great time in the mud, there was a giraffe in the distance and plenty of wildebeest grazing nearby. Our guide told us some of the differences between white and black rhino – white ones eat grass, so they have a square mouth and black ones forage so they have a pointed lip. They sometimes also compare black and white rhino mothers with black and white human mothers – black rhinos walk with their babies behind them and white rhinos with their babies in front, just like white mothers carry or push their babies in front while black mothers carry them behind.
We watched our first Botswana sunset go down with a drink, then headed back to camp for dinner and bed.
Monday - Rhino Sanctuary to Maun
Up before the sun again and pick my way through the bush for a shower in the dark and then we’re on the road and across the Desert to Maooon, the Gateway to the Delta. Botswana is full of open planes and fences are uncommon – the roadside is full with what Lorelle calls ‘local speed cops’ – donkeys, goats and a few horses.
We stopped for lunch at a restaurant named ‘Choice’ that Johannes had recommended and got an incredible and huge meal for 25Pula or about AUD4 that Jono and I shared – we got the shredded beef with beans and samp, but Fraser, Chris and Jam had combinations of chicken, beef and pap.
The campsite we’re staying at is full of overlander trucks and other tour groups heading into the Delta. There’s a pool that you can’t see the bottom of which has giant bugs in it, a bar and a restaurant that feeds us poitje for dinner… it’s not as good as Vic’s… I’m surprised we don’t blow up the whole site with our collection of electrical appliances plugged into Jam’s international powerboard.
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| Jamara, Chris, Fred, Jono, Johannes and Charisse taking a time out at Delta Rain in Maun |
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| We don't have these back home |
Tuesday – Maun to the Delta
A huge 4x4 truck comes to collect us and we hoist day packs, our tents, sleeping mats and food on top before we all clamber on for the 1.5 hour journey to the Delta.
It’s a bumpy ride through the sand at Charisse is nearly thrown out of the truck. We pass through a small village with mud and reed houses, some with satellite dishes and all with dogs and kids playing around outside.
At the end of the journey we reach the water, the mokoros and our polers and somehow manage to fit all our gear onto these shallow boats. It’s another hour and a half to our camp site, so we sit back and let our poler do all the work as we slide through the reeds and lily pads.
Our poler, I think his name’s Richard…., helped us set up camp and then everyone went a bit quiet in the heat of the day. Fraser somehow went to sleep across three camp chairs in the shade, Jono and I went for a swim at the crystal clear waterhole (apparently hippo and croc free, but I’m not so sure about that) and then we gave poling a go. It’s much harder than it looks! We didn’t make it far.
In the afternoon we took the mokoros across to an island for a walking safari. We split into two groups: us, Gabby, Fraser, Chris and Jam in one and Fred, Charisse, Lorelle, Cecil and Patti and Terry in another. Poor Fred - the ground was absolutely dotted with holes made by the elephants and aardvarks in the sandy soil.
We’re advised:
Rhino and Elephant – run like crazy in zig zags through the trees (great if there WERE trees)
Leopard – don’t look them in the eye and they’ll think you haven’t seen them.
Lions – stand still.
Buffalo – climb a tree, but preferably not on the side of the tree between you and the buffalo.
After some walking we came across a bull elephant across the water and then watched a hippo have a temper tantrum when we gatecrashed his pool party.
As the sun went down we poled our way back to the campsite, where Johannes had cooked up a shepherds pie feast over the fire. Some of the polers had done some fishing while we rested in the afternoon, so we watched them cook up a fish stew and pap over the coals. I hated the divide between us and wished I was in the fish and pap team.
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| Johannes and everything we have to eat for the next few days on a rickety mokoro on the Delta |
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| Jam and Chris |
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| Chris and a frog |
Wednesday – Delta
Another early start for a two hour walking safari on an island nearby. We were guided by Obi and our polers joined in on the hunt. After some hole scooting, we came across a mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest. They band together because the zebra have great eyesight and the wildes have good hearing. From there we walked another five or ten minutes and bumped into an elephant herd. We scooted away but watched them walk by us, not 200m away. I watched Obi watching the elephant and realised there were no trees around. Luckily the elephant had no interest in us and we turned around and headed for home.
Obi then took us to see our first buffalo sighting – a skeleton that was five years old, lying nearly complete in the sand. He’d been done over by some lions and the hyenas had had a helping of his bones.
With our eyes on the ground looking for holes I hoped Obi and the polers had their eyes on the veld (Obi said he’d seen 15 lions in the last month). It was a good thing Jam was looking down though – she spotted the CUTEST Leopard Tortoise (and one of the small five) battling his way across the sandy path.
Back at camp it was time to beat the heat with some swimming and a few games of uno in the shade and as the sun began to fall we hopped back in the mokoros for a sunset cruise on the Delta, while Chris and Jam harmonized through the reeds.
After dinner of braai’d steak with pap the polers all got together around the fire and sang for us. It was spellbindingly beautiful.
It was also meant to be a cultural exchange, so we were all meant to get up and do something for them, but we totally failed. There was no way that we could match their music. Jam, Jono and I tried to give Walzing Matilda a go and Home among the Gum Trees (which was more than what anyone else did), but we were dismal and I’m not sure that our poor effort was more of an insult than anything else. Jr – we wished you were there to get us in order!
Thursday – Delta to Maun and Jono’s Birthday
We woke to an amazing sunrise and Lorelle said she’d heard lions in the night, but we were completely zonked out and missed all that.
We started off the day with a walk on our island as a full group and found two more elephants before turning back and heading home to camp for a bacon and egg breakfast. Then it was time to pack up camp and head back to Maun and Goodman.
After our last mokoro ride Obi took us for a quick look around his village and then we said our goodbyes to the polers with a traditional handshake and shoulder bump (but I accidentally extended all mine into a full hug… oops!) and jumped back on board the giant 4x4.
Back at the Maun camp we made bee lines for the showers (the closest we’d come to bathing were the dips in the Delta and a sand scrub I’d given myself the day before – we were absolutely covered in sun cream, insect repellant, sweat, sand, dust and smoke) and the laundry tubs. While we’d been in the Delta, Goodman had stayed behind to look after our gear and had gone into town and sourced a giant, if somewhat pink, birthday cake for Jono. I hadn’t told Jono it was coming, but it was a hilarious and delicious cake, even if it was a surprise! Then out came the Savannah Ciders and Springbok shots (mint liqueur on top of amarula). Hopefully he did alright out of the bush birthday!
At about 4pm we all jumped back in our overlander and headed for the airport for a 45 minute scenic flight over the Delta. We split into two planes, with Jono, Gabby, Terry, Patti and I jumping in a little five seater cesna and Jono up front. The animals we saw were amazing – herds (or parades if you will) of elephant 30 or 40 strong, giraffe in ‘towers’ of 20 or so, hippos in and out of the water (one chasing a buck away), buffalo, zebra. It was incredible! Then, when the pilot decided he needed his hands to fetch himself a drink of water he let Jono take over the controls.
Back on solid ground and for reasons I can’t remember (I think Jono and I opened our big mouths) Jono and I were meant to be cooking dinner for the group, but being Jono’s birthday he opted out and I called in the help of the Saudi’s. On the way home we stopped in at the Spar (a very impressive one in the middle of a dust bowl) and we grabbed the ingredients for a take on a creamy, chicken, bacon, mushroom, vege sort of pasta and a couple of garlic breads.
Back at camp we realized the only way we could do the garlic bread was on the wood fired gizer that heated our water for the showers, so we sent Johannes off to take care of that and got ourselves stuck into some ciders, madoris and the food preps.
Our one pot meal cooked on a gas burner on a card table in the dark turned out pretty good in the end too! I’m almost 100% sure that the rest of the group was 100% skeptical about our ability to pull it off, but most went back for seconds or thirds… it may have just been starvation though..
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| Fraser and Jono |
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| Delta from the air |
Friday – Maun to Elephant Sands
A short drive today (comparatively), east of Maun to a place near Nata called Elephant Sands. It was an interesting start, with late-coming Gabby working out which seat in the truck was going to be most suitable for her, so we played musical chairs for a while. She had a cold, had packed her jumper deep away in the back of the truck and the windows really did work up a draft when they were open (excellent for drying wet hair and wet clothes), so first Chris and Jam were forcibly removed from their usual back seat position and then Fraser was… I want to say ‘asked’… but it wasn’t really the asking tone… if Gabby could take her seat and if Fraser could sit in the wind. So Fraser swapped with the Saudi’s and they resumed their back seat position.
Hey, it killed some time!
We stopped in Nata for lunch at a place, similar to Choice called the Palm Grove for more cheap chicken, samp and dumpling-like things called fat cakes at low low prices. The girl on checkout said ‘Where you from? I like your beads. Have?’ I obliged, because I’m nice… and because I had my second set in my bag… We were careful after that when people told us they liked something of ours…. Sunglasses, only pair of havaianas, dresses.
After lunch we hit up the post office to collect stamps and were introduced to the Botswana way of waiting. A guy arrived in the line behind me and told me he studied dentistry at university in Ireland. We all apologized that our stamp collecting (we needed three different stamps of different value and there was only one cashier and five of us) was taking so long, but he simply laughed and translated to the rest of the line, who also laughed. The Botswana people are used to lines in the post office. Not so us – we were wondering what the other lady (probably a supervisor) standing behind the second cashier window was doing, not serving us… in Charisse’s words ‘paid more to work less’.
I had already written my postcards so applying the three (large) stamps was an issue. I’d only written on the left hand side of the card, so I have no idea if the postcards will arrive – the stamps are all overlapping! Oh well, TIA – I hope the postal service applies some leniency on that one!
From Nata it was on to Elephant Sands and before we’d even arrived at the unfenced park we were seeing elephants grazing on the side of the road! It was amazing! Margie and Trevor have also camped up there and said the camp had had trouble with elephants drinking out of the pool. They’d been warned by a fellow camper when they were setting up camp that it was right in the path the elephants had frequented the night before. They’d also been told of an elephant interrupting a woman’s shower as his trunk searched out the water from her shower head!
So, I was very excited about Elephant Sands! As we pulled in to the camp there were elephants everywhere, but as we arrived at the campsite they were fewer and fewer. We could see where they had been though, the sandy spot for all our tents was littered with acacia trees that had been knocked down by the foragers and I spotted a few ‘lily pad’ footprints close to the truck.
Jam, Chris, Jono and I set up our tents near the truck and under the shade of an acacia tree before heading to the pool for a dip. The pool was by the restaurant and bar and all had a great view of the waterhole. After a dip in the salt (bore) water pool I set up to write in my diary as Lorelle and Cecil sunbaked and Chris and Jam looked through photos at the table with me.
Just as we all settled down a bull elephant sauntered up to the water hole, gave it a sniff and gently (and ever so quietly) shuffled his way towards Jono and the truck. Lucky for Jono it wasn’t him he was interested in, but a 90cm gap between the wall and the braai around the pool. Goodness knows how the giant maneuvered his body through this gap, but before long the big guy was guzzling (it sounds like water going down a drain) water out of the pool just metres in front of us. Chris jumped up, I yelled at Jono for the camera and out came a stout Afrikaaner man quietly but urgently telling us that these guys don’t really like loud noises or movement! Ooops! But it made for some AMAZING photos! Chris and Jam got a remarkable selfy, Cecil was dead in front of the ele on the other side of the pool and Jono got some video.
When the bull had had enough he made his way over the edge of the pool and back down near the waterhole, but not before making his way over to Chris and Jam (standing as still as statues) and gave them a sniff. While he was below them now he was definitely in trunk distance of them. Jeepers!
After a game drive we came back to a feast of a dinner at the Elephant Sands restaurant. Over the coals the chef had cooked up peri peri chicken, ribs, potato bake, pap and traditional bread (that tasted like scones), served with salad and vegetables. It was such a lovely surprise! We ate like kings!
Early to bed, early to rise, so after dinner we hit the single sex ablutions block for a salt water shower. I was lucky enough to share mine with two of the largest bugs I’ve ever seen – one was kind enough to run up my leg, in the semi darkness. If people weren’t laughing at my inter-shower conversation with the ladies where I suggested the use of toothpaste to relieve mozzie bites (it works!! I swear!) they were laughing at my shriek over that bug.
Anyway, everyone knows I love a good, long shower and so before long I was the last one in the block and who knows why, on this night, I’d opted to leave my change of clothes in my tent and not change in the block (well there’s never any hooks and the floor is wet and I risk having my clothes fall off the shower rail or the door into the water or onto the other side and even with my years of swimming and skilled ability to get changed without exposing any skin I can’t do that with my miniature camping towel… least of all single sex bathroom). So off I crept, in the dark back to my tent keeping an eye out for anything that might want my blood when Jono slipped out of the darkness to alert me that our friend the bull elephant was having a gay old time with an acacia bush maybe 8m from our tent.
So we stood there in the dark, me in my towel having my blood sucked by mozzies, watching this guy knock over the tree just a little way away from us. Suddenly the shade of our, nice, upright, green acacia tree above our tent wasn’t so appealing!! When the ele had his back turned I made a bee line for the tent, got changed, grabbed our bags and recruited the help of Cecil and some others to move our tent away from anything green and close to the safety of the truck (which I later had nightmares about, thinking the elephant would want to topple it onto us!). Chris and Jam took the risk though, and camped out under the acacia – they said they heard the ele all night though.
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| From my tent |
Saturday – Elephant Sands to Victoria Falls (our last night with the camp).
From Elephant Sands we headed north west up to the Zim border, where I ran into a Matetsi van doing the same thing. It was good to make connection with them as they were due to collect us from the Rest Camp the next morning, but I’d been away from email for a while and the reassurance was good.
The game viewing in the overlander between Elephant Sands and the town of Victoria Falls was excellent – better than what we’d seen on our official game drive the night before! We saw baby elephants that didn’t know what to do with their trunks and giraffe right next to us!
Our Rest Camp was right in the centre of town, so after setting up our tents a few of us crossed the road to the Chicken Inn/Pizza Inn/Ice Cream Inn to see what our American Dollars would buy us. Almost as soon as we left the safety of the Rest Camp fences we were mobbed by people asking us to buy Zim Dollars or amulets. One little kid came up to me and after I said I couldn’t buy anything from him, asked me for my ‘lefty food’.
Inside the Inns I bought a burger with extra chips and Jono had to buy a croissant because no one had change for his $10 note (everything’s done in dollar notes over there!). So the little kid did alright out of us, especially after Jam and Chris pitched in with some of their lefty food and an extra coke (two days later the kid recognized me, put away his Zim dollars and asked how I was, sister).
From lunch we headed to an adventure centre where the rest of the group planned how they would spend their free day the next day. Before the trip Jam had said she would only do a bungi jump off the bridge at Vic Falls if they did tandem jumps, assuming they didn’t exist. Then later found out they did. After being petrified of throwing herself off the bridge Chris and Jam somehow found themselves booking into the ‘budget’ pack – a bungi, a swing and a slide. Others booked cruises, canoe rides and elephant rides, but we would miss out on all the fun because of the early transfer to Matetsi.
On our way out of the adventure centre my heart really broke when a guy was trying to get me to swap my hat for some Zim dollars and another guy wanted the umbrella I was carrying for someone else in exchange for an amulet. The man begged me on three different occasions to buy his amulet for $1! I would have given all my money away if Jono wasn’t carrying it for me!
It wasn’t much better when we got to Victoria Falls and learnt it was necessary to get raincoats (unless you wanted to be soaked). There were at least ten stalls selling the exact same raincoats for the exact same price and all just about falling out of their windows trying to get your custom. Most of the group went in one direction to one stall, but I headed to a guy down the other end who had a pink one. We hustled for the fun of it, but it really wasn’t that fun and even after we’d agreed on a cheaper price we still gave him his initial asking price – only a dollar more.
Inside the Falls park we headed towards the sound of thunder and were nearly overwhelmed by the exhilaration of the Falls (Charisse: I’d love to know the negative ion count in a place like this!). The Zambezi was in full flow and the roar and power topped off with a stunning rainbow was just amazing!
We made our way upstream and past the Livingstone statue before heading back downstream to walk along the Falls. The closer we got to the Bridge the more the spray from the waterfall became like pouring rain! Fraser, who had opted to forgo the raincoat, was drenched to the bone before long! Fortunately, just before we’d passed Fraser, Jam had Chris had opted to turn back and look at the shop. If they had carried on like we had they would have found themselves looking at the Bridge and people having a go on the swing. It’s something like four seconds of freefall!
Back at camp we headed to the restaurant for our final dinner together as a group. It served things like croc fingers, warthog schnitzel and game potpie. I didn’t ask what was in the potpie, but gave it a go. Please no zebra, I can handle the rest!
We were entertained by another troop of singers at dinner with an amazing ability to whip their legs over their shoulders. At the end they pulled dinners up to join them (I HATE audience participation) and Charisse took one for the team (even though we all know she loved it!).
Sunday – Victoria Falls to Matetsi
We said goodbye to our tent and our new and lovely friends and sped (as fast as you can when there are elephants around) our way to Matetsi. What is Matetsi? It’s one sister lodge, of many spread out around Africa and India, to Phinda in the &Beyond group and I’d arranged two nights for us there at the end of our tour for Jono’s birthday.
So Casper and Reuben, our guides, picked us up in the safari truck from the drop off point and whisked us (as best you can over sandy and corrugated roads in the bush) to East Camp, Obert (camp manager) and Mathius (our butler).
We were shown around our villa to all the important things – the plunge pool, the stocked minibar and the slingshot for the pesky baboons and then we dumped all our dirty, dusty, sandy, sweaty clothes on poor Mathias while he brought us a food tower for lunch to enjoy by the pool.
After lunch, a swim and a kip it was time to head to the main house to meet the other guests and embark on a sunset cruise up the Zambezi. It’s always nice to be welcomed aboard with the words ‘the bar is open, what can I get you?’. The six of us – two honeymooners on their final night and Max and Carol, some very lovely Californians who were quick to pass on their address to us for our trip there in May.
We dug into the treats, while our captain took us on a safari with a difference, finding the tiniest crocodiles and birds for us. Amy you would have been appalled by the baboons, particularly the ones eyeing us off from the bushes when we got stuck in the reeds!
At dinner, back on dry land, we were taken to a private table right next to the water (and perhaps a bit too close to a hippo we could hear behind the bushes… perhaps the same one that had mauled a security guard only a few nights before). Dinner was amazing, like all &Beyond meals – not too big, made with local produce and with amazing flavour.
With another early start in the morning we made our way back to the Villa with Lucky, the security guard and settled down into our turned down king bed with crisp sheets. Luxury!! I could get used to that!
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| Monkey Business |
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| Our plunge pool with the Zambezi in the background |
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| Cruising. |
Monday – Matetsi
As the honeymooners were off and the Californians were in need of a sleep in we had the luxury of a private game drive. What amazing scenery! The grass was ladened with dew and the spiderwebs sparkled as the sun hit the mist in the valleys. Absolutely beautiful! With all the water about game viewing was rather lacking, but Casper and Reuben did find us a jackal soaking up the sun. We hadn’t seen one of those before!
At the breakfast table we were treated to good coffee, scones, fruit, cereal and cheese before Mathias came and asked what we wanted for a hot breakfast. It’s really luxurious, but the contrast between the haves (clearly us that morning) and the have nots is really painful.
That day we headed back into Victoria Falls, with the Californians who were taking a helicopter ride, to see a doctor for some antibiotics for Jono after he’d had a bad reaction to the malaria tablets. That was an experience in itself, but we were glad to go when we had Matetsi telling us where to go. It made me think of my Great Aunt Hod, who had been a surgeon in a Zimbabwean clinic – though this one with its typical hospital green paint was probably a bit posher and a lot less dusty! (Hod tells stories of her patients preferring to sleep under their beds to on them because they are more used to sleeping on the floor, and the family who came to sit all night long with their backs against the bed of an elderly family member and patient so he would not fall out).
We ran some errands and then it was back to Matetsi for afternoon tea and a game drive. We started the drive on the hunt for a family of elephants in the area, after driving for a while Casper pulled up to explain that the elephants must have gone deeper into the bush (Matetsi also has no fences and it’s borders meld into Chobi, so you never know where anything is going to be). Just as Casper had finished talking and started up the car we rounded a corner to nearly collide with a family of giraffe that had startled another bull elephant. Casper quickly retreated our vehicle and we had to give the photo opportunity a miss because of the dangers of a bull elephant on heat.
When it came to sundowners we pulled up next to the Zambezi and Reuben opened the bar while we watched the sun down and a crocodile slide by. We could hear the noises from the village across the water in Zambia – cows and the light rattle of voices - as we watched the lightening show by the sunset.
When we got back to the Camp Obert took us back to our room and when we opened the door we were completely surprised by our housekeeper, Emmanuel’s decorative efforts – he’d laid down flowers and candles and made a path to a freshly brewed bubble bath! What a treat! What a lovely treat after a lovely, but too short a stay!!
Tuesday – Matetsi to Victoria Falls
We bargained our way into a final game drive before we had to leave, this time with some South Africans with an eye for birds (we’ve developed one ourselves in the time we’ve been here – it’s a great way to fill the gaps between the game), so Casper took us to a valley full of vulchers, hornbills and the tiniest of birds.
As we were viewing we couldn’t work out why the baboons were having an absolute fit. They were barking and screaming to each other, but the impala were pretty relaxed about it all. After checking out some birds were worked out why – a lone hyena was pacing around thinking about making a baboon into breakfast. I’ve been busting to see a hyena, so this was amazing – right there in the grass in daylight!
Poor thing didn’t have much luck with the baboons though!
After another big breakfast it was time for us to check out and head back to Victoria Falls. The plan was for us to jump on the bus to Windhoek, but after a bit of last minute research we found out that the bus only left on Wednesdays and Sundays. Back to the Rest Camp – my how the mighty do fall!
More photos to come - they just take soooo long to load!
