Botswana (Oct 15th - Oct 19th)

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Thur - Oct 15th
We left The Grotto around 8am and today we have 14 people joining our safari truck and we are losing 6. It is quite sad because 3 of those 6 have been with us from the very start. Luckily, though, the new people that are joining us we already know. 9 of them are from the other “Wiley” Absolute Africa safari truck and they have been at the majority of the same camps as we have been for almost 3-4 weeks. They have been on the same route as us up until this point but now the Wiley truck is heading to Jo’Burg and we are heading to Cape Town. As for the 9 getting on our truck I get along with most of them for the most part. Only a couple do I choose not to talk to only because of differences in personalities. The other 5 people are new and we have had a chance to get to know them for the past few days at the camp site prior to getting on the truck. The only rough part is that we will go from having 19 people on the truck to having 27. One short of the 28 seats we have. We took having extra space and legroom as a luxury. Today’s drive was a short one as we crossed the border into Botswana and got to the Thebe River Lodge in Chobe. We spent way too much time (2 hours) stopping for lunch and shopping as most of us would have rather gone to the camp earlier and swam in the pool on this hot day. But we had to kill a little bit of time because we were dropping a few people off for a game drive. No big deal really. Once we got to camp and got set up we had a little swim and some of started a travel Monopoly game that I bought a short while ago.

Fri - Oct 16th
Left camp thus morning at 6am to start a 375 mile drive to Maun. The roads were pretty good for the most part. Maun is the 5th largest city in Botswana and we are camping at the [http://www.sedia-hotel.com/]Sedia Hotel[/url].

Sat - Oct 17th
Okavango Delta time and our boat ride on the makoro. Left camp at 8am and headed to the launch site of the makoros. Once on teh makoro it was a nice ride through the delta. Although after a while I had seen enough reeds and water lilies. Jenny “the vegan” who I shared the makoro with got into another boat because it was leaking and Marcus could not swim. So Marcus got in my makoro and she got in with Jess. Once at camp there was not a whole hell of a lot there and I was wondering what was going to happen to pass the time and stave off boredom. Some of us went swimming in the delta for a few hours and laid out in the sun. I skipped the night time game drive which was a good choice because they did not see anything. Even if they did I am kind of over game drives. I can only see so many more elephants and zebras. It turns out some others had the same thoughts I did and a 9 of us decided 1 night was good enough to experience the delta and were going to head back tomorrow. Not a big issue because we initially had the choice of one of two days. After dinner that night I was in my tent pretty early. Without light at the camp site there is not much do.

Sun - Oct 18th
8 of us left the campsite on the Okavango Delta around 8am and started our trek back to the mainland and our camp at Sedia. We had the driver take us into town on the way back to by some ice and beer but nothing was open on Sunday where we could buy beer. But we got ice anyhow because some people had beer back at the camp and it would be nice to be able to chill the water too. It was nice to be back at the campsite which just a small group of us. Sometimes it’s nice to hang out with a smaller group opposed the whole safari truck. We spent the day at the pool and then most of us went out to dinner that night.

Mon - Oct 19th
Lazy day by the pool which is exactly what I wanted and why I came back early. Went with some others into town. While some shopped, I just got online for a few hours. By the time I got back to camp the rest of the group that stayed at the delta were just getting back and setting up camp. We had a catered dinner by the hotel which was amazing. All sorts of food and some great deserts.

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