Blogs from Botswana, Africa - page 54

Jess is still in full flight as a tourist. This guy is still in full flight as a nerd.... read more

We arrived in Chobe and were soon on our first game drive which started early doors at 6am! It was freeeeeeeezing! We had one sleeping bag between all of us and i'd like to say it was worth it but, frankly there were no animals at all for a good 2.5 hrs! This is a place with over 70,000 elephants...how do you hide that many elephants?! However, just as were about to leave we heard some impala braying and so headed down to the river bank. Here we managed to see a leopard dragging an impala into some bushes! We narrowly missed the kill as it nailed the impala while it was taking a leisurely drink at the river! In order to get a better look we were all climbing about the van and then while ... read more

We arrived in Botswana on Saturday afternoon. The border crossing was considerably faster and less annoying than into Namibia, where the customs officers acted as though we were inconveniencing them, plus most of them fled on their lunch breaks as soon as we arrived. Botswana is an interesting place, with one of the most stable, legitimate goverments, and strongest economies in Africa. We're currently in Maun, one of the main entry points to the Okavango Delta, and it's a nice little place. We left Swakopmund last Monday morning, after we heard all the tales of the skydiving and other adventure sports. I went on a township tour with a few people on Sunday afternoon, and it was really interesting. It's quite a hard life for a lot of the people, but our guides were saying that ... read more

Well we made it safely to Francistown!! We spent yesterday just wandering in the centre of Gaborone and took some pictures of the Parliament building etc, but nothing too hardcore touristy as we were still recovering from travelling! It's a nice enough city, but we all got the impression it has been very quickly purpose built and is definitely not a top tourist destination! In fact we ended up in a government office for the Department of Tourism getting some information on buses to Francistown etc as the tourist board was too difficult to find! We had our first experience of "combis" (minibus taxis you flag down, cram into no matter how many people are already in there and shout when you want to get off) and successfully managed to get back to our accommodation without ... read more

A birthday to remember We're writing this retrospectively now! Over a month has passed since I celebrated my 31st birthday in Botswana. After going on our fantastic safari to Savuti, we came back to Maun to spend a couple of days with Mr James Gifford. It was great to see Giff in his element out in Botswana and we got to meet lots of the expat community. We also managed to go on a mokoro trip in the Eastern delta which isn't supposed to be as wildlife rich as other parts of the delta, but we still managed to see elephants and hippos. Give you are in this tiny canoe, about 1 inch out of the water, a bunch of hippos scrambling off the bank to protect their young was a little un-nerving. We also did ... read more