Botswana Safari- Lost in the middle of Southern Africa

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Hi everyone,
Well, are back from the bush and will be leaving for Ethiopia today. We had an exciting and frustrating time on our 12 day safari but all in all it was an amazing experience. Here are some of the highlights of the 12 day safari we took from Maun to Victoria Falls, Zambia.

1. First night at Maun at the River lodge backpackers watching the sun go down over the river and listening to the bell frogs (sound like wooden wind chimes) as they came into full chorus as the sun went down.
2. Flight over the Okavango in a Cessna 172 4 seater plane.
3. Seeing our first giraffes and zebras at Nxai National Park and hearing elephants at night and visiting 1,000 year old Baobab trees.
4. Seeing Deception Valley for the first time in the Central Kalahari expecting it to be desert and finding it to be full of grass due to the amount of rain they have had over the year.
5. Amazed by herds of oryx, animals that look like they are wearing masks and belong in cave paintings.
6. An encounter with a 8 ft. long Black Mamba, the most feared snake in Africa. (Bites are lethal and they can move at 20 kms an hour).
7. Game walk in the bush with a local guide and feeling giraffes run by and shake the earth and seeing kudu and investigating termite mounds and sausage trees.
8. Forging rivers and getting lost on our way to Moremi National Park. We discovered that we had hired an old school African guide who didn't believe in GPS, didn't have a compass, used 10 year old maps held together by sticky tape and didn't like to ask for directions.
9. Sleeping in a tent with an elephant 6 metres away eating on the tree that is above our tent.
10. Watching a male and female lion laying in the sun. Male wanted some action with the female but she was not interested and shooed him away.
11.Driving through marsh to get to the Mokoro ride in the Okavango Delta. In Botswana this is a major tourist route!
12. Watching fireflies over the delta.
13. Looking for cave paintings left by bushmen.
14. Forging more rivers and getting lost on our way from Moremi to Savute National Park.
15. Nocturnal encounter with a spring hare that looks and walks like a baby kangaroo. While sleeping in the tent we watched a hyena walk by our tent. Elephants making lots of noise at the nearest waterhole.
15. Seeing an amazing diversity of animals in a small space: Elephants, giraffes, buffalo, kudu, waterbucks, hippos, baboons, vervet monkeys, and an amazing selection of birds.
16. Viewing a giraffe family and a herd of elephants at the waterhole that looks like southern California. (see video)
17. Seeing the Chobe river in flood. Normally it is a couple of hundred yards wide but now it is 2-3 kms wide. And all that water is flowing to Victoria Falls.
18. Finishing our safari at Victoria Falls but that is another blog.

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