Botswana Wild Day 10 - Oct 7

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Movin On Up

OK, so Richard thought that neither of us got sick from that plane full of coughing people, but he was wrong. Today, Kayla was sick with a head cold. So we canceled our plans for the day and decided that lounging around Backpackers, especially in 40+ degree weather, was not a bad thing to do. So far it has been much hotter than we expected, and higher than average than what is usually expected at this time of year. Oh well, we chose to travel in the hot dry season, so that's what we got. Backpackers is right on the Thamalakane River, so not a bad place to lounge and watch the world go by.

Mid-day, we called for a taxi and headed over to the Maun Lodge, where we were to meet our Adventures Abroad tour group. And there we lounged around some more, had a shower, went to the bar, met Bob the pilot for an owner who had flown in from Paris on his Challenger Jet for fly fishing. We told Bob he should bring his owner to BC for some real fly fishing.

We joined our group at dinner and met our safari guide Chris Burnie from Penduka Safari, the company in whose hands we would be for the rest of our stay in Botswana. One of our group was missing because he was robbed in his bedroom in Namibia and had to stay behind to get a new passport before he could come to Botswana. He would be joining us later. Word of warning - robberies happen. They were sleeping right in the room when it happened. Someone had crawled through the window - theirs was the only room without bars on the window. It was an inside job.

Our hotel room was a chalet with thatch roof. Oh, and Air Conditioning, something we would miss dearly over the days to come. But that didn't quite make up for the location, which was set back from the river, and not nearly as nice as Old Bridge Backpackers. We missed the frog chorus that night, and various other African night sounds that had penetrated our tent at Backpackers for the past four nights.

At dinner, Kayla tried kudu stew and found it very tasty, not knowing that we would be seeing lots of said animals over the next few days on safari. Chris reviewed the plans for the next day, and we were early to bed.

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Photos

Backpackers - our ensuite
Richard doing laundry. Things dried very quickly in the dry heat.

Backpackers - our ensuite
We also had a shower with hot water.

Maun Lodge
Bouganvilla vines blooming everywhere.

Comments

[Joyce]

fly fishing
Tell the Paris fly fisher that some of us in Canada even speak French. But maybe not in B.C.