Left Me Wanting More

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3am came too quickly. Because I knew I only had 2 hours to rest I did not rest much at all. I got up and was not feeling well. Raymond showed up right on time and we packed up the car. I ended up getting sick before we left which was no fun but afterwards I felt a lot better. I think the borewars we had for dinner had garlic in them… I ended up sleeping quite a bit through the morning in the back seat. One of the roads we were on seemed to be in the middle of some sort of white butterfly migration or something. There were so many the car was covered in their splattered bodies by the time we got through it (which really was not till after we crossed the border into Botswana). I have never seen so many Butterflies all at once ever it was amazing! We got to the Boarder control for Botswana after only a few wrong turns. We had to fill out some papers and then we were stamped through without any problems.
Botswana is beautiful. It is very open, between towns is absolutely nothing and it is wonderful to feel like you are actually out in the wild. We saw lots of Cows, Donkeys, Goats, and Elephants along the road! We stopped for a moment to take a photo of one of the elephants right next to the road but as soon as we did it started trumpeting at us and moving towards us! We didn’t stay around to see if it was playing or wanted us out of the way! Raymond took off like a bullet and we continued on our way! It started to rain, not very hard but enough that when we got to the turn off for the Elephant Sands Lodge we had to stop because we were not sure we would make it through the lakes in the sand drive way! I got out of the car to go walk around the bend to look if it got worse or better past the first pool of water. I was not sure the Audi would make it through the puddles, they looked pretty deep and the sand was very soft, every step I took my feet sunk in deep. I went back to the car and we sat there debating for a bit, having just drove for 14 hours just to get there the idea of more driving was not so appealing. Luckily another car pulled in with 4 wheel drive and they said they had ropes if we got stuck and needed pulling through! We followed them down and rammed our way through the water and soft sand! The Audi and Raymond’s awesome driving made it through the kilometer and a half to the lodge! Once we got out we heard the guy running the lodge say he didn’t have any rooms left, we panicked for a moment because we did not give them a credit card to guarantee the room but it turned out they were holding one for us anyways!
We went to our bungalow, no keys required! Nothing locks – we were really out in the middle of nowhere! It was simple but nice, one queen size bed and two double beds. All the beds had mosquito nets to pull around them hanging from the support logs for the thatch roof above! The windows had no glass only thick green mosquito net looking stuff covering them. The bathroom had a large tub, a running toilet, and no door. We were all excited about rinsing off and I was lucky enough to get to go first! I got in and turned on the water…. It barley drizzled out and it was cold, hot water is a luxury we did not get! We went back to the main lodge for dinner, they had steak(that was a little too fatty for me but otherwise good), Pap and sauce, salad, squash and beans. We relaxed and had a drink, talked with a few other people that were staying there and had a relaxing dinner listening to the sounds of Africa. As the sun went down the bugs came out in hordes. Flying ants so thick that you could hardly see through them! I have never seen so many bugs before ever!!! Then all their wings started to fall off as they began to die, they have short life spans – Raymond thinks it’s something around an hour. After watching the wall of bugs slowly fade away we decided to head back to our room. Walking to the car(We had to take the car from our room to the main lodge for safety from wildlife required by management) was interesting as we were trying not to stand on the ants that were still alive as well as the Massive beetles! The floor of our room was a bit better but definitely not clear! Alex and I thought we would give Raymond the bigger bed since he did all the driving… Turned out that was not necessarily a nice thing as we had intended it to be! Our room had tons of bugs, which Alex was not too fond of, and there was a mouse running around as well! At one point Raymond said “there is something very big on my back!” I went to look but it was gone by the time I got over there, having stood on many bugs in my socks along the way, I tip toed back to my bed. Raymond woke up in the morning with a large amount of grass from the thatch roof on his head -the mouse had been digging in the thatch right above him! Basically the whole night, if caught on film, would have been very funny and we spent a good portion of it laughing at ourselves and really not sleeping too much! The next morning we had a cup of coffee, packed up the car and headed back out onto the road. The roads were not great but we were very secluded, we didn’t pass anything but open land for a couple hours and the sense of peace it brought to us with the sun shining down is almost indescribable. We rolled down our windows and blasted the music and enjoyed the bumpy drive! Along the road, as I stared out the open window with my hand weaving through the air, all I could think was that my short time in/through Botswana left me wanting more...
The area that we were crossing the border was very busy because Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet there. We headed to the Zimbabwe border crossing. Filled out more paperwork. Stood in line in stifling heat in a too small building with no ventilation… The smells of Africa are something I seem to always forget till I’m back here again! We had a hard time at this boarder, It took us quite a while to get through and we had to buy all kinds of extra insurance for the car (even though we had already purchased it in S.A.). There were a few moments when I was not sure they were going to let us cross but they eventually did let us drive through! Right after crossing the border there was a sign that said “Police”. We were stopped and they checked Raymond’s driver’s license and then we were on our way again. After a stressful border crossing we were all ready to get to our hostel which was less than 100 kilometers away! Another 20 minutes’ drive and we pulled into Shoestring Backpackers. We took a quick look around, decided it was livable, got a key and then decided to go on the search for food. We drove around the small town of Victoria Falls, which was very poor and run down for being the main tourist attraction area of the country. We didn’t see any place to go eat and so stopped at the grocery store… Food was expensive and either in bulk or not good shape… We eventually decided we would just eat whatever was served at the hostel and headed back for what was, unknown to us, about to be an Epic night…

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Comments

[Tracy]

Goosebumps
I am only at the the "leaving the lodge, open roads, blasting the tunes" and I have goosebumps bb girl. SO proud, jealous, excited and living vicarioulsy thru these blogs... YOU have opened my soul back up to all the world's great adventures... thank you so much for that :) Time to fly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Diana]

Really???
Epic Night? That's it? I need more, more more!!

[VaNessasEpicAdventures]

Really???
Coming soon :)

[Colin]

I have seen a Bison crossing the road, but never an elephant. That is pretty sweet indeed.