Day 19 - From populace to the calm of the River Chobe

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We move on from an interesting time in Johannesburg to our next destination, the Chobe river. This is an interesting sort of the trip as we leave South Africa, passport control, enter Botswana, passport controlmfor all of our 15 minutes in Botswana then on a safari boat down the river and into the Namibian waters to do, passsport control. This time, much more interesting, boat nudges into the river bank, we have to climb off into soft sand then up to the passport office. We have a few people less mobile than others, so I help a few, then our badge lady (91 year old Marion) climbs down. The boat person is panicing a bit. I hold her hand and she is down. Easy Peasy. Others get steps but Marion shows them all up.

Queue at the passport office, one dude in uniform checking papers and stamping passports, another sitting beside him reading the sports page of the newspaper....hmmmm.

OK, one by one we do our smiley face and admitted to Namibia. Back on our safari boats and to our ship. Welcomed by singing crew and hand towels and nice drinks and and and... Happy to be on board. Safety briefing over, time for a drink from Moses at the bar. Luckily both barmen are named Moses so no mistakes here. Seem like a fun crew. Sit down to lunch at 1530, then asked if we are going on the 1600 boat cruise. Yes please, short notice but sure. On the boat and straight into lots of birds and then the big one. Elephants walking towards us. Keep quiet which makes sense when they are about 3 metres from your face and looking right into your face. Boy are they bloody huge. Pics, no noise and happy campers all round.

Then we move on. I notice lumps in the water. Hippos playing. We stop and they stop. Eventually they rise and even some come partly out of the water. Tick, tick, tick. How many boxes can you tick......

On we go. More elephants, but this time we get to see one cross the river. Walked all the way, but a a few spots where the trunk acted like a snorkel while most of that huge body was submerged. And we were right beside it during that crossing.......

Great sunset then back to the ship. Drinks to compare sightings, shower and up for tea. Lecture first about where we were, what we would see and the fishing trip we missed out on... Never mind, a few of us will just remind our buddy about his lack of care to include us while he booked his solitary self on the fishing trip......

Nice tea and a quiet drink after to end up a great day, once we got through the airports and flights.......

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