Writing this from Vic Falls in Zimbabwe - country number 4! What's new?

After Swakop we had some pretty hardcore days of driving to make up for lost time and to get to Maun on time - sadly our tour leader Eddie had to leave and fly back to Oz, so time was really of the essence. En route, we had one night's stop at a Cheetah Park, where we got to stroke, pat and tickle the cheetahs whilst having photos taken - quite an experience! The cheetahs are being kept there as local farmers were shooting them for killing livestock, so the owners set up the park to take in the cheetah
"pests" and pay the farmers to leave them alone. It's a great project and whilst the cheetahs are pretty tame, it?s still obvious that they've got their wild animal instincts firmly in tact.

After that it was onwards to Etosha National Park, which was awesome - we did a couple of game drives and saw elephants, giraffes, zebra, springbok, oryx, impala, wildebeest, and...a LION! A big old beastie, from far away but still amazingly and very
definitely a lion. On top of that, beautiful sunsets and sunrises and a campsite where you could walk down to a floodlit watering hole to watch the crocs at night made it pretty spectacular.

From Etosha we overnighted at a place called Rundu, just on the Namibian side of the border with Botswana. A 6 of us (Kristy, Timmy, "Wifey" Jade and her husband Shane-o, 2 of the Danish girls, me and Eddie) went out on a sunset cruise along the Okavango, where we definitely spent a lot of time in the Angolan part of the river, quite excitingly! It turned into a great night - the camp treated us to little bottles of pink champagne, so that rolled us nicely into a supper-time wine, and off the evening went! It was Eddie's last night, and Rundu has a great bar, so...well put it this way, Ibrich (the Belgian girl), Kel, Brendo (both Aussies), Eddie and me went to bed at 3.30. Which would have been fine if we hadn't been getting up at 4 to drive to Maun and get there in time for Eddie's flight! Oops!

At Maun we picked up our new tour leader, Kat from Blighty, in her 30s, totally irreverent and a lot of fun, plus very experienced - quite a different style from Eddie but equally good fun. From Maun we went into the Okavango Delta for 3 days, full on bush camping with a nice loo dug into the ground and everything! But we could swim in the river (as long as we stayed out of the way of hippos/elephants/crocs), sleep in the dappled shade under the trees and drink tea around the campfire when the nights cooled down. The Delta was spectacular - a real real highlight of the trip. It was so
green and the water beautifully clean and clear (we drank straight from the river, although I was a little put off after night 2 when about 25 hippos used our little swimming and further up watering spots to have a bit of a bath at about 2am! More than a little frightening as well!). I've bought a very pretty mossie net (totally un-safari-esque but it was all they had in Swakop!) so Sal and I have also had the luxury of sleeping out under the stars, where it's a lot cooler for starters but also absolutely beautiful, especially falling asleep to the sounds of the bush. We went on game walks in the mornings and evenings and saw monkeys, owls, zebra, hippos, impala, elephants, eagles, elephant graveyards...oh and many more amazing things that I can't list now! And because we were walking we could get much closer - even the warnings about how to escape from charging beasties didn't put me off! Ads, Kel, Ibrich, Andrea, the Danish, Brendo and me rounded off the trip with a scenic flight over the Delta, which pieced it together and gave us even more amazing sightings, including one of an enormous herd of water buffalo - incredible.

After a night in Maun to get clean, we set off to Chobe NP. Another treat and more sightings of animals, which don't get any less surreal. Seeing elephants out in the wild, by the road, metres from houses - at first you have to remind yourself that they're real! We spent 2 gorgeous nights there - although our campsite was flooded due to massive floods coming in from Angola had us a little on guard - we weren't camped there at the time, but the waters were definitely edging closer - the bar was already only reachable by an obstacle course of a route! In Chobe, we did a game drive and also another game cruise - (Ibrich, Kel, Claire, Andrea, Ads and me) and we saw many crocs, water buffalo, tons of hippos, oryx, impala, stunning birds, ellies...more and more! Awesome stuff. After Chobe we bade farewell to Botswana and crossed over to Zim, very easily and with minimum hassle, and here we are! Really enjoying some chilled out time, although lots to do - group meals out and cricket watching the least of it! Kel, Andrea, Ibrich and I took a flight over the Falls - quite spectacular. After a (very posh) lunch today at the Vic Falls Hotel, Nats, Kel, Ads, Dana, Yav and I are going into the NP to get up close and soaked - can?t wait! The girls also decided to enjoy the settings by having high tea at the Vic Falls Hotel - the ultimate in colonial luxury, a bit of a treat, it felt so very English and my blood pressure dropped so much I was practically supine - all we needed was croquet on the lawn!

Our first bit of the trip officially ended today so there were many sad goodbyes as people (especially our beloved Aussies) went their separate ways - bring on London though because they'll all be making their mark there! For the rest of us, on Monday it's off to Zambia. First stop: houseboats on Lake Kariba. 3 days of swimming and relaxing. What can I say? It's a hard old life!