It's been a while since I've updated this, but w'e'venot really had much access to internet. The trip has just been getting better and better. Botswana was amazing -met loads of brilliant people and went tosome amazing places. We went down to the salt pans and spent 4 days there. We had our first major offroading experience when we decided to travel to an island called kubu island right in the middle of the pans - there are no signposts, the waythere is through the most remote areas on tracks that you can barely see - it tookus 4 hours to travel 70km but it was definitely worth it! From the island you can just see flat white salt pans for as far as the eye can see and you feel as if you are the only people for hundreds of km, it was absolutelybeuatiful and the driving was pretty fun too! We also spent time there seeing meerkats and even went on quad bikes on the pans which was great fun. After that we travelled u to Zambia over about 5 days through 2 of the national parks - Moremi and Chobe. Now we thought the road to Kubu island was bad - these were so much worse! We passed cars stuck in sand, one car was totally deserted in the middle of a river up to its roof in water! We also camped in one of the parks where the sites are totally open with no gates or fences. As it got dark this group of south africans who were also there bought all of there 4x4s into a big circle around there tents and fire and about half an hour later we hear this little scream and from between the tents in the pitch black a huge brown hyena came loloping out! Now I'd always thought hyenas were about the size of jackals, but not brown hyenas - they are huge and really sinister looking, especially in the pitch black. One of the south africans then told us that only 2 months ago a hyena dragged an 8 year old child by its head from a chair it had fallen asleep in! J proceeded to spend the rest of the night with atorch in one hand and a spade in the other - "I'm just protcting you honey" was his excuse but I think he was more worried about himself! At one point as I was sorting out the fire he pulled me back suddenly and the hyena was just a couple of metres away! We wer in bed pretty early that night! Tomake the night even more exciting, the big heavy torch that we had takent to bed with us fell on eye in the middle of the night so Iproceeded to have a black eye for the next 2 weeks - J took great pleasure in telling everyone that I hadn't been behaving myself and he had bought me into line!

We travelled intop zambia next to se e vic falls which were stunning! We also spent time whit water rafting and j even got to kayak some of the zambezi, though he spent quite a lot of time swimming! I also did mybunjee jump which was really good. Unfortunaltey we were there at the time of the elcections in Zimbabwe so we decided not to risk going in. It's awful whats happening there and everyone out here is talking about it.

After vic falls we headed up to South Luangwa national park, on te way visitng a community school and staying the night there which was wonderful - the people were so friendly even though they have so little. South Luangwa was the best park I have ever been to. The campsite there is also open and not gated and as we arrived at reception there was a huge elephant outside the showers! During our time just at the campsite we saw elephants outside the tents, hippos, baboons stealing your food, vervet monkeys climbiong on the cars - it was SO amazing - one of the highlights of the trip. We also had great game drives seeing leopards, lions, servals, elephants doing mock charges, hippos fighting - just brilliant.

So , we've now just got into Malawi and are going to head over to the lake for a few days for some relaxing on the beach, scuba diving, snorkelling, kayaking - can't wait!

Hope everyone's good in the UK and thesummer weather is being kind to youall. Apologises for all the words that run together in this blog but the space bar keeps sticking! Love to you all Kat and J xx