Finally arrived at Maun, one of the gateways to the Okavango Delta and excitement has set in for my Delta experience. Most people on the truck feel that the price for a 3-day, 2-night trip is too high and as they are concerned that they will get bored, so have decided that they are not going to go in. Me, I am going!

Laura feels that she may have overspent so wanted to go and check with a few other tour operators for the price of a one-day tour. I like a good tent buddy decided to go with for morale support. Armed with my Lonely Planet that had a small map of where the other tour operators were located, we set off. It was 2pm, the sun was shining, the thermostat was hitting at least 30` and we had to walk 1km along the road to the 3 places. 1km… nothing! Hit the supposed half way point, a sports bar and spirits were high. Found a sign to the first place off to the left, so far so good, but wait, it is 2km down that road….! Eeek, I am hot and sweaty by this point and regretting my choice of Havaianas. We decided to continue on to the other 2 operators and assess our options on the way back as to whether we go down the 2km track. So we continued along the side of a rather main road. It was hot walking on the black tarmac, but it was also hot walking on the white sand beside the road. Shade, oh shade would have been a blessing, but no… we just had the beating sun and no sunscreen! A bit further on I consulted with a local about how far our walk was. Ah yes, Crocodile Campsite, hmmm, 30 minutes, at least… Eeek yet again. We decided that it was pointless doing a u-turn at this point and so we would go on. In Laura's exact words - 'surely it can't be 30 minutes'. Of course, what would she know, she is the tourist afterall J So we continued on and found the round about that was sort of on the map we were following so Laura seemed excited. Excitement waned when we got to the round about with signs to the 2 camps we were aiming for and it was another 2km. Stubbornness set in and we continued. It was about now that my flip flop decided that this type of hike was not it's job and it would make that known through a blister. Not like we have spent 13 weeks together without incident. If they weren't my only open shoe option; they would be dead to me now!

We finally got to the first camp and were disheartened to find an unhelpful staff member who simply pointed at the word processed pieces of paper with some prices. A quick calculation and we determined that her day trip was 230USD per person, which was not a good alternative to the 90USD option we already had. We also disliked the campsite so much that we decided that we would not even stop for a beer in their bar. The next campsite was walking distance… I had to wonder did she mean African walking distance (hell of a long way) or White walking distance ( 2-5 mins max)… thankfully it was the latter, phew. Second campsite turned up similarly dismal results. We asked if the receptionist would kindly call us a cab as I could not be in the sun a moment longer - I was going crispy!

As we waited for our cab a local bus came along and we decided it was time to get back to basics. A quick check on whether he turned right at the round-about, not whether he went to our hotel and we were on our way for 3.5 Pula (50 USD cents) each, bargain! The local buses are essentially small white mini vans. They have modified seats in the back with 4 bench seats and at the right hand side of each as you look out the back window there is a small folding seat that you put up to get to the back or down to sit on if the benches are full. There is also a conductor of sorts, or in this buses case a door closer. As we went to set off he went to pull the door shut, this entailed him opening the windows on the door and basically pulling the door into the frame of the bus with a lot of force. I feel that as we drove along his arm was not out the window for cool air, more a necessity to keep the door on the van.

We got back, got changed and swam. We just couldn't process the colossal waste of time that the last 2.5 hours had been. We do now at least feel like we have connected with the locals of Botswana and next time I think I am being a good tent buddy, I may just give it a bit more thought before offering to accompany too quickly.