October 30th

Bye bye comfortable Livingstone... hello truck! With only six of us going onto Jo'burg we did rattle around in the truck built for 24 people but it meant we could spread out! A quick drive and we arrived at the Botswana border crossing - where the Chobe and Zambezi river meet along with four African nations. This place was chaos with only two boats, one with a dodgy engine. We were told for safety reasons we had to cross on foot out of the truck - which we diligently did... TIA after all anything happens here! We crossed very quickly by local standards, maybe because everyone was voting in the presidential election of Zambia following the death of their previous president. This event also explained why there had been rioting in Livingstone the previous two days as there had been allegations of corruption in the voting system... corruption in Africa... noooo! It also explain why loads of lamp posts had been pushed over - they all donned pictures of the Bunda party leader, and current stand in having been vice president, but also the alleged source of the corruption. We never did find out who won! I digress... foot and mouth check point and disinfectant area cleared (they had a massive outbreak only the previous week) we headed for our Botswana campsite in Kansane, just inside Chobe national park. Lunch sorted we headed out to a jetty where we boarded our vessel for a river game cruise. This thing looked like the worst boat ever! A big floating square, with lots of Germans and Australians aboard. The Germans, as expected, had all spread out in their chairs along the entire side of the boat and taken all the good viewing spots. Deciding this was slightly lazy of them I kindly asked a few if they could move up and turn their chairs sideways so we could all fit in instead of them simply being spread out… I was met with quizzical faces and they ended up shuffling up slightly so they were even more spread out! As we started we squashed them in tight leaning over them and they soon moved away… having done very little for British and German international relations we got on with spotting lots of hippos, a fair few crocs, monkeys and even a big lizard (which we thought was a small croc - shows what we know!) All back safe we went to the campsite bar where we met some newly weds who had been hitch hiking across Africa for three months for their honeymoon - that's the way to do it.

October 31st

A long drive across Botswana and we eventually arrived at Elephant Sands our next campsite, just outside of Francistown. We arrived and refused to put up our tents and later found out why - it was 46oc!!!! Bar and plunge pool it was until sunset when we went on an evening game drive. Botswana doesn't have game parks - it has animal roaming freely all over the country so the government build water wells to attract them to certain locations. The one we visited had been broken for a month, and at the end of dry season was bad news for the local animals. We arrived to find a dying buffalo sitting on the ground by the water hole waiting to either die of dehydration or hope the local lions sniffed him out first, and some weak looking elephants all dehydrated. The smell however could not have been any of these guys so our guide happily drove on 50 metres to a youngish dead elephant... nice. Apparently the small gets worse (which was hard to imagine) when the stomach swells and bursts open, an even the twenty of so vultures were waiting for as they cant peck through the tough skin... TIA. On a lighter note we moved on to a very healthy tribe of elephants, got out and enjoyed sun downers (beer) with the sun set and guess what... more photos! Going back to camp we noticed the sky was redder than normal - an out of control bush fire... which was very close 15km in fact... and we still had to travel 8 km to our campsite in the same direction! We were told we'd be warned before we burnt alive if we did need to evacuate in the strong winds, which were picking up. Putting our tents up in the dark upon our return was interesting and when Paul pointed out we'd put them up in the campsite road and the locals like to drink and drive, we promptly moved them along a bit! I woke up in the night smelling smoke but no alarm was ever raised so we assume the fire break was lit or the wind changed direction!

November 1st

That morning we arose far too early for our long drive just in time to watch the very small campsite dog chase and fight the local mongoose pack… very amusing! Another long drive later and we arrived in Polokwane just in time to get a swim in the heat of the day (delayed slightly by some locals having their wedding photos by the campsite pool) Lots of beer and games of pool were then had ,lit by lanterns due to the electricity failure, but it was romantic with us men at the bar whilst the women cooked! Lee and Rob asked at reception if they could identify the scorpion under their chair. The guard came straight over and beat it with his baton so we assumed it must have been slightly dangerous! When the electricity came back on we all enjoyed showers which were attached to trees (very bizarre showering outdoors), with the stars above -a bit carry in camping as we were all so close together in the cubicles but no car keys were exchanged thank you!