Update from Okavango Delta & Home…

Hi all

Well this will be the final update to our blog. We have arrived home safely after an awesome trip and the Okavango Delta was a great way to finish it all off. Due to the unexpected high fuel prices in some of the countries we decided to do and see everything that we wanted to, spend whatever it took, and then make our way home when we ran out of cash. Even through there is extreme poverty in many parts of Africa, don't be fooled that it is an inexpensive place to visit. Three words that everyone in Africa understands are: Dollar, Pound & Euro…..

Since our last update we spent some time along the Chobe river in Botswana and then made our way to Moremi NP and the Okavango Delta.The elephants in Chobe were spectacular again and we went on another boat cruise along the Chobe river - definitely recommend this! We visited the Delta in the dry season which had its pros and cons. The chances of getting seriously stuck were pretty low but the wildlife was pretty scarce. We spent a day on a Mokoro (traditional dugout canoe) trip which was great and very relaxing. The only downside to it was that it required 5 hours of off-road driving on the back of a truck (which is not advertised in the brochure!) On our last day we decided to charter a small plane and do a flight over the delta. A great idea over a beer the night before but something we were both reconsidering 35mins into the flight... We are sure that our pilot should get involved in the Red Bull Air Racing instead of doing scenic flights! It was a great way to see the parts of the delta which you can't get to by car, but definitely not for the faint hearted as at one stage we were flying about 20m above the trees and then doing manoeuvrers that F14s are still trying to perfect…

Anyway, once we were safely back on the ground we agreed that it was a great experience but the new A380 (business class) is definitely more our style of air travel.After the flight we jumped into the car and started the long trip home which was (luckily) fairly uneventful. We have uploaded a few last pictures, some favourites and some of the videos which we have been trying to put up along the way. We also thought you might be interested in some of the trip stats, so here they are:

• Total mileage: 13,500km - to put that into perspective, the diameter of the Earth is ~12,600km so we drove the equivalent of going from one side of the planet, through to the core of the earth and on to the other side…
• Total fuel: 1,600l
• Most expensive fuel (Zambia July '08): R18,61
• Average fuel price: R13,98
• Total hours driving: 230
• Average driving hours/day: 5 (a drive from Joburg to Durban everyday for 41 days)
• Average speed: 60km/h
• Number of punctures: 0 - Don't ask us how cause we have NO idea.
• Bribes requested: 2 (0 paid)
• Bribes offered: 1 (0 accepted)
• Longest driving stretch (Northern lake Malawi to Lusaka): 17 hours…

Overall it was an amazing experience and we got to see such a variety of places and people. It's tough to decide which places were our favourites as each one was so different from the next. To those who are thinking of doing a similar trip, give us a shout and we'd be happy to chat about it.

Thanks to everyone who sent us messages, emails and sms's - we really appreciated hearing from you and for keeping us up to date on the news. Cheers

Rhett & Johan