With some time to spare (but not lots) I decided to head for the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. My original plan had been to go to the salt flats but as it's the wet season in Botswana you can't camp or quadbike on them and a half day trip is pretty expensive. It also means they aren't as impressive. So bearing all that in mind and the fact I'm going to Bolivia I decided not to go.

Khama rhino sanctary has some of the only rhino in Botswana. Although it is a sanctuary they are wild so no touching or petting them or anything. I arrived there on Friday. Pitched my tent (out in the wild - 2.5km from the reception and bar/restaurant so you have to be driven there and back when you need to go anywhere because of the dangerous animals) and then headed to the nearest town (Serrowe) for money and provisions. I arranged to go Rhino tracking on Saturday morning, another bloody early start! Initially we struggled to find rhino tracks because we kept finding rhino. I realised that when you signed up for rhino tracking it was about the process not just about finding the Rhino. So while we drove around looking for Rhino tracks I saw quite a few rhino as well as a giraffe, zebras, wildebeest, various antelope.

The Rhino tracking was pretty cool, I went with two guides and a rifle (I won't leave you in suspense we didn't have to use it). I learnt about the difference between white and black rhino footprints and then we found a big pile of rhino dung - and it was fairly fresh (still warm) and covered in dung beetles. From the pile of dung we walked into the bush following the rhino tracks. As we got nearer to them we found more dung (even warmer) and then we could hear them but not see them. As I said they are wild rhino and they are shy animals so because they'd heard/smelled us they were on the move (they have a really good sense of smell, it's not 'cos I'm an unwashed traveller now). In chasing after these rhino we actually stumbled across another small herd of 4 rhino including a 10 month old baby. It was surreal being so close to such big and rare animals (luckily we were downwind of them so they couldn't smell us). I think the guide was a bit frustrated that we hadn't actually managed to track rhinos but I felt fairly happy with my close up encounter. I opted to spend the rest of the day at the pool (mainly because I felt bad that someone had to drive me every time I wanted to go to my tent). I had a nice relaxing day, the highlight of which was when a black rhino came to drink from the swimming pool (while they are wild this one rhino was hand reared and isn't very shy and apparently really likes to drink pool water). I really enjoyed my time at the rhino sanctuary, it was relaxing but I also had some amazing animal encounters (I also saw a tortoise on one of my trips back from my tent). But now it was time to make my way to South Africa as my Africa trip was drawing to a close.