Today we boarded our new truck to begin our drive to Botswana. The border crossing was interesting as we had to individually walk through a foot & mouth trough and the truck had to be driven through a much larger one. This was the beginning of a variety of "veterinary checks" that we will face whilst in Botswana. You are not allowed to carry fresh fruit, veges or meat from one part of the country to another. Botswana relies on agriculture as well as tourism for their income (after that made from diamond mining).

Botswana has the highest income per capita of all the countries we are visiting on this adventure - $18,000USD per annum. Compared to Malawi where it is $300 per annum this raises large questions - and yeah answer to most of them is that unlike many other African countries upon independence Botswana was led with integrity rather than corruption. Money is fed back into infrastructure, education, health, employment and the generation of business are deemed important. Having said that - the areas we are travelling through are predominantly rural and the villages we have seen as we have driven along have been little different from those seen in Zimbabwe & Zambia.

We arrived in Chobe in the early afternoon and set up camp. At 1600 hours we boarded safari vehicles for a game drive in Chobe National Park. Botswana, unlike the other countries we have visited, is inundated with elephants. Here they get super herds (some times up to 200 people). We drive down to the Chobe River ( known in Zambia and Zimbabwe as the Zambezi) and there before us were hundreds of elephants drinking and walking amongst the islands in the river. We also saw hippo, giraffe, kudu, crocodiles, buffalo, a different mongoose, honey badgers plus the rare Chobe Rowan & black Sable antelopes. The sunset was stunning.