It took all day Friday to travel from Etosha to Botswana along the Angolan border. At first it didn’t look like there was a road into Botswana but we saw a border crossing on the map so we took a chance. On the way out of Etosha, after having given up hope, we caught a glimpse of a leopard slinking across the road – completing our “Big Five”. We barely made it to the border in time and encountered the usual confusion with too many people doing a single job, bureaucracy in action. But it was quitting time on Friday (Botswana is on South African time, one hour ahead of Namibia) so they nonchalantly passed us through while they boogied in preparation for Friday night partying.
We spent the night at Drotsky’s Cabins, 20 kilometers inside Botswana on the panhandle of the Okavanga Delta. It is a gorgeous fishing lodge with a nice campsite. After dinner we spent a pleasant hour talking to Erin, an idealistic young lady from Oregon who manages the lodge and/or works for some NGO helping to record and document San culture. The night was generally quiet except for the hippo grunts that sometimes seemed much too near.
Today was an interesting day to say the least. Robert and Patricia, fellow campers from the Netherlands, wanted us to join them on a flight with Nick, Erin’s boyfriend, over the Delta so we went along. Neither Connie nor I are fans of small planes but it was great to see the Delta from the air before we do it by dugout canoe. (Yes, we’ve booked an overnight mokoro trip for Sunday/Monday.) From the air we were able to see herds of buffalo, tsessebe (a new one for us), antelope, elephants, hippos, and even a lion.
After a brief stomach settling period we drove to Tsodilo Hills, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We hiked the Rhino trial with a local guide and saw a number of San paintings by some by some very accomplished artists. The guide, also a San, spotted tracks of a ‘big snake’ most likely a black mamba. He shuttered, picked up the pace and kept muttering, ‘big snake’ as we hurried along.
Arriving back at our spacious campsite, now devoid of neighbors, we found that monkeys had raided out supplies and devoured two onions and eight potatoes. As I write this, I am sitting on the deck sipping Famous Grouse Scotch and loving every minute of this journey. Life is truly good!
