Travels with Anne

Amazing, Amazing – that is Victoria Falls. Called the “Smoke that Thunders” in local dialect. First “discovered” by Dr David Livingston. When Carol was here 20 years ago the atmosphere towards whites in Zimbabwe was very different than it is now. Now they have recognized us for the cash cows that we are and are quite polite – except at the airport 🙂 It pours with rain by the falls due to the spray – the ponchos came in handy.

After Victoria Falls we quickly crossed into Botswana. Hoof and mouth disease is a big concern in Botswana as they sell a lot of beef to Europe. We had to dip all our shoes in bactericide of some kind before completing border formalities. The males can get by with one pair of shoes. As the border guards do not believe that women have only one pair of shoes we had to dig in our luggage and find another pair of shoes (or borrow them) to take with us to customs. There we were straggling up the road after the shoe dip, passports in hand towards Botswana immigration. Wish I had a picture….

Our first exposure to Botswana has been the Chobe National Park via river cruise and a late afternoon game drive. The highlight of the river cruise was a very large female hippo who took a dislike to us and charged – some great close ups (some a little too close) before our guide hit the throttle. Chobe is famous for the elephant population living within the park. It didn’t disappoint. Stunning! Hippo’s, elephants, birds, gorgeous scenery, no trash – this place is outstanding! Although the big animals and birds were awesome – the highlight for us was a dung beetle (about 3 inches across) rolling his big ball of dung plus girlfriend (hanging on for dear life) down the middle of the road. Chobe NP allows a few groups to camp in bush camps each night. We were lucky enough to be one of those groups. Our camp was tents in the bush, with camp minders to prepare dinner and take care of us. After spending a night watching the stars and listening to birds, frogs and lions we were woken up at 5 am with warm water for washing, hot coffee and a cooked breakfast. Our early morning game drive followed. We head to the Okavango Delta tomorrow for our houseboat stay

On the way more adventures – I stayed in the Safari vehicle while the driver used it to get some permits – everyone else went shopping. The starter has gone kaput – so we are stuck in the middle of no-where with a dead engine – the search is on for a new starter wire. Will let you all know what happens….. There is water and chocolate in the cooler so the immediate outlook is OK. After a wander around we located a nice young girl who said she could help us – she turned out to be a first rate mechanic and got us going again in no time (girl power!) We picked up the rest of the group and the rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived at our Namibian lodge on the river in time to enjoy a stunning African sunset.