We awoke this morning just as Karen was leaving us a note before they left for work. She informed us that we should make ourselves genuinely at home and they would return sometime in the early afternoon for lunch. Since we had nothing on our schedule for the day we browsed their DSTV box and found that they had recorded several movies. We decided to enjoy a breakfast of lasagne that Karen had left for us while watching The Expendables. When we finished the movie and our food we had showers in their outdoor bathroom, something Jenny and I both wish we had if we didn't live in Scotland! We spent the rest of the morning playing on the computer until Karen and Tiennie came back earlier than expected for lunch.
Once we had food with our hosts they went back to work and we decided to head back to the Chobe Lodge to enquire about self drive game watching and the river cruise, which Karen told us we had to do. Jenny spoke with the person at the activities counter at the lodge and convinced her that we were Botswana residents; this got us a discount on the river cruise and the game drive but we had to give the woman our passport numbers to prove we were residents. Jenny told the woman that our passports we back in Gaborone (where we apparently live) and we would phone someone to get us the numbers. We also decided that there was no time for the self drive so we had a drink at the lodge before driving back to the house to 'phone about our passports'. Jenny wanted the barman to make her the tanquaray mojito she had in Gaborone but he didn't have any of the ingredients, I suggested gin and appetiser, which is now her favourite drink. All we did once at home was make up passport numbers and use the Internet a bit more before returning to the lodge 15 minutes before the river cruise at 2:45pm.
When it was time to board the boat Jenny and I managed to get two seats right up front so we would have an unobscured view of anything directly in front of the boat. The cruise was scheduled to be a 3-hour tour (don't start singing) and for the first hour and a half we were amazed at the amount of game we managed to see. We saw red buck, baboons, fish eagles, king fishers, crocodiles galore, many many hippos all out of the water grazing because it was overcast, a few elephant and other buck. Once we had seen our fair share of game we decided to make use of the bar on the boat and ordered some wine and a castle before headed up to the upper deck to check out the view. The captain of the boat had reminded us that only 10 people we allowed on the upper deck at a time but this didn't seem to be an issue because we only found one couple when we ascended.
We struck up a conversation with the other couple (Rob and Anna) and found out they were doing a similar long trip to ours. They had started in Tanzania, where Rob is from, and were touring many of the same places in Southern Africa primarily to see lots of Rob's old school friends. The only difference was that they were doing a lot more camping and we found out they were camping in part of the Chobe River lodge. It was very refreshing to finally meet some new people on this trip who were keen to talk travels and have a few drinks. While we were on the upper deck we saw an elephant rolling and playing in the mud and watched a group of locals in a very small boat go far too close to a crocodile on the bank of the river. They even managed to beach their boat a mere 3 metres from the animal; asking to get eaten if you ask me!! Once the locals pushed off from the shore they sped around the wide portion of the river nearly running over hippos along the way. I sense a Darwin Award.
Once the locals had finished nearly killing themselves some kids belonging to a family that had joined us on the top deck began crying, screaming, and jumping on the roof. It is beyond me why this family brought their 4 and 2 year old children on a 3-hour boat cruise. Eventually the family decided to move their misbehaving children back to the main deck of the boat. When they did we were joined by another couple (Ralph and Ivette) who couldn't stand the noise these kids were making down below. We struck up a conversation with them and found out that they were recently married and were also traveling Southern Africa as part of their honeymoon.
The rest of the trip was brilliant, we all had many more drinks upstairs, the brave men venturing down to the screening children deck below to retrieve the booze. It turns out that the other two couples had either already seen or were about to see a lot of the things we had in the area, and we had all been to elephant sands, which is such a magical place. It is certainly somewhere I will make sure I return too, those elephants are just beautiful. We followed the river around the small island that has recently been deemed to be Botswana's, as there was a fight over it with Namibia, and headed back to land. When we disembarked the boat we said goodbye to Ralph, Ivette, Rob and Anna. Dan however said to me that he wasn't ready to go and eat, or to go home so we decided to walk past their campsites to the campers bar and see if we could convince them to come along.
They were all game and so we went to the bar for two rounds of drinks and some awesome conversation about the crazy things that have happened on all our travels. The sunset from the bar was just as beautiful as yesterday! Once it set we all went our separate ways for dinner with the offer to return tomorrow for a braai with Ivette and Ralph, which we will certainly be going to. We set off for the Old House restaurant for our meal, as we couldn't find anywhere else online that served dinner without a) being too expensive or b) provided a buffet. I really don't like the idea of a buffet for dinner, it seems like cheating unless its a special one for multiple meats or delicacies. I had a rump steal again which was just as yummy as the first, and Dan had a delicious vegetarian pizza that I really enjoyed :) We set off home and got back at about 9:30pm and fell asleep straight away without waiting up for Karen and Tiennie who were at a family braai. The many many drinks on the boat and at the bar caught up with us and we were exhausted, so fell into a fitful sleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.
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