Souly Positive

So our entourage arrives in Botswana at Mechenji Lodge. Botswana is about the size of Texas. There are a little over 2 million inhabitants. From the few I met they were wonderful people always wearing a big smile. We immediately go on safari. The interesting thing was this was a totally different experience than the one in Krueger at Elephant Plains in South Africa. In Botswana there were more plains and rivers. There were also large herds of animals which we really didn’t see in Krueger. In Krueger we would see two or three together…sometimes a few more but with the exception of impalas, never large herds. In Botswana there were large herds of buffalo, giraffes, zebras, elephants and even baboons:) They would cross the road in droves. It was so awesome to see, especially the baboons running across and the babies jumping on their mothers back or the mothers clutching them to their chest. Sometimes we would see a female elephant with several babies and teenagers…we decided she must run the daycare:) Even though my heart didn’t stop when I saw a giraffe or zebra…yea, it’s weird you get used to seeing them and think to yourself, “oh yea, a zebra.” Like you see them every day:)

We ate a great dinner and went to bed. The traveling is exhausting and we had an action packed 12 hours planned for the next day. In game preserves there is no rest for the weary…you know if you skip the safari in the morning to sleep in, that will be the day the lions are seen…which happened and I’ll get to that later:(

So we get up before 5:00 to make our 5:30 departure time. We opted to bring breakfast and lunch as a picnic and just stay out all day. This turned out to be a great plan:) We spent the morning driving around in the truck…which the guys referred to as, “The Beast” those things can go anywhere, on any terrain. We spotted a leopard and lots of other animals and then we saw the lion tracks…we followed them and went on several wild goose hunts (or should I say wild lion hunts:). None of which were successful:( Ate breakfast and then headed to the small boat that we would cruise the Chobe River on. AWESOME!!!! I think the river cruise had to be the highlight of our safari’s. We saw hundreds of elephants playing in the river. They were so cute, they came in herds and when they saw the water they would literally start running and looked so excited. They played like little kids in the water, dunking each other and placing their front feet on one another’s back. It was a sight to behold and we were just a few feet away. I can’t begin to describe how special it was to watch these gentle giants in their natural habitat up close and personal. We also saw a hippo grazing that decided he wanted to get in the water. It felt like he was charging us…not sure what his motives were but it was really scary and really exciting:) Lots of beautiful birds, and animals grazing or drinking all along the river. The craziest sight was watching several impala, a few buffalo, several baboons, zebras and wart hogs all sharing the same space. Very Cool!

I can’t even begin to do it justice in my writing…just let me say having a picnic lunch on a boat a few feet from a herd of elephants is awesome…we even got to see a little tussle among two male elephants and some amorous activity to boot:)

The next morning Robert and I had a transfer to leave at 9:30. The Lategans and the Dickeys would be carrying on without us:( All of us opted out of the morning safari except Martin. I’ll be damned if 5 minutes before we left he didn’t show up with the biggest grin on his face…he had seen a pride of ten lions. Yep, lesson is…you snooze, you lose:) Actually though, Robert and I were thrilled with what we saw and did and the company we kept. We cannot thank Deon and Cynthia enough for all their planning and insight. It was truly a once in a life time trip. We said our good byes and headed to Zambia.

From Botswana…Rolling on the River.