Beautiful Botswana

Country number 94 flown and it was very special for us because we again had some extremely good local help.

The reason I had to cut short the last blog post was because we had just arrived at the gates to the Mahenga National Park which we had to drive through to reach the Namibia Botswana border. We wanted to drive around the Park so there was a small fee to pay and while Chris was in the office, 2 elephants crossed the road ahead.

We had spent our last night in Namibia (this time) at the Mobano Lodge right on the bank of the Okavango River.  As they were using Central African time sunset was an hour earlier and we arrived just in time for sundowners. It was a really beautiful location and all the chalets, camping sites, the river fed swimming pool with waterfall and bar were all designed with flair. To get to the Bar on an island in the river we had to cross a long swaying plank and rope bridge and there was a warning to beware of snakes, crocodiles and hippos. We were disappointed to see no hippos. Not so much about the other two. Before leaving we walked to see the rapids at the end of the island.

Back to the National Park: within the first 10 minutes we had seen more varieties of wild animals than we saw in 3 days in Etosha. The best was the big bull elephant with broken tusks which walked over to  see us and the giraffe with legs splayed to drink. We came straight out of the park to the border which was very relaxed. The pale blue and white air conditioned building of Botswana immigration and customs was the nicest we have been to.

That night we visited Drotsky's Camp which was very nice but was extremely expensive so we went on to Swamp Stop Rest Camp which was full of mosquitos and a bit like a prison camp. All about the balloon flight in the next post. Tonight we are in Maun.