Botswana Safari Part III

Heard the raunchy lions as loud as ever last night. Had a slow start ..the long drop toilet in the dense bush has got to be the most vulnerable when doing my number twos as I have ever felt. Animal sightings where topped by the two lions chilling out next to the decaying carcass of a adult giraffe; the stench of death from this was undescribable other than ..'sick in my mouth' ! We then went back to visit the scene of the dead later in the middle of night, and suddenly these slightly larger but still cute and cuddly pussy cats had morphed into ruthless killing machines. The lioness had blood slowly dripping from her mouth has she pulled her head from the depth of the giraffes body, before padding over into the shrubs where she proceded to give us a private demonstration of a true lions roar. I was driving at the time and never before had the open window felt so large and unprotective. Then the icing on the cake.. the second lion joined in, although due to the failed torch light we couldn't find him. As we passed within 10 yards of these beasts the adrenaline rush kicked right in.

On our jouney to the Kalahari desert we stopped off at a bushman camp, which luckily conincided with their Moon festival and we were able to have another once in a lifetime as we got a private bushman dance. And then the cherry on top, Nancy, kirst and myself were invited to join in the last dance. I stompped and stompped and gave it my all by I dont think I'll be getting any calls from Strictly Come Dancing!

After our escapades with the Bush men, we continued travelling through to the desert. But as we are men we overestimated our speed/ underestimated our distance and therefore had to camp not in our designated camp spot. But Wooohaaa we got  a spot on the edge of a salt pan with a whole host of animals that we had never encountered before. During the night we had a pride of lions maruade 50m from our tents. I am almost certain that Rob ended up snuggling up to me in the night ... but i'm sure he won't admit it now. I tried to capture the roaring on my camera but ended up as an EPIC fail and it just played the shuffling of my sleeping bag and Robs wimpering.

On the journey to the desert we got our first sighting of the last of the BIG cats. A cheetah skipped along the path in front of us, but by the time we had scaled the Land Rover he was already making his way into the bush. We are still being eluded by our great friend the giant pangolin though!

Botswana Safari Part II

So we set off into the wilderness completely at the mercy of John and Nancy. For the first few days we travelled through Chobe national park and were completely spoilt by choice of animals. The elephant sightings were simply amazing! We had some sniffing the Land rovers and others wading across rivers into the sunset. We got our first BIG cat sighting in Chobe, twice in fact, of a) leopard chilling in a tree and then b) leopard trotting right next to where we had just been. Such an rush to see them in the flesh.

The camping wild was so exhilarating. Hearing lions, hyena and hippos from the 'safety' of our canvas shelter was a once in a lifetime. Any worries of being a hungry teenager where stamped aside by Mrs Boss (Nancy) and her all girl team's outstanding efforts and the food was really good. Amusing incidents include watching Rob try and skip (his coordination equalled that of Shadow when Crendon fed him cider), making a human giraffe and watching Mrs Boss smell lion poo. A new favourite past time of sundowners began to develop with the ample aid of savannah dry cider and windhoek lager.

It was around this time that the worry of a-level results finally finished and unexpectedly I got a text from Mr Hirst with the good news :) Kirst dominated her results so all in all BOOM to exams from Roo and Kirst!

After our spell in Chobe we drove to Linyanti. This was my first real driving of our two Land rovers in deep sand and at 60km/hr it was one of the funnest times I have had in a car. It took skill that I occasionally managed to gain briefly in patches only for it to be whisked away before any form of rhythm was established. I think I need to apologise to Mum, Kirst and Nancy who were accompanying me in NC on our bump ridden, dust covered marathon of a drive. In Linyanti we met some lovely Germans and chatted until the mosquitoes had punctured my feet enough for it to feel like I had spent the evening jumping up and down on a bed of 6-inch iron nails.

From Linyanti we trucked down to Khwai, one of the most beautiful places in the world for sure. Our camp was as near to perfect as you can get. Once the challenge of a bleep test was mentioned Rob and me were in for a bitch of run in the midday heat! However the heat could have been the least of our worries as we were told of two lions less than half a kilometre down the track (more later). As usual once the exercise juices ie./ sweat were running I ended up trying to do hand stand press ups only to find out after my mediocre effort that a truck load of tourists had driven past, stopped and photographed this strange creature none of them could find in their animal guide books. Got to admit... felt a bit of a prat afterwards!

In the evening we drove in the direction of these fabled lions. And to our great surprise they really were closer to our camp than we had thought. Although they were rather preoccupied. You see they were in that lovely romantic phase of their relationship where they couldn't part company for more than a millisecond. In our 30-40 minute watch of these king of beasts they had passionate sex 4 times. Something to aspire to eh eh?? Apparently they keep going every 15 mins for 72 hours! The presence of these two immense animals in the vicinity overshadowed everything else from the evening.

Botswana Safari Part I

We began our safari trip in Land Rovers on the way to the airport at 5:45 in the morning, cramped between all our bags. The Etihad flights turned out to be really good, exceptional in fact, the food was exquisite, the entertainment allowed me to catch up on loads of missed films, you know Valentine's Day etc however waking up in Jo’burg airport with a dead hand, thinking I was drowning with ear plugs and eye mufflers on was a very odd experience. Livingstone airport turned out to be tiny and we got fantastic views of the Makgadikgadi salt pans and the Zambezi as we banked over Vic Falls.

 On our first full day we took the early bus to Vic Falls and after having been offered plenty of trillion Zimbabwean dollars we managed to get our first glimpse of these impressive waterfalls. The volume of water pouring over the mile long stretch of the waterfalls was phenomenal. We got charmed by two students who ended up robbing us in the sense that they took mums money and threw two copper bracelets at me and Rob. 

With excited trepidation we woke early on Monday morning to set off on the 45 min journey to where our rafting expedition would begin. Kevias our guide was the epitome of happiness and laughed all the way down as we got soaked, sunk, capsized and spun down the immense Zambezi river. This 110m gorge quickly became my favourite river in the world and the Grade 5 rapid No. 12 dubbed the “Three Sisters” my favourite rapids. The photos show the sheer scale of the water and it is easy enough to believe that 6 elephant and 4 hippo got washed down the year before. Following a comfortable cable car journey up the steep hillside, Kirst, myself and Botts sat on the top of the truck as we sidled our way back to Livingstone. Joe gave a running commentary of the villages and tales of the areas that we passed. Having survived not being knocked off by baobab tree branches Kirst, Mum and me wandered in the markets to pick up a few presents. It was at this moment that I realised how much of a hard barginer Mum is as she began bargaining down a Zambian single mum with no shoes. 

Chris our friendly taxi driver picked us up from Fawlty Towers early on Tuesday morning and took us through the only place in the world where four countries converge to meet John, Nancy and co in Kasane. In our last meal out for a while we munched our way through a herd of kudu. Having stocked up on supplies, fuel and water we set off into the wilderness.