The next morning we left Livingstone to head for the Botswana border - I can't believe we are already so far South, neither of us feel ready to go home yet! The crossing in to Botswana wasn't a pleasant experience. Most borders we have gone through since Kenya have been relatively easy and laid-back. This border for some reason was hectic and stressful, not least because we had to part with so much cash for various 'taxes' and also for the crappy pontoon to take Monty 20 metres across the Chobe river to Botswana. It didn't help that we had changed up all our Zambian Quecha for Botswana Pula only to be told by the officials that they only accepted Quecha or dollars - grrrrr. However, it really was more stressful for Dickie than me. Since Malawi we have had a new rule that I am to sit quietly in the car at borders and not engage with any officials, money changers and general people that hang around on account of my sometimes short temper around inefficiency. So I peacefully sat in Monty with the windows up playing games on the iPod whilst Dickie did all the work. I had to laugh a bit when he got back in the car wet from the heavy rain and highly annoyed only to be told by yet another official tapping on the window that he'd forgotten to pay something else. The rage was immense.
Once off the pontoon and through no-mans-land we came to the Botwanan border. For the first time in ages an official actually came to look at Monty - I don't think that has happened since Egypt! He was basically looking for meat in our fridge - you're not allowed to bring it across the border on account of various diseases like foot and mouth. We even had to go through a dip with our shoes and Monty - positively western in standards!
We made our way to the Thebe River camp in Kasane and organised a game drive and boat trip for Chobe National Park. We're still with Pim and Git and as they didn't fancy taking Mitch in to the park and the four of us would be a little squashed in Monty for a game drive, we decided it the best option - and actually it was pretty cheap.
We were up at 5am this morning to start the game drive nice and early. Chobe is a great park and we were fortunate enough to see wild African dogs, a very rare sight apparently. They spend the whole time running so they are very very hard to track. We stubbled upon them just was they were running after some impala. It was highly exhilarating as our driver sped off after the pack of dogs to follow the hunt. Sadly for us the impala got in to the bush pretty quickly so we didn't see a kill - so close though!
After returning to camp for a spot of lunch and a quick power nap, we went out for the afternoon boat trip back in to the park. Again it didn't disapoint! We saw around 100 elephants all coming down to the waters edge for an afternoon drink. After watching them bathing in the shallows for a while we were delighted when one bull elephant ventured out a little further and began to swim. Surprisingly elephants are really good swimmers and seem to throughally enjoy the water. We followed the bull elephant as he crossed from one side of the river to the other, often completely submerging himself in the deepest parts.
We also saw lots of angry hippos, birds and a giraffe coming to the river for a little sip. We were again really close to seeing a kill, only to be denied a second time by the impala that just won't comply! We watched as a big herd of them came down to the waters looking to cross. Just as one of the brave males looked set to jump in, a croc made itself known by coming above the water for a quick look. After that they backed away from the bank and refused to cross.
So we're back at camp now cooking chicken kebabs on the BBQ after a really enjoyable day - thats a really good thing about Botswana as well - the meat (and biltong) is REALLY good!