Before I share pictures of Botswana, I want to give a quick shout out to all who have donated to my fundraiser: THANK YOU!
Till today we have raised €640 Euro, of which €455 was raised in The Netherlands! We really are hoping to get to €1000 so if you have not donated yet, and you are thinking about supporting our cause, please click on the link at the bottom of my blog and donate. Any amount is appreciated!
We crossed the Limpopo River near Tomburke to enter Botswana. The border crossing went smoothly. At the first campsite, a peacock enjoyed showing off his feathers and I enjoyed taking pictures of him :)
The roads in Botswana were the least boring. Either we were dodging potholes or we were dodging cattle, and occasionally an elephant... Picnic areas were scarce, but when we did find one, we tried to use it, lopsided benches or not.
We spent a night at a very quiet campsite in Nata, where the kids worked on school work and where we enjoyed the birds in the trees. At night, we finally spotted our first bush baby! It was so exciting. The bush baby was very curious, and so were we, which resulted in a few minutes of observing each other :) It is by far one of my favourite bush animals!
We spent a few days near Maun (Ma-oon) in this beautiful spot along the Boteti River.
Every afternoon we got hammered with a thunderstorm but luckily there was a big lapa for us to use.
We drove into Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta. That afternoon we did some household chores, which have to happen sometimes too during this trip. John lowered the tire pressure in preparation for the 4x4 driving we expect to do tomorrow.
We spent a whole day driving around the reserve, enjoying the animals we encountered and the bumpy roads we drove on. We also enjoyed 'Mama's Bread Bar' in the middle of it all! It was the only official picnic site we could find, but without fences and borders, it really was just a picnic in the wild.
We planned to stay three nights in the park, but during the second night it started to rain and it did not stop in the morning. Having driven into the park on a muddy bumpy road, we knew the most sensible thing to do was to drive out of the park and back to Maun before we would be trapped by flooded roads. It is the rainy season after all...
The road out was treacherous but with John's great 4x4 driving skills we made it out. Unfortunately I have no photos of the mud puddles we drove through as we were bumping up and down too much for a decent picture.
The car was dirty when we got back to Maun. John inflated the tires back to tar-road-pressure and then we found Galaxy Car Wash!
With a car cleaner than when we picked it up in Cape Town, we drove back to Drifters Lodge Campsite for another night.
Just before the border with Namibia, we found the most idyllic little campsite for the night. The owner warned us about hippos and crocodiles in the river and marsh beside us. As long as we did not go down the embankment of the river, the animals would not come UP the embankment of the river toward us....
That evening, just after Raija went to bed, the security guard called us over, telling us to bring a flash light... He pointed out an African Rock Python very close to our car! It was just a little one, about 2 meters long.... So much for warning us for hippos and crocs ;)
We are leaving Botswana behind. We have decided to skip Chobe National Park as it is the rainy season and most people we spoke to said a lot of roads were impassable and not many animals showed themselves, as the bushes have enough water and the animals do not need to go out to the waterholes.
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