The Okavango Delta

By 7:30am we were packed up and back on the road, I think everyone was awake early from the herd of impala crashing through our campsite at 4am. We have another 600km drive ahead of us today to match the 600km drive from yesterday, but after today the majority of our drives will be short.
For the past 2000km the scenery hasn’t changed, short trees and bushes and grassland, to drive through it is utterly boring but as soon as you leave the road you are in wild animal territory and could see anything from a ground squirrel to a lion.
300km into the drive we came across a dead cow at the side of the road with more than 100 vultures eating it, there were also storks and yellow backed kites it was quite a spectacular sight. Then another 100km in and Pieter saw a chameleon at the side of the road, so stopped and picked it up and gave it to Ellie to hold in the car which obviously she loved. The chameleon wanted to be up high so sat on her head for the next 10km until we found a safe place to stop and put him in the trees away from the road.
Another 20km down the road and Pieter spotted a snake on the edge of the road, A Mamba, and one of the deadliest snakes in the world. It almost looked dead to us but Pieter said that’s what they do and if we got out to check it, it would probably get us.
A little while after that we came into the town of Ghanzi and stopped at a hotel called the Kalahari Lodge, one of the first ever and oldest game lodges in Botswana, for a large buffet breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, hash browns and beans. It was well needed.
Back on the road we carried on driving and came into the Ocavango Delta area of Botswana vans finally the scenery started to change and we came into a little town where Pieter and Hilda could get more supplies.Unfortunately they chose to do it in the heaviest rain and thunderstorms we had, had since we got here and got drenched.
600km in and we finally came to our campsite, the island safari lodge and we’re the only ones here. We have use of a swimming pool, hot showers, a restaurant and they’ve opened the bar for us which has WiFi so upon arrival everybody went straight in there for a drink and there was silence while we entered the matrix.
Back at camp Pieter made us a lovely stir fry cooked for the first time on the gas stove, and we all sat under a stretched tarpaulin ate our dinner before heading to our tents at 9:30pm.Read more