Botswana: Happy Days!

Our first day was going to be the driving day of hell.  We set out around 4:30 am.  We were all pretty exhausted and the scenery wasn't that interesting, so most of us slept the day away.  There were some lockers at the back of the bus for us to put our valuables.  The problem was that when the bus would shake, some of the locks would get loose and the locker doors would pop open.  Sudden;y there was a loud smash and an overwhelming smell of vodka.  A nice bottle of Smirnoff bit the dust before we even crossed the border.  We had to pull over so that Innocent could clean up the glass.

Popped open locker and vodka glass clean up.

The scenery that day wasn't too exciting, but the cows were sure interested in us!

Tired, but very excited to be crossing the border!

Left-right: Andrea Murachelli (Italy) Kylie Howard (Canada), Me!, Spud (Ireland), Andrea Aegerter (Switzerland), Carillo (USA), Mary Frances (USA), Laura Thompson (Scotland), Katie Wright (UK), Henning Oberbeck (Germany), Naya Nord (Denmark), Georgina Anderson (UK), Willie Walsh (Ireland)

We were schooled by Innocent in the ways of getting through the border crossing with out getting your food confiscated: just leave out some food you don't want and they will feel like they did their job!

That evening, we arrived too late for our game drive, but no problem, we would just do it in the morning.

First night at camp.

We were told that there is a black rhino roaming the sanctuary.  It was hand raised, so it tends to get closer to people than the other rhinos do.  We were warned to take a buddy over to the bathrooms at night in case something happened to us.  There was an odd number of us, 13, so I had no tent partner.

That night, as I lay alone in my tent, I could here some funny noises close by.  I had no clue what a rhino sounds like since I never heard once before.  I was petrified at the thought of the black rhino being right outside my tent ready to trample me at any moment.  Later, I realized that the ominous grunting noises I was hearing was actually just one of the guys snoring in the next tent over.  Whew!