After a week and a half of processing, I finally have the time to sit down and share one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.
For spring break (mid-semester break here since it is summer) the ACM students, our professor, and his family, all traveled up to the northern part of the country. We were lucky enough to get to fly up there, so rather than a 7-8 hour bus ride, we had the luxury of an hour plane ride! Our first stop was in Maun. We arrived at our lodge/campsite and were quickly divided into tents. Now these were no ordinary tents, they were big enough to stand up in and we slept on cots with bedding and everything!
That night we were fed a very good dinner and prepared to go to an island in the Okavango Delta for the next couple of days.
To get to this island, we took mokoros. These were boats that were like a mix between canoes and gondolas. My tent and mokoro buddy was Elise Beckman, a fellow Forester studying abroad. Our poler, the person who basically rowed but used a big pole and pushed us along, was Paul. He was a young man from the village we took off from. Paul was very nice and I really think he enjoyed being with Elise and I because to pass the time away we sang any song that came into our heads. Paul sang along a bit too!
After arriving to our island, we had hours of siesta time before we went on a walking safari around the island. This first walking safari was a little uneventful, but I saw a beautiful sunset, some elephant dung, and hippo tracks. We returned to our campsite to eat dinner and go to bed. The next morning we woke up very early to venture off to another island for another walking safari. Now for this walk, I was with a guide name Best, and he really was the best. We saw herds of zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, and warthogs. I could not believe that I was walking around with these animals. I think it finally hit me that I was in Africa!
We returned to our island had lunch and more siesta time. We took a lovely boat mokoro ride before dinner and then enjoyed everyone’s company during dinner and for a little entertainment afterwards. The next morning we ventured back to the lodge.
Elise and I with giraffes!
Once at the lodge we were greeted with one of the best surprises in the entire world. Apparently they double booked our campsite, so we were upgraded to chalets and suites with bathrooms, big beds, and tvs FOR FREE! We were all very excited! After a long shower that was full of scrubbing off all the dirt I acquired in the past two days, we had a lovely meal and went to bed.
Our upgrade
Our next adventure was traveling to Moremi Game Reserve. This was a long drive and the sun was brutal in our safari cars. My left arms felt like it was on fire, but it never looked sun burnt. The pain was indescribable! Even though I was in pain, I saw so many incredible animals. We saw elephants, giraffes, a crocodile, and wild dogs (which are quite rare to see). We finally reached our campsite right before it was getting dark. We all immediately put on our bug repellent and long pants so we didn’t get eaten alive. We ate dinner and went to bed.
Wild dog sighting
The next morning we woke up and headed out on another game drive and saw some more animals like storks, cranes, jackals, and impalas. We then ventured off to Savuti. Now I was expecting this be a normal safari drive, but boy was I wrong. We ran into some issues along the way. The first being a huge puddle that my safari truck go stuck in. Now this wouldn’t have been that bad if we didn’t get stuck at a 45-degree angle with water being a foot away from my face. We were all ok and we got our truck out, but the other truck definitely had some fun taking pictures of us. The next issue was another puddle (more like a pond/lake). The other truck was going through and the truck stalled. We had to pull it out. We were running extremely late and our game drive within Savuti was more like a lion hunt because it was getting dark. I really wanted to see a lion, but unfortunately we did not. We arrived at our campsite, we ate, we heard hippos calling, and we went to bed.
On our final full day all together, we traveled to Chobe National Park. This park was huge and amazing. We ended up driving up to 55 elephants playing in the water. I saw Namibia and so many more elephants. There were breath taking views and huge trees. It was all unbelievable. After getting to our campsite, we went on one last game drive/search for lions. We saw a lot of animals, but no lions. I gave up on them and we went back to camp, ate dinner, had an elephant come into our campsite and hang out, and then went to bed.
Mama and her baby
On our way out of the campsite we saw something amazing…LIONS! FINALLLY! There were 3 lions just hanging out on the side of the trail. They were beautiful and calm. I loved them. We left the park on a great note and ventured into Kasane where we were all dropped off at our lodges.
Finally! A lion!
Elise, Emily, Kayla and I planned to stay at Thebe River Lodge and go to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe the next day. Our rooms were so nice and comfy! We got to take long showers, well mine was long because I had to get all the dirt off again. We ate dinner in the lodge restaurant and had drinks that night. We sat down and wanted to try the spring rolls for an appetizer. We thought these were normal small spring rolls, but to our surprise, these were spring burritos, like Chipotle size! They were good, but we each had one to ourselves. Then we ate our main course, which was ok and then we had milkshakes. We ordered everything before we had our spring rolls, so we just made ourselves look like big fatties.
The next day we went to Zombabwe. We were all very excited to be going to this country and seeing a wonder of the world, Victoria Falls. It was incredible! None of my pictures do it justice! We ended up getting soaked but it was so worth it. After seeing the falls, we were driven to te bridge that most people bungee jump off, don’t worry mom and dad, I kept both feet on the ground. But I did get to go into Zambia (without a passport stamp). I was able to hit 3 countries on the trip and I was very excited about that. From there we went and had lunch at Victoria Falls Hotel. This place was gorgeous! It was very old and gave off a little creepy colonial vibe, but the food was delicious and the view was spectacular. From there we went to a market where we were bombarded with sellers. It was a little to much for us, so we did not stay very long.
Me at the falls
We returned to Botswana and had a fun night in store for us. We were too lazy to try to go out for dinner so we went back to the lodge restaurant. On our way there we met some guys from Maun that were here for a cricket tournament. They were very nice and invited us to join them. They bought us drinks all night and we had a great time just chatting with them. They were all married or in serious relationships with girls back home so they weren’t hitting on us, a nice change! We ended up eating dinner with them, which consisted of pizza and KFC, and it was so good! We then had to get to bed to catch our 5:30am bus back to Gabs the next day.
We woke up at 4:00am so start the terrible day. The bus ride sucked! It was the worst 12 hours of my life! I don’t even want to talk about it.
Now I am back at University of Botswana starting my independent research project and writing papers. I am looking forward to my next trip to Durban, South Africa.
I have made my facebook album public so you can enjoy all my pictures!
My mid-semester break photos <---- click here to unleash the beauty!
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