Sorry for any repeats on photos-it is hard to remember which ones I have done since I can't see the old ones when I am writing a new post. At Baobob, we had to be out of the park promptly at 7 or they locked us in. I think we thought they were kidding but we gathered later that they were not. Shortly before time to exit, someone reported a sighting of the wild dogs that are almost extinct now. So we raced off to see if we could see them-which we did, but oh what a wild ride it was! There were four of them and it was almost dark so we were not able to get any good photos but it was really special as we did not expect to see those. We raced to get there over the bumpy roads but we raced even faster to get to the gate before 7 PM. We made it at 7:01 but it was so wild that Jim and I had to hold on to the railing in front of us with both hands since we were on the back seat which is bumpier anyway! It was quite exciting and I was amazed that Jim's back withstood it, but he did far better than we ever thought he would. One afternoon, two ladies from a nearby village came and demonstated how they make the baskets from the grasses and all. They were so pretty and it was really amazing to see them do it. We got a chance to do a little and it made us appreciate what a talent it is to make them. They make up the designs themselves and pass them down from one generation to the next. One afternoon we went on a Chobe river cruise and it was such a different perspective on things. We saw hippos grazing out of the water and a huge herd of elephants with babies and all sizes drinking and playing in the water. We saw all of the animals we'd been seeing on land but from the water, we were closer to some for the first time, especially the large numbers. The zebras are migrating this time of year so they were everywhere. We joked about being ho-hum about impalas, zebra, warthogs, etc right away since we saw them so often. How spoiled we became! At the end of the cruise, we were able to spend about 30 minutes in the town of Kasane where the cruise ended-we could use the internet (incredibly slow) or shop or whatever. We all wished we had had a little more time there. It is an interesting experience to be so far from all communication, news, no tv or radio or phones etc. The baboons near the camp were a constant source of fun to watch. One morning we heard a commotion and looked out and saw two of the guides chasing down toward the baboons. They were picking up rocks and throwing them at them and we could not figure what was going on. It turns out that the papa baboon had come into the lodge area and stolen a sofa pillow to give to his baby to rest on! The baby was up a tree and dropped the cushion finally when the guides were throwing the rocks and they were able to recover it. The papa also tried to come in and steal some breakfast. Every now and then, the baboons would come out of the trees like ants-all at one time-not sure what was going on with that but it was an amazing sight as there were just so many of them.
On one of our drives, the vehicle would not start and we had to get out and push-well, actually, I took the photo of the others pushing but it was a joint effort! It worked and it started.
Our last night at Baobob was pretty quiet except for one baboon fight during the night. We got to sleep a little later this morning since we would be flying to the next camp. We flew out of the Kasane airport which is tiny but actually has paved runways so it was nice to start that way anyway. With our group being so small, we were able to fly in one plane for the first three flights. It was a 12 passenger plane and I might have thought that was small at one time but now that I know what a 5 passenger plane is like, it really seemed quite large! As most of you know, I don't like to fly anyway but small planes especially are scary to me. But I knew that when we signed up for the trip and I was determined to shut my eyes and do it and I did surprisingly well, as you can tell from my photo.... From the air you could look down and see the elephants and animals near some of the water holes and that was sort of neat-when I opened my eyes.... It was about a 50 minute flight. We landed on a dirt runway and had to walk down a path for about 15-20 minutes to get to the edge of the water where we got in a motor boat to go to our next camp. It is accessible only by boat...to be continued
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