SarahCatherine, Colleen, Evan, Aaron, and I had planned to get up half an hour early on Thursday to do some yoga. This was not the case. We stayed up too late the night before, bonding, and missed the alarm going off. Along with everyone else we awoke at 6 am to Trevor’s voice. Like a routine engrained in our brains, everyone packed their bags and put them on the truck, took down their tent, packed the tents and poles away, and rolled up their sleeping pads. Once the truck was packed I enjoyed the usual breakfast of rusks and coffee, sitting with others around the empty fire pit. The sun began to rise behind the Baobab trees as we brushed our teeth and made one last visit to the bathrooms. Only a four-hour drive ahead of us!
On the drive we played a few card games, but everyone was exhausted and ended up napping, as did I. Lack of sleep was catching up to us. On the drive we made a pit stop by the other trip’s truck, which they had left on the side of the road, broken down. Bored waiting for Paul to look at the truck, Ketil and I tried to break open a Lalapalm nut. Elory handed us a hammer, and Ketil got to work hitting the nut against a rock.
(Ketil trying to break up the Lalapalm nut)
Only two hits with the hammer until a piece of the nut broke off and hit SarahCatherine in the face. Not quite what we were aiming to do with the nut and hammer, but a story just the same. For the rest of the trip SarahCatherine would have a little scab on her chin…from that time she got hit with a Lalapalm nut on the side of the road in Botswana.
(Ketil and SC after getting hit in the face)
The drive continued and we got to the Thebe River Safaris camping site by lunch, right outside of Chobe National Park.
Lunchtime was no fun, and probably the worst part of the trip. It was t-shirt planning time, when we got to design a trip t-shirt to remember the ten days. Today was the worst day to do this; everyone was sleep deprived and extremely cranky. As expected, the planning was a disaster and I was not a happy camper in regards to the result. But now we laugh about it, and looking at the t-shirt remember how horrible it was to design them, and how messed up the t-shirts ended up being. After the disaster of a lunch we had a bit of time to explore the campsite, and then it was off to the bottle store.
At the bottle store everyone purchased his or her alcohol for the game cruise on the Chobe River that night. I got a few local beers and ciders. At 3 pm we made our way to the dock, where we climbed aboard a large boat, joined by a few other travel groups, including the Southern Ambition trip that we always bumped into. At the start of the cruise everything was new to us. Boating down the Chobe River, the driver pointed out that while Botswana was on our left, Namibia was on our right!
(Botswana on the left, Namibia on the right)
He pointed out an island that both Botswana and Namibia claimed as their territory, and then continued to lead us down the river. Far far away we could see a herd of elephants by the water. Everyone leapt to their feet to squint through the sun and glimpse the lumps on land. Little did we know that we would literally be feet away from the elephants when we got close, and that we would continue to see elephants for the entire cruise.
(How close we thought we'd get to elephants)
For the next three hours, we took in a million sights of wild animals: more than 100 elephants, 14 giraffes, baboons, warthogs, hippos, 4 crocodiles, antelope, and water buffalo.
(Giraffes)
(Warthogs)
(Crocodile)
We witnessed a hippo opening its mouth out of the water, and watched a baby elephant run through a group of giraffes, trying to find its mother.
(Hippos)
(Elephant lost)
The elephants we saw were all covered in mud, which they used as sunscreen, our driver told us.
(Elephants wearing their sunscreen)
The cruise was amazing. Never in my life have a witnessed such beauty. We saw these wonderful animals in their natural habitats, while watching the sunset, glinting off the water and turning the sky into colors of pinks and yellows.
(Sunset)
(Sunset again)
I was in great company. This cruise brought us all so much closer, gabbing to each other, and drinking with each other as we witnessed incredible scenery and wildlife.
(Team Elephant)
The cruise ended as the sun finally went down, and we all clamored off the boat, exhausted from the sun on our faces the whole time and the continuous excitement of the ride.
(Post sunset/game cruise)
At dinner that night there was no denying how much we had bonded on the cruise. We wolfed down our chicken a la king and rice as we laughed about the day and recounted stories that had literally just happened that day. After dinner we blasted music in Shashe and danced in the truck until we blew out the speakers.
(Dance party in Shashe)
Then we all sat around in a circle and played another question game. This time, however, the question you whispered to the person next to you had to be a question that the person could answer by pointing to someone in the group. People headed to bed after the game, but I obviously stayed up once more, with a few other people, and played ‘Asshole’ until a little before midnight. The next morning was an early morning game drive, and we actually needed sleep.
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