It was another early start on our second morning in the Delta. Today was the day we had to ride the mokoros back to main land. Once again, Trevor yelled to us to wake up and one of the locals beat some sort of drum.
(Tentmates: me, Ketil, SarahCatherine)
We ate our breakfasts, the usual and some homemade biscuits Elroy made over the campfire, then pitched our tents and packed up our bags.
(Homemade bread for breakfast)
As we all packed up the utensils and food from breakfast, filling up the mokoros with all our crates and bags, someone spotted two elephants across the way. I ran to the shore of our campsite for a look. Sure enough, not too far from us, two male elephants were walking through the reeds, the morning sun hitting their backs and forming a glow above the water. This actually felt real. Yesterday we had gone out to find the animals in their natural habitats, but this time they had just walked right into our campsite.
(Elephants at 7am)
There I was, just finishing up breakfast and two elephants practically walked through the campsite!
We finished packing up the mokoros and then each pair rode with their previous polar again. SarahCatherine and I jumped into Peter’s mokoro, me in the back this time and her sitting up front, and enjoyed the early Botswanan sun.
(African Lily in the Okavango Delta. My new favorite scent.)
Heading down stream back to land, the ride was much faster and just as I settled in to take a nap, we were already back to land. SarahCatherine and I tipped Peter with some Pula, and the group took pictures with their polars and then together.
(Peter and I)
(Team Elephant and our polars)
Everyone helped pack up our safari truck and then hopped in once more. Trevor passed around Sprite and St. Louis (a locally brewed Botswanan beer) and we all sat back and relaxed for the hour ride from the Okavango Delta back to down town Maun.
In Maun we met up with Paul and our faithful truck, Shashe. The group unpacked the safari truck one last time and then loaded everything back into Shashe. We stretched our legs and made a run to the bottle store (liquor store), for the first time on the trip. Back on the bus we were joined by another guy, Jeff. Jeff had been on the Friday 2waytravel trip but got sick in the Delta and spent a night at the local hospital. On the bus, SarahCatherine, Colleen, and I found the cake we had bought on the first day of the trip. It wasn’t too dried out yet and there was still about half of it, so we ate the rest of the cake in one minute. For the short drive to our next camp we all played ‘Asshole’ of course, and this time Jeff joined in.
By mid afternoon, after driving through a particularly barren desert area and seeing a few bushfires, we arrived at Planet Baobab.
(Bush fire on the drive)
All around the campsite there were huge Baobab trees. They have the thickest trunks that go up so high before large branches come out of them, light brown and gray with no leaves.
(Baobab tree)
SarahCatherine and I snagged the best tent spot again, in the shade and right by the site’s sort of cabana where we all charged our cameras. After everyone set up their tents we headed over to the pool with our two coolers full of drinks. The pool area made me feel like I was really on a tropical vacation. There were comfortable beds along the sides, cabanas with roofs made of sticks, and a fountain in the water.
(Pool area)
(Fountain)
We all played around in the pool for a while, but it was quite cold, so we mostly lay by the edge in the sun. A little before dinner I took a shower. My first shower since the Delta, second on the entire trip. I put on fresh clothes and it felt so good to be clean. A few of us took a walk around the camp before it became dark. We saw Baobab huts where people could stay, and toured around the camp restaurant and bar. Right outside of the restaurant there were couches made out of cement but painted to look real, and inside the restaurant and bar the lights in the ceiling were decorated with empty beer bottles.
(Cement couches)
(Black Label light)
We made our way back to camp just as it got really dark, and helped ourselves to a dinner of beef stew and rice.
After dinner Paul and Trevor collected wood and we made a fire. Everyone sat around the fire and we played a game. Everyone had to write down two questions and put them in a hat. Then we passed the hat around the circle twice, each person picking up a question and then answering it. We made a rule that you could pass on a question once, choosing a different one. And so started the circle of trust, and later the truck of trust.
(campfire)
Then we played ten fingers, and SarahCatherine and I won… People started heading to bed around 10 pm. However, Ketil, Mike, Evan, Elroy, SarahCatherine, Colleen, Kylee, and I stayed up to play more games. First we went to the bar. They had a challenge that if you could climb up one of the poles in the bar, while carrying a beer, you could get the beer for free. The challenge ended at 10 pm, but Ketil tried it anyway, and succeeded.
(Ketil climbing the pole in the bar)
We played a round of ‘Asshole’ in the bar and then headed back to the cabana in the campsite. And so began the most interesting night of the entire trip, which ended at around 1:30 pm.
(Funniest night of the trip)
Enough said.
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