South Africa/Dubai Part 3: Botswana and Namibia

After Zimbabwe and Zambia, we took a taxi to our safari lodge at the Chobe Reserve in Botswana. When we first arrived in our room, I almost puked: it was covered in black beetles. Caton told me to suck it up and deal with it, but I couldn't...it was too gross. They were in our bed, under our pillows, in the mosquito nets....everywhere. We finally called housekeeping and complained. They sent in a housekeeping team to clean the whole room for us and we walked around the hotel while we waited. A few hours later, they were done and as we opened our door, I could see that instead of a beetle free room, there were actually twice the amount of beetles. More beetles. They were everywhere. Cleaning had done no good as there was apparently an infestation on the roof. Beetles were literally pouring into our room. I freaked out and refused to sleep in the room. After a few minutes of trying to find us a new room, they found a spare room that looked like it belonged to Motel 6 but was thankfully beetle-less. The next day they put us in a cleaner, newer room but for the whole entire stay, I couldn't stop itching and I expected beetles everywhere. Gross.

The safari rides were fantastic. We were at the start of the wet season in Botswana, and although the weather was cooler, the animals were harder to find. In the dry season, the animals gather around watering holes making them easy to locate. We drove around for a few hours each time we went out on the trucks but we were never disappointed: herds of elephants, hippos, impala, baboons, water buffalo, crocodiles, and a pride of lions (2 male, 3 female) that walked right up to our jeep. Amazing. 

We also took a boat across the Chobe river to Namibia. We walked in what seemed like 100 degree heat to local african village. We talked with a local woman there who had lived in her clay hut her whole life, but her children had left the village to go to school and now were doctors. Amazing. 

This shows you how close we were to the elephants.

These are called Chobe chickens. Love that name for some reason.



If you look closely, you can see a crocodile on the bank of the river in front of the elephant.

We were close to these lions. A little too close. I was nervous.

I grabbed this off of Rachel's camera. I think it's an accurate representation of how I looked 98% of the time on this trip.

Our safari lodge in Botswana.

Walking to a village in Namibia.

Buying some souvenirs.

I snapped this of a little girl who was hanging around us. That is some serious attitude.