Africa - Day 7

When we travel it’s not uncommon for us to spend a day apart, often as a way of ensuring we both get to do what we want to do. Today was one of those days.

Shanon went on a day trip back to Zimbabwe to check out Victoria Falls, and had a marvelous time. He thought that the US$20 entry fee was extremely worthwhile, considering he got to spend a number of hours wandering around the falls admiring them from a number of spectacular viewpoints. The falls were only at about 40% strength, but still impressive. They put Niagara Falls to complete and utter shame. He returned to the lodge with dozens of photos on his camera, and four new stamps in his passport.

I opted to stay in Botswana, which was a bit of a controversial decision. Other guests I talked to were horrified that I was missing out on the falls. But I don’t feel like I was missing out at all. I had a wonderful day too. I spent the morning in Kasane, using the internet and going to the supermarket. It was great mixing and mingling with the locals, and even though I have never stuck out quite so much before I felt more accepted than in many other places I’ve been to. It was nice to be able to wander around without being stared at or harassed.

I spent the first part of the afternoon lazing around reading magazines, but ended up getting distracted by all the animal activity going on right by my deck. There was the troop of about 30 vervet monkeys, with cute little baby monkeys playing on the grass. Amongst them was the group of banded mongoose from yesterday. And to top it all off was a crazy warthog who spent a lot of time chasing a mongoose. It was hilarious to watch as the mongoose led the warthog back and forth across the lawn, causing all the monkeys in their path to quickly jump up into the trees. I would of sat and watched forever, but eventually the monkeys started joining me on the deck and a freaky-looking one with a disfigured eye chased me back into the room.

At 3:30 I went on an afternoon game drive with a couple of American ladies, and a South African couple. It was a lot quieter than our first drive, but we saw some interesting animals such elephants, lions, and cute little baby impala. The Americans wanted to see a giraffe, so we went off in search for some, eventually getting a good look at a group of about 5 of them. We all enjoyed the drive, except for the South African lady. She was really sour and exclaimed to her husband that it had been a waste of time and that she wanted to cancel the drive they had booked for Saturday morning. He spent the whole drive back to the lodge trying (but failing) to convince her that it’s all down to luck as to what you see on a drive, and just because she was bored with this one doesn’t mean that she won’t see more exciting things on Friday. She’s lucky we didn’t throw her to the lions.