09 August: Okavango Delta to Maun

This morning we had a bit of a lie-in, since we were doing a self-drive stay at Sango Safari Camp (A), we had no activities to get up and out of bed for at 6am (although, just a warning, when you're sleeping in tents, luxury or not, everyone else in the tents next to yours will wake you up anyway :P).

It was quite lovely. We ordered hot-water buckets for the outdoor showers and had a relaxed breakfast before setting off.

We entered Moremi at North Gate and headed East in the hopes of seeing the Leopard with it's kill that everyone was talking about. Sadly (as is my luck since as good as I usually am at seeing wildlife, I've never seen a leopard in the wild) by the time we got there, apparently it had moved (considering the number of tourist vehicles we saw heading back from where it had been, who can be surprised?). So we drove around there a bit more, saw some more elephant (I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this trip we'd seen every single elephant living in Botswana!). Then we headed back to the gate and took the road West to Hippo Pools (B).



Sadly we couldn't take the route we wanted (to South Gate via Third Bridge) because the roads were flooded. But we did enjoy this detour, although there were only more elephant, 6 sleeping hippo and plenty of buck to see. And then it was back to the North Gate-South Gate road which we took straight down to the exit.





We'd booked into Kaziikini Campsite for 2 nights, to give us a nearby spot to explore Moremi from. I think we lasted 3hrs there ... We made ourselves some lunch. The Trucker had a snooze. I had a shower (very outdoor and communal). And then we decided this was not for us. By this stage our ice bricks had long ago melted and we were sort of under the impression we'd be able to get meals and whatever we needed here, but I don't think we could've. And I think the driving was beginning to take it's toll.

So we headed back to Maun (C) (keep in mind after packing up we left Kaziikini at about 5pm). Took the rental car back and headed off in search of somewhere to sleep. Maun was full! But we met the most helpful woman (Kirsty) at the Okavango River Lodge (our 2nd attempt to find somewhere to sleep).

She phoned around and saved us the drive. We spoke to her about what our options for the next day were ... and we ended up deciding to stay right there. We had to pitch our tent in their campsite for tonight, but they had a room for us for tomorrow.

And we booked in for a full day's Mokoro trip for tomorrow too :) A restful day with no driving. So we went and set up our tent and came back for some dinner. Cheese burgers must've been the meal of the trip - haha.