Day: June 12, 2019

After a quiet night we started our drive to Maun after a refreshing cold shower and a cup of hot coffee. A few buffalo grazed in the pastures near our campground, hippos grunted and springbok hopped across the road. Since we found paw prints around our car, we asked the staff if there were any cats around. She said yes, the lions were stalking the buffalo nearby. At Southgate, a few miles away, we saw several game drive vehicles pointing the way not far away to a lion with freshly killed buffalo.

Wow. He proudly guarded his prey and after some time started to continue eating. The “king of beasts” grabbed the huge dead buffalo by the neck and dragged it a bit further.

About 100 yards away was a second lion that must not have been doing well. The rangers told other tourists that the lions hunted in pairs and the one lion was probably injured by the buffalo. Wildlife pure! Since the roads outside the national park got better again, we arrived at our campsite at Old Bridge Backpackers already at 14:45. We met some very nice travelers. Claire and her son Joshua, South Africans, sleeping with their dog (and the second son, who was just on a mokoro boat tour) on a campsite further on, and traveling with a big overlander. And Chantal and Sven, two Germans we already met at Southgate, and who recommended Old Bridge to us. They are expected to finish their one year trip around the world in 2.5 weeks and we accordingly had a lot to talk about. We also had a good meal at the Old Bridge Backpackers Restaurant and sat on the terrace from where we could see hippos with baby and a big crocodile.

Silke

After the fright of the last night we didn’t sleep so well and at 6:30 a.m., after the sun had risen, we first went around the car in search of our tarp. A few monkeys and birds accompanied us. Many footprints of elephants, monkeys, cats? and us, we could recognize.

Unfortunately, the cover was nowhere to be found, so we are now “topless”. We took our clothesline as a backup.

Our way to Xakanaxa Camp was exclusively on unpaved roads, some of which rather resembled dirt roads with huge potholes. Giraffes, wildebeest, ibex and many elephants could be seen.

We were also greeted by a large gray toröö at today’s campsite, which we reached just before sunset at 5:45pm! Hopefully they will leave our tent alone tonight! We quickly made a few sandwiches and then climbed into our cave.

Silke

At about 23:00 o’clock we woke up by loud noises. A herd of several big elephants had surrounded our car with roof tent! They cracked branches and took our tent cover off the roof. It was swung around and eventually dragged along! They felt the tent walls with their trunks. One elephant put his head on the second packed roof tent and fiddled with our tent window. At times the car was really rocking. The creepiest part was the noises!

Fortunately, our tent remained intact. At the second tent the cover was damaged. After about 2 hours of grumbling, the spook was over. We did not find our cover even after a long search this morning.

Silke

We asked at the park entrance for free campsites in the national park. Savuti, our favorite, was booked out. In Linyanti, we snagged an overnight stay (100 USD).

The “roads” are rather deep sand dunes and for the 180 Km we needed 7 hours. On the last 20 Km we got stuck in the deep sand. Reiner left again air pressure from the tires. Two Botswana park employees, who just passed by with their truck (by the way, the only vehicle that met us on the last 100 km!) helped to shovel the wheels free.

They gave us the tip to take a parallel road in the bush, because there would not be so deep sand. The road would rather get worse. So we first had to go back 7 km and take a sneak path through the bushes to get to said path. Somewhere along the way a thick branch had wedged itself into the rear bumper and bent it a bit. Shortly after sunset we reached our destination, a campsite with no fence and a fabulous view!

Which, unfortunately, we could enjoy only briefly. We were not hungry anymore.

Silke