Travels with Kathryn

The end is nigh… Well, nigh-ish. Last night was our last night in our tents, our last breakast and the last camping Mum intends to do for the rest of her life (direct quote everyone). The team came out to wave us off (and they really have earned their tips bless them) and we headed off for our last Issac led game drive.

We saw:

• Zebras.
• Buffalos.
• “Loads of impala as per usual” – although I should confess that at least I occasionally noted down that I had seen impalas, guinea fowl were just ignored.
• Jackal.
• Kudu.
• Egyptian goose (maybe this was the big goose I previously wrote down).
• Fish tail eagle.
• Honey badgers! This was the one animal that I had not seen and wanted to see. Now for the unintiated honey badgers are awesome, they are basically the chihuahua of the Savannah – they are vicious little creatures that will take on anything. Much famed in YouTube videos and Issac shared a story of one taking on a lion and winning (grabbing it by its delicate boy parts).
• Zebra.
• Jackal – confirmed as one of my favourites.
• Lions! – identified by suddenly seeing loads of jeeps, but they were really far away. We have seen them much closer and thus did not photograph.
• Fish eagle.
• Hippos.
• Elephants (in Namibia).
• Buffalo.
• Elephants (in Botswana).
• Giraffe.
• Steenbok.

My list then reads: “Elephants!, MORE elephants, SO MANY ELEPHANTS, HUZZAH.” Then giraffe. There were actually so many, we could not stop for them all – this made me both very excited, and very sad.

An excellent rounded off for the trip. We then exited via the Sedudu gate (named after the island don’t you know) where a very silly woman was posing on the bonnet of her jeep wearing the fakeist safari get-up I have ever seen. Celine and I made a point of getting into her background onroute to the toilet.

The change point was Kasane airport, not that any of us were flying out of it, but I think its large car par makes it an easy rendezvous point. The Swiss were driving to Victoria Falls (although strangely not together) and their transfers were waiting for them. It was weird to know that we were going to be on our own from here on out, and weird to be leaving Issac behind. Issac was amazing and I would heartily recommend Lewis Safaris to anyone planning a trip to Botswana. Another thing I would recommend is to not turn up one’s nose at “shared game drives” – there are actually plenty of advantages of having seven pairs of eyes rather than four (us plus the guide) and provided you have a window seat and everyone switches round and is respectful (which we did try to be) it all works well.

Our transfer arrived and we were whisked away to become lodge people. Well, lodges are delighful. We were greeted by Tebbie with the official welcome call of Botswana (no idea how to do it myself, but I did try) and we were escorted into reception which was a lodge with squishy chairs, an infinity pool and deck, a terrace overlooking the river and to Keith’s delight a fully stocked and continually maned bar (which even had a soft drink option that was not cola – huzzah for Fanta!). We were talked though the itinerary and we flagged by saying that we did want to go on our afternoon safari, but instead had BIG plans to do laundry, have showers, swims and rest. Yes, we became immediate lodge people.

After an interesting lunch of noodles and bolognaise, we officially checked in about 12 and these tents are something of an improvement – they even had air conditioning! Luxuriating in this luxuriousness it was time for a big sort out. As I have previously mentioned, I had brought a selection of very cheap sludge coloured clothes for this safari and most of it was not going home with me (as who wears sludge in real life?). A pile went in the bin, another pile went in a bag to be sent off to (complimentary) hotel laundry and I collected smalls from the old people do some of our own laundry – well, the FILTH that came out of these clothes was unbelievable. Much rinsing was required…

After such hard scrubbing, it was time for a quick scrub of self (more on this later) and then in the pool. Bliss.

I then had planned to use this afternoon to have a bath, and then (as we were back in the life of the wifi) to catch up on my blog. Spoiler alert, only the first past of the plan actually happened as I then fell asleep. Oops. However, the bath did happen and although I had showered everyday (promise) the water that came off me was a similar colour to what came out of our laundry. It has also taken many, many, many scrubs to get my toes to some semblance of cleanliness.

Now we were all refreshed and sparklingly clean, we felt very fancy when we had dinner that evening. We had been given then menu earlier and I had selected soup (over salad), steak and a jacket potato (over a pork chop, and swapping the pumpkin puree for the potato) and chocolate cake. You could tell there was electric lighting so I photographed it and it was all very tasty. Missing an ostritch shapped napkin perhaps?

And after such a busy day, it was time to get into my bed which was genuinely 2m wide under my air conditioner and I slept very, very well fully refreshed in time for our actual final day of safari-ing tomorrow. Bring it on.