Luxury in the Bush

It's been a little while since I had internet access, so I thought I'd better catch up a little. After the Chobe Safari Lodge (which I highly recommend...but save at least a couple of days here to enjoy the amenities!), Nicci, Cody, and I headed into the Okavango Delta for 3 nights. Let me tell you that they do not leave out even the smallest bit of detail. We were transfered from lodge to the Kasane Airstrip where we were met with our own charter flight! Well, it was our own for the first bit of the flight before picking up 2 others at another random airstrip. It took just a couple of hours to get to the Moremi Game Reserve, but we had some in-flight entertainment by flying over Chobe Nat'l Park and watching all the hippos and elephants down below.

It was here that we met our awesome guide, Oats (spelled Oaites). This guy was kick-ass!! We immediated went on a game drive on the way to our camp at Hatab.

This place is a mixed savannah with lots of grasslands and water all around us. For lunch, we stopped off by some water to watch the elephants all around us. We couldn't believe the spread that Oats pulled out for us in the bush. It was complete with tablecloth and all! We learned about all the birds around us, even the Gray Lourie called the "Go Away Bird". This bird makes a noise that warns all the animals around that there is danger. It was easy to start to immitate this bird, and pretty soon we kept making the call ourselves all the time. Here, though, we had a little encounter with the wildlife. One of the elephants that was hanging around decided to come closer for a look...that was all fine and dandy until our guide noticed the body language of the elephant change. Oats immediately got bigger and made noise to shoo away the elephant. Whew! That made us remember where we were.

We saw tons of animals like vervet monkeys, impalas, elephants, giraffe...and tons of birds like fish eagles and lilac-breasted rollers. Although were on the lookout, the lions were being elusive, and we didn't get to see any leopards here either. Luckily, Code was able to get a photo of the leopard we saw before we left Chobe.

Before we made it to camp, we had the fortune to see a couple of Wild Dogs!! Our guide said that there are few wild dogs left, so we were lucky! Nicci and Cody's luck is rubbing off on me now.

When we finally got to camp, we were greeted by our staff in style! Paraffin lamps were set out to create an ambiance plus there was a fire and our own bar in the bush!

My tent had a very comfy bed (complete with hot water bottle) and the bathroom that they created for each of us was even bigger than my tent! It had a pit toilet, shower, sink, etc. Not too shabby. ;-)

I was lulled to sleep the the deep laugh the the hippos off in the distance.