Our plane leaves at two today, so we did some last shopping, got some souvenirs and packed our bags. We had to be out of the lodge at eleven. It was a very rough deal to find a cab, but Lou did some
amazing negotiating and we went to the airport in what they here almost consider being a Jaguar. It was a long way back to Holland. We had enough time to think about everything we’ve seen and done
during this trip. And we look back with intense satisfaction and a big smile.
We slept in until 8:30 and had a nice breakfast at the campsite. We went into town to get some groceries and rented a bike (if you can call these things bikes, but all right). We cycled to the falls.
You pay $20 when you’re a tourist and $10 when you’re not, we felt discriminated. The Falls are amazing, so beautiful. You just can’t imagine that all this water is coming down, every day again
and again. We walked around for about three ours, we really enjoyed ourselves. This is a beautiful product of Mother Nature and a beautiful closure of our trip. After this visit to the largest
waterfalls in the world, we went for the largest Baobab of the world. They also call the Baobab the upside down tree, because it looks like the roots are on top. The Baobab tree is about 5 km from
the Victoria Falls. They warned us to get out of there before sunset, because the buffalo’s get active then, we love Africa! We were back at the lodge around four o’ clock where we chilled at the
pool. We got some pizza in the late afternoon, drank something at Explorers and went to bed. This is our last night in Africa. It’s amazing how soon this all went by. But what an experience!
Today we’re going rafting on the Zambezi River. We got up at half past six and packed our bags. We said goodbye to those who were up already and left to “Tree Ten” for breakfast, which is the
start of the Rafting day. We get some instructions about how to handle ourselves in certain situations. It sounds like we’re gonna die, if you hear all those things. We leave for the Zambezi in a
very old truck that doesn’t go faster than 60 km an hour. We get our life jacket, a helmet and a peddle and start on our way down to the Zambezi. It takes about half an hour to get to the
riverbanks, where the boats are already in the water. Our instructor is Penn and we’ll be rafting with five other people. Because rapid one to ten are still to rough to ride, we’ll be doing rapid
11 to 24. It was very cool!! Lou jumped out of the boat at the fastest rapid and Ceen joined him in the water a few rapids later. The Zambezi is very rough, and we almost flipped with the boat. We
had lots of fun! We arrived back in Victoria Falls at about 16:00. We got our bags and the key to our lodge. Yes! Doesn’t matter that there are spiders walking around, that there is only a bath
instead of a shower and that there are kakkerlakken (?!) enjoying the coolness of our fridge. We have normal beds!! We left for Explorers (local bar) at six, where we have dinner and watch the tape
of the rafting. After a few beers, we head back to the lodge and went to sleep.
At 6:00 we leave for our final destination; Vicoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We arrive in Victoria Falls at 9:00 and first visit Shearwater, where they show us a video of the activities you can do in
Victoria Falls. We decided to go Rafting on the Zambezi river tomorrow. The economy of Zimbabwe is very bad at the moment. You have to have Dollars to get around there. Problem is, you can’t get
them here! Not when you go to a bank anyway. When you walk the streets, people come up to you, asking if you have any dollars that you want to trade for ZIM Dollars. If you go the local bank, you get
850 ZIM for one American Dollar. If you buy them on the street you get 2000 ZIM for one dollar, it’s crazy! You have to be very careful of where you trade your dollars, there are lots of people who
just want to rob you. Lot’s of people want to sell you handmade things, elephants made out of wood or stone, drinks, ice creams, bananas (Lou was happy again), whatever you wanted. We walked around
a bit in Victoria Falls, took a first glimpse a the Falls from the bridge where also the border pass to Zambia is situated. Back at the campsite we enjoyed a nice swim in the pool. We went eating at
a very nice restaurant, where we also traded some American Dollars. We ran into some other people of the group and went to a local bar where we made some moves and had a few drinks. This is our last
night with the group, tomorrow some of them are leaving already. We will be staying in a lodge at the campsite for two more nights.
Up at 5:30 for our first game drive in Chobe National Park! This park looks really beautiful! Lot’s of water, many and I mean many Hippo’s. During the game drive we saw impala’s, kudu, puku,
buffalo, hippo’s, kingfishers, elephants, Chobe chickens, warthogs and many more. The game drive took three ours and was amazing!!! The surroundings here are absolutely stunning, we agree that
it’s much more beautiful than Etosha. We get back at the campsite about 9:00. There are monkeys everywhere! They’re stealing our banana’s (Lou isn’t happy about this) and walking around
between our tents, just like the warthogs. Never seen anything like this, so cool! In the afternoon we went for a swim and relaxed with a pizza. We went for a sunset boot cruise on the Chobe River.
We saw lots of hippo’s, elephants crossing the river, crocodiles, lizards, warthogs, buffalo’s, waterbok, baboons and the master of all birds; kingfisher. The trip took three ours before we got
to the main land. It was getting dark already and it got even darker when the power went down in the whole park. We had dinner with the sound of the generator on the background. Chobe Park is
amazing! We weren’t here long enough, that’s for sure!
We leave for Chobe National Park at 8:30. This will be our last long trip of our journey. We have to drive for about 700 km and that will take about all day. We arrived at the campsite about 19:00,
which was way too late. We put up our tents in the dark and got a beer at the bar. The park looks very modern, even in the dark. While we’re drinking our beer we’re looking out on the water,
beautiful! We’re so tired of the trip that we had dinner and went straigt to bed.
The next morning we slept in until 7:30 (jiiihaa!!). We packed our tents and went back to the main land with the mokoro's. Back on the campsite we put up our tents again (we’re gonna miss this when
we get home) and took a long hot shower. That afternoon we visited Maun and checked our mail. We had dinner at the restaurant of the campsite, drank some local beer and went to sleep.
We went on a game walk at 5:45. You have the biggest change of seeing any game, because the animals are still active. It was really nice, we saw lots of Giraffes running, you could feel the ground
shaking! Two male elephants in a fight, you could hear the sound of the tusks hitting each other. A game walk is so much cooler than a game drive, you’re just walking around, while there can be an
elephant or lion just footsteps away. We also saw some zebra’s and lion(tracks). The game walk took about three ours, very long time to walk on an empty stomach, the breakfast we had when we got
back, tasted very very good!! In the afternoon we headed for a place in the river where it’s a little deeper so you can take a swim (don’t think about the fact that there are hippo’s and
crocodile’s living in this same water). Ceen had a very handsome private poler called Lou, and he was very proud of himself that he kept up with the other polers. The water was refreshing and feels
good when you haven’t had a shower for two days. When we got back, Lou played some soccer with a few polers. It’s impressive to see these guys walking barefoot on this hard ground covered with
rocks and broken pieces of reed. The soccer ended in a tie and a Lou covered with dirt. At the end of the afternoon we went for a sunset cruise on the Okavango. At one point we ran into a hippo,
playing in the water. These animals are huge and very dangerous. You feel kind of fragile in a Mokoro, that’s really low on the water. The polers were very careful and registered every move of the
hippo. It was a beautiful sight, the hippo jumped out of the water several times. We were there for about twenty minutes, then turned around heading back to the camp. The sunset was a beautiful sight
from the Mokoro. We enjoying the last night in Okavango Delta, an unforgettable experience.
