After saying good-bye to my sister and my brother in law and 600km of road we arrived at a beautiful river lodge where we unfortunately only stayed for one night – but we got the most out of it. We enjoyed the sunset with a local beer right at the river bench, then had dinner at the lodge and while having coffee we even got surprised by some owls passing by. They were living under the roof of the restaurant and the baby owls were just learning to fly.
After a refreshing night in the camper the boat for our private sunrise river cruise was already waiting. Sitting on the only two chairs, a blanket over our legs and a cup of hot coffee in our hand while cruising on this beautiful Okavango river felt so exclusive. We saw hippos, crocodiles and lots of water birds and at the end we drove to a little island to enjoy a close look at the famous Popa Falls.
After the cruise we had to leave this beautiful lodge and after another 400km of driving we arrived at our guesthouse in Kasane in Botswana.
The border crossing was easy but time consuming and it costs us our tomatoes as the Botswanans are afraid that tomatoes could carry the mouth and claw disease. But shortly after the border crossing we realized what differentiated Botswana from the other African countries we had traveled so far. The fact that there are no fences around the national parks. The animals are free to go everywhere they want and they live amongst the people there. We saw impalas and pumbas and when driving a bit further we even saw elephants right next to the main road. Unfortunately most cars didn’t stick to the max speed of 80 km/h and when we saw a car at the side of the road with a completely damaged front but no other car or an injured animal in sight we were quite convinced that this car must have hit an elephant. So sad!
We learned that elephant encounters aren’t rare at all and that the name of our guesthouse “elephant trail” is not just an invention but a hint that there are elephants passing by on a regular basis.
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