"Real Africa"

During Mid-semster (yeah I keep wanting to call is Spring Break also) Break, Brenda and I head off on an 1800 km trek to the extreme NE corner of Botswana know as the Chobe District, after the River of that name.

It will take several posts for me to recount the highlights of that trip without boring you totally.

The trip is not without some degree of trepidation.  When I told a couple of faculty members, on two different occasions about our plan, they were very apprehensive.

"Your going with a group, aren't you?"

"Be very careful of animals.  Don't blow your car horn under any circumstances. I took a class on this."

But, we have  been cooped up in Gabs for the last two months, and one of my students had described the Chobe area as "Real Africa", so we had to go.

We had prepared.  I had fix-a-flat in the car along with jumper cables, 5 L of water, and a tow rope.  A travel agent friend told us to take plenty of cash because some petrol stations didn't accept any credit cards. A friend loaned us his GPS.

We were prepared as we could be, so we struck off at 0645 because everyone agreed driving at night in Chobe was just asking for a collision with an elephant.  The auto never wins these.

We made it the first day with limited issues, except for the horses, donkeys and cows that walked across the highway at will.  Elephants, no problem, cows- now there's a cause for concern.

Our first stop was at Elephant Sands.  We got there in time to do a "game drive" which is driving back roads looking for wildlife.  We were Blessed that our guide was the owner of the property, a 60 year old named Ben.  (That's also Inge, the Dutch lady who runs day-to-day ops).

Here's a couple of photos from our short game drive.

Here's our "chalet".

Brenda and I felt GREATLY Blessed by G^d.  We were finally in "Real Africa".

G^d is good indeed!