Day 13

We decided to forego the morning drive (5:30 am wakeup) in favor of sleeping in. We got up at 7:45 and had a leisurely morning of packing, organizing and watching the scenery from our tree house. We joined Lets and Ray for brunch at 10:30, and found out that they were able to locate a cheetah with a cub so Bo felt a little sorry she missed the drive. At 11:10 we left for the Tubu airstrip for our 11:30 flight to Maun. 30 minutes later we arrived at the Maun airport, which is supposedly the busiest airport in Botswana and second busiest (after Johannesburg) in southern Africa. Unfortunately, it is a tiny place (nothing like the modern Kasani airport) that can hardly accommodate the crowds. We said goodbye to Lets and Ray and proceeded to immigration and customs. There is only one small waiting room for all departing flights so many people had no place to sit. Our flight was delayed by about 30 min, but we made it to Johannesburg in plenty of time for our next flight. The Johannesburg airport is another story, probably one of the most inefficient airports in the world. It took us over an hour in two very long lines to get through the transit pathway to our London gate. Bo didn’t have enough time for shopping, and there is fantastic shopping for African goods at this airport. The 11-hour flight to London was uneventful. Heathrow transit was efficient, and the flight to LAX was also good except that after we landed they kept us on the tarmac for 45 min because there was no gate available. In summary, we are very happy we can cross this experience off the bucket list. It was quite unique among all our travels. Animal sightings were fantastic. We saw: Thousands of impala Hundreds of elephants Dozens of: zebras, giraffes warthogs, antelopes (kudu, red lechwe, waterbuck, bushback, roan, tsetsebe, springbok), wildebeests, buffalos, baboons, Smaller number: monkeys, honey badger, African wild cat, wild dogs, leopards, rhinos, hippos, mongoose, jackals, hyenas, crocodiles, Angola red frogs. And a multitude of various big and small birds, including fishing eagles, tawny eagles, fishing owls, vultures, and others whose names we don’t remember.