Day 3

After breakfast we drove to the Botswana border. The border is a river but there is no bridge. There is a long line of trucks waiting to be taken across one at a time on a flatbed boat. It then comes back with a truck wanting to cross into Zambia. Since they take 1 truck across at a time a trucker may have to wait a week to cross the border. We took a small boat across (as all people crossing on foot do) and got into a different van. This area is where the borders of 4 countries meet (Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia). All of them decided to construct bridge together, but after all the plans were made, Zimbabwe pulled out so they had to redo the plans to eliminate it. The bridge is now under construction, but it’s not likely to be completed before 2020, Driving through Botswana is quite different from Zambia. It is obvious that Botswana is economically in much better shape than Zambia. The first stop was at a resort lodge which was very high class. From there we took a small boat to a national park on the Choba river. We cruised around and saw many animals (omnipresent impalas, waterbucks, grazing hippos and a herd of elephants crossing the river) and a ton of birds. Then back to the lodge and a 10 minute ride to the airport. What a surprise. We thought the Kasani airport would be sparse. It was large, new, and magnificent. The 45 minute flight in a 13 passenger plane, with just our 4-person group, dropped us off on a concrete strip in the middle of nowhere. We then started a 3 hour trip through the savanna over dirt roads to the Linyanti tented camp on the Linyanti River. (Note, Tent is a euphuism. They are large wooden structures with canvas and screening on the sides). On the way we saw many different animals: hippos, elephants, antelopes, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, etc. At the camp we were greeted with a welcome song by the whole staff and shown to our tents. The tent was a very nice surprise – beautifully appointed and quite luxurious for a tent. Dinner was in the common dining area accompanied by sounds of the hippos. We were all so tired that we went back to our tents right after dinner. When it’s dark, we are not allowed to go by ourselves, a staff member has to take us because the camp is not fenced and there are many wild animals roaming around.