After breakfast we had Scott take us back to the plane.

I don't know what it is, but baboons had mistaken the wings on both planes that were parked at the strip as their toilet and left a big dump on the tip of the wing. It looked quite surreal. Luckily they had only been playing around and didn't do any real damage like breaking of aerials for instance.

After the compulsory overflying of our camp (and Poifus village) we tracked north along the western coast of Chiefs Island at low level. Then eastbound towards the north-eastern corner of the Okavango Delta. There was lot's of game to be seen from the air: Giraffes, elephants, buffalos, zebras, impalas, etc. Also from up here you really notice how lushly green the place is and that you only need to get half a mile or so away from the water of the delta before it all looks pretty dry, brown, and desert- like again.

The flight to Kasane brought us over the Chobe National Park. Halfways we passed Savuti which is renowned for it's large lion prides that have worked out a way to kill healthy and full grown elephants.

By 10 in the morning we had already reached our destination, the Chobe Safari Lodge, recommended to us by several independent travellers we had met.

Beeing a medium sized town and considered the 'capital' of this area you would assume that there are internet facilities in Kasane. There are indeed, but either the connections didn't work or the places were closed for the day. A bit like with avgas (and normal fuel for cars as well I presume): The presence of a station doesn't mean you get the juice.

Many things here in Botswana may not be cheap and some even outragously expensive, but guess what two big T-bone steaks cost. Not even BWP 20, which equals about USD 4. Now guess what we had that evening for dinner.

The sunset was spectacular. I took probably about 100 pictures ... and spent a considerable amount of time deleting most of them later again. That's the drawback with digital photography the way we do it - the time it takes separate the wheat from the chaff. If we wouldn't do it we'd come home with 10,000 pictures and would probably never look at them again since the majority is uninteresting (more or less duplicates, bad quality, etc.)

Bush Camp

Lodges in Botswana and in particular in the Okavango Delta are extremly pricey. The average price for the upmarket lodges is around USD 400 per person per day. Check out Abu's Camp, but make sure you sit down. Gunn's Camp is a little cheaper than most others, but still USD 400 for a double. We chose to pitch our own tent at Bush Camp, which actually is part of Gunn's Camp and located together with Semetsi Camp. This only costs USD 15 per night. Add 55/65 Pula for a two/three course dinner and 25 Pula for a small breakfast buffet - or bring your own food. In connection with the nice wildlife-viewing deck is a bar where you keep your own tab. On top of that there is a little swimming pool. All done very nicely and by far the cheapest option in the Delta. However, we never felt particularily welcome there. Possibly because it is run together with Semetsi Camp and those are the well paying customers which get first priority and all the smiles. We still would choose the same place again, but not for its hospitality or the atmosphere but rather the, in comparison to the other places in the Delta, extraordinary cost/benefit ratio ... and because they allowed us to fly in ourselves, which a few other places where we had requested this, didn't.

Activities in the Delta

Most people obviously go to the Okavango Delta to see game. That can be done from the wildlife-viewing deck, where you will see all kinds of birds, elephants, baboons and the like, but a lot more is to be seen if you go on a walk with a guide. At Bush Camp a guide is always a local person who will do two activities a day with you. Each activity lasts for about 2-3 hours. The morning one starts at 7'ish and the afternoon one at approx. 15.30 (while we were there anyway). A personal guide costs about USD 90/day, which we figured was quite reasonable. On top of that you tip him on average 20 Pulas per day.