I am not happy.  I had a full page or two written when my computer decided to reconfigure windows and I lost it all.  AGGGGGHH.

We're in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  It's Wednesday, April 16th.  Let me get you up-to-date.

Thursday, April 10th, I'm in my room getting packed for our Friday flight to Johannesburg when the biggest beetle I have ever seen ran out of the bathroom and headed for my suitcase and backpack, both of which were open on the floor.  I'm dancing around panicked so I grabbed my closest weapon, my shoe, and proceeded to swat at it twice, hitting it once.  I couldn't see it so I didn't know where it went.  It runs back across the floor to the bathroom.  Stella came around her bed to see what the commotion was.  She said "turn on the bathroom light".  I'm thinking that will just make it run more but I turned on the light and it ran under the toilet.  We're trying to decide what to do about it when I picked up a heavy paper bag that I had gotten when I bought some souvenirs and put it on the floor thinking it might run in there.  It ran up on the side of it and sat there.  Stella picked up the bag, shook it off into the toilet and flushed it.  The next morning, Beverly told me that she had seen it running in the hallway on Wednesday on the floor below us.  Maybe we flushed the hotel pet.  We're not sure.

Friday, April 11th, we were up a little before 4 am to catch our 6 am flight.  This was a real test of my happy face because I am not a morning person in any way, shape or form.  Checking in was kind of a nightmare because they weigh all your carry on luggage as well as your checked bags.  I didn't have any trouble, but Beverly got a hardcore agent who made her repack and rearrange all her bags.  This held up the entire group.  I finally put some of her stuff in my carry on.  The flight was an hour and 50 minutes.  I sat next to a woman from South Africa who told me all about her life and experiences.

We had to retrieve our bags and then tote them all through the airport and recheck them for the flight to Maun (pronounced "Moan"), Botswana.  I cannot remember the last time I flew on a prop jet but that's what it was.  A 50 seater, that was loud and bumpy.  The overhead bins and under the seat space was so small I had to check my backpack. 

When we got to Maun, the outfitter told our guide that one of their two vehicles had broken down 18 kilometers away and they were trying to fix it.  Eleven of us got in the vehicle they had there while the other 8 waited for the next one.  This was the start of a bad situation that only got worse as the day went on.  We headed for the Okavango Delta for the mokoro ride.  Mokoros are fiberglass flat-bottomed boats that are poled along through the delta.  Two people to a boat, getting in one at a time.  Stella and I were in one, and Beverly and someone, I don't remember who, got in another one, as well as the rest of the group.  The seats were hard plastic ones, kind of like stadium seats, but were not fastened to the boat.  When Stella went to sit down, she just kept on going, ending up on her back with her feet in the air.  Kind of like a turtle.  I was standing there watching and wishing for a video camera.  It was just in slow motion, with her ending up looking at the sky.  We all howled at that, including her.  The guy who was going to "pole" us along and the guy from the next boat, hurried over and got her sitting upright again.  After that, they hung on to us so we didn't do the same thing.
That's my "I can't take Stella anywhere story" for the trip.  We have laughed and laughed over it.  She's a good sport about it and laughs too.

It was such a great time, riding along through Africa in an open vehicle on the way there, but clouds were threatening and our ride was cut a little short due to rain.  We were on the way back when we met the rest of the group in their mokoros.  We got rained on but they got drenched.  And the vehicle that the outfitter had scrounged up didn't have room for their luggage so it was coming later.  No one was able to get out dry clothes, which didn't help their mood any.  We waited at a lodge for awhile to let the rain drizzle out and then we were back in the vehicles to continue on to camp.  It was getting dark now and driving after dark in Botswana on back roads is really not allowed.  We stopped at another lodge to see if the luggage was going to show up so they could get dry.  No luck.  I had on my fleece jacket and was just a little damp.  Our driver put down the sides on the vehicle so we weren't getting rained on at all.  Anyway, to make along story short, we finally made it to the camp after 11 pm.  We were expected at 7pm.  It was a very long day, up for 20 hours before we made it to bed. 

I need to save and publish this so I don't lose it again.  More in a minute.