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April 15, 2014.  We said goodbye this morning to our guides from Maun.  They are driving back to Maun to pick up their next group.  I'm sure they will make much better time since they don't have to stop as often as we wanted them to. 

That reminds me, while we were at the other camp, the two guides had to walk us to our tents each night.  This was to make sure there weren't some animals too close to us.  A couple of nights ago, "B-Man" was walking us to ours and I asked him to show us the Southern Cross because the clouds were broken and we could see the sky.  He pointed it out to us and it was brilliant.  Amazingly so.  We're in an area that has very little light pollution but even so, it was really cool. 

Last night, after the dancers, I asked him to do it again because some members of the group hadn't seen it.  Again, it was so bright.  I loved seeing it. 

So, we get in different vehicles today to go see Chobe National Park.  It became very apparent that the driver is just that.  A driver, not a guide.  Everything we saw today, one of the group spotted first and the driver could tell us what it was but nothing else about it.  We were spoiled by B-Man and Master. 

We only saw one elephant this morning.  It's the end of the rainy season so animals do not have to go to the river for water.  There are a lot of potholes, and ponds right now so they don't move around as much.  We did see a cape buffalo, which is one of the big five animals, so everyone was happy about that.  We also finally saw kudu.  The big males with large horns weren't very cooperative about standing and posing for pictures, though.  We saw a lot of hippos in the river, one group that had about 30, we estimated.  All eyes and ears looking at us. 

After about 3 hours, we returned to the "camp".  The camp is enclosed by fences so we can walk to our tents by ourselves.  It's quite dark though so we have to use flashlights to get around.  Last night, we heard elephants trumpet a lot.  Sounded like they were standing on the steps to our tent. Very close.  On the main road, there are a lot of signs about being a wildlife area and to be very cautious driving at night.  I guess, from the sounds of it.  And there was something that scratched around on the tent after dark but we never saw what it was.  No spiders, though, so I'm happy.  :)

This evening, we went for a boat cruise on the Chobe River.  Left the bank at 4 pm and had to be off the river by 6pm.  We saw large lizards, some birds that were like swallows on the banks, and we saw elephants swimming!!  I didn't know they did that!  There were some shallow islands in the river and from a distance it looked like large black lumps.  We thought they were hippos but when we got closer, a trunk appeared.  I was, and continue to be, amazed.  We watched them bring up large amounts of vegetation and eat it.  Then they started swimming back to the shore.  It was quite deep there and they don't move very fast, but swimming!  Wow!  Loved it.

We had to hurry to get off the river by 6 pm, but we saw a wonderful sunset from the water.  I will see if I can download some pictures of our trip.  Maybe now that I'm home where the connection is good, I can do that.

After dinner, which was a buffet out by the pool area, we had another group of dancers come for entertainment.  Beverly volunteered Gretchen to dance with them.  She was pretty good and loves to dance.