Hello, I cannot catch up with the events. I have been away for the weekend again and not even finished my report from my last trip. Our next stop was in Chobe National Park at the northern Botswana border. There is abundant wildlife! We went on a tour with fairly large, busy river boats and we saw everything we could wish for. Literally, as soon as someone said "we have not seen a lion yet" there was a lioness with 4 young ones and after such a wish also a single giraffe appeared at the riverbank. We saw hippos very close, lazy crocodiles, buffalos, waterbuck and lots of elephants. When they cross the river they just walk on the ground and if it is deep only the tip of theit nose is above the water, although they can swim. This was a really amazing trip, we did not know what to watch and where to look first. We also saw open-billed stork, heron, shag, fish eagle, marabu, darter and last not least a beautiful sunset over the water. I am glad I have a digital camera now so I can just try the photos and discard the bad ones.
On our drive to Livingstone we saw a lot of ground hornbills, black, 1m high birds which are apparently very rare. Another rare species I found at a camp just outside Livingstone: someone parked a Trabbi at the roadside as advertisement for a camp with a German owner! I did not expect to see this in Southern Africa!
The Victoria Falls ARE impressing. Although we arrived in the dry season water was still roaring down the cliffs at a width of 1,5km! The mist came up to the high walkway opposite the falls. Down at the riverside the vegetation finally looked like I imagined all the area of north Namibia and Botswana: like a jungle with palms, parasite plants, monkeys ... I wanted to go on a half day elephant ride, but they were unfortunately fully booked. So I went horse riding instead and afterwards visited the museum. It is not as boring as some of you may think, there are a few exhibitions about local history, culture, flora and fauna, not just about Livingstone. I was really touched by some vodo-like figures used to cause misfortune. Apart from that, Livingstone is not really worth the word "town". I bought myself a nice red an rainbow couloured light dress, made in Taiwan - never mind.
Next day we started our long drive back - 1500km in 2 days in burning heat without air conditioning. We were now only 3 people in the car and so had space to stretch out and sleep, but I felt pity with our driver.
