It's easy in Africa!

After our incredible Okavanga Delta trip, we arrived back to the clamour and the noise of the poling station and said our goodbyes to Mogale, GB and Mavis. It felt like we'd been privileged enough to share 3 wild, free days with them all and now it was back to 'human reality'. On the truck ride back we remembered the amazing animals we'd seen and how lucky we were to have shared such an intimate space with them. We didn't know if it was something we, or our children, would ever have the chance to repeat?

Back at Situtanga Camp, we gratefully had a shower and all three of us turned up in the bar looking like new people. A few beers and Daryl's bully beef rolls sorted us out for dinner and after repacking up camp we settled down for the night.

Our final leg of the journey with Daryl was up to Kasane, a town next to the Chobe National Park. Chobe is famous for its elephant population. However we didn't even have to get into Kasane to see them. Along the journey, we saw elephants, giraffe, wild dogs, sable and kudu by the roadside.

The journey was pretty eventful from inside the van too! At one point we had to get out and walk through an environmental control point, which the Botswana government had set up to contain the spread of foot and mouth. Daryl quickly told me to hide all the meat and fish from the cool box under my seat as the police would take it for themselves - and their dinner - even though have no need to confiscate it! We also listened to Daryl (understandably) cursing his way along the potholed road that was the only route to Kasane and the Zambian border. Thanks to Robert Mugabe, all of southern Africa's freight traffic had been diverted through Botswana and had to travel along this poor-excuse for a road. The pot holes were so frequent and dangerous that Daryl spent most of his time driving through the bush. To add insult to (possible) injury, Daryl got stung with a speeding ticket less than 2km from Kasane. The traffic cops didn't seem to care that Daryl had spent 3 hours bumping along their terrible roads at 20kph. Rather than pay the fine, Daryl agreed to check in at the police station the following day and then spent the whole of the time hiding from the local police! After setting up camp, Daryl whipped up a tasty dinner using the smuggled fish from Maun, cooked on the braai. We ate well and slept better!

The next morning, Daryl had lined up a morning game drive with the campsite. We would be joining a Dutch group and their driver. We quickly saw how unbelievably spoilt we had been with Daryl and his amazing enthusiasm and knowledge. This guy didn't seem to know anything about the animals, drove straight passed elephants and hippos that were practically posing by the side of the track and instead just chained smoked his way through the 3 hour trip. It was a real shame but we were at least armed with all the facts and tips that Daryl had equipped us with so managed to do our own spotting.

After the drive, Daryl had cooked up some breakfast and then we headed into Kasane to get some postcards and change money. He then took us to a posh resort where we pretended to be guests so we could sneak a beer in their classy bar! Back at camp we shared our lunch with some stray cats and a pack of mongooses, packed up our bags and prepared for the sunset cruise along the Chobe River. We only had one afternoon left with Daryl and couldn't believe the trip was coming to the end. But, just as he had laid on the sunrise at Mpumalunga at the start...so he had saved the best to last...

At 4pm, laden with a cool box of beers, we caught a bus to the Chobe river and boarded the boat that would take us on our sunset cruise. It was full of about 30 other tourists and Guy and I were worried it would be a repeat of the morning's game drive. But we had only been cruising for 10 minutes when we were spotting elephants, crocodiles, buffalo, hippos and scores of incredible water birds. The elephants naturally come to the river to drink and find fresh food and we enjoyed watching some bulls thrashing the grass to 'wash' their supper before eating it. We also saw the lazy hippos wallowing in the water waiting for the day to cool off before leaving the river. We watched a croc catch and tear apart a catfish before swallowing it down. We saw warthogs and buffalo lazing on the river banks. There were literally animals everywhere! Then, at a distance, we spotted a herd of about 60 elephants make their way along the river bank to drink. It was an awesome sight. The adults and babies played together in the mud, cooling off from the day, before guzzling litres of water to quench their thirst. It was so entertaining and we watched them for ages. But as everyone was absorbed in the herd, on the opposite side of the river Daryl had spotted four male elephants who were lining up to cross to the other bank. We turned the boat around and watched in awe as these enormous creatures dipped their toes into the water, before submerging themselves completely and then making the swim with their trunks held aloft like snorkels. It was an amazing sight and one I never imagined I would see. As if that wasn't enough, we were then treated to two of the bulls play-fighting in the water about 3 metres away from us. Words really aren't going to do this justice so you must look at our pictures online: http://gallery.me.com/guypattison

We finished the cruise so a startling and stunning sunset. It was the perfect way to end an incredible and hugely memorable trip. So if you're reading this Daryl...thank you so much! You taught us how to look, listen and learn and certainly made it 'easy in Africa' for us.