Tuesday 6 July - Livingstone to Elephant Sands

What an amazing day. Even at the end of our holiday things get better and better. We came through the border into Botswana without much of a problem.  The photo is of the ferry across the Zambezi River.  At Kazangulu on the Botswana side of the river we counted 63 big trucks waiting to get through customs. Some of those truckers wait there for days. What a life!

The road south was pretty good most of the way until we reached a place where there was some road re-construction. However, the detour was a better road than some that we've traveled on lately. We had decided to travel as far at Nata and overnight there. The Bradt guide gave us two options that appealed to us. The one, Elephant Sands Lodge is about 50 km before Nata and the other one is 10km south. We took a turn into Elephant Sands and the first thing we saw was an elephant slurping up the water in the swimming pool! This was definitely the place for us!!

We pitched our tent and went across to the lodge and met Bruce, the local microlight pilot who does flips over the pans in the area. We decided to treat ourselves to a flip for our anniversary. Mark went up first and he took the photos. When they came back it was my turn. I overcame my nervousness and thoroughly enjoyed my flight. How magnificent to get an aerial view of the bush, the pans and the animals. I saw literally hundreds of elephant. Wow! Also some buffalo, giraffe, impala and a warthog. But seeing the bush and the pans is an awesome sight. Each of us enjoyed a twenty minute flight and I must say I was relieved when we both landed safely.

As we were walking back to the lodge Mark said he heard a thump noise. We went across to the lodge and bought a beer each. A few minutes later a young guy came in and said, "I'm fine! we're both fine but the microlight isn't so good." What do you mean? The microlight just crash landed at the end of the runway!!! Oh my. What a shock but what a joy that no one was injured. Another miracle....

And here's a shot of the damage a few minutes after my flight. Eish!! I've always been a nervous flier. If this had happened while I was on it I would have died of heart attack!!!!