There were a lot of elephants in Botswana. And spiders. Of all sorts and sizes. We were driving along the highway and something caught my eye on the side of the road and I saw a herd of about 40 elephants. It was unbelievable. And the worst part was that when I looked around the truck everyone else was alseep. So I was the only one to see it. It reminds me of when I was in Peru and we were driving to our starting point for the Inca trail early in the morning and suddenly in the middle of nowhere a marching band appeared walking down the side of the road (in full costume and with drums and everything). I looked at them in amazement and turned to share the moment with my fellow passengers only to see that they were all asleep. This is why I never sleep on buses! You miss all the good stuff.

Botswana was rainy. We went to the Okavanga Delta which is basically a big swamp with a national park around it and were paddled out there in mokoros (dug out canoes). Mine had a hole in it and kept taking in water but I made it there without getting eaten by a crocodile so it was ok in the end. That evening we went on a 3 hour hike through the Delta and went to the side of a marsh to check out some hippos. Our guide started making some sort of mating call or something to the hippos and they started snorting and growling and coming out of the water at us. For those of you who don't know, hippos are the most dangerous animal in Africa. They are vicious creatures. EVIL. So I was understandably terrified and ran away. I wasn't the only one. But we didn't get attacked. We just got soaked on the walk back to the camp. It was still raining the next day as we made our way back to our campsite in an open 4-wheel drive truck. It was a 2-hour drive that basically felt like someone was constantly throwing buckets of water on you while you went over huge potholes and through shallow rivers. At first it was fun, particularly because it felt like one of those amusement park rides where you pay a lot of money to get wet. But imagine being on one of those rides for 2 hours. And then all your stuff is soaked.

The next day we went to Chobe National Park and saw a LOT more elephants and some hippos (on a boat safari). Guess what happened then? It started to rain! Was the boat enclosed? NO! Then what happened? It started thundering and lightning. And we ran out of gas! I am serious. With crocs and hippos all around us we couldn't stop laughing at the dire situation. Luckily the captain found some more fuel and we made it back to the camp in one piece (albeit soaked).

OH BOTSWANA. Do you ever stop raining??