The Trip Home :(

I apologies for the late entry for the trip home, it was kind of a whirlwind and not really all the much exciting happened.

So I shall begin with our trip out of the Delta. We ended up waking with the sun, and hung out on the little porch that over looked the river. it was a nice relaxing way to end our trip. As we sat there enjoying the sounds of the birds watching the sun rise. I heard a lion roaring, then another joined in. It sounded so close, but lion roars can travel up to 3 km, so they were close but not in the bushes!

As we got ready to leave, we noticed there were HUNDREDS of ants on the bed! The whole time we'd been there we had not seen bugs in the bed! I think the ants woke up and decided that investigating the bed was a great idea! Thank goodness we were leaving that morning!

Our original pilot was the one to bring us back to Kasane. Same tiny little plane, this time a much bumpier ride. Once we got to Kasane, the rest of our luggage was suppose to arrive from Chobe Game Lodge, we did see our game driver... but no luggage. Thankfully it was coming with another vehicle with people who were catching the flight to Johannesburg as well.

The one thing I hate about traveling, is the waiting to just start travelling part. Every time we were sitting at an airport, I kept saying in my head the same saying I was told while at Cadet Camp "Hurry up and Wait", it was a big joke at camp that we were always in a rush to wait... I feel like that's what it's like to travel via plane.

Our flight was very uneventful to Johannesburg. Jonathan and I arrived at our hotel dressed in what we were wearing in the Delta. I had hiking shoes, army green shorts, a tank top on and hair I hadn't brushed in three days, when we got out of the car at the hotel I felt severely under dressed! We stayed at the Michelangelo in Nelson Mandela Square, it's pretty fancy!

We got to meet up with friends of ours that we had meet two years ago while traveling in Italy. That's one of the great things about doing the travel groups, you get to meet people from all over the world and if you want stay in contact with them, we still see and speak to a few of the people that we have meet.

The hotel was attached to a mall, we weren't being picked up until about 3pm, so after waking up at 5am we unpacked our luggage and repacked them again. By ten, we decided to see if we could extend our check out and wander around the mall. We gave up on the mall by 1pm and decided to just veg in the room until we got picked. Our flight out of Johannesburg was scheduled for 8pm, bu on our way to the airport it got delayed to 10:30pm. So as we got to the airport, ridiculously early as we checked in with our flight and checked our luggage (I had to pull out 1kg of stuff cause I was just over) the guy at the counter offered us tickets on the next flight, hotel and a voucher for SAA. Since, I was to be in for work Wednesday that was a no go.

We wandered around the airport forever! We managed to spend most of our Rand one some additional last minute curio things, we had to complete our Big Five things. While waiting for our already delayed flight, it got delayed again. Now our flight was at 11:30pm and we had only maybe an hour and a half of layover time before our next flight from Munich to Toronto. Thankfully there was no additional delays and we managed to get to Munich in time.

Thankfully, due to Jonathan's flight status we got upgraded to a premiere class, bigger seats, good food and the seats recline just that much more -not full lay down but good enough. I slept really well on the first flight and managed a good snooze on that second. However, with about two hours left in our flight, my stomach didn't feel well. I wasn't sure if I was just getting sick because I had been on the plane too long, if I was tired, or if I was going to be sick. Thankfully, while on the plane I didn't get sick. As we were standing in the line for customs I didn't think I'd make it, I thought I might be violently ill, but again I made... Once we hit the luggage pick up I had a great burp and I was like, Oh, was that it??

It was not. As we were in the cab on our way home, we were about 10 minutes away and I knew this was not going to be good. I cannot think of a day where I have been that sick. I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning. Instead of having a great afternoon of running around and getting stuff done and just unwinding... I was curled up in a ball being sick.

BUT, we're home! I'm better now, stomach is still not the happiest of campers but at least I'm not being sick anymore.

Jonathan and I still have TONS of photos to go through and will be posting them in the Gallery, so stay tuned for those! I think Jonathan is also planning a review of the places we stayed at.

Till the next adventure.
~Audrey

Last Lodge: a two day blog

We left the Chobe Game Lodge and headed out to the delta. We knew we had a very strict weight restriction for luggage and that it would be a smaller plane. However, I was unprepared for how small, it was literally had 8 seats, including the pilot. 

We had one other couple with us which we dropped off half way to our location. The runway was just a sand strip and a shed for a hanger. As we landed an elephant was crossing the end of the runway, thankfully not the middle. I asked the pilot what happens if animals are on the runway, he said that they either go around them or the pick up vehicle chases them off the strip. He did say that a zebra was hit once, and they lost the back axle on the plane, everyone was fine, with the exception to the plane and the zebra. 

As we got dropped off, we were loaded into a boat, after a windy way along the river we came to out island lodge! Sorry, no wifi or internet here (hence the late posting). 

It's a beautiful rustic lodge, we apparent got one of the better rooms with the view of the river. 

Our sunset ride was actually a canoe ride, I can't remember what it's called but it's basically a canoe. I'm not accustom to not paddling so it took me awhile to relax and enjoy the ride. 

Believe it or not, that's a full grown frog in the photo above. 

The lodge is run on a generator, so they shut off the power over night, which meant no a/c in the night! It wasn't too bad the first night, I managed to sleep through the night and didn't really want to get up! Haha. Although last night it got quite humid and the moon was telling me I should wake up! 

Our first full day we went for a long bush walk where we saw a bull elephant, a large number of baboons, numberlus birds and hippos in a small pond area. 

We had a relaxing afternoon,with nap and then headed out to the hippo pool for the evening. We saw three different pods of hippos and as we were heading back from watching them, one hippo decided that he wanted to chase the boat. He didn't get close, but it's kind of surprising how far out of the water the hippos can get for their size and they move quite quickly under ththe water!! Sadly I didn't get a video or photo of it but it was definitely something I'll remember.