What to do with two days off?  This was our second and last rest day.
Since there was no possibility of rafting, I signed up for kayaking.
Peter joined me in that, and it was our guide, two regular tourists
and us.  I felt bad for the guide.  The others on the tour were an
overweight Frenchman and his girlfriend who was, let’s just say “very
delicate”.  For every three of our paddles they took ten.  The guide
was having a rough go of keeping us together.

We rode past hippos, keeping quiet so that they wouldn’t charge us.
Occasionally we slapped the paddle in the water to alert them to our
presence.  We didn’t want one to accidentally approach us.  Birds flew
overhead, and we drifted down the Zambezi, between Zambia and
Zimbabwe.  It turned out the others were only there for the half-day,
and so after lunch we were on our own.  We rode on and realized that
they time the whole trip for relaxed tourists, and so after a few
times of our guide catching up to us, getting us to slow down, we
chilled out and barely paddled the rest of the way.  The closer we got
to the falls, the faster the river anyhow. We drifted past elephants
grazing.  The guide told us of how animals sometimes get caught in the
current and get pulled over the falls.  He and many others once
dragged out a hippo and feasted on it afterwards.  We went past the
tourist area and he told us that last week, because of the height of
the river (it was at the highest point on record in ages), one of the
big paddle wheelers came off its moorage (I didn’t quite understand
how), and then started drifting down the river.  Someone saw it and
they jumped in a motorboat and chased it down the river, managing to
get it tied onto their boat.  Unfortunately the rope snapped and the
boat went over the falls.

Our guide also told us stories of Gnami-Gnami, the river god.  In the
‘50’s they built a dam, but Gnami-gnami got angry because his wife was
on the other side, and so he destroyed the dam to be with her.  When
they rebuilt the dam years later it lasted, because Gnami-Gnami had
rejoined his wife on the other side.

The next morning was very exciting!  The start of our penultimate
stage.  BOTSWANA!

It was an easy day.  Only 80km, a few hills, some headwinds, but such
a short day that it was barely noticeable.  We had to cross on a
ferry, and the line-up of trucks was unbelievable.  Trucks have to
wait for up to a week to get across the border.  Fortunately
overlanders get priority (they pay dearly for the privilege), and so
our trucks flitted past all of the frustrated truckers, the ones who
hadn’t gone off to visit their local prostitutes.

As you cross the border you can pick up handfuls of free condoms for
customs.  It is estimated that around 50% of children in Botswana are
born with AIDS.  It’s also one of the richest countries and most
stable countries in Africa, thanks to their post-colonial discovery of
diamonds.  Its dollar is doing better than the South African Rand.  We
were shocked to see streetlights.

Most of us signed up for an evening sea-fari, where we glided down the
river watching hippos, kudus, oryxes and many other antelope-like
creatures, and then we sat back and watched an elephant bathing and
eating, just meters in front of us.  The sunset was beautiful, and we
went to sleep listening to the sound of elephants, hippos and hyenas.
Some brave souls in our group were headed off the next day to do a
double-header.  310km!  They’re nuts.

The human ones in our group woke up the next morning to a simple 160km
ride. It was incredibly beautiful, but they had lied about the
tailwinds.  I rode the first half alone.  A troupe of baboons crossed
the road in front of me.  No matter how many times this happens, I’ve
never gotten jaded to it.  It’s so beautiful to see them nudging along
their young, slightly resembling school patrollers.  To my right I
heard a branch snap.  An elephant was eating breakfast.  That put me
on alert for the rest of the day, but until lunch the only animals I
saw were vultures.  Paul caught up to me at one point.  I had to laugh
because the night before he had lectured us all on the dangers of
elephants.  “Do not approach them, do not take any pictures if you
happen upon them at the roadside.”  Those were his words last night,
but this morning he came up to me telling me that he had had a pretty
huge adventure.  He passed by three elephants, right on the side of
the road.  He, of course, pulled out his camera, and the minute he got
the elephants in the frame, the bull’s ears started to rustle.  He
knew to get out of there, but it was to late, the elephant, and then
mama and kid started to charge him.  He was scared, but at the same
time was exhilarated by how cool it was, and started trying to take
picks over his shoulder.  When he almost lost control, he realized
what a stupid mistake he was making, put the camera in his pocket, and
jetted.

I rode through the tall grasses, looked at the distant acacia trees
which converged miles ahead into a forest, and then diverged once
again into tall grass fields.  When in the grass fields I thought
about what great lion territory this was, and when in the acacia trees
I thought of what great leopard terrain it was.  Millipedes and
beetles covered the road, and I would see the occasional flattened
snake, though nowhere near the amount I saw in Zambia.
I crossed into fields of millet, ripe red millet on the right, fresh
green millet on the left, making everything look like an impressionist
painting.

After lunch I joined up with John.  We chatted for ages, until we
heard a crack on our left.  It was a giraffe that we startled.  It ran
with us for quite a while, feet first and then the waving rebound of
its neck.

We stopped for a “coke stop”  which have now, thankfully, turned into
juice stops.  Not the wonderful Ethiopian style juice, but juice in
cans.  Since we have returned to “civilization” coke comes in
far-too-huge bottles (NAmerican size), out of plastic, not glass, and
juice is available in cans, not fresh squeezed.  I visited with
Ernest, and he told me about his third wife, who’s ashes he scattered
at Victoria Falls.  When he and his ex-girlfriend broke up, they threw
a singles dinner.  It was a five-course meal, and everyone was set up
in couples to make one of the courses together.  After a few platonic
dates with the woman he was set up with, he realized he was in love
with her.  “In my relationship with her I could have spent an hour, an
afternoon, a month or a year with her and it would never be too much.”
After Zambia there seem to be a lot of complaints about it being too
boring here, but I find it to be so beautiful.