Cool as all get out!!!!

Well, we are back from the wild at Chobe National Park and what an adventure it was...

I have so much to write about, I don't really know where to start. It was overall a very surreal experience. We drove over 11 hours through small villages, over roads that had no signs, no people, no nothing for hours. Thank God we had no problems. It was such a different driving experience than at home. The highway was a 2 lane road(one for each direction) all the way there. We went north, via Francistown to Nata to Kasane.. the 6 hours to Francistown was scattered with lots of villages comprised of mud huts, grass houses and a few bars. People sit under the sole tree in their yard and talk. There were families riding on buggies pulled by donkeys, a few gas stations and some overnight lodges. We drove behind a funeral procession, which was a huge amount of people stacked in the back of pickup trucks dressed in white.

We stayed in Nata after about a 7 hour drive, which is basically a bird sanctuary. It was quiet, beautiful and the place we lost out Ipod.... No more music for the rest of the drive there and back...We had our own huts and had our first date with malaria medicine and mosquito nets. Pretty cool.

The drive after that was eerie. No people, no villages, no nothing, except for an occassional pile of elephant dung on the highway. The landscape was flat, some green, large sprawling areas of bush, red dirt and an occassional baobab tree. Every so often there would be what they call a "lay-bye", which is essentially a tree and a garbage can( their version of a rest stop). It was beautiful. We arrived in Kasane and stayed in rondavels that were located steps away from the Chobe river. This sounds peaceful, but was very unnerving because along the river were signs telling you to watch your children... hippos, crocs and elephants come to graze here... There were large monitor lizards chilling out in front of Jacob, Kate and Celestes' hut, while in the middle of the night, I awoke to hippos eating outside our hut. Not your Holiday Inn Express. Oh yeah, and were attacked by a group of monkeys again(video to come). They basically took over the area and would let us back in our huts. Every day we took game drives (in our own truck) through the park, and then would venutre back out before the sun went down after Michelle was finished with her seminar.

Michelle and a colleague were in Kasane giving a conference to local health professionals on how to deal with AIDS patients. Apparently, Kasane is one of the worst affected towns in Botswana. It seemed to go well.

While she was in her conference, Celeste and I would pack all the kids in the truck and go 4X 4 ing through Chobe... Chobe is a must for anyone coming to Africa. If you have money to burn on flight, game drives, and lodging(which we all do), i highly recommend it. We were in the park for no more than 10 minutes and came across a group of 25 elephants walking the beach of the river. We saw herds and herds of buffalo, giraffe , all antelope types, crocs, tons of hippos and birds.

2 nights out of the week, we went on boat cruises through the park and were able to take in alot of the sights as well. the landscape of the place seemed desolate in some areas, and teeming with life in others. It was hot, dusty and littered with elephant pooh as far as the eye can see. I will put up a slide show and lots of video in the next few days. In the evening, we would have a "sundowner" , which is term for a evening cocktail, while sitting next to the river. During the drives, we were literally 15 feet away fro herds of elephant and were able to see a whole pack of lions wander down to the river... That was probably the highlight of the trip....

Aside from that, the hotels and swimming pools were great. we spent Thanksgiving by the Chobe River... I think Thanksgiving night was the night we saw the lions..

The people at the hotels were taken by our children(jude mostly). They were so nice and helpful... One of the reception workers walked with me to the grocery store and helped me shop while we talked about all the poverty and AIDS in the city. Not a light hearted discussion, but it made me realize that all the people(mostly white) come to vacation here and never get a sense of what is going on in these places. It made me grateful that we are living here and also made me feel as if I understood the situation a little bit more. Jacob and I took in a round of golf at the lodge, but I had to cut it short.. We had a caddy with us( at his request) who I paid the equivalent of 4 dollars to carry our bags. It wasn't the most relaxing round, the young boy who was from Zimbabwe told me about his poverty, that he hadn't eaten in 3 days, and asked if I could spare an American dollar(the American dollar is apparently worth a million zimbabwean dollars) . He was doing "piece jobs" (part time work) to make ends meet for his ailing mother and to get some food. If you are unaware of what is going on in Zimbabwe, basically the president has run the country into the ground. Due to sanctions, etc. there is no food, gas prices are sky high and people are desperate. They come to Botswana looking for work. Chobe is right on the border so it sees alot of Zimbabweans. As matter of fact, at the local gas station, we were waiting in line for 30 minutes while people filled their canisters to take back home and either sell or use the gas themselves. they come from miles and miles away for gas, and then head back home.

Anyway, The stories the boy was telling me were sad, honest and didn't help my short game. I quit after 6 holes, he asked to wash my car for 3 dollars, I found an American dollar to give him, and gave him some clothing.. The experience put things in perspective and made me feel guilty about staying in such a posh place.

Point is...... for the most part, life is hard here....

Back to the trip.... we are animal snobs.. we've seen it all and it was a great trip.. give me a day or two and the pics will be on the blog as well as lots of video... On the way back, we stayed at the Baylor AIDS Corps home in Francistown and capped off the trip watching "Lion King". The kids watched the beginning scene saying.... "we've seen that, we've seen that, we've seen that"

On the drive back, we encountered a few African rain storms(cool lightning), and a foot and mouth disease checkpoint. All of us had to get out, take off our shoes, put them on a pad of disinfectant, and then drive the truck through a pool of the disinfectant. Very strange.

Oh yeah, and we saw our first snakes.... I saw one by the pool side, a big green one that scared the hell out of the waitress.. I was in the pool, so no one saw that I peed my pants... Joking.. Or am I? Michelle saw a baby puff adder (one of the deadliest snakes in the world outside our room).

It was a successful trip. No one was swallowed whole by a wild animal or bitten by a deadly mosquito.. We saw the sites and it was truly an African experience.. Keep checking back for the photos and videos.. I hope everyone had a great holiday..

One other thing that came from this trip was the realization that we are really, really far from home. While i was waiting for Michelle to get out of the grocery store, we noticed a family of warthogs wandering the parking lot... It was at that point that I realized this was going to be a Thanksgiving like no other. I think the holiday, coupled with the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere, made us a bit homesick... Or maybe we were drunk from the constant scent of elephant dung.. I'm sure more stories from the week will come to me, but for now , that's it.. The kids have school for 2 more weeks and then we take off for our next adventure, the Indian Ocean.

Jacob had to go back to school today and perform a one man play he wrote, which was a fractured nursery rhyme, based on "Old King Cole." Jacob basically wrote this very witty comedy in which "old king cole" was replaced by "president Smush," which of course is a character based on our beloved president (who is not well liked here either...surprise, surprise)... Jacob wrote about the naked seals diving into the ocean looking for the presidents' lollipop, etc. It was pretty funny and well received by his teacher, who is a Bush- hater a as well.

All for now, it's good to be back in Gabs... The pics..... Elephant, a pool of 30 hippos waiting to eat us, chobe landscape, chobe sunset, and me waiting/ asking about gas