Maun, part 1

Wow. So much to tell, so little time.

Me and Anna left the camp behind on Monday morning with the boat and mokoro fully packed with our gear, and did a full day's work around Seronga village which involved several interviews with the farmers and a few visits to the fields. It was getting late in the afternoon, and we'd just been to see a field recently raided by elephants. We were just about to turn back into the main road, and checked if there were any cars or donkies or cows coming from the left. None of the usual suspects were there this time, just two young bull elephants. It took me a second or two to process this information. ELEPHANTS!!! FINALLY!!!!! They'd just crossed the road right next to us and were heading back into the bushes. Anna quickly drove to the road so we could get a better view, I tried to pull my camera out (luckily all set up as I'd just done some filming) with my hands shaking like mad from the excitement, and the elephants stopping to check us out. It was a complete high, unlike anything I've experienced before. They were just beautiful, amazing animals, wondeful to look at. My first elephant sighting which I shall never forget!

That night we stayed in Seronga in Jen's little round house (Jen=American peace corp girl), and early in the morning the three of us, plus Jen's neighbour who wanted to get a lift, hit the road with Maun as our destination. Saw hundreds of elephant footprints on the way - they're really starting to come out and move around now, which'll hopefully means a lot more sightings.

We stopped in a croc farm on the way - I'd seen their leaflet where they advertised to rescue problem animals from the river etc, so I had a rosy image of them in my head as a kind of charity and a haven for crocodiles. Little did I know that a crocodile farm does exacty what it says on the package: they farm crocodiles, for meat and for skin. Eeewww!!! The babies were so cute, and there were hundreds of them crammed in a small space.

We made it to Maun in the late afternoon, got some groceries and settle's in at Anna's and Graham's Maun residence. I thoroughly enjoyed my lovely, hot, long shower and a cold Windhoek. We resisted the tempation of hitting the bars as we had a big night planned for the following night: Anna's friend's hen night.

Which didn't quite go to plan. We got all sorted the following day, got our zebra-themed outfits ready (for the hen is a zebra reseracher), had a boat, snacks and drinks organised for sundowners, restaurant booked, etc. We were missing just one thing: the actual hen. We'd been unable to get hold of her all day, but didn't get too worried as her husband-to-be had promised to get her back from the bush in time for the party. By five we were all ready to go, with our stripy tops on, when we finally got a phone call: they'd had a car breakdown. She wasn't going to make it back in time. We considred doing the hen night anyway, maybe dressing Jen up as the hen, me filming it, and Hattie (the bride-to-be) would get the DVD to watch. Or we could try and re-arrange everything for the following night. After some careful consideration and a lot of phone calls, we went with the second option. But we went out anyway just to have a little warm-up, which turned into a big warm-up, which meant we all had very sore heads in the following morning.

So it wasn't the best timing anyway, when Anna got a phone call from Ian, the retired South African hunter who lives near-ish our camp. An elephant had been shot that night in a field in Gunitsoga (our village), she'd run to the place where our boat was docked (i.e. across the lagoon from our camp), and died there. But she'd had two calves with her: one three-year old, one just a tiny baby. Who were waiting there, by the carcass - and they had to be rescued.

To be continued