Our hosts here Maggie and Farley, are incredible, actually everyone is. From the singing welcome of the camp staff, to the phenomenally patient rangers they seem genuinely enthusiastic. A tough life in many ways though; their day starts earlier than ours and ends after we all toddle off to bed; it’s seven days a week and generally they work ten solid months of the year. Botswana is my favorite country of the three (South Africa, Botswana and Zambia) I have visited I think. Stable democratic system, leaders who have a history of working for their people, not just lining their own pockets and somehow or other they seem to have in the main part, avoided a lot of the racial/tribal tensions which plague so much of The rest of Africa. I asked Eric as he was giving us a history lesson while poling down the channels, how thought they’d managed that and he said he really didn’t know, “maybe just good luck, hard work and because we are nice people.” sounds like a good formula to me.
I think we all wish we had at least another day in Shinde but it is off to our next spot – Victoria Falls and Livingstone.