Day 7.
Alfred cooked up some eggs, beans & bacon for breakfast and then we left Maun for the drive north to Elephants Sands. The road was flat and straight so the 400k's went pretty quickly. Saw a few ostriches from the road and stopped to take a few pic's on the way.



Arrived at Elephant Sands at about 2pm, had some salami and cheese sandwiches for lunch, set up the tents, then headed down to the elephant watering hole. Was quite a surreal experience, with the elephants coming in from the bush over the afternoon and getting a drink while keeping a close eye on us. At one stage there was about 20 elephants in the watering hole, and a couple started throwing mud onto their backs, and almost splattered us as well! The campsite was open to the elephants and apparently they came through a couple of years ago and demolished half the wooden buildings after a baby elephant got stuck in the swimming pool, so rebuilt with more sturdier concrete.

Anyway, some photo's from an amazing afternoon:
Down at the watering hole.


Up close and personal.


And even closer.


Nose up.


Having a flap.


Good sniff.


A Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill, a.k.a. the flying banana ccording to the locals.


Appetite for destruction.


Mud facial.


Little guy.


1.5 tusks.


Late to the party.


Convocation.


Stroll at dusk.


Greater Blue-eared Starlings.


Filling up.


Bath time.


Battle worn.


No need for a tele-photo for this shot.


Baby Ostriches.


Feels good!


Bit of a splash.


Straight Up.


Kudus getting a drink.


A couple more banana's.


Later in the evening we had a buffet dinner in the open air restaurant, with the waterhole and the elephants just over our shoulder!


Day 8.
After breakfast and packing up the tents, we headed off in the truck again to the Zimbabwe border. Saw some more elephants, giraffe's & 'painted' wild dogs (they have a cool pattern on their coats) on the way.







Was a bit of a treat to see these guys. Quite rare to see them in the wild, with only ~4000 spread across 13 countries.


Got to the border at about 11:30am and joined the queue to get our Zimbabwean visa. I paid extra for a double entry so I could hopefully crossover into Zambia while at Vic falls. After a lot of queuing we were finally on the road again to the of Victoria falls in Zimbabwe. Got their at about 2pm, and booked our activities for the next day. Everything is priced in US dollars, but no US coins so anything below a dollar is in South African Rand. Bought a burger for lunch for $6.50 so got $3 and 5 rand change. A local tried to sell me a bunch of old zimdollars so I bought a stack of the old notes including a 20 trillion dollar one for $5. After setting up the tents, we were picked up for the river cruise on the Zambezi. Was more of social cruise, as some of the guys were finishing the trip early, but got to see some wildlife too, like crocodiles, vultures, hippo's & elephants.



Got back to the campsite at 7pm and we went to the local restaurant for dinner. Had a local speciality, wild Warthog steak. Tasted more like beef then pork, and was actually pretty good.