After an amazing day with the elephants, we had left any further expectations of the Delta at the door…imaginary door…there are not doors or gates. But our subsequent game drives included: hyenas including their babies as we raided their den after dark…while they chewed on the front of the vehicle (we assume the Japanese at Toyota have designed hyena chewing in), more giraffes, heaps (the correct collective noun) of zebra, ostrich, a showing-off fish eagle and three wild dogs that our guide found in between a split “group” of those ever evasive impala (after he asked if we minded if we drove through the bush for a look and I made sure not to ask if he was barking up the wrong bush…) who we followed for about 25 minutes.
Oh, and while we watched the dogs, we heard the impressive sounds of lion in the distance and then spent a couple of hours tracking them down with no success. Apart from when we found a pride of 19 just lion around! I promise we ain’t lion (there you go Mum, two for you). You spend so much time looking for them, then once you’re several inches away…you’re ready to leave!!!! Thankfully, despite it being early afternoon, they were quite dozy….I somehow had the impression that in the jungle, the lions sleep at night…unless that’s just the mighty jungle.

At dinner, our chicken loving guide almost had us as he offered up the pre-eating sentiment of “ba boonup a tree”… Welcome to Africa, the birthplace of sarcasm…only fair, his name is Adam.

Anyway, it’s tough to imagine a better lion viewing experience. In fact the last Pride we saw on this scale was a parade in Hyde Park with lots more rainbows. I’m still not sure which was more scary. Either way, in both cases it’s good to always remember they’re more scared of you than you are of them.

(NB: most of the above was written under extreme intoxication…when Stewarts read “all drinks included” things can go terribly awry. I realise now how I must appear when inebriated and the only thing to do is apologise to the female of the species in general…and also for the horribly unfunny, self-indulgent travel blogs…)

Here we get the awful part this blog’s titled for. Or for which this blog is titled, if you’re the grammar police, of whom we know not one.

Unfortunately my poor, beautiful wife is of course a Scorpio. But lucky that she is, these weird and wonderful people seem to have somewhat of a tolerance to being stung in the face. Except that the tolerance they have is in fact zero. After a lovely swim and an incredible day, Lea was offered first shower by her caring, considerate, lovely husband. Completely unaware the towels were set up for a game of pass the parcel with a scorpion as the main prize…until, of course, hearing the screaming from the “bathroom” and seeing a somewhat squashed attacker in Lea’s towel…along with seeing sheer terror elsewhere.

Lea has always been the protector against the little terrors, but she’s never taken it to the extreme of using her beautiful face to end their annoying lives.

A (this) husband may tend to overreact to such things as he took the dead beast to the staff (as directed by the possibly dying wife, who still in control of a horrendous situation)…however, the overreaction seems justified as the camp manager came sprinting from his office and ran straight towards our tent…clearly not as hindered by just wearing a dressing gown as some of us were.

My brave traveler, not brave enough to be dragged naked through the camp by her cohabiting panic monkey, was left in too much pain to be able to go on her much awaited mokoro trip as the lovely manager fed her full of pain killers and antibiotics…and James full of gin. She did agree, for some reason, to go on a late, short game drive where all we saw was rain bucketing in to her face for an hour. Lucky we could think of the old saying when you’re hurt of, “just chuck some African water on it and you’ll be sweet as…eeeh rrra?”  We did actually see a little hare, who was getting ready to deliver chocolates the next day…Yay we saw a rabbit…

18 hours of facial paralysis later, Lea still agreed to go on the morning drive. And thanks to her pain tolerance we were able to track and finally find a leopard, although a brief glimpse the whole experience is what makes off track seafaring in the Delta truly incredible.

Not long post leopard, Lea’s facial paralysis was soon put in perspective on out flight from Timbukthree to Foknoosweir, as about half way through the second leg we plummeted ~100ft in half a second, nose first. Long enough to think “I knew I was going to die in Africa”, but not quite long enough to look at each other to say “I’ve had a wonderful life with you.” Our two “pilots” put a stop to their flirting and “water” drinking and actually put their hands off the controls to level us out with nothing more than a raised heartbeat and thankful we had free washing of pants at our next camp.

The next camp started interestingly as we were instructed to make sure we shake out our towels before use…………….thanks #scorpionface. But what an amazing camp, overlooking the Chobe River and Namibia. We started straight on lunch, served by a lovely young man named “Tray Knee”…well at least we thought he was, until we learned his name was Eric. Somewhat used to a darker skinned Eric getting us drunk, we soon fell in to old patterns as Lea passed out, both sides of her face asleep, and James drank a G&T in the outdoor shower…..  I think this place will suit us just fine.

More stories from Chobe to come.