Right on glideslope and localizer.

Boarded next AF Boeing 777 bound for Cape Town. Somehow we have middle seats. Ellen was unsure if she wanted the seat barrier removed.

Its sunny here in Paris but our internal clock says its 4AM. Eleven hours to Cape Town! They just sprayed us with insecticide. OK maybe we can get some sleep.

10:34 Taking off on 08L. 5988 miles.

11 hours some sleep and Pulp Fiction layer we arrive on time in Cape Town. Landed 10:25, had bags and in hotel shuttle by 11:05 - efficient. Ellen is freaked because the shower is see through but we aren’t going to complain.

Nice flight over Cape Town and the Kalahari Desert to Maun. Wow, its almost a city! Well, it has a paved road or two and an impressive busy airport. Last time I was here in the 1960s there was just a dirt airfield and all unpaved roads.

Lots of birds at our hotel. And flying foxes!

Looks like the camp is in the water, and it is during the annual flood but it is dry this time of year.

Our comfy tent.

This buff has two red billed oxpeckers on his head as well as the egret on his back. PM not much - fish eagle.

We had a rain storm that soaked us despite the canvas top on the Land Rover, but produced a lovely rainbow.

Can you believe this? For the evening game run they put us in the same vehicle, supposedly with a new alternator. Two miles out it failed again - dead battery. Fortunately our other vehicle was nearby and we all climbed aboard, except for Gavin, who went with TT in a staff car. After that, Ice gave us a great game run with a nice long stay in a buffalo herd, elephant, tsetsabee, and of course, birds.

At lunch back at camp there was an elephant near the pool. A lady was warned about it by Mike but she walked to the pool anyway. The elephant thought she was much too close and charged her, hitting her in her back with his trunk and grazing her side with a tusk. She was foolish to try to get so close and very stupid to turn her her back to the elephant. Also very lucky the tusk didn’t go through her back.

After our afternoon nap we saw an amazing display of swooping carmine bee eaters.

When we returned to camp after dark we saw hyenas walking along the path to our tents, so we were just as happy to have the guides go first.

Scene of elephant attack.

We them piled into three small Air Van aircraft and flew northwest 100 miles to Nxamaseri airstrip, transfered to a truck then a boat to get to Nxamaseri Island Lodge. (Actually it is an island only in the wet season so the boat trip was just for show. )

Overflying the Moremi Game Reserve

Nxamaseri is less than 20 miles south of the Caprivi Strip, Namibia.

Our room at Nxamaseri

After lunch we relaxed on our private porch until 4pm, time to board boats for an initial exploration of the Okavango River. Amazing place: we saw giant kingfishers, malakite kingfishers, pied, woodland, striped kingfishers; fish eagles, hippos & crocodile.

The only other guests are Flora (Flo) and her flight instructor Mike who are touring Southern Africa in a C182. Mike is a South African Air Force retiree; Flo is a youngish Dutch lady who smokes too much. Their next stop is Vic Falls in Zimbabwe.

Malakite Kingfisher on papyrus.

Not a great place to swim. At another camp an idiot tourist swam despite the warnings and was eaten by a croc. Her two teenage children who refused to go in the river saw the whole thing.

White fronted bee-eaters

African Darter

Our boats have 70 hp Yamahas - the locals travel in mokoros. Locals illegally burn the papyrus. The smoke is in camp and bothers Ellen.

Evening photo run on the Okavango

Easy to see why the San people considered them spiritual places. It was only 300’ vertical but kind of a scramble over rocks and boulders. Fortunately there were stairways over the worst parts, dedicated by the President of Botswana only three weeks ago.

We returned to Nxamaseri in time for our last birding run on the Okavango. Nothing new and lots of smoke... Ellen couldn’t go to dinner she got so filled up. At dinner we met Brad, the owner, who arrived in the Bell Long Ranger we had seen from the river.

Nxamaseri dock at evening.

Last morning in Nxamaseri

This morning took some pictures of birds around the camp. We fly to Maun and then Cape Town at noon.

Andrew of Helicopter Horizons and Brad did a photo shoot of Tsodilo Hills this morning. I should have wangled a ride!

We say goodbye to Nine, our trusty guide at the Nxamaseri airstrip. The strip is too short for the Cessna Caravan, so once again we pile into three Air Vans. With 3 or 4 passengers plus pilot, our heavy luggage and high density altitude these planes (one 300hp IO540) barely make off before the end and the trees. Fortunately a sllight left turn revealed an open field which gave us room to climb. We observed vast areas of the delta burning as we flew to Maun for our connecting flights.

Boarding Airlink at Maun International \240for Cape Town:

The Bloomslang Canopy Walk

Had “Lamb Bunny Chow” for lunch at the Moyo Restaurant in Kirstenbosch Gardens.

In Simontown we saw the local African penguins.

Running the luxury shop gauntlet at Charles de Gaulle. Next stop USA.