Then with all our luggage, we piled into a shared mini-bus taxi -- basically a minivan with extra seats (but not extra room!) and rode with 15 plus of our new friends into town. However, we were delayed in route as our mini-bus driver noticed that an enterprising new comer was "stealing" passengers on his route. There was a barricade formed by mini-busses and lots of honking (which they call hooting in South Africa -- it's hysterical to see the signs that say "Elderly People Crossing - No Hooting!!) screaming and yelling until the said passengers were released and piled into our van resulting in over 20 people in our three seater minivan!! 

We made it to town just in time to catch the 9:30 bus to Nata. Just one problem -- there were no more seats!! But, "No worries... get on and we'll take you anyway -- you'll just have to stand." The aisle was small as the bus had 5 seats for each row. It was a journey reminiscent of getting to Dhakla Oasis in Egypt (See: January 22, 2004)  with one exception... we'd met up with Edwardo, a fellow traveler hailing from Brazil. (Actually, we'd briefly first met him at Ngepi camp in Namibia) Edwardo is a great conversationalist and helped us forget that we were standing for the three hour trip.

Nata - a two gas station town was meant to be the place where we would change "busses" to get to Kasane. Who knows what time the next minibus was going to show up in the hot, dusty town in the middle of the Kalahari desert, but the locals were sure it would come eventually. They all sat patiently in the shade with their luggage. After about an hour, however, Mark and Edwardo were tired of waiting and started pacing back and forth. Then they started talking with drivers. "Is anyone going to Kasane?" 3 hours after we'd arrive in Nata the locals were still sitting patiently and there was still no bus! But Edwardo had scored us a lift with a safari operator (or at least a man driving the Blackburn and Hepburn Safari vehicle.)

We all piled in the back of the pickup and sped off at an obscene speed. We all had a few brief thoughts about "what would happen IF..." before settling into the journey and watching the scenery go by. As it turned out, not only had we scored a free life from Nata to Kasane, but we were also treated to a high speed safari!! The savannah spread out behind the speeding truck but we were still able to glimpse numerous Elephants, Impala/Gazelles and even a wild dog! Excellent!

The next day we continued the wildlife spotting these by enjoying a game drive in Chobe National Park. Unfortunately we were unable to take the 6am drive which is the most likely time to see the large cats. Instead we settled for a 9am departure, enjoyed a few extra zzzzz's and hoped for the best. 

Probably the most impressive part of our wildlife drive in Chobe was the close encounters with large herds of elephants. They were all down at the river having a drink when our open safari car pulled up. One juvenile male came really close to our vehicle to check us out. He was only about 2 meters (6 ft.) away!!! In addition, we also saw Hippos, Puku, Baboons, African Buffalo, Zebra (!!), loads of Crocodiles, Impala, Gazelles and various other grazers who's names we have now forgotten!

It was a great day out. From here we head across the border into Zambia where we are looking forward to getting wet at Victoria Falls!