Last 2 weeks in the Okavango - it's happy sad. Sad happy.

If you ever need a break from the craziness of city life, this is the place to visit. No jokes. I have never been so super ultra relaxed.

Important things to remember:

1. Maintain a comfortable body temperature. This is done by: a) immersing oneself in a swimming pool at least once a day, preferably more often and; b) coordinating time spent in air conditioned office with the schedule of the camp generator. No power = back in pool.

2. Maintain a consistent supply of drinks. These must be ice cold at all times, and suitably thirst quenching. No diet drinks will do.

3. Never eat before a camp braai. There will be beef fillet, and you will miss out, and then you will cry big crocodile tears. And no, we will not leave you anything.

4. Remember to set alarms for important movies to watch. For example, 'He's just not that into you' is on tonight at 8pm. To be coordinated with air-conditioning and dinner time.

5. Do not, I repeat, do not exit your tent if you hear strange noises outside. Best to stay indoors and read on your bed with high speed fan.

6. Do not let the brights lights of Maun lure you into buying things you cannot afford. Seriously, 3 packs of marshmallows, 5 slabs of chocolate, and 3 big bags of chips, is enough.

7. If you think that you will not need your camera, you are mistaken. You will see a leopard lounging in a tree. And you will have absolutely no proof of this.

8. If you think that the walk between the office and the kitchen will be fine in the middle of the day, you are mistaken. You will cross paths with an elephant. Your chances are not good.

9. Not matter how hot you are at night, the above rules for maintaining body temperature do not count. At night, you cover up. The trick is - the thicker the layers, the fewer mozzie bites you'll have to scratch in your sleep.

10. I'm leaving number 10 open - I still have 2 weeks left, and I'm sure there are still more lessons to be learned.

On Monday we drove into Ma-ooon to fetch Mich's soil samples from last year and renew our visas (which was a surprisingly painless process, always awesome). Ooh, on the way, we saw...wait for it...Goose!  Remember him?  Goose, the cool leopard!!  Just walkin on down the road, like he owned it. Hardly paid us a bit of attention. Scenting a little there, sniffing a little impala here, jumping into a tree there and lounging on a branch, easy  as pie. Some tourists drove past and we quickly pointed Goose out to them. Ooh, la la, blah blah blah! Snap snap. And that was it. Not even 2 minutes looking at him, and they were off - nothing left but a cloud of dust. Foreigners!  If only they knew!  That was a first for Mich and I, a leopard in a tree! A perfect view!  Anyway, can you tell this annoyed me?  Whew.

Since I had sweet cash on me for this trip into Ma-oon, I went a bit nuts. Well, not really. But it felt like it. I bought the most delicious non-schwarma-tasting crispy tasty beef schwarma I have ever had, from The French Connection. Maybe that's why it was non-schwarma-tasting. The French have never been known for their schwarmas. But it was good. I had schwarma all over my face. Well, after plenty of eating, shopping, and generally having a good time, we were on our way home. This could have ended very badly. Let's just say that we pulled over after hearing strange noises in the car, only to find our front left wheel almost off - attached with one wheel nut. One. God really was protecting us that day, that could have been such a nasty accident. Actually, He has been protecting us this whole time - if I think about the sticky situations we've been in.

Well, once we stopped shaking and realised that we were alive and that was all that mattered, we felt pretty cheerful. We called our rescuer Sven for help, pulled out a long cushion from the back of the Landrover (Stanley, remember?), and settled down to relax in the shade. Mich had magazines, and I had a cell phone with kick-ass games. It was great. After a while, a bunch of kids ran out of the Mopane trees (where they had been swimming in the river) - running up to us with the kind of grins that made us feel like giant lollypops or something. Or, in their case, Simba chips! Peering in the car - "You have Simba!  We want it! Simba!" They spent a good while with us, sitting on our laps, being cheeky and naughty and silly and funny and altogether lovely. I had the best time :)

We were rescued by a few people, and it all turned out great. So this week we've been doing bits and bobs of work with Rob (a visiting volunteer from the UK) and planning our work in Sankuyo. This is the local community where we'll be working next week, and we visited them last week to chat to the chief. Well, I say local community -it's really a 2 hour drive away, but that's local here :)  We've sorted through a ton of soil samples, had a lot of cool chats and relaxed lunches and dinners, and I've just finished my Michael Crichton.
NEXT! Genetic engineering takes over the world!  Transgenic apes and flashing purple leatherback turtles!

Jackals at Jackal Pan - wow, this was a real treat!  They were so calm and chilled, just lying down in the sun.


Heard on repeater radio: 
Emily: Guys, just to let you know, there are lions in the road.

Femca: Oh really? I thought there might be but I wasn't sure. How many are there?
Emily: Well, I counted....
Sven: Lion Shmion, let's go get some ice cream

Well, dinner time's coming up, and that important movie is on telly, so it's over and out from me.

Later, home dogs!!