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I am in the northern Botswanan border town of Kasane, right on the Zambian border. Brilliant place. We are camping right on the Chobe river and our camp site is encircled with electric fences so as to keep lions and crocs out. Their is also a guard with a rifle walking around at night, oh so comforting! This morning was incredible, we went on a game drive in the Chobe National park. AMAZING! Absolutely stunning. We saw tons of elephants(literally), lions, buffalo, sable antelope, impala, a mother warthog with her cute babies, African fish eagles, hippos and of course crocs. There are 185 000 elephants in the park, so the vegetation is interesting with many of the trees just lying on the ground or simply dead from being eaten by all the elephants.

Elephants and Warm Beer

Lloyd Peter West
2006-06-01 20:09:33

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I am in the northern Botswanan border town of Kasane, right on the Zambian border. Brilliant place. We are camping right on the Chobe river and our camp site is encircled with electric fences so as to keep lions and crocs out. Their is also a guard with a rifle walking around at night, oh so comforting! This morning was incredible, we went on a game drive in the Chobe National park. AMAZING! Absolutely stunning. We saw tons of elephants(literally), lions, buffalo, sable antelope, impala, a mother warthog with her cute babies, African fish eagles, hippos and of course crocs. There are 185 000 elephants in the park, so the vegetation is interesting with many of the trees just lying on the ground or simply dead from being eaten by all the elephants. We are going on a safari cruise down the Chobe river this evening which should be fantastic.
Last night was awesome, Adam and I were walking back from town when we met this lady Florence. We started chatting and then she invited us to come to this shebeen(bar in someones house). So we were like, "ay why not" So we went along, and I have heard on many
occasion of this beer made from sorgum so we had some of that. It's ridiculous. It is served in a milk carton, warm and it tastes a bit like bile. It actually has chunks in it and I also managed to get some sand from it as well. So we both drank a litre and then moved to another shebeen, "theee besst one in town" Oh also at the first one a fight broke out. Quite exciting. People were looking at us as if we were mad. You must understand that we were in a township of only black people. White people do not wonder in there during the day let alone the night. But we sat down at this next shebeen and had some Black Carling beers. It was amazing, the music was going, people were dancing in the street all the while knocking back Chibuku(sorgum beer) A number of people came up to us and talked to us, we met some fantastic people. So nice, so genuine. Oh, also Florence the entire time started touching Adam and my leg. Kinda weird. Kinda weird, considering her two kids were running around in the streets somewhere. We met this Zambian
guy, Mike and we arranged to meet him at this bar in the township called Cool Joint. So we went back and had a bite to eat then picked up our Swiss mate, Mierko(fantastic guy). And we cruised out, hitched a ride with this guy who was drinking with his mates on the side of the road. So we start driving, and he is knocking back a beer and we ask him how many he has had, "OH only 8 beers so far, no problem" haha. It was only 2kms away so it was not that big of a deal.(sorry ma and pa)
We met him there and also some other guys, they bought us beers and we bought them beers and the next thing we knew we were pissed in the middle of a township. We then moved to the shebeen and sat behind it on cement cinder blocks and talked about life, sex, beer, AIDS, the Pula and some other important stuff. Fantastic night. It was the first time we broke away from the organised tour group and it was amazing. That is the problem with going on tours. It's good sometimes but often you just want to go and do your own thing.
It is interesting, life is very cheap here so long as you stay away from processed products and activities. The African people are superb. In general they are so friendly and happy. No worries, which is not that far from the truth. They keep their lives simple and it allows them to be happy, in many ways a lot happier than us in the West.
Well one more night in Botswana and then heading to Zimbabwe yesterday.