Woke up at 5:45 to be ready for our 6:30 am game drive. At this point you’re asking yourself, “Honestly, what kind of weekend/summer vacation is this?” – trust me, we were asking ourselves the same thing. I crawled out of my warm bed/cocoon and looked outside, and the moon was still out for goodness sake. It was also SUPER FREEZING (that is a scientifically proven level of cold beyond normal freezing, truly). I pulled my jeans on over my flannel PJ bottoms, heated water for some instant coffee, and jumped back into bed.
Amazingly enough, our guide came to pick us up ON TIME for our game drive (gasp!). We pulled the comforters off our beds and dragged them into the truck with us, along with hats, gloves, and scarves. Olivia looked like a burrito (pictures to follow).
The sky was starting to get pink as we started on the drive, and we got to watch the sun rise, which was very dramatic and awesome! We were pretty psyched, in spite of the cold, because we really wanted to see rhinos, and the sunrise was beautiful. After the first 20 minutes or so, though, our chattering died down, and we were bordering on cranky when Olivia finally spotted them! FOUR RHINOS! Including a BULL RHINO! We almost died of excitement, and I think I took close to 100 pictures. I felt bad for our guide, because she was trying to tell us things, but we were only half listening. She also got very sassy with Lina when Lina asked questions – she would make a sound that I can only describe as a typical Motswana sound akin to what they describe in books as a woman “clucking” in disapproval, and say, “I was getting to that” every time Lina asked a question. Out of a sense of guilt for what terrible tourists we were, as a brief homage to our tour guide I will now share…
Things we learned about rhinos:
1. There are white rhinos and black rhinos (no, I am not a racist, that’s what they’re called) – they’re both grey, but the two kinds have a different hoof shape. Don’t ask me which one’s which, but one is a C shape and the other is a U shape.
2. White rhinos live longer (45 years vs. 40 years)
3. White rhinos are more social – the moms and babies travel in groups, while black rhinos tend to hide out… somewhere.
4. Rhinos occasionally eat dirt, because they need the salt that’s in the soil.
5. Rhinos actually do roll around in the mud – it’s their version of sunscreen.
6. All rhinos are stinky.
Once we saw the rhinos, we all settled quite contentedly back in our seats and were not particularly picky about everything else we saw. But in fairness to the other creatures of the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, I’ll give an honorary mention to: kudu, elan, wildebeest (prn. wild-beast, not wil-dee-beast, the way they pronounce it in Lion King; aka gnu), impala, yellow hornbills, wild dogs, quail, and springboks (those were my favorite – I love saying the name).
Our guide dropped us off back at our chalet, and I changed into normal clothes, because the temperature outside changes dramatically once the sun comes up. It was still a little chilly, but definitely trending warmer. Then we packed and girded ourselves for our next great adventure: getting the bus back to Serowe. Remember how I mentioned that the bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere the day before? Yeah, well “the middle of nowhere” does not by any definition include a bus stop, and the middle of nowhere in Botswana is no different. Essentially the process of returning to Serowe had been explained to us like this: stand next to the road, and flag down the next bus you see. In other words, hitch-hiking. Awesome.
Our guide returned to take us back to the front of the reserve, and luckily we had the brilliant idea to stop in the main office to check out before giving ourselves up to the hazards of the road. The lady at the desk asked us what we had been laughing about the night before, which set us off laughing again as we explained our lack of cell signal. When we mentioned that we needed to get the bus back to Serowe, she went running out the door to try to catch “America,” who happened to be driving away in a combi. She didn’t catch him, but some of the other employees called him, and he came back within a few minutes to pick us up. Score!
He actually didn’t take us all the way to Serowe, but he dropped us off at a bus stop so that we could catch a combi. Also, the girl that he had originally been driving to the bus stop got off with us, and after a little while we (warily) started a conversation with her. She recently graduated from a university in South Africa after studying public relations, and she currently goes back and forth between Serowe and Gabs, visiting relatives. She was really nice, and there were also some totally adorable children playing behind the bus stop. They kept peeking around the walls to look at us, and eventually some of them worked up the courage to walk in front of us. We talked them into letting us take pictures of them, and then some of them went running up the street shouting in Setswana – our new friend (Mpho) translated for us: “The whites are here!” Excellent. (According to Mpho, the kids had only ever seen white people driving along the road in cars, so they probably had never seen any up close, and certainly not waiting at the bus stop).
The combi came after about 10 minutes, and after a quick pit-stop at Choppies (for breakfast) and an ATM (for me – unsuccessful again) with the help of our trusty guide, Mpho, we hopped on the bus to Gabs. We gave her our number, and she gave all of us hugs before we got on the bus. It was refreshing to have made a friend that we had initiated a conversation with, as opposed to being harassed for our numbers.
The ride to Gabs was (thankfully) not terribly crowded, and after eating we all were tired enough from our early morning to doze most of the way back. It was still only 4 hours back, but it felt like DAYS. The bus driver elected to play (very loud) Setswana gospel songs for the first half of the trip, then somewhere along the way switched to house/electronic/dance music, including some Usher and other popular American artists. I felt like I was in the middle of a club by the end of the ride.
Uneventful rest of the day – a bit of grocery shopping, cab back to UB, showers, phone calls for Father’s day, watched Pleasantville, slept.
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