The last 36 hours

It has been amazing 36 hours.  Starting with a somewhat strange south African experience in a mini Las Vegas (Sun City Cabanas).  This was the first stop, as it poised us for the trip across the border, and i suppose that it gave us a snse of a differnt biew of the South African people, but it was not really what we expected to encounter  Monday morning we  made our way through South African customs in Pilanesburg.  They staffed the entire airport for the three of us and even made us go thought the security screening procedure for our private plane. They were not as fussy as the folks at TSA though and allowed us to bring a fifth of gin, a bottle of wine and 3 pen knives on board.

We then headed to Gabarone, the capital of Botswana, to clear immigration and customs and get gas. Dixie, our plane (her call sign is DYX), needs to refuel every couple of days.  We also had to file a flight plan and pay some landing fees, all of which required a fair amount of paperwork.  This included a bizarre experience where we walked across the tarmac, into the terminal building, through immigrations and customs (but without our luggage, which was still on the plane) back through security and onto the tarmac.  Thus, we were now legally in Bottswana.  The people though are quite nice and taught us how to say hello (dumela) and thank you (ke ala boqa).

We then made our way north across the Kalahari desert to Deception Valley Lodge. It is named this for the mirages that come from the sand pans, which make people think that they are walking to water. This is an amazing and very remote place, run by a South African family, who have built this lodge on their 15,000 hectacres.  After the afternoon flight, fighting thermals (read turbulent) for a couple of hours, we were really glad to arrive, and just in time for a late afternoon game drive.  Within two hours of arriving the expert tracking skills of Chote and Jacu brought us to a pride of lion, which included 5 six month old cubs. I took several dozen pictures, which I haven't  had a chance to sort through yet  too many but the ones below give some perspective about how special this place is.

This morning we went on another game drive, had lunch and then an afternoon walk in the bush (no lion spotting is time..they were all sleeping),  this evening we are going to see how the Bushman used to live.  Then tomorrow we are off to the Okavango Delta.