Sat night in Gabs

Sat night Linda, Karen Claudia and I went out for drinks and a movie. We went back to Radizio at Riverwalk and had salads for dinner. Claudia and I split a jug of Peach Mojitos. They were delicious! Karen and Linda had shots and a coctail. After we had our drinks we went to see the A Team. It was a nice night after working Sat OT.

4:30 Fridays!

No overtime on Friday! I made it so everyone left at 4:30pm. Everyone was in such a good mood at work knowing we were out of there at 4:30pm. We made plans to go to Radizio for dinner and have Malva pudding for dessert. Suwanne didn't end up going so it was just the 5 of us. Claudia, Jean and I had wine and the 2 young ones, Karen and Linda had shots. We had such a good time and we all laughed so hard. Especially about where we all are going to sleep on our trip to Jo'burg in a couple weeks.

Mokolodi

I took Jean, Suwanne and Karen to Mokolodi on Sunday. We were going to do the self drive in the truck since I am a member and then do the cheetah pet. We drove around for a few hours and I actually got a picture of a Spotted Thick-knee. It was one of my new birds at the Bush Lodge but I didn't get a picture of it there because it was getting dark and it flew away fast. We had both the cheetah boys for the cheetah pet. It was great. The one just slept the hole time but the other was very active and walked around. Claudia was tired so she didn't come with us. We went to Game City after to have brunch at the Portugese place. I dropped the other girls off and went to get Claudia. I had my usual latte there and it was delicious! Linda and her friend Rob got back from the Delta that same night and we had another Thai dinner a la Suwanne.

Wai Man's last shake in Botswana

Wai Man was in Botswana running the lab since it first started. He had a new assignment to run the new lab in Hog Kong so for his last night in Botswana we went out for milkshakes. Every time we would go out to dinner or even lunch, Wai Man would get a shake. So his last one was at Fego's. Claudia was supposed to arrive that night but she had some trouble in the airport so she was delayed a day. Fego's is the new restaurant in town. It is in the Squaremart shopping center and there pizza's shakes and salads are delicious. It is my favorite now for pizza, it is better than Primi's! It is sad that Wai Man is gone but I know he will be happy in Hong Kong.

Thai food

Suwanne arrived to Botswana and then right after she arrived I went to Madikwe. She is my roommate here and she is from Thailand. When I arrived back from Madikwe she told me she was making dinner for everyone, yum Thai food. It was delicious. She is going to teach me how to cook Thai food so when I get back I can cook for Tony. Not as hot as Suwanne does though or he will be sweating all over the place!!

The Bush House, Madikwe SA

I had a little get away from work to Madikwe before Wai Man left for HK. I left work at 1pm and drove the truck across the border into SA and then to the Bush Lodge. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get there from work. A lot of that time was sitting at the SA border in a line to get my passport stamped. They were so slow! I made it through and had to have the car checked. They remembered me from the week before because I still had the shredded tire in the back of the truck. I made it to the Lodge for High Tea and then off on a game drive. The lodge was a converted ranch house. It was nice and quiet there. They had only 5 rooms. There was a nice garden with beautiful trees, a pool and the lawn over looked a waterhole. The waterhole got a lot of action. Several times there were over 20 elephant taking some water. The food was good but all in all there was no comparison to the lodge I stayed at 3 weeks previous. That was the most luxurious place ever! I can't complain, this was a nice relaxing weekend and again my sister would love how hot the bath water is!

Game Drives and the Bush House waterhole

I didn't see the wild dog at the Bush Lodge but I did see a black rhino for the 1st time. We saw him on the way back to camp on the 1st game drive. We also saw a small pride of lions on the way back after the rhino. It was the pride with the limping male. He was beaten up pretty badly in a fight and they fixed his leg and kept him in a holding tank for a long time. They finally released him and he found his brother and the 2 females. He can't keep up with the pride and lags behind but if he gets into trouble he calls out to his brother and he goes back and defends him. I also saw a gemsbok for the 1st time along with a few new birds. One of them was a rare black form of the Gabar Goshawk. The game drives were pretty quiet. We found another pride of lions, 2 males, 2 females and come cubs. This pride moved into the territory of the limping males when there was a fire in Madikwe. We also found a herd of over 100 buffalo. There was a lot of action at the waterhole in front of the lodge. I think I saw more there than on the drives. Twice there were over 20 elephants at the waterhole!