We exited Chobe national park in the South at Khwai region. This region is situated between Chobe and Moremi national parks and not a national park itself even though it has lots of animals, especially elephants, but even leopards (apparently, they eluded us once again). We spent an afternoon driving around there, mainly spotting hippos and some antelopes – not the most exciting but still nice.

That night we decided to wild camp, as the camping didn’t have any facilities whatsoever but charged 30€ pp. Crazy! And as there’s no fence around the campsite either, there really is no difference to wild camping (other than paying 60€). At night, we had a very early dinner and were soon surrounded by all kind of animal noises. I think this was our „wildest“ night. Sometimes we woke up, asking each other „what was that!??“ – only when a lion roared right next to our tent, it was rather clear which animal that ROAR belonged to.

After a rather sleepless night, we drove around a bit more in the Khwai region – unfortunately though rain came in and our spottings soon went down to zero. We wild camped again, but at a much better spot. No animals but birds around us.

Next day, we went into Moremi game reserve at the North gate. We drove all the way to Xakanaxa campsite – but again the luck was not on our side. Some nice landscapes, but otherwise… just not many animals in general. It seems that we really chose the wrong season for Moremi, too bad!

In the afternoon, when driving up to Dead Tree Island, we at least came across a teenage male lion – but he was very sleepy. For the rest of the day, we didn’t end up seeing much else other than bushes. Lots of bushes.

In the night, we got visited by an elephant who was a little too curious for our liking, squeezing between our car and the bushes next to it and moving our car while doing so! Ouuuf. A bit scary. He went on to destroy our neighbours‘ trailer tent – while they were in there, sleeping (well, not so much anymore at that point). Crazy!

Next day, we woke up early once again and drove out via Third Bridge to the South gate. We went all around the highly praised Mbola Island, but didn’t end up seeing much of anything. It was frustrating. Even more frustrating was the drive out of the park afterwards. Loads and loads of deep puddles, of a size that they should be called pools rather than puddles. It was exhausting, especially for Mathijs (the driver) and we didn’t get rewarded with any good sightings.

From the South gate, we moved on to Maun to spend the night, get organised and plan our next few days.