Moremi – Third Bridge Campsite – We’ve Been Robbed…by a Baboon!

The road to the gates of Moremi was a rough experience. Botswana is meant to be one of the wealthiest African countries and definitely they are saving their Pula instead of spending it on fixing the potholes, deep sand and corrugations on the roads.

There are apparently 120,000 elephants in Botswana…of which 3 are grazing 200 metres away from our campsite at Third Bridge. I have an awesome view from the roof top tent. Moremi is camping in the wild, as there are no fences between them and us. We have our machete, catapult (“cattie”) and Baygon as our three defense weapons for the evening. Deon is collecting stones and practicing with the cattie now. Pretty good shot he has!!

I can now say we’ve seen a herd of giraffe. In Etosha, we saw 6 and thought that was amazing. This morning, before we’d even crossed the gates into Moremi, we saw at least 25 giraffes of all sizes that crossed in front of the Landy. It was like the catwalk, each would cross in front of us, pause and look our way and then saunter across the rest of the road. Magnificent sight. At one point there were five babies all in the road staring at us.

NEWS FLASH….we have been robbed!!!...by a very opportunistic baboon. Deon spotted him in the tree and I thought how cute and took a picture. Deon went to inform our camp neighbours that trouble was rounding the corner and I figured I’d nip over and say hi too. As soon as I was away from the Landy, he leapt out of the tree and jumped in the back. We actually have a 4th weapon; my screaming that had him running with our grapefruit!! The fruit and veggie bag was torn apart and contents scattered all over the floor. Deon attempted to give him a good hiding with the cattie but as soon as he saw it get ready to fire he made his escape. Only to have 4 more friends appear!! We have learned a good lesson that vehicle doors must remain shut!!! Bit of excitement already and it’s not even dark!!

We can hear the elephants pushing trees over. On the drive here, we passed at least 6 huge trees blocking the road that elephants had pushed over so they had created detours for us to drive around and hundreds more in the sides of the road. Amazing how destructive they are!! The three in our backyard have started making deep growling noises but have since moved on and we can hear the hippos grunting too.

What should have been a magical evening listening to the night sounds of Moremi turned a little disastrous as we had a group of 8 Indians camping next to us in a pre-set up campsite equipped with staff….and it would seem they do not know how to do anything but shout to each other all evening. We thought the hippo was going to charge their camp and sort them out but even he seemed afraid by the racket and turned back into the river. Anyway completely clueless that there was anyone else to consider at camp!