Day 16: Moremi: South Gate – Xakanaxa

During the night, a mongoose seems to have knocked over the wildlife camera while sniffing the water tap. Nothing more than a hairy head and a huge eye can be seen :-) We heard a lion and didn't notice the elephant, whose tracks we saw very close to the car in the morning.

We drive towards Xakanaxa and are on the track for the first part of the route. From the waypoint ... everything changes. Lots of junctions don't exist and the last option ends at the water. Go through or turn back?

After driving back and forth and wading through the watering hole for a bit, we hear cars coming: a truck and a Landcruiser from the park administration on the opposite side. And so we dare to go – but at one point we are in pretty deep water up to the engine compartment. We get through quickly, everything's fine!

We then continue on a track that has nothing to do with the Garmin or Earth Mate tracks or the maps. The only explanation we can give is that the delta keeps changing so much that some routes are not even possible. Finally, we arrive in Xakanaxa at around 2 p.m. and are given an "emergency parking space". How lovely!

We are standing right on the edge of the water and the tall grass and see a grazing hippo, lots of birds, elephants.

A bull passes very close to our car – what a powerful animal. He examines us, the car, sniffs the ground thoroughly and we move to the other side accordingly. After a while he loses interest and moves on. Wow.

Towards the evening we move to campsite #8, which we share with two Dutch people, Baukia and Inthor. We eat together and end the day pleasantly chatting around the fire.