Old Friends & New Friends

We have said farewell to our German friends and had a final outing at the lovely hot springs that are in Bela Bela.

 We were sad to see the them go, but we look forward to visiting them in Germany someday and having them show us around!

 We wanted to take our photo by the nicest looking palm tree but this worker was sleeping in front of the best one, so it became a fun game to see who could photo bomb with the sleeper!

Charlie getting closer to the sleeper!

 New friends have arrived and we are having fun showing them around, this one was a kids pick outing to the trampoline park called Bounce.  They give you the blue & yellow socks, now we have fun picking out kids wearing Bounce socks all over South Africa!

 We have been dog sitting for our friends who went home for the summer and then will go on to another part of Africa.  We are all smitten with "Flippy" and will be sad to see her go...here Charlie has her all wrapped up.

Charlie and our neighbor Piper in their matching bird shirts...

They had a show called Decorex here recently and the kids and I went here was the swing they were lobbying for, they thought it would look very cool in New Hampshire under the big trees...

We all thought this was a very cool fireplace/fountain!

We didn't buy any big items but instead got some cool beach towels to use on our upcoming adventures...stay tuned!

A great benefit of overseas life...

After our amazing boat trip in Chobe, we headed back for one final night at Elephant Sands, and this time knew what campsite to pick so we would have a view of the elephants all night long.  I could sit in my bed in the camper and look out the big window and watch them silently go past.  I didn't want to sleep!  They were trumpeting at the waterhole at 2 in the morning!

Camper on left, Kelly in center with elephant passing right in front of where she was hanging out her laundry to dry!

We rented a John Deere gator to go out exploring the trails around Elephant Sands.  We went shortly after we arrived and Greg had just driven the whole way there so he wanted to stay back, so it was just the kids and I.  They gave us a tiny printed map of the area (Greg offered to go grab our GPS, but I said I didn't need "no stinking GPS").  In retrospect, I should have brought it...we got pretty lost and ended up way North of the camp and had to come back many miles on the main road.

Kelly said, "This was a real adventure!"  The kids LOVED driving it, I learned Charlie's time with his power wheels dune buggy driving came in handy, he was the best driver of the three!  Katie was going crazy fast and Kelly was a bit indecisive at a turn, she wasn't sure if she should go left or right, so instead she went straight and crashed us into a bush!

Mario driving!!

Indecisive one!

Driving back on the main road...happy to have found our way back!

 Crazy dancers, sad its our last night "on the road".

Elephant footprints on our drive out...

 We now head for Gaborone, big city in Botswana, long drive but would be even longer if you were these guys!  We pass lots of donkey carts!

 Cool sign to pass!

 Keeping busy on the drive!

Here is a wonderful thing about the expat lifestyle.  You get to know families and form quick bonds with them.  We rolled into Gabarone and parked our camper at a friends house for the night.  They cooked us an amazing dinner in their pizza oven, we told them stories of our adventures and Greg and the kids taught them the card game that they were addicted to on the trip. (this is a family that we have only met two other times, imagine doing that in the US with a family you had only met twice?)

Anomia!

We rolled back to Pretoria the next day, sad to clean out the camper and get back to work and school, but very happy to have had such a great trip!