This morning we left the Marakele National Park in South Africa, we crossed the border at Gobler's Bridge / Martin's Drift and arrived in Botswana.

After we stopped at Palapye for some errands, we finally arrived at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, near Serowe; actually this is a return because we were here at the Khama Rhino for the first time two years ago.

It is relatively early, it is 3.30 pm, we can certainly go on a safari this afternoon, but first we have to check in at the campsite.

We go to the reception and they don't find our reservation, then they find it but they have marked that we arrive tomorrow; they are too stunned but we know very well that they are made this way and there are not many alternatives either we get nervous, as we would typically do in Milan, or we take it out on laughter and find a solution, and obviously the latter is always our approach .

In the end we decide to position ourselves for the night in the picnic area, in the end there is space, the bathrooms as well and, if desired, we are much closer to the restaurant structure where there is the wi-fi.

The girl at the reception actually tells us to go and see if it's okay to stay there, but we remember her very well and tell her right away yes.

We take a map of the Khama Rhino at the shop, it's true that we have Tracks4Africa, but I like having the maps of the parks and reserves we visit, and we need it to get some advice, from one of the rangers who is there at the gate, about which are the best places to visit and where to find rhinos.

We drive the slopes towards the pan, on the road there are many wild flowers in bloom, they are beautiful, they look like those of the flowered desert in the Namakwa; we don't remember seeing them two years ago, we remember a more arid landscape; maybe this year it rained more in this area.

We arrive at the pan, that is located in the central part of the reserve, and we see in the distance a white rhino with a cub, but they are far away, practically on the opposite side from where we are, they are also moving away from us; there is only one thing to do: go around the pan and reach them on the other side.

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While we do the whole tour the two rhinos have arrived at the edge of the pan, so when we get there we find them in the bushes at the side of the road; to photograph them well, we must capture the moment in which they pass from one bush to another.

In addition, we also see two safari cars from the reserve, but we arrived before them.

The two rhinos seem to want to cross but they seem a bit intimidated by the rangers' cars, but we don't bother them because we are positioned behind a bush; at the end they change road and cross over the cars, too bad because it would have been nice if they had crossed in front of us.

We finish the tour of the pan, along our path we arrive at Small Pan, but here there are no rhinos, we only see some warthogs; we take two photos and then continue.

We thus arrive at the Bird Hide, where there is an observation hut that has a spectacular view over a puddle; we park, we walk the short corridor that leads to the shed and we position ourselves.

It looks like a small paradise, in stark contrast to the rest of the reserve, that instead is drier; here there are several birds including the sandgrouses, the bulbuls, the guineafowls and the go away.

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At a certain point some impalas arrive and little by little, the beach around the pool is full of impalas that have come here to drink, the light filters through the branches of the trees that are around the puddle and the only noises that are heard are the chirping of birds; it really looks like a little paradise.

After a while we return to our Dr. Livingstone and continue our tour and go back to the pan at the point where we saw the two rhinos for the first time.

We see so many elands a little distant, so many impalas and then many zebras; some zebras are fighting, kicking themselves and trying to bite one another by raising the dust, they are a little far away to take great pictures so we prefer to look at them with binoculars.

The sun is descending towards the horizon and on the pan, it is reflected in the small puddle in the center, next to a very choreographic acacia; while we admire the colors of the sunset we see a white rhino walking on the pan, it seems directed to the puddle but it is so slow that it will arrive tomorrow ... instead it arrives to the puddle immediately after sunset, but the light is still enough to see its profile while it is drinking .

We would stay here again but unfortunately we have to go, it is better to arrive at the picnic site before it gets dark, to understand where it is better to position ourselves.

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There are two other cars here in the picnic area, we are curious to know if they too have messed up with the booking or if they came without having booked; we don't see anyone otherwise we would have asked them.

Since the sun has set, it has started to chill, it's colder than two years ago and we are undecided whether to cook and dine here outdoors or to go to the restaurant; in the end we decide for the second option so we can use the wi-fi to connect.

We walk to the restaurant as it is so close, for that reason sleeping in the picnic area is convenient, you don't need to move the car that is already ready for the night.

We go to the restaurant with the Mac, we have some things to do and we take advantage to do it here as the wi-fi seems to work well ... this is the hard life of digital nomads, forced to look for the connection as in the movie Il Ciclone by Pieraccioni, when they tuned the TV using ladles as antennas.

At dinner there is hardly anyone, we have dinner, we work and we relax drinking a St Louis, just what we wanted to end the day today.

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Data di inserimento: 
Saturday, November 9, 2019