So at last we were ready to fly into camp. We were now in the possession of two flimsy not so official looking (but at least stamped repeatedly in red thus it must be official) permits. After the longest, horrendously stressful nail biting morning that we endured to obtain these scraps of paper, they had now become our most treasured possessions. In our first week in Maun we were put through our paces with a first aid course, involving the likes of CPR, stethoscopes and to my horror – emergency childbirth. We also managed to open a bank account, that since took about 3 weeks and about 30 emails to even access. But I suppose we had to be grateful for the fact that we even had online access – and a bank manager that we could direct a torrent of emails at!

We finally made it to the airport for our flight, one final moment in “civilisation” for the next 3 months. A gentle take off lifted us off the tarmac and into the air. There was no going back now. As we flew out of Maun we gradually flew away from arid orangey brown farmland. The browns were replaced by splashes of blue, which grew into lakes that grew into rivers. The dry orange flora was replaced by lush vivid green papyrus and floating waterlily pontoons.  As we flew we could spot hippos, zebra, elephants and giraffe grazing peacefully below.