Another long hot day of waiting. We were anxiously looking for any sign of a plane that might be carrying our precious battery. Nothing. Not even a bird. The worst part of this ordeal was knowing there was amazing game out there at our fingertips and not being able to go view them. We decided that the cutoff time to leave and head back to Maun would be 12:30pm, since using the headlights would draw to much power. But just before 1pm, we saw the warden approaching our camp in his truck. He delivered the goods as promised, a brand spanky new battery. Now we had two, fully juiced. We broke camp within 20 minutes and were on the road. It was a race against the battery clock and nightfall. Gabriel is a good bush driver and hauled mad ass on the harsh mud track. We’d make a solid driving team on the Paris to Dakar road rally. I learned a lot of 4x4 skills from him. We made a deal that we wouldn’t stop to photograph any wildlife unless we saw leopard, lion, or wild dogs. The first battery died 3 hours into the trip. We swapped them and kept on keepin’ on. We rolled into Maun at 6:30pm as dusk was settling in. We went strait to the boozer, ordered two shots, and laughed like 5 year old brothers. Our friends, Ursula & Ivan, joined us and we recounted our trip to them over a huge dinner. Food had never tasted so good.
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