The second night we were at Savuti we and a honeymooning couple from England were the only guests.  The camp planned a special surprise dinner for the honeymooning couple by the plunge pool, which is a very private place.  But they didn't want to leave us out, so prepared a very special surprise dinner for us too, in the main area.

We had a lot of extra service at this dinner, with just the two of us.  It was really a very nice thing for them to do.  Our main waiter was Tim.

Tim is a delightful fellow and knows all the things to make a guest feel special.  On our way out of Botswana, in the Maun Airport, the fellow who took the boarding passes looked just like Tim.  Turns out it is his twin brother!

Since we didn't expect it, we did not 'dress' for dinner.  We enjoyed our special dinner very much--we are not used to being pampered.

The next night was also very special in that we were served a traditional dinner in the outdoor boma, an area enclosed by a tall fence of thin tree trunks to keep animals out.  The camp was full this night--12 guests--and we really had fun.  The staff elected the oldest guest, an 85 year old man from Arizona, to be the Chief for the evening and draped a skin cape around him.  They had to clear everything they did through him, by flowery petitions on their knees.  He was most gracious, especially when Tim called him by the wrong name!  It was all very funny.  I did not bring my camera and you can't go back to your tent once it gets dark.  The honeymoon couple promised to send pictures, but nothing has come yet.  We were given large pottery bowls to eat out of and served mealies first.  This is a ground corn food, very similar to thick grits in the States.  We had a meat stew and vegetables on top of that--no utensils.  We were taught how to take a small ball of mealies, mash an indentation in it with our thumb and scoop up some stew with it.  The food was delicious.  There was singing and dancing by the staff ladies--I think they had as much fun as we did.  Sorry there are no pictures.

The next morning after our morning drive, we showered and packed and the bags were collected and carried on the heads of the ladies to the vehicle.  It's about a half hour drive to the air strip and the small planes keep very tight schedules so we were hurrying along at quite a clip when Benson felt something unusual.  Wouldn't you know--our first flat tire of the trip!  Getting a jack to set in that soft sand was challenging.  That's the fellow who was the 'Chief' last night standing in front of me.  Fortunately the other vehicle was on it's way to the airstrip too to pick up some guests arriving in a plane a little after we were to have left, so it picked us up and we were there nearly on time--one of our wilder rides.

There will be a couple more animal and bird letters before I'm really finished even though it looks here as though we have left already..............