Elephants, hippos, and zebras - oh my!

I'm writing from an internet cafe in Kasane, Botswana. We just left the oh-so-luxurious Elephant Valley. We hadn't planned this part of the trip, so we just fell into it. We left Livingstone (near Victoria Falls), took a ferry over to Botswana, and were picked up at the border. We boarded a river boat with our new-found Michigan missionary friends and cruised up the Chobe River to see "game." We saw herds of kudu and impala grazing on the shores, two elephants using their trunks as snorkels as they crossed the river to join a bachelor herd on an island, a pile of 45 hippos sprawled in the mud, a fish eagle posing regally, crocodiles sunning themselves, and many up-close looks at homo touristicos. We felt lucky for seeing all that, but then we were loaded into a safari jeep with our guide, Nicodemus, and driven into the national park, where we got even closer to giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, warthogs, and all manner of antelope-like creatures. At the end of our game drive, we went to Elephant Valley Lodge, where we spent the next two days in supreme luxury in the middle of the bush (for a substantial discount, too, thanks to last minute planning!). The lodge maintains a watering hole that attracts elephants and other game all through the day and night. The kicker is that the watering hole is about 100 feet from a viewing station, and only a little farther to the lounge area, so we ate meals and played chess within full view of dozens of elephants. For two days. It was awesome. We're near the end of our trip together now. We'll have another day in Livinstone, then 2 days in Joburg, then we'll part ways.