For regular readers of this blog, I am sure that you are now well aware that wild animals are known to roam everywhere here in Botswana, be it city, village or game reserve. So far on my stay in Botswana I have encountered an elephant in the yard of a house, warthogs and baboons who wander through meetings, and geckos in my bed to name a few.

During my trip to Zanzibar, Botswana I received the following wildlife survival tips from my colleagues even though where we were staying seemed relatively safe:

1. Never walk alone because if you get eaten no one will realize it for a couple of days.
2. Don’t talk to the crocodiles.
3. If you encounter an elephant don’t run and never climb a tree.
4. (My Favourite) Tips for outrunning a water buffalo:
   1. If you have a purse throw it at them and then run as fast as you can
   2. When running away from it get on to a tarmac surface
   3. And run in a zig zagging motion. Apparently, because of their soft hooves they will lose their footing and fall down….who knew it????
   4. You can’t out run a hippo, so find a tree to climb and hope that there is no elephant coming behind the hippo 😉
   5. Never ever hug a lion!

Certainly interesting tips! I will need to keep them in mind for my next adventures as the closest I got to wildlife this time around was an incredibly cheeky monkey who was more interested in what I was doing than anything else. As I roamed around on my walks he followed me overhead watching everything that I was doing. It was a bit like having a shadow except I was nervous about it peeing on me! In fact, one time he almost landed on my head as he leapt from tree to tree trying to keep up to me. The joys of nature.