I decided that for my vacation from my vacation I'd splurge and treat myself to a hotel room in Maun. The campsite I was staying at was about 14 km out of the town and wanted to be able to walk to the store to buy junk food. Maun is a pretty westernized city, apart from the occasional donkeys roaming the streets.

I came across the Rileys Hotel and stopped in to check out their rates. I had read in the Lonely Planet that it is one of the nicest hotels in Maun, with a really good restaurant, pool, pool bar, gardens, etc etc. Unfortunately, it also said it had the prices to reflect that. I figured it couldn't hurt to check it out, and worst case, I'd just loiter on their grounds for a few hours.

Sure enough, a single room was $100 USD/night and they only had availability for one night. Damn. I sheepishly asked,

"Do you have anything, um, cheaper?"

"We have the chalets ($30/night), but there's no TV."

I just laughed and said "I'll take it."

Chalet #1 - cute cute cute - with my own little porch and everything.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry, by HAND. I never thought it was possible to be sore from doing laundry.

The next day I woke up and stumbled to the poolside to sleep on the lawnchairs. I got distracted by kittens that are scattered all over the grounds that were playing. I watched them for about an hour. One of them found a frog to pester, which I thought was pretty funny. I spent most of the morning and afternoon acting like a cat myself, moving from lawnchair to lawnchair.... sleeping. When the one I was on would lose its sun, I'd find another. During my transit from lawnchair to lawnchair, Gilbert, the pool bar bartender, would refill my glass with Fanta Orange.

In the afternoon I wandered around Maun some more and bought a warm hat for $2, because the nights are getting colder and will continue to get colder all the way down to Cape Town. Thats about all I've done today. I suspect I'll be doing more of the same tomorrow for my last vacation day from my vacation, so check back in a few days when I'm in Namibia!

Incidentally, on the way into Maun, we passed through Chobe National Park, where we saw loads of elephants, giraffes (heres a funny pic of one drinking), a lion that had killed a buffalo, and of course, another beautiful sunset!