Is that a statue? No, it's a rhino!

"Look at that, they have put a statue of a rhino here", my husband exclaimed, pointing at a rather large 'statue' drinking from Khama Rhino Sanctuary's restaurant's swimming pool. As I am filming 'the statue', it moved. From then on the video keeps bobbing up and down as I was too busy pointing at the rhino :)

"It's not a statue, it's the black rhino!" It's skin the colour of concrete statues, it was easy to make this assumption. Perhaps.
Before we got to the Sanctuary, I told my travel companions that there is a male black rhino who often visits the restaurant area. He has been hand raised and therefore very used to humans. It was incredible to now see it in real life since black rhinos are so very rare.
The black rhino wouldn't allow us to bask in it's glory for long, it left the swimming pool area as soon as we turned up and slowly and majestically disappeared into the bushes. This sighting might have lasted only seconds but it is one I will treasure forever.

The visiting black rhino isn't this restaurant's only draw. It's steak is delicious! So much so that we had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

A must-do at Khama Rhino Sanctuary is driving around it. You can do it by yourself (in a 4x4 only!) or take an inexpensive and a very good 2,5 hour tour led by one of the staff. This is the best way not only to see a few white rhinos (we saw 7) but also wildebeests, impalas, ostriches, kudus, waterbucks, vultures, kori bustards, elands, oryxes and so on. At one point we stopped when we noticed a rhino mother and baby walking towards the road we were driving on. They kept walking towards, in that unhurried pace of theirs, crossed the road behind our safari vehicle and, just like the black rhino, disappeared into the bushes.

Originally, we had planned to drive with our car (not 4x4) to the chalet we booked ourselves into. The girl at the reception said we should make it too. She was wrong. Few metres up the road, it got sooo sandy, the car got immediately stuck. Luckily, the sanctuary has a solution, you can get a transfer to the restaurant or chalets by one of the safari vehicles. Very well organised.
That night, we had a transfer sorted from our chalet to the restaurant. It was past 6pm, the sun had gone and the world had turned dark. Halfway there, our driver suddenly stopped: "Did you see the leopards? It was a mother and two cubs!". We didn't see them. We were absolutely gutted. Sighting them would have been 'the cherry on the top' for our two amazing days at Khama. But, never mind. It was still an adventure in an incredible place and one that we are not likely to forget in a hurry.