Botswana and Chobe National Park

The reason we stayed a few extra days was to be able to got into Botswana and spend some time at the Chobe National Park.  It was quite the event.  A van picked us up at Chanters and drove us to the Botswana border.  There was a long line of cars and trucks waiting to ferry across.  Fortunately, we didn't have to wait in that line.  A boat had been arranged for us and it was ready to go.  When we got to the Botswana side, we had to wait a few minutes for the Kalahari Tour guide to collect us, but it was OK.  There were no peddlers who wanted us to buy bowls, or wooden animals or jewelry on the Botswana side like there is on the Zambia side.  Botswana seemed much more clean and more progressive than Zambia too.  Maybe it was just because this is a tourist place and they want tourists to be comfortable there.


 
Anyway, we got there and the first thing we did was take a boat tour on the Zambezi River.  It was pretty amazing.  There were so many kinds of birds, I can't even begin to remember them all.
 
We saw hippos for the first time.  This one was not very friendly and was not too excited about having his picture taken.  We were glad we were in the boat when he "sort of" charged toward us.  We were never in any danger.  We also saw Cape Buffalo for the first time.  And also this Monitor Lizard is pretty good sized.  It was hot and they were both basking in the shade.

We saw so many elephant we could not even begin to count them.  These ones are having a great time drinking and cooling off in the pleasant water of the Zambezi.


 
We were told that wherever there is water, there will be crocs.  And we saw a few.  There must not be too many or the elephants would not be so comfortable and play in the water so long.

Terry and Craig Salmon.  The guide told us a story about the water lily. It is part of the proposal process where the woman is presented a lily and has to keep it alive for a certain period of time.  Terry got the flower and she left it with the restaurant people to keep it alive until we returned from Chobe.  The boat is the Namibia boat taxi.  This area connects to four countries--Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia.

 
Jensen was our tour guide.  He was quite the character and would chide us if we didn't remember the names of the animals we saw from the first day.


We saw lots of antelope, Impala
 
Guinea Fowl                                                              Hippos
 
More hippos                                                             Lots of birds
 
Elephants                                                                  Velvet monkeys
 
Baboons                                                                   Mother and baby

Here's our crew.  We had a great time is this jeep watching the animals.  More monkeys!




More elephants.  This baby was only a few months old.

Zebra                                                                         Lions

Vultures

 
Beautiful birds                                                    The sunset out there was amazing.  It felt like a
                                                                                           360 degree sunset.  Beautiful

More birds                                                                  More hippos

Giraffe and a monkey between his legs.                     Monitor lizard




















Cape Buffalo
 
We were so close to these lions.  We watched them for about a half hour as they wandered from one side of the road to the other.  Jensen said they were waiting until evening to attack the antelope that were grazing near by.  They were living in a pride of 8 lions.  They were just no interested in us as long as we stayed in the jeep.  If we had gotten out....well we don't even want to think about that!

 

We probably saw at least 1000 elephants....there were herds of over 200 each and we saw multiple herds.


This guy was not very happy with us and would trumpet and then charge the jeep and break off about 20 feet from us.  It was interesting to watch him.

 This elephant was so close to us, Alan couldn't get him all in the picture.            Warthog!

By the falls there is a hotel called the Avonti.  They have zebra that are let out every day to graze and for the tourists to see.  They were pretty friendly.

We camped overnight in the bush.  We had very nice tents with cots on the ground.  We had warm water to wash up with at night and nice blankets.  It was pretty warm and we only needed the blanket towards dawn.  We also ate dinner there and had pretty good food.  All was done for us by people who are hired by the tour company.  During the night, an elephant visited the camp.  We didn't hear him, but could his prints the next morning.  We were told if we had to get up and go to the long drop (toilet) that we were to stop and flash our light around to see if there were any eyes staring at us.  If there were, we would have to wait until morning.  Needless to say, we didn't leave the tent during the night.

We also did an early morning safari and then back to camp for lunch and another trip out after lunch.  By that time, we were pretty much done and so left the park to head back to Livingstone a little early.  It was an amazing experience.