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| “What the muck have I gotten myself into?” says Mr. Cape Buffalo (one of the Big Five). |
“Sighting of the Day in Botswana”
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| “Why are all these humans staring at me?” says Ms. Baboon. |
While we’re in Chobe (Botswana), we didn’t have ample free time to upload our hundreds of photos to get to work on them. Yesterday morning Steve, our driver with Chris Tours, picked us up at 7:00 am, and we didn’t get to our hotel room at the Chobe Safari Lodge until after 4:00 pm after a full day of game viewing.
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| The entrance gate to Chobe National Park. Our guide enters the building to be given a route for our game drive. Luckily, Samson negotiated a route close to the river where wildlife congregates during the dry season. |
With a dinner reservation for 1830 hrs (6:30 pm), with both of us desperately needing to shower before dinner, we knew we’d have little time to prepare the type of post we’d like to best represent our entire day’s experiences on a game drive in Chobe National Park and an afternoon cruise on the Chobe River.
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| Cape buffalo are safe around this young crocodile. But, according to our guide Samson, once this croc is fully grown and a buffalo is floating in the water with hooves not touching the river bottom, they would be in grave danger. |
Undoubtedly, my expectations were high after the experiences we had three months ago engaged in these same activities. Tom, on the other hand, kept his expectations in check. But, like visiting Kruger National Park once a week, one needs to temper expectations and go with the flow.
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| Elephants have their own built-in snorkel. |
There were a few stunning moments we’ll share in photos over the next week. Still, for today, we’ll only be adding a few of the less exciting photos to save time, including the gems from yesterday and today with the accompanying stories to go with them.
Luckily, as you see this post today, we have another full day of the same activities. Hopefully, we’ll be back with some severe adventures in tomorrow’s post when we are back in Livingstone, Zambia.
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| This elephant crossed the Chobe River with ease. Elephants are great swimmers. |
We stayed with the same group of six other people on the first day during the land game drive, the buffet lunch at the resort, and the boat safari in the afternoon.
Today, we’ll meet an entirely new group of people. The people we met yesterday were fantastic, and we all shared wonderful stories of our world travels and love of wildlife.
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| Man and boy canoeing in a channel of the Chobe River. |
One couple from Switzerland and Germany had just come from staying in a lodge in Marloth Park. What a coincidence! We chatted with a pair of traveling friends working together in Dubai with one from Minnesota. Another coincidence.
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| Tom is right at home while on safari. We’ve learned so much over these years. It’s all the more exciting. |
The third couple is from Nice, France, and although there was somewhat of a language barrier, we managed to engage in lively conversation. Meeting these friendly people was an exciting and enjoyable experience.
Of course, we handed out business cards and looked forward to seeing them online, hopefully visiting us here on our site and saying hello on Messenger from time to time.
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| Warthogs, outside Chobe National Park, running from dogs chasing them as shown in the photo below. |
The room at the Chobe Safari Lodge was excellent, with views of the Chobe River. Of course, early in the morning, we heard the magical sounds of hippos gurgling in the river…music to our ears…reminiscent of our time in the Maasai Mara in 2013 when we slept in a luxury tent on the Mara River, awakening to the sounds of the hippos before sunrise. See that link here.
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| Dogs were chasing warthogs outside the perimeter of the park. |
After checking a few online resources, we found these fun facts about Chobe we’re sharing today. Please check below for details.
From this site:
1. Chobe National Park is divided into four different areas, each with distinctly unique geographical landscapes. They are as follows; the Savuti Channel, Linyanti wetlands, Serondella, and Nogatsaa.
2. In 1888, the Savuti channel dried up entirely and only flowed again in 1957, 70 years later. It is changeable and sporadic but exceptionally diverse and beautiful.
3. The roads in Savuti are notoriously difficult to drive through due to the wet black cotton soil in the area.
4. Savute and Linyanti have no internet and no mobile network coverage
All the more reason to take a digital detox and enjoy the simple pleasures of a Botswana safari.
5. Before it was a national park, this area was used as trophy-hunting grounds and as a source of teak wood for the blooming timbre industry (both of which have been outlawed).
6. In the 1940s, Chobe National Park fell under a major tsetse fly infestation. This has a significant impact on the decision to declare the area a national park.
7. Gobabis Hill in Savuti has ancient San rock paintings estimated to be about 4000 years old.
8. Chobe National Park has the most elephants in all of Africa, and you can feel the ground shake as a large herd moves by.
9. To celebrate their second wedding, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married in secret at the Chobe National Park in 1975.
10. Victoria Falls is only a short drive away from the park. Don’t miss the chance to visit this magnificent feat of nature on your Botswana safari.
11. Rhino is the only Big Five animal that is not found easily in the park. (At current speculation, there are only 13 rhinos in this massive national park).
Tonight, we’ll be back at our hotel in Livingstone, Zambia, by dinnertime. For ease, we’ll dine at the hotel, which will be Tuesday evening, and then we’ll dine out once again on Wednesday.
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| Our lovely room at the Chobe Safari Lodge in Chobe National Park in Botswana. |
On Thursday morning, we’ll head to the airport in Livingstone to return to the Kruger/Nelspruit/Mpumalanga Airport, which is a seven-hour turnaround. At some point during the day on Thursday, we’ll upload a new post. Most assuredly, we won’t be missing any day’s posts during this trip, but the times we upload them may vary.
Hopefully, all goes well with immigration when we re-enter South Africa on Thursday afternoon. Either way, we’ll be sharing the details here.
Have a fantastic day and evening!
Photo from one year ago today, August 20, 2017:
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| This plant in the garden in Costa Rica had an exciting leaf pattern. For more photos, please click here. |