Just a short drive away from Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park sits not far from the border in Botswana, touted as one of the premier elephant viewing parks in Africa. Though we were technically four days into the tour, this was our first complete day as a group, piling into the spacious truck and heading down to our next destination. A few of the passengers were continuing on a longer guided trip from Nairobi, while the rest of us were new to the experience. Since our truck wasn't quite full, the three single travellers (including myself) each had a row of two seats to ourselves, making the ride quite comfortable in the bus-style chairs custom fitted for the truck. In front of our feet are large lockers for storing valuables and providing a nice legrest for most people, though it still wasn't enough room for me to completely stretch out my legs, and I was a little disappointed that the locker did take up half of the available legroom. Even so, the truck was very nice and certainly better than any others that we saw on the road.
We passed easily through the remaining bit of Zambia, crossing the border to Botswana on a river ferry at a point where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe all come to a single point, as it looks like it wouldn't be possible to go straight from Zambia to Botswana after a quick glance at a map. Driving through the vast countryside, the vegetation began to shrink and spread out, leaving more of a brownish mix of short trees and shrubs standing above the dusty, rocky plains, sometimes covered with a bit of undergrowth or crunchy dead leaves, remnants of the last growth during the rainy season. We made a quick stop along the way to pick up some local currency, catch up on using the internet and buying supplies at the grocery store, and it seemed to be a noticeably nicer, more affluent market center than what I had seen passing through Malawi and Zambia. Of course, it wasn't over-the-top, but thanks to diamond mining and high-end tourist resorts, Botswana is known for having slightly better infrastructure than many of its neighbors, and judging by the road and a few establishments along the way, that looked to be the case. Some of these expensive fly-in safaris are what keep the tourist market thriving, trying to differentiate itself from its neighbors and appeal to an upmarket group. As a sidenote, the currency is called the pula, meaning rain, and the change is called raindrops, showing the importance of water in this starved region. Livestock is also an important source of income for the country, and foot and mouth disease has decimated entire herds in the past, so there are now quite a few checkpoints along the main roads, forcing everyone to get out of the car and wipe down any shoes that have been used in the previous area to prevent the spread of the disease which can be transmitted simply through infected soil and bacteria that can be carried across on the soles of shoes. The cars and trucks also have to roll through a chemical wash for the tires, doing their best to prevent the spread of the disease and helping keep the economy strong.
Around lunchtime, we arrived at our campsite, a sprawling dusty area with trees providing some shelter from the hot sun. Sitting on the banks of the Chobe River, the vegetation here was once again a little more lush and full, though still mostly dry trees such as the iconic acacias, sporting a mix of leaves and massive thorns on the branches. We were able to set up a quick lunch at the site while watching warthogs and other small creatures run around the area, though the entire computer system for the resort had crashed a month or so ago, meaning that our reservation was lost, and the sites were fully booked. We found a place further outside of town, slightly away from the banks of the river, though we were the only large group there, so the quiet site actually turned out nicer than the crowded spot where we tried to stop earlier.
The next morning we awoke before dawn, wearily loading ourselves into two open sided jeeps for a safari drive in the park. Despite being covered in blankets, the chill of the early morning air penetrated our covers as we zipped along the road to the park whose gates open right at sunrise. Heading down into the park, we soon saw a few elephants and a baby feeding in the nearby trees before heading down to the river for a few sightings of lazy hippos, water buffalo, kudu and numerous bird species. In search of the large herds of elephants or the elusive felines, we continued on through the bush, passing through rolling plains of dry trees, some just trunks and branches with absolutely no leaves left. Our knowledgeable driver spotted a few fresh leopard tracks and tried his best to follow them, but our initial search came up fruitless, and we soon stopped for a mid-morning break (one of the few designated spots where you are allowed to step out of the car in a park/game reserve), just as the yellow sun was finally warming up the air. Our group of four had opted for the slightly shorter safari drive, so we made our way back towards the entrance, passing a private driver stuck in the thick sand of the roads and catching a few tips over the radio and from passing drivers about the potential of spotting a leopard near the entrance/exit of the park. We sped along to find it, coming to the place where it was said to be, scanning the horizon, trees and bushes for any sign of it. Given their effective camouflage and some thick green bushes lining both sides of the road, we couldn't find anything and though it might be a lost cause.
Then, just as we were about to head out, a few trucks ahead of us came to a quick stop, with the visitors all focusing their cameras down, just out of our sight, so we knew something was near. Pulling up with about three other trucks, we were just about 15 yards from the full grown leopard, laying casually along the side of the road, just away from the sheltering bushes. The magnificent creature, covered in a beautiful yellow and black spotted coat, didn't seem to mind the cars, simply taking a break in the morning sun before getting up and walking to the next bush for another bit of relaxation. As these can be notoriously hard to find in many game parks, we were enthralled to have seen one so close, particularly as we were heading on our way out of the park. Unfortunately, the rest of our group who had opted for the longer drive didn't manage to see any leopards, though they did get a few closer encounters with some elephants and even saw a cobra slithering by the road.
That afternoon, after a small break back at our campsite, we headed out on the Chobe river for a sunset cruise, meandering our way along the river that forms the border between Botswana and Namibia at this point. Our guide had mentioned that this was one of her favorite parts of the trip, and soon enough we were seeing animal life in the form of hippos, crocodiles, elephants and estuarine birds all hanging around the edge of the river and grassy islands and sandbars. The sturdy, covered pontoon boat allowed us to get very, very close to some of these animals, way closer than you could approach them on land or in small canoes (in the case of the hippos). As the sun slowly went down over the sky, we pulled up close to a large group of around 100 elephants, landing on the bank of the island for a close up view of the animals who, at their closest, were only about 25 yards away. Apparently there are somewhere around 75,000-100,000 elephants in the area, so it's not all that hard to spot them, though each sighting is every bit as impressive, seeing the massive beasts trudge along, flapping their ears, cleaning themselves with the water and even occasionally trumpeting. The evening finished as the orange sun set over the water, and we headed back in the low light of the early evening, getting used to our life in the tents and campgrounds. Though I wasn't feeling too bad, I had picked up a bit of an illness that had been lingering for about a week, leaving me congested and coughing a bit, though it was nothing serious, and I just hoped it would hurry up and pass. Given the timing of it, I'm fairly positive that I picked it up from one of the children in the cultural village/orphan center in Malawi, as many of those children either had a small cough or a nice little bit of snot running from their nose. Fortunately, it wasn't really bad, so it wasn't a big deal, though I didn't want it to spread to anyone else.
While we were busy on our safari adventures, our driver was occupied with another task, fixing a hole in one of the massive gas tanks of the truck that had been punctured on their previous run through Zambia. Though it wasn't able to be completely fixed while we stayed in Livingstone, they found a local welder, and after some of William's hard work, the truck was back up and running fine, and we left the next morning to head further into the center of Northern Botswana to Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta region.
(A warthog kneeling down in Chobe National Park, ready to dig through the sand and dirt for some tasty roots.)
(Our first stop in Botswana, Chobe provided some good wildlife viewing. These are kudu, one of the many antelope relatives in the area.)
(A baboon with the baby on top crossing in front of our small, open safari vehicle. We began just as the sun came up and the gates opened, catching a few of the animals out before the heat of the day kicked in.)
(Our group of four opted for the shorter drive, and as we headed out, we heard about a leopard lurking near the exit. We couldn't find it for quite a while, and then the cat just appeared out of the bushes, walking casually by as a few vehicles stopped to snap pictures.)
(This guy didn't seem to mind the paparazzi at all, just relaxing for a while in the mid-morning sun. Leopards can be extremely hard to spot, especially during the day, so we were really lucky to have seen this.)
(In the evening, we took a river cruise on the Chobe River, finding lots of crocodiles, hippos, water buffalo and elephants.)
(Hippo are massive creatures, especially when you see them out of the water. Cruising along at dusk, we saw a few of them grazing, as they usually just cool down in the water during the heat of the day.)
(One of the solitary elephants along the shoreline. With our quiet boat, we were able to get extremely close to elephants and hippos, which is something you can't do on land.)
(Chobe is known for its profusion of elephants, with somewhere around 100,000 of them, so they weren't too hard to find. This was a herd of around 100 just hanging out near the water's edge.)
(In addition to these elephants, I also easily spotted some sour worms in my hand, but they soon disappeared, possibly into my stomach.)
(No sunset cruise would be complete without a sunset. Did I mention this was a sunset cruise? Well, it was.)
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