Botswana Weekend

The weekend brought another amazing mini-vacation, this time to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We enjoyed a relaxing weekend full of big game and big memories.

The border crossing into Botswana is just about an hours drive from Livingstone. Botswana and Zambia, though, do not share a land border, but instead the Zambezi River marks the boundary. In the US, a basic bridge would span the river. Here, we had to ferry across the Mighty Zambezi to the border post. While on the river, we are technically at the intersection of four countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. It’s like the super-sized version of the 4 Corners!

Shortly after crossing into Botswana, we hopped into an open-air safari vehicle. It was a briskly cold Botswana morning, but we managed to survive. We keep telling everyone that this is nothing compared to North Dakota winters! After this short drive, we pulled into a small dock along the Chobe River and boarded a motorboat for a game-watching cruise. Our group, which consisted of us two Americans, an Australian, and 3 Dutch folks, was joined by couples from Spain and Italy to form our own little UN on the Chobe.

The cruise was quite wonderful. We jetted along the Chobe, which demarcates the border between Botswana and Namibia. We game across such game as baboon, vervet monkey, waterbuck, crocodiles, hippos (including a massive “island” of hippos – probably 50 all together), monitor lizards, African fish eagles, and kingfishers. We got so close to many of these animals, especially the massive crocs!

After the cruise, we headed to Elephant Valley Lodge (www.evlodge.com) for lunch and to check-in to our accommodations. The lodge is nestled nicely into the African bush and includes a watering hole frequented by elephants. Each “lodge” is actually a permanent tent that includes hard flooring and a bathroom with shower. It is an absolutely fantastic place. I couldn’t keep track of how many times Leah said, “I love this place!”

After lunch, a brief nap, and high tea, we headed out on an afternoon game drive into Chobe National Park. While the boat cruise was quite nothing, it paled in comparison to the drive. The long list of animals we saw in abundance includes impala, kudu, giraffe, African hornbills, helmeted guinea fowl, Cape buffalo, vultures, jackals, and elephants. Chobe’s 11,000 sq. km park is home to nearly 85,000 elephant, so we literally saw well over 100 elephant during our drive. Most of these animals are right next to the vehicle. It’s quite something to be within 5 feet of a giant elephant. Many of the elephants actually had small babies with them. Our guide spotted one baby he presumed to be only one or two days old! Before we left the park, we heard reports of lions on the prowl. Our wonderful guide quickly found their trail and led us to two young male lions scavenging a baby buffalo that had been killed. Again, we were within 15 feet of these animals!

We left the park in total darkness. Our guide shown his spotlight along the bush on our drive home and was able to spot two hyenas, adding to our list of animals. During our wonderful dinner back at the lodge, we marveled as over 25 elephants paraded to the watering hole for an evening drink.

In the morning, after a great breakfast (Perri, our Australian friend, believes we were on an eating safari more so than a game-viewing safari), we headed on another drive into Chobe. While we saw many of the same animals as before, we added the sable antelope to the list. Our group was determined to find zebras also this morning. On the way, though, we made an even better discovery when our guide spotted a leopard! We saw it only briefly and from a bit of a distance, but even that glance is a lucky feat in Chobe. We have now seen four of the “Big 5” with only the rhino left to cross off the list. By the way, we never did find the zebras. So sad….

Exhausted, we headed back to the lodge for a last meal and to check out before heading back to our final week of volunteering in Livingstone. One interesting thing we noticed in Botswana was the government’s proactive approach to fighting HIV/AIDS. In each government building, like the border and national park visitor center, were distribution stations with free condoms and brochures with AIDS education information. These were funded by the Botswana government. With the highest HIV rate in Africa, it’s no wonder Botswana is trying anything that might work.

As we are leaving on Sunday, I’ll do my best to update the blog frequently while reminding Leah to post as well. The time is flying by here in Africa!

We hope all is well back in ND!

Zac (with a little help from Leah)