After a wonderful 8 hours of sleep last night, it was an early morning with the driver picking me up at 7:30. After a few more pickups, we were off for the 45-minute drive to the border of Zimbabwe and Botswana. On the way we ran into the Ground Hornbill. He and his buddy were hanging out on the side of the road. He’s a scavenger and was looking for roadkill for breakfast….eew.
Our first task at the border was to walk through a pan of I don’t know what, but it disinfected our shoes to protect the animals in the park against hoof and mouth disease. Then it was off to see the Health Inspector who checked our passports to see if we’d been anyplace that require vaccinations for entry into Botswana. For example, Botswana has circulating polio, so in order for me to get into Qatar on Monday, I needed to get a polio booster. A couple in front of me had been to Kenya for a few days. In 2022, Kenya had a yellow fever outbreak so now Botswana requires a yellow fever vaccination for anyone who has been to Kenya. This couple didn’t have one. They stood to the side while the rest of us went through the line, but I saw them later. Apparently, if the Health Inspector gets a little gratuity, it doesn’t matter if you’ve had your yellow fever vaccination. I’m not sure I’d get that lucky in Qatar so I’m glad I got my polio booster.
After getting our passports stamped at immigrations, it was back into a van for the 30-minute ride to the Chobe Marina Resort where we boarded our boat for the 2-hour river cruise. And this is where I saw the Africa I expected to see. Sabi Sands was incredible but it’s fairly densely wooded and with the exception of the elephants, we rarely saw more than 2-4 animals together. But today, we saw more-wide open spaces and larger groups of animals.
We cruised the Chobe River which is actually also the Zambezi River; it just changes names from one country to the other.
Because we were in the marshy area, we saw a ton of birds, crocs, hippos and buffalo. Here are just a few.
And finally….
Enough of the birds.
Here are a few familiar faces.
We saw several large groups of them further into the marsh. Our guide said that each group only has one male. If there is ever a single male hippo, that means he’s a “loser”. In other words, he couldn’t attract any females. Ouch!
Chobe has over 50,000 elephants which is the highest elephant concentration in Africa. So, if you want to see elephants come to Chobe. If you want to see leopards as well as elephants, go to Sabi Sand. I was the only person in our jeep who’d seen a leopard.
You might think you know who this is, but you’d be wrong.
I got thisclose to yet another country I didn’t get to visit…. Namibia. The entire one side of the river is in Namibia. Here’s a short video.
After about 2 hours we headed back to the marina for lunch. There were several large groups who were all there at the same time, so it was a bit hectic. I sat with a couple of women who, while there together, often travel solo. I told them about the Antarctic cruise I have booked for Dec 2025, and one of them said that was exactly what she was looking for. I gave her the contact info of the agent who booked my cruise and she said she’d reach out when she got home. How cool would it be to have a familiar face on that trip. We’ll see.
After lunch, we headed to the jeeps for the game drive portion of the day. Again, we didn’t see anything new but because of the more open spaces we saw larger groups of animals.
Did you know that giraffes are the only animals who walk by moving both legs on a side at the same time. That’s so they don’t trip themselves up while they walk. I should try that.
And of course, the ever-present impalas.
I was also the only one in our jeep who had seen lions. Our guide, Kay, said she had seen some earlier and headed in that direction but couldn’t find them. So, she got on the radio and was told that they had moved. When we got there, they were both dozing, but soon the male got up and was a little frisky. It didn’t turn out too well for him.
Since it took about 15 minutes to catch up with the lions we had to hurry to get out of the park and back to the border, but we did stop long enough to get a picture of the beautiful park.
I got back to the lodge at 6pm so it was a very long, but wonderful day. Dinner was ravioli, soup and a piece of chocolate lava cake.
You may not hear me tomorrow as it’s another travel day. I have a driver picking me up at 11:30 for my 2pm flight to Johannesburg where I’ll be picked up by another driver and taken to Randpark Golf Resort. As much as I’ve enjoyed bonding with the wildlife of Africa, I’m ready to do something different. I think resting at the resort and playing a few rounds of golf is just what the doctor ordered.
Have a great night everyone.