Blogs from Chobe National Park, North-West, Botswana, Africa

Botswana has 1.8 million people, a diamond mine, the Kalahari Desert, and 270,000 elephants in Chobe National Park alone. To have a look at the National Park we spent three days at Muchenje Safari Lodge. Getting there from Victoria Falls involved an hour drive to the Zimbabwe-Botswana border, queuing in two hot and stale-smelling immigration offices, then a short ride in the back of a safari vehicle to Kasane and from there another hour along the highway through the park to our lodge. The lodge is quite nice but certainly isn’t the height of luxury, and the lack of air conditioning was a bit of a drawback when the temperatures got up to 38 or 40 in the days we were there. Unlike our previous safari experience it is also outside the National Park boundary, so ... read more

We travelled on our overland truck from Zambia to Botswana. The border took ages - again! We went to a place called Kasane in the Chobe National Park. After we had set up our tents and had lunch we went on a river cruise on the Chobe river. It was awesome! We saw elephants, hippos, crocodiles, buffalos, waterbucks and lots of birds. And we saw a fabulous sunset. The next morning we had to be up mega early - 5am - to leave for a game drive at 5.45am. We were hoping to see lions but sadly not! :( We did see giraffes, hippos, warthogs and thousands of impalas! And it was freezing!!! After that we hit the road again and were off to our next campsite in the National park called Planet Bao Bab. It ... read more

We arrived in Kasane. Locke and I took a drive into town where I was able to pick up some more bug spray. Until this point, I am l am happy to report I only have 1 mosquito bite. I am starting to get itchy even though I shower most days. Between sporadic cold showers and some twinkling hot showers and my clothes smelling like nature, I am getting to the grimy point of my trip. The late afternoon came quickly where I was heading for a boat trip on the Chobe River to head into Chobe National Park. Linda and Coleman actually joined even though there was an additional cost to do this activity. Thank goodness there were 2 girls in their 20’s from London on board. I was able to sit with them and ... read more

Kasane - Day 2 We were up at 4:45 this morning for an early game drive. The safari vehicles took us back into Chobe Park, first along the Chobe River again, and then further into the park than the night before. No lion this morning, but lots of birds, which are interesting to both of us, but not the rest of the group. Wart hogs digging in the dirt for who knows what, giraffe, zebra, impala - too many to count, tssebe. After the game drive, we drove into Kasane to stock up on water and supplies for the trip into the Okavango Delta over the next three days. Then back to camp for a bit of relaxing during the heat of the day.  At 3:00 we drove a short distance to a dock on the ... read more

Friday (30/7/2010) Another early start and we were starting to become accustomed to the pre six am routine. Quick breaky and we were back on board Matilda bound for Kasane. Passing the hours with napping, reading, cards it wasn’t long til we were in Kasane . Lunch stop at the Pizza joint then to quick shop for drinks and snacks for our Chobe river cruise that evening! Stocked up we piled back on for the short trip to Thebe Camp site. We set up camp and the girls set to getting pretty whilst the boys knocked out a power bush gym. We boarded our barge right on three with another overland truck making it a full house. We spotted some hippo’s wallowing in the shallows not keen to give us much of a show and couple ... read more