Blogs from North-West, Botswana, Africa - page 33

A very early start for a game drive in the Chobe National Park. We loaded into small open-sided trucks at 6am. Amazingly within five minutes of entering the park we saw a relaxing leopard ad our first close hippos (we’d seen some from the air in Okavango). We toured around the park for about two hours seeing many interesting birds as well as animals. We saw buffalo close for the first time as well as elephants, kudu, warthogs, pxxx (like impala), numerous impala, guinea fowl everywhere, two lionesses and a charming bright green chameleon who crossed our path very slowly. Unfortunately the interesting creatures create traffic jams as the trucks radio each other. Back at the camp I saw the largest lizard I’ve seen yet. In the late afternoon we went on a cruise on ... read more

There was time for one final game drive starting at 6am. We saw the now familiar giraffe and zebra. There were huge herds of impala. The most alarming moment was when someone noted to the guide that one of the elephants had only one tusk. Our guide, called Master, said ‘I don’t like that one - he is mad - he might chase us all the way back to camp’. We were told to silently and quickly to cross a piece of open ground to reach the safety of some cover - which of course we did. The day was clear and hot early on. Sadly it was time to leave the camp in the delta. We loaded the boats and were poled for an hour back to the point where we could pick up ... read more

The mouse reappeared and peed on the mosquito net when Jen screamed. We prepared our bags for the trip into the bush camp in the Okavango Delta.An open sided truck appeared and we crammed ourselves and the supplies on board. Potsy was in charge (Kat staying behind in Maun). The first half an hour was along reasonable roads but there followed two hours along incredibly bumpy roads assign remote settlements of traditional village huts with reed roofs and mud walls (sometimes fabricated with a core of empty beer cans). We forded a river and passed a final village where the ‘polers’ live and shortly after stopped at the reed bed where the ‘makuros’ and the polers were waiting for us. My first alarming impression of the makuros, which are the local canoes hewn from a ... read more

We arrived in Botswana and were amazed to experience a border crossing where security was something more than a hut and bamboo sticks, and the whole process took less than five hours. We drove to Chobe National Park which is definitely the most amazing place I have been so far, we did a jeep and barge safari and saw more than 100 elephants - the barge takes you right up to little floating islands in the river where the elephants are grazing and washing themselves so we got so close up to them it was fantastic! After the trauma of the 75,000 crocodiles at the farm in Zambia we were all a bit on edge to see yet more 8 metre male crocs on the shore too, and saw an elephant that had drowned and was ... read more

Hello, everyone. We have just spent three days just outside Chobe National Park, which is spectacular. (We are in a small town named Kasane and staying in a Lodge on the Chobe River.) We've seen just about all the big animals one can see in Africa, including the Big 5. We checked off Lion and Leopard in the past three days in our game drives in the park. There are no fences between the park and the town, so one is taking their life into their own hands if they walk the streets at night. (We haven't!) :-) Zach and Bill went fishing yesterday on the Chobe River. Zach caught two Tiger Fish (the most famous fresh water game fish in Southern Africa) They are known for their fighting. Bill caught nothing, but still managed to ... read more