CHOBE RIVER, BOTSWANA—Sunday, March 30, 2014

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Southern Sun Garden Court Tambo Hotel to Chobe River, Botswana--Sunday, March 30^th

Another early start with breakfast at 6:30 and our tour starting at 7:00. We were picked up in the same vans that brought us from the airport for the short drive to the River that is the border with Botswana. There was the usual line of trucks that wait at any border crossing. Here truckers wait longer as they can ferry across only one truck at a time.

The river was so full that the ferry could not dock as it usually did so, you were to wade in the water to get to the ferry. We watched a group ahead of us do this, then someone realized that the van could drive in the water down the concrete ramp to get close enough to the ferry for us to step on it, which is what we did. Why this problem wasn’t addressed prior to this, I don’t know, as it just didn’t happen. Anyway, we all got on and were ferried the short distance across the water. Little rough on the other side, when getting off due to the same problem.

Once we were all off the ferry, we loaded ourselves onto two other vans for the drive to the Botswana immigration building. There we presented our passport, which was stomped and whomped, and then we walked to a place on the sidewalk to walk through a disinfectant.

I forgot to mention that each time we flew, since leaving NY, the plane has been sprayed both outside and inside the cabin. I am not sure what they think spraying the air will do, but it is annoying as you have to breathe during their spraying.

So we are now all legal, and off we went, to a very nice resort hotel right on the riverside. There we boarded a river boat to tour the Chobe River for 2 hours. What a treat. Not necessarily new animals to us, but we watched the animals do different things. For example, we have seen 5 million, 4 hundred and six impalas, but here, they were eating dirt for a mineral they need. We saw pods and pods of hippos in St. Lucia, but here they had birds on their backs and heads, they came out of the water more so you could see the scars on their backs, and then we saw them up completely out of the water, grazing. We did see a gorgeous bright blue Woodland Kingfisher, an African Darter, and some Spur-Winged Geese that are huge compared to the Egyptian Geese that hang out with them. After a very pleasant ride, we got back to the resort and had lunch in their dinning room.

We then all piled into safari jeeps to drive through the same reserve, but this time we were driven along the river. First, the guide had to stop and register our group before going forward.

We hit a bonanza of big birds this day; a White-Backed Vulture, a pair of Tawny Eagles, some Squacco Herons, and the ugly, ugly, group of Marabou Storks. These storks are huge, weighing 20 lbs, and standing 5 feet tall. Their wingspan is one of the largest in the world, at 7-9 feet.

After a great day of observing wildlife, we said goodbye to the wild hippos, buffalo, rhinos, antelope, elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, and muddy wart-hogs, as this part of the trip was over. This is what we came to see, and we did. In all, we saw many species of animals (at least 8 kinds of antelope) and birds (my count at this time, is 117 different kinds); only the leopard of the “BIG FIVE” eluded us.

We reversed the process of getting to the Chobe River; jeep to resort, van through immigration to ferry, ferry across the river, but instead of the van to get us to dry land, someone had built a 6" wide plank walkway. I took a few steps on it and then plunked my feet down into the water. I thought it better to step into the water than to fall into it, as I couldn’t balance on the narrow wobbly planks once they started swaying with my weight. Of course, visions of leeches and all other non-pleasant microbes inhabiting an African river flash through my mind and I hoped my short-term “baptism” doesn’t turn into a long-term problem.

We had noticed along the road to and from the river, driving from the hotel, that people were selling tall bags of charcoal for household use and Valerie got a picture them. However, we were moving too fast for her to get clear pictures of the women walking on the side of the road in colorful outfits. Or, of the homes tucked into the underbrush.

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