Blogs from Botswana, Africa - page 50

Even though I’d already had a spring break at Albion, when my family and I visited my cousins in Washington D.C and North Carolina, my spring break in South Africa started with a 6 am flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. The name ‘Johannesburg’ has a negative connotation in many Americans’ minds due to the xenophobic attacks that took place in the city in the spring before I’d left, but the airport was clean and modern, as if it was the airport in a major U.S city. The domestic airport in Cape Town is tight and crowded, and even though they are adding on to the airport, they’ll need to work on the logistics for the 2010 World Cup, because there are going to be a lot of cranky travelers if the domestic airport doesn’t increase ... read more

here are some pics... read more

Chobe was gorgeous - we had a great time on the game drive and got really close to some lionesses. The evening river cruise was spectacular. The river, which splits Namibia and Botswana, divides into two forming an island on which elephant and hippo graze. For quite some time the nationality of the island was under dispute between Botswana and Namibia - this situation was resolved in The Hague which decreed that the deeper channel would be the main river - this meant Botswana owned the island. One of the biggest issues when the two countries were disputing the island was what they intended to do with the animals on it, according to our guide. He said the Namibians wanted to poach them while the Botswanans wanted to preserve them for tourists (he was Botswanan). ... read more

Ever been woken up by the sound of a hippo that seems close enough to open the zip to your tent? This happened to us yesterday around 11 at night when we were getting to sleep. Hippos are noisy to the extreme and in this case our fears were increased by the fact that you could hear the crazed animal splashing and snorting and grunting about in the shallow water; was it getting out of the water in which case our tent was the first one on its path (we thought we'd got the prime spot near the river but were already rather disconcerted after hearing another tour guide warning his team not to camp within six metres of the river)? What didn't help was the camp's dogs had congregated by our tent and were ... read more

It took two days and over 14 hours of driving in a small cramped 4X4 - that we nicknamed Minnie Mouse - but we finally arrived at the first interesting stop of our trip - Chobe. Chobe is known for it's huge herds of elephants and it did not dissapoint. We all jumped in to the open Safari and headed into the park all with cameras at the ready. "Oh look... there's a mongoose and impala... is that an elephant in the distance??" We then turned the corner and before us was a huge lake with elephant herds alll over the place. There must have been over 300 elephants. Some eating, some bathing, some playing. Needless to say it was amazing. I took lots of pics and have started taking videos as well to try and ... read more