SAFARI – DAY 7 (Chobe National Park, Botswana; Chobe Safari Lodge)

The hippos are frolicking this morning and very vocal (what a perfect opening sentence for a novel).  Watching a herd of impala come down to the water to drink in the early morning.  Watching the sun come up and turn the trunks of the trees orange.  Because of some bush fires, the sun is a vivid red as it rises and sets and is absolutely beautiful (but my camera cannot capture it so I only have mental photos of it).

Apparently, we’ve been “glamping” (glamor camping).  That means camping with big tents, comfortable beds, and staff to do all the work and it definitely makes camping more fun.  The staff is tearing down the camp today because we are moving on to another park – gonna fly by bush plane.

While driving to the airstrip we saw a pygmy mongoose, a giraffe family grazing, and a leopard.  I was the only one who actually spotted it before it vanished in the tall grasses, but it was exciting.  We’ll be going to the leopard capital of Africa (in South Luangwa) in a few days.

Arrived at the airstrip and one truck had to drive to the end of the strip to chase away the impala so our two bush planes could land.  Lisa, our guide, had to bang on the door to get them to run away.  The herd was crossing the strip to get to water on the other side, but they only seem to cross one at a time at unpredictable intervals.  Very amusing.  The guide we left behind drove back down to the end of the strip when we took off to make sure it was animal free.  Wow, this stuff never happens at home!

One plane was an 8-seater (including the pilot) and one was a big 12-seat job.  The flight was about 1.5 hrs to Kasane (kah-SAA-nee)  on the Chobe and Zambezi rivers.  We flew over some bush fires and I could see the line of flames.  As we started to land, I watched a line of elephants walking alongside the airstrip.

We were greeted at the Chobe Safari Lodge (http://www.chobesafarilodge.com/) with refreshing glasses of juice.  Before being taken to our rooms, we were given strict instructions to keep our verandah doors closed at all times to keep out the monkeys and baboons – they cause havoc and poo all over if they get inside.

From our room we look across the Chobe river to Namibia.  The lodge is quite luxurious, with wonderful décor, a buffet with a huge variety (had impala lasagna for lunch), air conditioning (!!!!!) in our room, an enormous tub in addition to a lovely shower, and quite a wildlife show on the lawn in front of our room.  There are baboons and monkeys everywhere (they have a staff guy that shoos them away from the open air dining room).  We have a whole hour to rest up before going out for a 3 hr boat ride that supposedly will blow our minds.

RIVER BOAT RIDE
We sat in rather comfy chairs with a boat guide and a bartender (although for me, it is way too hot to be drinking alcohol).  We saw 30-40 elephants browsing and taking mud baths, with the cutest babies.  Also bunches of hippos on the banks grazing, and lots of cape buffalo, several big monitor lizards, really big crocodiles basking in the sun, spoonbills and kingfishers, marabou storks (magnificent but not exactly cute and cuddly looking), water buck (yet another antelope type), kudu, and warthogs.  I’ve started really liking the warthogs – they trot along with their tails up in the air and it is rather cute but they are difficult to capture on camera.

Not far up the Chobe river is a point at which the Zambezi meets the Chobe and is the point at which four countries all meet – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia.  We’ll ride through that point in a couple of days when we go to Zambia.

Several people in the group, including me, are really tired.  This afternoon before dinner I got to take a real shower and put on clean clothes for the first time in a week.  (Well, it sounds like I didn’t change my clothes for a week – I did put on a clean shirt or undies, but not everything clean at the same time.)  Almost feel like a new person except I’m so tired.  In bed again by 9:30 PM but we have a 5:45 AM meeting time tomorrow morning.  Listened to hippos in front of our room – love it!  Their snorts just make me grin.

TRIVIA QUESTION:  Only two animal species are able to actually alter their habitat – what are they?  One is humans and the other is…?  Answer in tomorrow’s post.