Camping: Chobe National Parka

We started a 2 week camping trip by meeting our group in Livingstone, Zambia. We are the only Americans, along with 4 Aussies, 4 Brits, 2 Canadian-Brits and one Irish, plus two Kenyans as guide and driver. Most of them thought it was funny that the two of us had stayed at the Fawlty Towers hostel, and started making a lot of jokes that we did not understand, since they were references to the British tv series of that name starring John Cleese which neither of us have ever watched. We crossed into Botswana by crossing the Zambezi River aboard a rickety old ferry. Once in Botswana, we were then supposed to each walk into a puddle of some sort of liquid which would, in theory, prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease, which we did. But as you looked at this half empty container of dirty water that did not have any scent of disinfectant associated with it, you really had to wonder how much disease prevention was actually happening here. In addition, many of the Africans crossing (particularly drivers of vehicles) did not even walk through the puddle, as there were very few officials monitoring the station. Here is our custom truck/bus vehicle at another in-country foot and mouth station.


This truck is our home for these two weeks. Inside we all have lockers/storage for stuff and there are 24 seats, but only 13 of us so we can spread out a bit. There is also a charging station inside the truck for us (for ipods, camera batteries, etc..) that is supposed to work but as this is Africa, the charging station works about half the time. One day when we asked the driver about it, he explained that it wasn't working because it was too cold. This was far from an acceptable answer for our engineer Hugh, and so with a little rewiring, we had electricity. It didn't make the driver very happy that Hugh h ad messed with HIS truck, but he is still nice to Hugh. The electricity was out a few days later again, probably because it was too hot. Our first stop was Chobe National Park. We did a morning game drive followed by a late afternoon river cruise. This day was also Betsy's birthday, and we both agreed it was an awesome way to spend a birthday. We saw our first water buffalos on the trip, plus lots of hippos and more.








When we first saw this view, we thought it was unusual that one adult was taking care of 5 little ones which could not have all been hers, almost like a hippo day care. Then we noticed that the clumps of mud in front of them were actually 20+ hippos. Betsy and I are not "birders", which means we miss out on a lot since many of the places we are going are supposed to be excellent for bird viewing. However, we do occasionally notice, especially when one visits us at lunch.


Our river cruise was on the Chobe, the border between Botswana and Namibia. This part of the park particularly had a lot of elephants, crocs and hippos. Not sure if you can see the elephants at the top of the hippo photo.


This bird's feathers separate when wet so you can see right through.


The highlight of the boat cruise was watching elephants swim!!! It was so cool to watch a group of elephants cross a river while using their trunks as a snorkel.


We also a few giraffe, looking for their next tree to munch on.


I guess water buffalo aren't too afraid of crocodiles.


The end of another great day


As a side note: there are some word choice differences among English speaking countries. For instance, where we have visited so far when there is space available for lease in a building, they post a sign that says "TO LET". Not that unusual, but my mind seems to think the letter "I" belongs in the blank space. We also have these differences in daily life with the group. For example, the Aussie word for cooler is "eskie", which Betsy knew but Hugh did not. With the Australians being the largest number, many of their words win out, which is fine, and fun, for us.

Location:Botswana