Botswana - 22

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April 13, 2004, continued -

Once we reached the border, the driver said he’d be there at 5 to pick us up. He also took us through immigration and showed us that we had a little private boat to go across the water! It was nice not to have to take a ferry. As we got on our boat, we hear someone yelling “take off your shoes” and notice two people – the man yelling and a tall, young, white boy trying to take his shoes off while running to the ferry. They got on in time and the first man started gesturing at us. I still have no idea why.

About halfway across the river, the boatman asks if we’re spending the night. We say we’re not booked to, to which he responds: “Oh. Oops.” Apparently he was supposed to pick up another group of people and got us by accident. Oh well. He still took us to the Botswana side and dropped us off before going back for his real customers. We then bothered all the people with Safari trucks until we found the one we thought we were supposed to be on. The boy from the ferry was also in the truck with us – name was Karmen, a 19yo Canadian going to Bible school in Northern Zambia (right on the border with the DRC).

Our safari truck took us through the border, and I kept making calls on a dying cell phone to try and find a place to stay. Finally we discovered a family room at the Chobe Safari Lodge – P444 for one night, with four beds. Perfect. So I told the guide, and he called his office to have his boss book it for us. She called back and said it was taken. I promised it had been available five minutes earlier, so she tried again and then called us with confirmation. Whew. Only twenty minutes in Botswana and we had a place to stay for the night.

The truck took us to a boat on the Chobe river, which is apparently about 40 meters deep right now (about 5 meters deeper than usual – this has been a flood year). We waited about an hour and were joined by some people on a day trip from the Zimbabwe side of the falls – a gay couple from Poland and a French couple that smoked cigarettes incessantly (I nearly tossed them overboard for the crocodiles!). The Polish guys were very nice.

After we’ve been on the water for about an hour, the boat driver’s cell phone rings. It’s someone calling to ask about Karmen – apparently he got on the wrong tour. We all shrugged, and sat back to enjoy it. The day was just spectacular – not a cloud in the sky, warm but with a nice breeze on the river. We kept hearing hippos in the distance (or close up, when we saw them). Impalas and kudus on the banks, and crocodiles, hippos, and monitor lizards in the water. Lots of beautiful birds too – they don’t usually interest me, but this time it was great. Cormorants, kingfishers, lilac breasted rollers, Egyptian geese, etc. Just spectacular. We had coffee, tea, and rusks on the boat, and I kept passing out jolly ranchers and lollypops from the bag of candy I brought along.

As we’re cruising along, we passed a bunch of other boats. On one of those boats, there are two people waving a little more enthusiastically than usual. Guess who! Sure enough, the people who had left the day before. They were staying at a different lodge but doing all the same things we were. We saw them again in the game park later that day.

After our cruise we headed for Chobe Safari Lodge, got ourselves checked in and had lunch (included in the cost of our safari). We also discovered that we’d be finishing our game drive too late to get across the border into Zambia, so we offered Karmen a place in our room. For a bible student, he was great – no proselytizing, told us about what he was doing when we asked but didn’t push anything. Really sweet kid. And it’s nice to have the token XY in these situations because people leave you alone more. Anyway, we dropped our stuff in our room and headed out to a game drive in Chobe. It was nice – not nearly as nice as Madikwe though. There were just too many people and it was too obviously commercialized. We ran across our separated traveling companions again, this time in their own truck. We saw lots of hippos, and Cape Buffalo which I hadn’t really seen before (not in the daylight at least). There are apparently 6,500 elephants in Chobe! The giraffes up there are also grayer (less orange) than in Madikwe. I don’t really understand why.

So we finished the game drive before dark and got to Chobe Safari Lodge. Went and sat by the pool to watch the sunset, then headed into Kasane for dinner (because to eat at the lodge would cost $18!!!). Good pizza, surprisingly, and a nice evening walk back to the lodge, although Jess stepped in a mud pile that pretty much destroyed her sneakers.

Got up really early the next morning (5am!) and started our game drive at 6:00. We saw a lion right towards the beginning, but again it was so crowded the experience was lacking. Although it was really neat at one point – everyone (like 20 trucks!) was clustered at the edge of the road watching a lion deep in. We decided to leave and as we’re driving off we see a juvenile male lion pop his head out of the bush right next to us! So we stopped to watch and three trucks flew in behind us to get a better look. I guess one of them must have startled him because he roared and mock-charged! Then turned around and took off in the other direction.

Some more hippos, elephants, impala, and buffalo, and then headed back to the lodge. We got there by 9:00, packed up our stuff and grabbed a cab to the airport. We got back to Gabs Sunday afternoon, went out for a group dinner later that night and watched Office Space in a big group at my house. Monika moved out (back to the US) on Monday and we had our Easter Bring and Braai at the Hash yesterday. Threw a Frisbee around for a while too – the resident from Penn plays on his fall league. Lots of fun – my skills haven’t deteriorated as much as I had feared they would. In fact, my forehand is better than it has been!

Anyway, I think I’ve spent enough time typing all this up, and it’s about noon so I’m ready to head home for lunch (mmm. Food).

Hugs all around.

Group shot at the Chobe Riverfront There are a bunch of hippos behind us somewhere. It was really a spectacular day. The people in this picture: Jess, me, Jenn, and Monika.
Birds on the water I have a bunch more pictures of random birds but decided to stick with only one upload. This guy has his wings spread to dry them – he just dove into the river to catch dinner (yum). As our boat came past he got scared, took off, and could barely fly. It was kind of sad..
Baby Crocodile I have no idea how our guide saw this guy – he was between 6 and 10 inches long. Supposedly mom was around somewhere but we never saw her (whew).
Chobe Hippo They make really amazing noises and sound intimidating. It’s funny, they seem like they should be such sweet and placid animals but they’re the most aggressive ones around.
Chobe Elephants There are supposed to be 6,500 elephants in Chobe (10,000 in all of Botswana) and we did see a bunch!
Baboons These guys are so human-like, it’s really amazing to see. The baby kept running around and jumping on the bigger ones. I’ve got some great tape of him playing. Very cute.
Impala There are a bunch of different names for these guys, all based off of a black “M” shape they have on their backsides (a stripe down their tail and one on each haunch, connected at the top). It can mean: “money-back guarantee” (if you don’t see one, we’ll give you your money back), “McDonalds” (take a guess why this is appropriate), or my personal creation (and favorite) “M ‘n Ms” (as in the candy… because they’re cute little snacks that everybody eats!).
Cape Buffalo I’m so happy I saw these guys. They’re not around in Madikwe because it’s too dry, but we ran across a bunch in Chobe. They’re very intimidating, and apparently the second most aggressive animal (after the hippos).