Day 16 – Chobe National Park, Botswana

One of Reese’s roommates at Whitman was a wonderful young man named Moabi. We had wanted to visit him in the capital city, but were hundreds of kilometers away and could not make it this time. Nonetheless, we thought of him often as we spent time in his beautiful homeland.

The early morning game drive was at 6:00 AM this time, so we were gathered at the front desk to load up on the Land Cruisers (Toyota’s version of a Land Rover). Our guide was female, she had no tracker, and had no gun! I was a bit nervous and was freezing as we rushed along at 90 kms per hour towards the entrance of the Park. Once there we slowed down and did some dirt roads like at Sabi Sabi… except that they did not go cross-country when they spied game here. You were required to stay on the track. The morning was exceptionally cold and even though we had blankets, there were no water bottles. Again, I did not have coffee, so I mostly slept through this ride. When I started to snore either Greg or Reese would gouge me in the side. Somewhere in there we stopped for coffee and I finally woke up and rode next to the ranger spotting game all along the way for her on the ride back.

Another trip to the internet café was in order to keep up on stuff while Susan looked for, what else?, curios! She ended up buying some Baobab trees made out of wire that you could put candles in for the Sunriver house. Danged! More crap to carry back for her!

The highlight of our stay there, from my perspective, was the boat cruise we took along the river at 3:30 PM. It was a big pontoon boat with some 80 people on it, onboard heads, and a cash bar, so we had a relaxing time motoring along the river. That is when we saw the biggest proliferation of game during our entire African adventure! Large herds of elephant, giraffe, hippos, crocodiles, monitor lizards, warthogs, etc. It was absolutely wonderful being able to do this from the comfort of a boat that you could get up and move around on! The river was teaming with animals and birds too numerous to mention. Wow, this is Africa at its finest! Again, there are no fences in the area so animals can wander wherever and whenever they want… into the villages, farms and hotels/resorts along the way. When they say, “Walk at your own risk,” they mean it!

The guys (Greg and Reese) made some friends the last two nights we were there, so we retired early and let them hang out. There were too many early mornings for my liking (I am prepared to do it for tennis twice a week, but that’s where I draw the line), so I needed my beauty sleep.