On Monday, I was picked up at the hotel and I and Morris, a Jamaican who lives in Dawson Creek, Canada were taken in a bus to the Zimbabwean border, where we were picked up by a tour guide in a Landrover on the Botswana side and taken to the Chobe Marina Lodge on the Chobe River between Botswana and Namibia. We cruised in a boat down the river all morning and saw many more animals and birds than I had on the Zambezi River, including vervet monkeys, open billed storks, monitor lizards, lechus (like an impala), fish eagles, kingfishers, Nile crocodiles, hippos, cape buffalos, kettle egrets, African spoonbills, great white egret, longtailed plover, gray herons, elephants, and water bucks.
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| Chobe Marina Lodge boats |
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| Looking into the crocodile's mouth |
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| hippos |
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| cape buffalo |
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| elephants |
We had a nice buffet lunch on returning to the lodge, and I tried the local beer. We then drove to the Sedudu entrance of Chobe National Park for a game drive. The park is 11.7 square km and is not fenced so the animals wander in and out. The first animals we saw were impalas, which our guide called "the McDonalds of the wilderness" or "fast food for the lions." In addition, we saw wart hogs, Marabou storks, buffalo, tortoises, many elephants, baboons, guinea fowl with bright blue heads, mongeese, and kudus. One of my favorite things to watch was the dung beetle, who rolled a ball of dung bigger than he was along the dirt. I was told he (she?) puts the ball in a hole and the female lays eggs, which get nutrients from the dung ball. We didn't see giraffes or zebras in the park, but they were on the road to and from the border.
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| impalas |
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| warthog |
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| Marabou stork |
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| elephant |
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| baboon |
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| our safari vehicle |
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| guinea fowl |
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| mongeese |
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| kudu |
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elephants seeking shade
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