Day Six - Chobe National Park, Botswana

A few too many beers the night before made the early wake up call rather unpleasant. But, we were eager to get in the car for our last significant drive of the trip. We had a cereal breakfast, packed up our tents, loaded up the truck and were on the road by 7:15. We were heading for Kasane, a small town on the cusp of Chobe National park. We saw some sights on the way, Botswana has so many Elephants that they actually have an over population problem. So as we drove on the highway, we would see Elephants just casually on the side of the road unattended, not fenced in or anything. It was incredible that there are so many Elephants. Chobe is known for having the highest concentration of Elephants in the world, with over 70,000 in the park. The occasional Elephant or donkey drawn carriage kept us amused until we reached Kasane and pulled into the Thembe River Safari Lodge around 12:30.

 

We unloaded, made a quick lunch and designed some t-shirts for our trip. Due to the volume of girls in our group, this became a messy process, with many opinions and much debate over what should be on the shirts. But finally, the designed was finalized and people were relatively happy. So we put up our tents and quickly made our way down to the Thembe River, where we would be spending the afternoon on a boat for a safari cruise. This was our second type of safari, first we did safaris on foot and now we were opting for a boat, which was very cool and something none of us had ever done before. We brought a cooler of beers and drinks on the boat and were planning on making it a bit of a booze safari cruise due to the nice weather and autonomy we had on the boat.

Elephants just grazing without fences on the side of the highway

The views and sights from the boat did not disappoint. Thanks to the heat on this particular day, many animals needed to come down and enjoy some water. The first animal we saw was a Crocodile just as we pulled out of the dock, the Crocodile slithered away from the dock and issued us a reminder to not have so much to drink that we feel we could jump into the river and swim around.

A second reminder to stay on the boat was issued by the masses of Hippos we saw all over the place. We found a particular group of Hippos coming up out of the water and our boat driver decided to head towards them. As we got closer and closer everyone on the boat moved to one side, getting better and better views of the animals who were showing off the size of their bite above water. After a few moments of watching them, the Hippos took note of us and were not happy. They sent us a warning side in the form of a loud growl and a showing of their massive chompers and took a few quick steps at us. Our boat driver told us that this is how they warn people/animals or anything they feel threatened by. If we didn’t move the Hippo would likely have run up to our boat and rammed the side of it. So we backed out, heeding the Hippo’s advice and went to see what else we could find.

Chobe from the Thebe River

Hippo fight

The views were beautiful, with or without animals, the green trees, blue skies and hot sun made it a picture perfect day and we continued down the coast seeing all types of Springboks, Antelopes, Wildebeests, Cape Buffalo, Giraffes and other animals along the coastline, eating or drinking. We saw huge crowds of Hippos fighting with each other, causing a commotion under and above the water. Then we came upon a huge pack of Elephants, probably about 25 of them just grazing the land and drinking water. Their trunks trolling the water and slapping each other. We could believe the interaction between them as we cruised by and witnessed these huge animals in a huge group. Everywhere we looked their were Elephants, and the only sight more welcome than tons of huge Elephants was the occasional baby Elephant which you can’t help but laugh at when you see.

We had seen many great sights and were content with our day, when all of the sudden we were privy to a once in a lifetime situation. As we were heading back to the dock when it was almost sunset, we noticed the outline of three sleeping animals under a tree. Our boat driver saw them, no one else even knew what he was talking about they looked so obscure. But sure enough there were three Lions sleeping under a tree and just as we went in to watch them they were waking up. At first we could only see their outlines, until all of the sudden they came out into the light. As they were waking up and stretching out a huge group of Impalas were walking together slowly down the coast. The Impalas seemed to know that there was danger nearby, because they spread out and had lookouts in the back while a small group went forward. It was an amazing display of animal consciousness. The Lions were also aware that there was potential danger/ food nearby and you could see them planning for how to handle the unwelcome visitors. 

All of the sudden the Lions disappeared and then, as if they had walkie-talkies or some type of communication, they attacked the Impalas from three different angles trying to corner them. The Impala at the back on lookout made a bark of some type about 3 seconds before the Lions surprised the Impalas, but the Impalas up front chose not to heed the words. The Imapalas scurried quickly, and it was clear the Lions weren’t looking to kill the Impalas, because if they had wanted to they easily could have. The Lions were protecting their territory and nearly scare a group of Impalas to death in doing so. It was an amazing thing to witness and our boat driver let us know how lucky we were to witness something like that. We were hoping for a kill, but we got something almost as good. We get accustomed to thinking kills happen constantly and visibly all of the time thanks to Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, but that takes weeks of following and professional filmers to capture, we were lucky to have an encounter visible from the water on our cruise.

We headed back to the dock as the sun set and admired it from the boat until it feel dark all around us. Many agreed that the river cruise was probably the coolest thing we had done the whole trip. Certainly filled with constant views, and excitement and we went back to camp for dinner with smiles from ear to ear.

Wes and I on the Thebe in Chobe

Moyo cooked some chicken for dinner, and we enjoyed a nice climate outside in the night. We had early plans the next morning and a border crossing into Zimbabwe, so we didn’t stay up late. Wes and I tried to find a bar with a TV nearby to watch some of the Stormers and Bulls highlights or watch the Chelsea game, which was on, but had no such luck finding that. So we hit the hay early, excited for the next day.