Sorry again for the delay in posting -- transitioning from one leg of our trip to another kept us very busy...so did jumping off of bridges in Livingstone, but more on that later.
After we wound our way out of the Delta, we headed up to the Chobe River in Botswana. Our campground had been flooded only weeks earlier, and there were lion prints in the mud which was super conducive to a restful night... Nevertheless, the next morning we woke up early to do a game drive by boat up the Chobe River.
Within minutes of our captain gunning the engine, our boat had spotted both mongoose and monkeys on the coastline. I was psyched about the mongoose because of that kids' book where a mongoose kills a cobra (Ricktickitavi? I dunno, something like that). Many, many croc sightings soon followed; however, our Australian friends were unimpressed because it apparently they were not large by Aussie standards. After about a month of hanging out with Australians I've figured out that they have a whole different understanding of wildlife related danger.
About a third of the way into our cruise some suspicious "rocks" were sighted. Eventually, these rocks were confirmed to be hippos -- the Chobe is known informally as "Hippo Heaven." Luckily our boat was way too big for even the grumpiest of hippos to consider attacking, so we were able to observe without anxiety.
We also saw a whole herd of elephants cross the river using their trunks as snorkels. In short, our cruise up the Chobe was very productive. After it was over we did a 4x4 game drive to our camp for the night, which was in the middle of the bush, sans fences. Suffice it to say that we weren't allowed to go to the bathroom alone that night. Lions were honestly the least of our concerns -- Chobe has 30,000-40,000 elephants. Elephants, despite their adorable attributes, are prone to charging and running over humans.
Luckily, everyone remained in one piece and the next morning we headed across the border to Zambia.
No comments:
Post a Comment