43. Chobe

we were greeted with cold drinks from the cooler

Fortunately our tour planner saved the best for last. We saved the nicest part for last. At $750 per person per night (the discounted shoulder season price) it cost way more than the other nights, but it was a nice treat for our last safari adventure. Our new guide Tony picked us up at the airport and took us into Chobe. Right away we could see a difference in the service. He offered us various alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages from a cooler and gave us an orientation, asking what kind of experience we wanted (learning about the culture, learning about the flora and fauna…I just wanted to see animals). I said “elephants in the water” and the next thing you know, we were zipping down a road and driving to the beach where I could see 3 elephants playing in the water. Then 45 minutes later he spotted some down another beach and we saw about 20 elephants walking through the water, exactly as I had imagined! The babies were walking around their mothers, some of them were splashing each other, and a couple of juveniles were play fighting with their tusks. Tony masterfully predicted they would cross back across the water to the shore and drove up to get a good view of the crossing. Sure enough, a few minutes later they started crossing over a little ways in front of us, then some right behind us and some right in front of us!

water buffalo with birds eating the insects off it

elephants playing in the water

elephants play battling

elephants in river hanging out

elephants in river

elephants exiting the river

Dung Beetle

It was hard for the day to get much better but on the way to the campsite, Tony stopped, backed up and pulled over. Then he pointed down at the ground where a small dung beetle was struggling to push a ball up off the road. A male dung beetle cuts dung out of elephant poop and then he rolls it, making it into a ball roughly the size of a ping pong ball. Then he rolls it uphill off the road to a safe place. Perhaps rolling it on the road is what helps make it round. Female and male mate, putting the egg inside of the dung ball. He digs a hole 13cm deep and puts the ball safely in the ground. Then when the egg hatches it eats the nutrients in the elephant dung. If many males are present, the female will choose the one with the biggest ball. So many comments I can make here but I will say nothing.

Amazing singing

When we get to camp it is also full of pleasant surprises. Firstly there are 10 workers there singing an African welcome song as we drive up. They sing for several minutes with joy on their faces, clearly loving to sing. What sets African countries apart is how much they sing. At dinner, the camp manager Matthews said they “learn to sing in school and sing until we leave this world. Sing for life.” &Beyond, the company we were staying with had a singing competition between their 4 camp groups and our camp won the competition this year. Not surprising especially if you listen to their singing in the video below. Though they did not do well in the soccer competition

soaking my feet with fancy salts after lunch

They show us the bar area where we can help ourselves to drinks when we like. Then they show us to our tents. They are huge! About 17 feet wide and 17 feet deep. There is a “porch” with two chairs and tubs of cool water with bath salts to soak our feet in. Then we unzip the tent and go in. The whole door area faces the wilderness and is mesh with optional canvas coverings. There are several other mesh windows that can be covered with flaps on the inside so if we want to peek outside to see what’s going on we can. There are two comfy twin beds with plenty of space and a wall separating this room from the enclosed bathroom area. An actual flushing toilet with water is in an enclosed room and the shower and sink are in the rest of the bathroom. The bucket holding the shower water is very large and the water pressure is very good! We were in heaven! This place is a palace compared to the last week of accommodations (though admittedly double the price).

Our fancy indoor shower

an actual water flushing toilet!

our fancy tent bedroom

sunset with tons of dragonflies

We drove down to the river for sunset pictures. There were hundreds of dragonflies EVERYWHERE! They were flying around eating the midges hovering over the lake. After the sunset they brought us hot water for showers and then had us signal them to be escorted to dinner. After dark we are not allowed to walk around without an escort as animals wander through camp. A leopard walked through later that night while we were sleeping and the next night a whole herd of over 100 buffalo walked by the camp with the closest one staring into my eyes from 12 yards away before it turned and walked back towards its peers.

sunset with thousands of dragonflies

kudu extra long horns

enjoying a drink before dinner

They started us off with a pre-dinner drink by the campfire. I had a yummy sprite with passionfruit syrup. Dinner was incredible! I thought the food we had with OG was good, but this was even better! Not only were the perfect and the cut of beef fillet mignon cooked exactly to my preference, the presentation was amazing. I thought I was at Bridges in Danville! We started with a fancy soup of split pea and potato which normally I would not like but there must have been cream in it and maybe butter because it was delicious! The main was fillet on maize with a side of veggies and a mushroom reduction sauce with onions complete with garnish. Dessert was seared pineapple in a bed of sauce topped with cream and a mint leaf.

filet mignon with a mushroom wine reduction sauce

While talking throughout the day with Matthews, the camp manager, we learned more about &Beyond. They have 3 permanent camps in the Okavango plus 2 fancy mobile camps, this one and one in Savute. The company is very focused on giving back to the community and a portion of their income goes towards conservation and communities. They just finished building a school for a village near one of their Okavango lodges. They also helped transport some of the endangered rhinos to the rhino sanctuary. They also treat their workers well and people tend to stay with the company. One of the staff had been there for 30 years! He looked fairly young and Dawne said he must have started when he was 8. They have an annual get together with all five &Beyond camps in Botswana so they know people from different locations. Certainly a top notch, very caring organization. With great food and amenities.

lion cubs following mom

The second day started with hot breakfast: sausage, bacon, porridge, and eggs cooked to order. We did a short game drive where we saw a handful of jeeps gathered. We went to look and there was a large pride of lions, some adults and some cubs. They were making the impala and giraffes very nervous until they finally stalked off after a huge herd of over 100 buffalo (the same ones who would walk by our camp that evening). I looked up after taking pictures of the lions and there were rows of trucks on either side of us. At least 10 on one side and 6 on the other. All lined up parked diagonally on the edge of the road watching. There were another 10 or so on the road to the far left and the road directly across though still pretty far from us. With so many self drivers and the easy access to Chobe from Victoria Falls, the parks here wisely do not allow any vehicles to go off the road, which gives the wildlife plenty of space to do their thing without being harassed by tons of vehicles. One lion walked about 30 yards from us, but most of them were in the space between the roads, which was about 200 yards (a couple football fields) across.

Billboard for the photo boat tour we took

We opted not to follow “the chase” as we felt there were too many vehicles along the road so we found some new birds then headed to our photographic boat tour with Pangolin Tours that the lodge includes as part of their experience. We each got a 360 degree swivel seat with 150-600mm zoom Nikon cameras mounted in fabulous mounts with great mobility, tilting up, down, side to side, and of course the seat and mount themselves rotated to face wherever we wanted to shoot. They showed us how to focus and shoot and we did a little practice before they took the boat out. We started with some monitor lizards on the shore and some birds. We got amazing closeups. Then we went to the middle of the river where birds were hanging out in the reeds including some very cute chicks.

on our boat with the amazing camera setup

Dawne shooting on the boat

monitor lizard

lilies in the water

babies trying to catch up

hippo bearing teeth

Then onto the hippos, some of which were mostly submerged and some who had most of the bodies out of the water so we could really see them! We had fun trying to catch them yawning (i.e. baring their teeth in warning but yawning sounds safer to us poor tourists). The yawns were pretty short and far between, and their were two different groups so it was like a game to try to locate the right one, spin, and focus on it before it was done.

hippo yawning even bigger

African Fish Eagle

hippos laying down in the water

Crocodile on land

Next up we visited some crocodiles on and near the shore. This completed our “wish list” that we had given Tony the day before. They did a great job finding the animals we wanted to see. We stopped to take pictures of some pied kingfishers who were fishing for small fish from the shore. I managed to get some other birds in flight though I can’t remember what they were. There were 5 of them flying together and swooping around beautifully. A couple cute little wire tailed swallows hitched a ride on our boat. At the end of the cruise they gave us the memory cards in the cameras so we could take them with us. Such an incredible experience!

Crocodile on the water near our boat

two kingfishers and one fish

five birds flying circles together

we picked up a couple of hitchhikers on the boat, wire tailed swallows

banded mongoose baby following mama

After lunch in town (and a chance to use the internet!) we did a game drive on the way home. In town we saw yet another large business (aka group) of banded mongoose. They were on the hunt for vermin, running across a dirt parking lot and around/under some buildings. Once back in the reserve Tony spotted a leopard lying on side of the road. It got up and walked behind our truck and off into the bush. I can’t believe how lucky we were to see not one but three leopards this trip! Then my phone rings with a WhatsApp call. The guide and Dawne look at me. It's Cosmo’s foster mom, Paula, who he is staying with. Instantly my heart sinks as she would probably only call if something was wrong with Cosmo. Perhaps he got injured and needs the vet. It's hard to hear as the call is breaking up a bit but Cosmo got out yesterday with their cat and they got him back, but he got out again today and took off. They can't find him and they are supposed to leave for church for Mother’s Day, but she's in a panic because she doesn't want to leave Cosmo out there. I assure her the rascal is fine and he won't come back until he's ready, at least half an hour so she should go to church then call for him when she gets home offering his favorite treat. He'll also come home when hungry so make sure there's no food available outside. After I hung up my guide looked at me and asked how I got the call as there's is no service out in the bush! Crazy. I guess God wanted her to go to church and helped out 😊

leopard lying on the side of the road

leopard crossing road right behind us

leopard wandering off

a real live unicorn though not born that way as he lost a horn

baboons wandering the field at sunset

Southern Ground hornbill

6 more people joined us for dinner that night. Four English had come in from Victoria Falls and two Germans had flown in that day so they were pretty tired after their afternoon game drive. We feft lucky we were on a different schedule and had Tony all to ourselves as the camp does hold up to 10 people in their 5 cabins. It was nice to meet some new people though we still missed our travel buddy Kathie. The next day we saw the smallest elephant we’ve seen. Tony thought it might be one month old. It was crossing the road with its parents. He worked really hard trying to find a cheetah to no avail. We did see some Southern ground hornbills and Tony told us to zoom in on their eyelids…they have eyelashes! We met up with our transfer van to Victoria Falls, which went smoothly though we were held up at the Zimbabwe border because their internet went down for about 10 minutes. That’s why you need to always have cash as a backup when paying your various fees (visas, park fees). When I paid for my Zambia Park fee, the guy had to open his side door and hold the machine outside for signal!

eyelashes front view

"go away" bird (if you hear its alarm cry you should go away before the lions get you)

giraffe crossing road in Chobe

Crimson breasted shrike

tiny baby elephant

a tiny baby elephant from the water