Chobe River

During the night Jack and I heard the heavy breathing of a large feline. After our lion experience we could have sworn it was a lion and no one believed us! But Stanley didn’t think so since the tracks around our camp were too small for a lion but maybe a smaller cat. We were vindicated!

On our morning game drive we came across a huge herd of Impala, possibly over 1000 of them. They were very noisy and chasing each other all over the place. Stanley said they were breeding and by Nov. there would be lots of babies.

Besides a few birds such as plovers and a cormorant it was turning into a boring drive through the park when all of a sudden John whispers loudly “Leopard! Leopard!” There on the side of the road was a beautiful leopard! Stanley slammed on the brakes snd we watched it for what seemed a long time and then she walked off! This was our 4th leopard sighting - a very unusual thing to see so many in a week.

At about the same time our friends in the other Jeep were watching a big warthog when two sets of ears popped up in front of them. With binoculars out they were looking at a mating pair of Serval cats! Mr. Fish said this was very, very rare. He hadn’t seen them in almost 2 years of game drives.

Both Jeeps almost ran over honey badgers. They are also rarely seen. These are such tough animals that you can run over them in a Jeep and they will walk away unharmed!

Kasane (prounced kah-saw-nee) is a short drive from Chobe Park. It is a town of about 25,000 people and dozens of resorts on the Chobe River. Dave, Mickey, John and I walked into town and shopped at the local grocery store where we got some ice cream bars and Oreos. Then we experienced the wildnerness from the riverside on a leasurely boat ride which included a champaigne lunch. This river divides Botswana from Namibia and since we touched a plant on the Namibia side, Mickey says we can say were were in Namibia.

Other than crocs, fish eagle and Impala the best show we had was a herd of 37 elephants enjoying a swim in the river! Many were on the shoreline wallowing in mud or throwing dust on their backs while the youth were frolicking, or wrestling, or dunking each other in the water. Can you imagine an elephant frolicking? It was so much fun to watch! And the babies loved the water too although they never got very far from momma’s side. Even the hippos came over to watch!

In another part of the river we found some hippos lounging half in and half out of the water which gave us a very good idea of their size. Then we passed a Hotel lodge on stilts on the Namibia side of the river. From a distance they looked flooded and in about two weeks when the river crests they will be under water. Its been 10 years since the river flooded this much. They also had a floating restaurant.