Botswana 1 – Chobe National Park

After a one night layover in Victoria Falls, we were set to join our safari tour group in Botswana. There was some confusion at the meeting place, until Sam came over and introduced himself as our guide and driver.  Turns out we were a “safari of two” and this was going to be 8 days with just the two of us in four different luxury tent camps. Each camp was quite unique in terms of their variety of animals and terrain.  The original tour did say “minimum of two people” and it turned out that we were the two.

The tour started with a boat cruise along the Chobe River, where we saw herds of elephants eating hippo grass, crocodiles absorbing the rays of the sun, families of elephants crossing the river to various islands, antelope grazing on shore, hippos taking a dip in the river and Cape Buffalo.

Botswana Chobe Park - misc

Our Botswana tour was with &Beyond (known in Google as AndBeyond), and our first two nights were at their tented camp in Chobe National Park. This was true camping in the sense of mobile canvas sleeping quarters, no internet and barely enough electricity (via inverter on the jeep battery) to keep our camera batteries charged. However, this was no tent that we ever carried on our backs when younger and exploring the Pacific Northwest. The tent had three rooms, including a comfortable double bed, fine linen, and even a full porcelain toilet in the back section!

As we arrived at our first camp, we were met by four camp workers who sang a gorgeous quartet of welcome in their native language (upper left plus see video below).  It was a surprise, both to be greeted in this way, and by the exceptional quality of their combined voices.  These four men (Gabriel, Phillip, Petzel and Simon) were to be our cooks and general support staff for the next two nights.

After a brief settling in, we were introduced to “Bush TV”, a camp fire, with snacks and cocktail. As with all four camps we stayed at during our Botswana trip, this area was teeming with a variety of wildlife.  There were lots of birds, such as the Lilac Breasted Roller (upper right). Crocodiles were a frequent water hazard here (middle row and lower-left), and there were a few giraffes (lower-right).

Botswana Chobe Park - cape buffalo

The island was lush with “hippo grass” which was an obvious favorite food for the many cape buffalo and elephants in the area.

Botswana Chobe Park - zebras and hippos

This was our first chance to get close to zebras, which had been scarce in Namibia.  We also saw a few hippo, but usually from a considerable distance.  We had hoped to get up close and personal for images of hippos “yawning” (which is actually a warning from the animal to show how large he is). We did see the behavior a few times, but always in the thick marsh grass (lower-right).

Botswana Chobe Park - antelope

Antelope are everywhere throughout the region. Our driver repeatedly referred to the impala (upper-left) as “appetizers” because they are relatively small, plentiful, and frequent prey by predators.

As we entered the Chobe tented camp, the staff greeted us with this native welcome song,

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