It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

The nice thing about visiting Chobe is that it is only ten miles to the Zimbabwean border which is close to Victoria Falls.  Once you cross the border you still have to drive about an hour to Vic Falls, but it is an easy day trip.  Since Amanda and Ashleigh are both on their first visit (of many I expect) to Africa, I had to take them to see the Falls.  Plus, being so close it would have been a real shame to skip it.  So we woke up early one morning, drove to the border, proceeded to Vic Falls, and then got soaked.  Actually let me back up a minute…

While at the Zim border, Ashleigh and Amanda were introduced to the true chaos of Africa.  Essentially there were a ton of people, each one jostling for a place in line, shoving one another and trying to get the attention of the border patrol officers in order to get through as quickly as possible.  I actually felt a little bad because I am accustomed to this kind of behavior, but my friends aren’t.  After I was processed I turned around to see them politely waiting their turn, so I grabbed Ashleigh and practically threw her through the visa window in an effort to make sure the immigration officer helped her before someone line jumped her.  Fortunately we made it out in one piece with the girls laughing to one another saying, “So and so could never come to Africa, she couldn’t handle that kind of stress.”  That is right; Africa isn’t for the faint of heart.

We made it to Victoria Falls around 9am.  As we were headed toward the Falls we saw some baboons in a car.  You may have read a while back that there was some concern over the monkeys on campus learning how to drive.  Well, it appears the baboons may have beaten them to it.  In all reality, the baboons were not driving the car; they were making out (and doing a little bit more) in the backseat.  I’m glad that wasn’t my car:

Dr. David Livingstone, my namesake, is believed to have been the first European to have seen the falls back in 1855.  If you want more information about Victoria Falls you can check out my previous blog post about it here.  I had never been to the Zambian side of the Falls before, so that was the side we decided to explore.  As we drove into the town of Victoria Falls we could see the spray from the Falls.  Then as we were crossing the bridge from Zimbabwe to Zambia we began to feel the spray.  Any time you cross the bridge lots of people approach you asking you if you want to bungee jump.  We did not partake, but here is a picture of the bridge, with a rainbow due to the spray, and a bungee jumper (he is in an orange shirt directly above the rainbow):

It wasn’t until we got a little closer that we REALLY felt the force of the Falls.  In fact most of our pictures didn’t turn out properly because the mist was so extreme it looked as if we were standing in the middle of a fog storm.  But here is one shot of the Falls that did turn out well:

We also made lots of friends because everyone wanted to get their pictures taken with us:

We spent about two hours visiting the park and ultimately ended up looking like drowned rats, but we loved every last WET minute of it:

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chobe

The best thing about living in Botswana is that we have more wildlife here than anywhere else in Africa.  One of the best places to see that wildlife is in Chobe National Park.  Back in September I mentioned I visited an elephant orphanage when I was in Kenya for a conference at the same time as the terrorist attack.  The reason the baby elephants were in the orphanage was because their mothers were killed, many by poachers, before the young were old enough to care for themselves.  Africa in general has a lot of problems with poachers, but we are fortunate in Botswana that we are largely exempt from this problem.  In fact, we have the opposite problem: we have too many animals, particularly elephants.

Botswana is home to approximately half of the 400,000 elephants in Africa.  And about 100,000 of Botswana’s elephants live in Chobe National Park.  My visitors, Ashleigh and Amanda, were particularly keen to see elephants during their trip.  In an effort to satisfy their request I took them to Chobe.  We stayed at Kwalape Lodge in Kasane, which is adjacent to the park.  Since we were on a budget, and I wanted the girls to get a different experience since we stayed in a chalet previously, we opted to stay in safari tents.  They were basic, but met our needs:

While in Chobe we went on a boat cruise which is always a fun way to see the animals as they like to congregate along the shore and in the water.  I think all three of us took about a thousand pictures each, but a select few follow.  Here is a picture of Ashleigh in the boat making friends with a couple of kudu a few feet away:

And here is Amanda (before her sunglasses broke) with the elephants eating grass:

We saw hundreds of hippos:

I’m sure I am forgetting a few animals, but we saw water buffalo, kudu, impala, crocodile, monkeys, hippos, water monitor lizards, warthogs, giraffes, and of course elephants.  And since you can never have too many pictures of elephants, here is a small group, from a much larger herd, drinking on the riverbank:

We took our cruise in the late afternoon and were treated to a beautiful sunset on the ride home:

This trip reminded me how much I will miss Botswana when I leave.

A Trip to the Gaborone Game Reserve

Here in Gaborone we have our own Game Reserve.  I always find it funny when there is a Game Reserve within city limits, but that happens a lot here in Africa.  It makes me appreciate animals so much more.  In the U.S. you have to make an effort to plan a trip to the zoo.  Here, you just get in your car and head to the Game Reserve.  The animals aren’t in cages, they are in their natural habitats.  I think that is one thing I will really miss about living in Africa.  I’m not sure I will ever be able to go to a zoo again and enjoy it.

Since we do live in a city and it is close to people we don’t have any predators in our Game Reserve.  But there are still plenty of animals you can enjoy.

We have eland and impala:

Lots of birds; in fact Botswana has TONS of birds.  I could do an entire blog post about birds:

And baboons:

Somehow I can’t manage to get a decent picture of an ostrich, but we have lots of those too, as well as zebra and mongoose. 

 

“The Place that Dried Up”

Botswana doesn’t really have hills. In fact, Gaborone reminds me a lot of Lubbock. It is flat, hot, there is lots of dirt all over the place, very few trees, and you see nothing but sky for miles. But, we do have one hill, which is more than I can say for Lubbock.

Our one hill is called Kgale Hill and is on the southern edge of town. The name in Setswana means, “The Place that Dried Up” which is quite fitting, given the lack of vegetation and abundance of giant rocks. The television series, “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” was filmed on a set built at the bottom of the hill. Since the series is no longer it has fallen into disrepair, but tourists who’ve read the books and/or watched the show often visit the film set. The other thing Kgale is known for is all the baboons in the area. We saw lots of them during our hike.

Fortunately we did the hike last Sunday, and then I broke my toe on Monday. So I won’t be hiking it again for a while, but at least I looked impressive doing it, right?

And here is a picture of Kgale itself. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of town from the top of Kgale. Oh well, I guess that means I will have to do the climb again:

It takes about an hour to get up to the top, and then an hour to get back down. That is, if you don’t wander off the trail and get lost in the process. I was not the navigator; I was bringing up the rear. And since my hiking companions seemed sure of themselves I blindly followed them. That was until I said, “We definitely have NOT been before. We aren’t even on a trail! Where are we?” After about 20 minutes of wandering around, we found the trail and our fearless leader said, “Huh, wonder how I missed that?” Oh well, it was fun and at least I got to do the hike before the weather got too hot, and before I broke my toe.