One Final Safari

As my time in Africa is drawing to a close I decided it was time to take one last spin around Botswana before saying, “adieu.”  After my Kilimanjaro trip my dad came to visit which was the perfect opportunity to show him around my favorite places here.  For the past week we have been celebrating Kelly and Dad’s Week of Fun (in Africa).  We had intended to go to the Okavango Delta first, but since my flight from Kilimanjaro arrived a day late we had to cancel that part of the trip.  Instead we went to northern Botswana to visit Chobe National Park.  We took a river cruise:

We went on a game drive where we saw about a dozen lions, including two lions chasing a water buffalo across the road right in front of our vehicle:

There were about twenty game drive vehicles all in the same area of the park jockeying to get the best view of the lions; nothing quite like an African traffic jam:

We also saw some giraffes fighting:

After two days watching the animals we crossed the border into Zimbabwe to visit Victoria Falls:

And we went to the Victoria Falls Hotel for lunch:

It was a fast week but we had a great trip.  Aside from having a lot of fun with my dad, it was great to have one more visit around Botswana.  There is a lot I will miss when I leave:

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.

Visitors!

I don’t know if you have ever seen the Disney movie Cars, but if you have there is one scene where two cars are lost and wander into Radiator Springs, which was previously a major tourist destination but seldom sees any visitors any longer.  As the two lost vehicles approach the town the cars which reside in Radiator Springs get excited and start to frantically prepare for their guests’ arrival.  The character that spots and announces the approaching cars starts exclaiming, “Visitors! We finally have visitors!”  That is how I feel right now.  I FINALLY have VISITORS!

Two of my friends from back in the States, Amanda and Ashleigh, arrived in Gaborone Monday evening.  I am so excited to have them here them and have spent the last week showing them around Botswana.  Tuesday morning we woke up early to head north.  Since it was a long drive and we had to spend most of the day in the car we spent the night at Elephant Sands, which is a guest house about 30 miles north of Nata.  We had intended to do a game drive that night, but the safari vehicle had broken down the previous day.  It ended up working out for the best because we were exhausted, so we moved into our chalet, ate dinner and then sat by the watering hole, desperately hoping we might see some animals stop by for a drink.  Here is a look at our chalet:

 

During our drive to Elephant Sands we saw many elephants and giraffes along the side of the road.  Aside from the evidence we saw of elephants in the area, there were also the typical warnings.  You know how there are deer warning signs?  Or moose warning signs in Alaska?  Maybe you aren’t aware of those signs in Alaska if you haven’t been there before, but they are there.  Well, here in Africa we have elephant warning signs: 

Later in the evening I was reminded of the elephant warning signs because we were standing on the porch and began hearing a lot of trees wrestling.  The next thing we knew about 20 elephants appeared about 15 feet away from our chalet.  This reminded me of the elephant warning signs and made me wonder what type of coverage I had on my rental car for animal incidents.  Fortunately there was no incident with the rental car, the elephants walked right past us to the watering hole where they drank for about 20 minutes and then left as peacefully and quietly as they arrived.  It was amazing, absolutely magical. Sorry, this isn't the best picture because it was nighttime, but you should be able to make out the shadows of the elephants:

Also along our drive to Nata we saw a dried riverbed which was just shocking.  I know there is a lot of debate about global warming and environmental changes, so take a look at this:

Those little islands with the trees on top were at least 20 feet tall and located in dried riverbeds all along the road from Gaborone to Kasane.

Best Signs in Africa

Shortly before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese Olympic Committee launched a major initiative to “eradicate all poor English signs” in the capital city.  For instance, Racist Park was renamed the Park of Ethnic Minorities.  There were a host of other less offensive signs such as “The Slippery are Very Crafty” (slippery when wet), “No entry during peacetime” (emergency exit) and my favorite, “Please don’t touch yourself, let us” (i.e. please don’t touch, ask an employee for assistance).

In Africa I’ve seen my fair share of funny signs.  Some of them tend to have a hidden meaning, while others are straightforward.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The funny thing about this sign was that there was a crosswalk adjacent to the sign.  I’m not sure if the warthogs had been trained to stop, wait for traffic to pause, and then cross in the crosswalk.  Or maybe the warthogs knew to wait for the children to hold their hooves while they crossed together:

I’ve seen giraffes cross this stretch of road frequently.  However, I’ve NEVER seen them cross the road anywhere within a one mile radius of this sign.  Really, by the time someone sees this sign they have probably had to stop for giraffes at least half a dozen times:

This is probably one of my favorites.  This refers to orphan elephants, not humans.  Hence, why sticking your hands in their mouths could be so detrimental.  This was a sign at the elephant orphanage I visited in Kenya: