Day 23: June 30, 2020 Victoria, Falls, South Africa to Chobe National Park, Botswana

Well, we knew the drill and asked for a breakfast pack as we were getting picked up at seven in the morning. Patti was especially touched by the welcome and kindness shown by a security guard at our report.  His name was "Gift" and indeed he was a gift to all of the guests as we went off on our adventures. There were so many logistics that happened in the course of this day. The first included driving around to several hotels to pick people up.We loaded into another larger bus and headed off 80 km down the road to the border of Botswana.

At the border, we were off the bus, checked passports, sanitized our shoes and hands, interviewed by immigration people assuring them we were there for a one day day trip. And then we were split up into two pick up trucks (similar to what we rode in at Kruger National Park), and headed off to see the animals. 

We had to go a ways into the country before we got to the edge of Chobe National Park. There we all got out and our guide checked our group in. This stage just had so many checking in checking out kind of times. We are used to being able to cross the whole United States without having much of this kind of bureaucracy. But, today we were in indeed headed off to another country.

Chobe National Park looked quite a bit like Kruger. The first half hour produced no animals, but a lot of really bumpy dirt roads. This was a little disappointing, having heard that they had an amazing amount of animals in this park. But, soon the animals started showing up.

During the course of the day we saw giraffes, lots of warthog, Impala’s, Cape Buffalo, many different kinds of birds, hippos, and lots and lots of elephants. We also saw a pride of lions.

We were so glad to have one more day just to soak in the beauty of these amazing wild animals. There were so many wonderful photos and opportunities. We can never share all of them here, but rest assured it was such a blessing to be seeing so many wonderful animals.

Eventually, it was clear we were running late for lunch and had to leave the park and go to a resort where we had OK buffet lunch. The highlight there was an enormous, ancient baobab tree in the middle. We loved seeing that. After we finally all finished for lunch. We hopped back in our trucks and went a little ways down the road to where we would catch a boat to take us by water on the Chobe River to see the places that the animals visited this wide wide, river. Some more logistical trouble that there had been confusion about the size boat we needed and the one that was available had space for only 17 passengers while they were 18 of us. Law did not allow us to have more passengers than their receipts so they had to split the group up and a third eventually went on another smaller boat.

The time by boat was really sweet. It was where we were able to get very close to crocodiles as well as watch a pod of hippos, underwater and coming out of the water, including a baby hippo. There is an island that is in the middle of the Chobe River between Namibia and Botswana. We got to see how many animals would swim over and graze on that land, which was partly covered with water at this time of high water. It was really interesting place to be.

We also made an unscheduled an illegal stop on the beach at Namibia for about two minutes where anyone who wanted to could hop out and declare they had now been to Namibia. People were uncertain if they should do that, but Patti led the charge. Why not, here we are. We both thought we have never entered a country illegally before. In these crazy times that takes on a little bit deeper meaning.

Finally, it was time to head back, but about 10 minutes out the motor of our boat quit working. We were stranded. Our guide called one of his fellow guides from his company for help, but she was already on another errand going to the border. So, he had to wave over and ask a guide on another boat for some assistance. The two of them got the motor started, but it immediately quit. The other boat pilot offered to tie up the two boats and get us into shore. His kindness was really appreciated.

Patti was reminded of the old TV show Gilligans Island where they were going on a three hour tour and ended up stranded for many years on a deserted island.

Luckily, we were not stranded and got in pretty quickly. Then, we all piled on our trucks got back to the border where we went through all the bureaucracy again.

One of the interesting people that we met on that day was a woman from Hawaii, Cynthia, who is traveling for a little bit before she was headed off to a wonderful experience working with a traditional music teacher in the villages. We adopted her and helped support her as she had some things that were very confusing about her visa.

But eventually, everybody was through. We hopped on the bus and drove about an hour back to Victoria Falls. We both agreed we would not try to do any packing in the night because we didn’t have to leave in the morning until a little after 11. Another amazing day in South Africa.

Day 22: June 29 Victoria Falls South Africa

We were up and had a leisurely buffet breakfast in our beautiful setting. Today the luxury was we weren’t going to be picked up until 9 AM. And, on this trip that is a late sleeping time.

This morning‘s activities was a guided tour of the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls. This falls is enormous being twice the height of Niagara Falls. it is similar to Niagara Falls in part of the falls is on the Zimbabwe side and a part of it is on Zambia side. Our walking tour would just stay in the Zimbabwe side which overlooks about 80% of the falls. We had a very knowledgeable guide who took us on a couple hour walk parallel to the falls. We would walk in a rainforest and then turn to an overlook before back to the forest to the next overlook. We learned some about the geology as well as the historic perspective.

This falls was first noted by a European white Explorer, David Livingston. Our guide was clear that he was not the first one to discover the falls since there had been people living there for thousands of years. Livingston was a doctor and a missionary, but was known to be a good, kindly missionary who was anti-slavery. When he went back to Europe, he brought a good kind of focus to Victoria Falls, that resulted in many people wanting to come to see it. The falls are on many lists as one of these seven natural wonders of the world.

So, we walked in and out of various overlooks. As we walked along, it started getting more and more misty. Some of the people brought full rain gear. We had OK rain jackets, but as we get further and further into the misty, cold foggy areas it became less fun. We cut out of the tour before getting to see and iconic bridge between the two countries. We felt like we had plenty of photos and it was indeed beautiful.

Some of our people on the tour were later in the day going to cross that bridge into Zambia and see it from the other perspective. We thought we’d pass on that having really felt like we had a good experience with Victoria Falls.

Because what we really needed was an afternoon “off, “we had a nice lunch at the hotel and then spent the afternoon napping and working on photos and blog entries. Both of us realized we have been pushing, pushing  and getting up so early every day that even another adventure off someplace just didn’t sound good.

We wanted to save energy for what was to come. A little before seven we had our guide, Mthabisi, come pick us up at our lodge for an evening safari. He confirmed that yet again we were the only two people who had signed up for this tour. We smiled and vowed to be very good and attentive tour participants .

On the agenda was driving about 20 minutes outside of town into the forest. There we would spend the next couple hours looking for animals that might be seen with our floodlights shining, looking for either the animals or the reflections of their eyes. Alas, no animal decided to show itself this evening. We did hear quite a conversation back-and-forth between a number of hyenas and our guide talked with us about the hyena lifecycle in their communication.

He told us sometimes they have seen baboons, elephants, hyenas, various types of antelope. But we have come to really understand that one cannot bring animals out with a snap of the finger, like people have come to expect in zoos. Dick notes they don’t always show up on demand at a zoo either.

We eventually stopped and spent some time gazing at the stars. It was a beautiful night with a totally full moon. Our guide talked us through what can be seen in the southern hemisphere, especially the southern cross. We were both surprised to learn that some of the stars that we were used to seeing in the north also sometimes show up in the south, such as Orion and many of the stars in the zodiac constellations. It was fun, just gazing at the stars and sipping wine while we were listening to this highly knowledgeable guide.

As we drove back to our lodge, satisfied with the time we had together, although we know our guide was disappointed, not to have been able to produce animals for us. But ,he answered a lot of our questions about the local commitment to conservation and also about the local culture.

His father had also been a guide who shared with his son  especially some of the sad things about the poaching of the rhinos. In Zimbabwe, it had been such a bad problems and so many Park Rangers trying to protect rhinos were killed, the law has now changed and Park Rangers have guns and are authorized to shoot to kill if somebody is trying to poach rhinos. They’re doing everything within their power to protect these wonderful animals.

We were delivered back to our lodge, having skipped dinner, but felt like we had eaten plenty of food and wanted to head to bed for our last full day in southern Africa tomorrow