Facing a croc while discovering Chobe National Park in Botswana

It was very early. Almost 4 am. By the time I woke up, half of the tents were down and people were getting ready for breakfast. Today, we were going to visit one of the most amazing natural reserves on Earth: Chobe National Park.

The early morning

As soon as I left the tent, I realized two things. The first, my hands and feet are covered in mosquito bites. I guess, from walking from the shower to the tent the previous night. The second, we were all pros at mounting and dismantling tents. In less than five minutes all were down. And no scorpions to sight.

We had the usual amazing breakfast, did the dishes and packed everything away. By 5am, we were all sitting in the white elephant waiting to go.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I wanted to keep as little money on my bank account as possible. Then, every few days, transfer some money and use that card to make payments. Unfortunately, even though we were promised internet in most camps, we couldn’t access it most of the days. As a consequence, I had no idea if I had any money on my bank account. Or if I could pay anything with it. Moreover, I needed to get dollars to survive in Zimbabwe. I asked G about it, since I needed money that day and he told me that I would be able to check it later that same day. Confirmed internet! Yay!

Driving to Chobe National Park from Nata

We had many hours ahead. During this time, G told us about one of the optional drives of the trip. Another one that, according to him, no one had ever skipped. And that of course meant additional 45€.

Halfway through the morning, we arrived to Kasane. There, in one of the shopping malls, we could get some cash, to pay for the drive. Also, we could get some money to exchange for dollars before entering Zimbabwe. I was not sure about getting money in such an open space, but I didn’t find any issues. Unfortunately, the very nice couple from the United Kingdom lost one card to a machine. It was not something illegal or a scam, it just took her too long to ask for the card back… and the ATM swallowed it for good. They cancelled the card and moved forward, but it was a good cautionary tale.

The guided tour to Chobe National Park

We left the white elephant truck in the shopping mall with E and Ir. There, we jumped into the 4×4 and started the trip to Chobe National Park. Our guide that day was Asha. He gave us some information on our way to the park. For example, he told us that the same river that flows over Chobe is the same that goes all the way to Victoria and feeds the Victoria Falls.

Kasane was only 6 km (3.7mi) away from the park, so the trip was fast and, because the sun was not very high, it was still not excruciatingly warm. As soon as we arrived, Asha went down to the park entrance and registered us.

Visiting Chobe National Park

I honestly did not know what to expect from this National Park. Yes, it was well-known but so is the Kalahari Desert. And I was not impressed by it.

Man, I was wrong.

Just as we entered the park, we saw the first animal, a water buffalo. Less than a couple of meters away from us. No need to say that by then, after being chased by one, I felt like these were now my own spirit animal.

Following this, we saw hundreds of antelopes, although we did not see any giraffe at the beginning of the trip. Around the many antelopes, we did also see many more of what I called African turkeys. Known by the rest of the world as guineafowls. They are very funny looking (and walking) animals and they are strangely photogenic.

Then, we made it down to the river itself.

The views from there are truly beautiful, but something else happened as we arrived to the river. Asha received a call through their connected system and he heard something recognizable. Somewhere along their conversation we heard the word lion.

What? A lion?

So far, we had seen the buffalos and the elephants. But nothing more. We were still missing three out of the big five (lions, leopards and rhinos).

When we asked our great guide about it, he told us that another group saw a lion sleeping under the shadow of a tree not far from there a few hours earlier. We were excited!

The lion sleeps tonight (or today, but you know the song)

In no more than 10 minutes, we were facing the lion. Under the shadow of a big bush, there it was. A young male lion with a beautiful mane dozing under the scorching sun. I remember asking the guide what is that these animals do during the day and he confirmed that they basically sleep. All day long, like lazy big cats.

Asha also told us that in Chobe National Park there were, at the moment, three groups of lions. This guy was part of a small group formed by two young adults. And that they still did not have any females in the group. This same lion was spotted earlier that day in the previous game drive walking around the road. I guess those must have been some happy visitors.

And many elephants

After taking two thousand pictures of the lion, we move forward to explore the rest of Chobe National Park. Soon we saw the first giraffes in the park, a female and its child. And then the elephant parade started. All around the river there were groups with 5 to 10 elephants. Some of them very young, only weeks old, others, bigger males and females. The youngest one we saw was about two weeks old only!

At some point during the game drive, there our guide also said something about hunting elephants. And we were all shocked to hear about it. He later on explained that they actually have more elephants than people in Botswana. Even though a large part of the country is protected and part of national reserves. Such as Chobe National Park. In some other areas, people can ask for a special permit to hunt one elephant on one specific area of the country.

Shocking for us, but when he explained the context and situation, it became easier to understand their point of view. These elephants often wander into towns and destroy part of the local crops and animals. It is easier to keep the population happy by allowing some sort of control over them.

While we continued with the game drive for a few more hours, it was all so nice that it felt too short. This game drive was the nicest of the trip (so far). Besides all the great information we got during the trip, our fantastic drive also explained that Chobe National Park, coming from Okavango Delta, was the natural border between Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Setting the tents

Sooner than we wanted, we were back from our game drive through Chobe National Park. We tipped our great guide and went to G. He had fixed the issue with C’s card and was waiting for us. They then gave us 40 minutes to buy some food in the local supermarket. We needed to buy enough to have lunch that day and the following two. Also, we could there, exchange money for Zimbabwe.

Soon we left for the camping and, of course, we had to make a pit stop to buy alcohol. I kept on thinking they wanted us to be drunk 24/7. It was only a bit after 2pm when we arrived. As pros, we mounted our tents in no time and learned that we had great WiFi!

Barely 20 minutes after arriving we left to a small “harbor” where a boat was waiting for us. And by harbor, I mean, jump through these branches to get into the small boat-kinda harbor. This was in the outskirts of Chobe National Park, and although the small boat looked a bit dodgy, the guide was again outstanding.

Cruising the Chobe River

Once we were on board, with our cold drinks and enjoying the low sun, we started our trip. There were many boats around. Some of them even had their own tripods, attached to the boats, so people could take pictures with some of the largest lenses I have seen in my life.

Our guide gave us lots of information, some of it the same we got from Asha earlier. Some of it new. Chobe National Park covers an area where the river expands into several canals. As I told you before, this river is the border, so…

How do you decide who owns the land between the canals?

Our guide explained that to address this problem they needed to decide which one of the canals was the border. They took this issue to The Hague Tribunal and decided that the deepest one would be the border. And Zimbabwe lost a chunk of land to Botswana. But, it is also the reason why today Chobe National Park exists. Zimbabwe wanted to use the land for farming, while Botswana decided to exploit it for tourism.

Sunset sailing through the Chobe National Park

We boarded the boat at around 4pm and the whole trip took about 3+ hours. And thankfully, it included sailing through the sunset. In the boat it was us and a small group of German tourists. We saw during that evening lots of elephants, many antelopes and hippos. We even saw a crocodile from only a couple of meters away. To end the evening, we witnessed one of the typical movements of the hippos, when they jump off the water and open their mouth. M even managed to get one fantastic picture of it. I also took some very nice pictures, but none as impressive as that one.

Besides all these guys, we also saw a small salamander who usually steals and eats bird’s eggs. Many more antelopes and buffalos. SO many hippos. And, SO many elephants…! And to top it all, a fantastic sunset. The typical sunset you imagine from Africa, a massive sun and the dry trees as background. Only this time it was from the water.

The perfect way to round up the day

After this impressive day, we were all more than happy to go back to the campsite. Our awesome driver, E, was the cook for the evening and we had awesome BBQ beef with potato salad. Awesome as usual.

G gave us all the information we were going to need for the following day. We did the dishes. And just like that, we finished one of the most amazing days of this Safari Exploring Southern Africa.

Read more about what we did all the other days here! Also, to know the exact itinerary, here you have the original website!