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Livingstone, ZM → Chobe National Park → Livingstone, ZM 232 km (144.2 mi) |
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Mwabuka!
I had it on good authority that if I were to find myself in Livingstone, I’d be a fool not to take a trip into neighboring Botswana and visit Chobe National Park! Being only sort of a fool, I booked a day trip through Viator, and promptly at 7:30 AM, the car arrived at Fawlty Towers to pick me up! The driver’s name was David, and he described himself as an oddball. Why? He was a vegetarian, he spoke seven languages, and he kept his dog, Bami, indoors, which was not something his neighbors in Mukuni Village did.
David and I filled the full 45-minute drive to the border with really interesting conversation! He was fascinated by seafood, because Zambia’s land-locked. He said I should try fufu, the staple dish of Zambia, then asked me what the staple food was in the USA. Wow! I guess I’ve spent so long in a place where everyone eats differently that I couldn’t honestly name a unified American staple! David grew up in a Christian family, which meant he didn’t get to attend a traditional Mukanda camp and learn village traditions, hunting, and herbal medicine. He told me that much of Zambia is still divided into villages with different religions and languages, run by chiefs who own the land and can overrule any federal government action on that land! In almost no time flat, I was suddenly having my temperature checked, stamping my passport, and transferring into a van driven by a lady named Shingi to the Sidudu Gate of Chobe National Park!
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From here, I joined a truck with some folks visiting from the Netherlands and a family from Ireland who were very vocal about having ordered the private tour. Nothing to be done about that now; we were off on this much more commercial tour! Unlike Welgevonden, where Buzz and I had gotten started just before sunrise, this tour, with many, many trucks leaving the gate, kicked off at 9:00 AM when the animals were looking for shady places to hide for the afternoon! Nevertheless, we were going to scour the dirt roads and riverbanks for their abundant wildlife!
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But wildlife was not abundant! At least, it wasn’t making itself known. Chobe’s charm came from smaller sightings, like the kori bustard—world’s heaviest flying bird—the carmine bee-eater, and bunches of roly-poly beetles pacing the truck through the air: dung beetles to be precise! We didn’t stop for those, and we did only stop briefly to enjoy the impalas hogging the road! Even if they’re not the most sought after wildlife, the baby impalas sure were cute!
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Indeed, all the stops on this commercial tour were brief! We’d pull up long enough for a cell phone photo of the elephant skull or baboon troop or leopard tortoise, and then we’d lurch on ahead. For that reason, I didn’t get a lot of photos on this tour, but we did at least pause long enough to appreciate a herd of napping elephants! Elephants are the park’s main draw after all, while rhinos seemed to be completely absent compared to Welgevonden! As David had told me, each country claims the elephants that swim to their side of the Chobe/Zambezi, and though they can be very destructive, they are still largely revered.
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We paused for muffins at the Serondela Picnic Site with strict instructions not to wander off too far. Luckily, the entertainment found us, as a vervet monkey started scoping out the picnic area, looking for snacks to swipe, and another guide tried, unsuccessfully, to shoo it off with a slingshot! The bathrooms were also showing signs of animal use, being full of what was either rat poo or bat poo, judging by the dead bat being eaten by ants at the door! It’s the circle of life!
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After twenty minutes, we were back on the road, spotting a herd of giraffes wandering through the hot sun. I guess it’s hard to find shade that will fit you when you’re so tall! The guides got a report that lions were sighted, and though those lions were off napping by themselves in the bush, the trucks all drove into the bush to find them! As before, never fully stopping, we made tire tracks around those poor lions long enough for some folks to take photos, and then it was time to race back out of the park, nonstop, for our scheduled buffet lunch at the Chobe Safari Lodge!
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Food was included in the tour price, but drinks were not! At very least, the lunch buffet was mighty tasty. After stuffing myself on potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, and bread rolls in a very full dining hall, I joined some of my former truck-mates for the next stage of the journey—the Irish family did ultimately get a private boat. We all loaded onto a boat for an afternoon cruise along the Chobe River, looking for hippos, crocodiles, and any other critters coming down to that dangerous shore for a drink! Looking at the horizon, I was surprised to see how close we were to Namibia and how quickly clouds were turning this hot, sunny afternoon into a storm!
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While we did spot some kudu, two hippos, and a crocodile within the first fifteen minutes of the cruise, it sure wasn’t how the advertising photos made it appear! Of course, that’s the nature of wildlife, but it might also be related to the sky opening up right after we spotted the croc! Our captain pulled ashore and ran up to a ranger hut to get a duffel full of rain slickers, but like at Victoria Falls, the slickers just weren’t enough!
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It was one heck of a storm that burst over us, with lightning and thunder and wind that whipped the Chobe River into waves with white caps! We endured the wind-blown downpour for a good half an hour until the captain finally called it. We ended the tour early, loaded back into vans that fogged right up, and soggily returned to the border with Zambia.
With my passport stamped once again, I reconnected with David and headed back toward Livingstone as the sky got gradually clearer and sunnier as we went east, passing a huge line of trucks waiting for a border crossing, and more waiting for diesel in town as the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has now been closed to oil traffic since February. It’s been wild to see how the rest of the world is experiencing what we in the US think only affects us. I gave David a big tip, told him to give Bami a good scratch for me, and ordered another pizza at the Fawlty Towers bar.
Mwikale nenza!
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Total Ground Covered: 839.2 km (582.6 mi) |
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