Tuesday 20 September - Mazambala to Chobe National Park

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

We continued further along the Caprivi Strip, stopping to get some lunch supplies, before leaving Namibia and crossing no-man's land back into Botswana. We've passed through several of these sovereign-less strips of land over the course of our trip and it makes me ponder that if they were all added up worldwide they would make a decent sized small country!

At this crossing Botswana was more concerned about foot and mouth disease than at the other border so we all had to get off the truck and take our shoes to be treated for the disease.  We only had to step onto a sodden mat, pressing each pair of shoes into it, all the while overseen by an official who also had a handy sideline of trying to sell souvenirs us. At the same time, our truck was driven through a large 'trough' about eight inches deep of chemicals.

This afternoon we transferred to a boat for our cruise on the Chobe River - definitely THE GOOD! We saw hippos, huge numbers of elephants (estimated at about 120,000 elephants in Chobe National Park!), Cape buffalo, zebras, giraffes, fascinating birds, etc.

We also saw the 'Zambesi Queen', definitely the houseboat I would want to stay in - 5 star all the way with incredible wildlife viewing from your balcony, or if you are really lazy, bed.

Warthogs and this Marabou Stork below (looks like the undertaker bird portrayed in cartoons) would rate as THE UGLY. Fortunately we didn't see enough of these to outweigh the other wildlife.

We stopped in a couple of places to watch different groups of elephants, one herd swimming across the river from one island to the next, another group having a mud bath, either rolling in or spraying themselves with mud, plus a third group nearby who, after showering themselves with water, headed for the shore and covered themselves in dust.

  

Interesting bit of trivia, or I thought it was, elephants can be 'left-handed' or 'right-handed' and you can tell their dominant side by the wearing down of one of their tusks.

After leaving the boat, we boarded an open-sided safari vehicle for a game drive through the park. I was very surprised at some of the landscape - it looked as though a bushfire had gone through it as so many of the trees had been destroyed but the damage had all been done by the massive elephant population. We had already seen evidence of this in the Okavango Delta where they had ringbarked and shredded trees.

Elephant damaged landscape

We went down to the riverside again and watched as the elephants made their way from the river inland to wherever they go to at night. Some of the younger male elephants trumpeted at some of the vehicles, including ours, but most just went on their way.

We stopped to watch sunset over the river plain then headed past a group of baboons towards our accommodation for the night - THE BAD! I had mistakenly got the impression that our safari tents would be quite comfortable but the reality was that they were two man tents with a mattress on the floor, no running water (i.e. no showers after a long day of humidity and dust), toilet was surrounded by a canvas screen and no lighting other than a couple of lights on the trestle table where our dinner was served and the campfire. I've camped around about twenty countries in the past – been there, done that, and hoped never to do it again! The tents were arranged in a semi-circle and there was nothing between us and the wildlife and I wasn’t reassured when we heard a lion roaring only about 200 metres again and were warned not to go to the toilet alone during the night!

With nothing to do after dinner, we sat around the fire for several hours, each of us recounting what the highlights of this tour have been. Most agreed that the town tour of Mondesa or Etosha National Park were the favourites.

Sunset by the river