Chobe National Park

Along the northern border between the Caprivi Strip (Namibia) and Botswana, lies Chobe National Park which boasts the largest elephant population in the world. In September the rains are still a month or more away so the game concentrates along the river to have access to water. If there are antelope and other smaller animals, there will be lions and leopards to feast on them. 

At this stage of the trip, day temperatures were moving close to 40 degrees and the nights were a very welcome relief. I had an early morning and a late evening game drive in addition to a sunset cruise on the river. Botswana requires that their parks use Botswana guides so our excellent guides had to stay at camp. The level of guiding was very amateurish by comparison and there was a wild drive along very sandy roads basically in search of large cats! I did have the thrill of seeing a leopard coming down out of a tree having stored his food up high. I also saw two prides of lions. Besides the cats, there was an amazing concentration of game along the river and also an impressive number of birds. The challenge was getting the guide to stop the jeep, even briefly!

Elephants were everywhere. It was thrilling to see such large herds with many very small babies. When the day gets hot, the herds move towards the river and spend a long time there

drinking, bathing and cooling themselves. They also spray mud all over themselves and then add a coat of dust for good measure. For the first time I was able to watch elephants swim through the deep river to an island. You can't see what is happening under water but they glide along surprisingly smoothly for such large animals! Crocodiles and hippos were also everywhere. In both the Okavango Delta and Chobe, hippos are often out of the water during the day grazing on soft grasses. Hippos usually lie around in the water during the day and graze at night so this was a wonderful surprise end it made photography easy. 

Watching this drama of nature playing out in front of my eyes brings great joy and I realize there is a naturalist in full view inside me. Perhaps I have misspent my life in schools. This is the school where I have always wanted to be!