Botswana Days 1-2: Potholes and Animal Crossings

"Once you get up north, there are elephants just on the side of the road.”

Ok, ok, I know you are from Botswana, but I don’t really believe you. Because where in the world are there just elephants hanging out on the side of the highway.

Well after about 5 hours of driving, a night spent in Francistown, 3-4 more hours of good road, and about one awful hour of truly testing the little yaris by basically offroading in order to avoid potholes on the countries most major national highway – really, this catastrophe of a road rivaled even the worst in Mozambique… I can’t imagine going at the thing in a chapa. But, we were about to reach our destination – Kasane, Botswana (Gateway to Chobe National Park, and a hop skip and a jump ie less than 100k from Victoria Falls.)

Suddenly, as we are cruising along looking for a gas station.

“Well that was an elephant.”

Followed by mad scramble for cameras, sudden slowing of the car for some not so great mostly too far away and blurry picture taking. But no worries, that was the first of gazillions.

We stayed and the Thebe River Lodge, which had some nice little camping facilities at a reasonable price. It also offered a range of ‘Safari’ activities, which we of course made the most of.

After arriving and setting up camp, time for a boat cruise in Chobe National Park – supposed to be one of the best ‘Safari’ Parks in the world. And it didn’t disappoint.

There was your basic Lion King setup, minus the Lions, with buffalo, birds, wildebeests, crocodiles, deer, giraffes and man was it elephant mania.

All I wanted was to see a hippo. I got my wish. Mammas, papas, and little babies were rolling in the mud, waddling around, and yawning in all of their short, fat, hippo glory.
What a life the hippo leads. It is just this big lump that basks in the mud and sun, trods along on its little legs, or hangs out in the water, “oh I’m not doin’ much, just bein’ a hippo.” Although I have been told the buggers can run like no other when they really want to.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the trip though was the Elephants crossing the river just as the sun was setting. Of the many Elephants rolling in mud and then bathing themselves by the river side, about ten chose to cross the river. So the bigguns and the babies made their way across, trunk up like a snorkel tube, walking and then swimmin along in a little cluster. After safely reaching the other side, they trundled off into the African sunset.