March 6
The next morning we got up early again for another day trip – this time to Botswana! The Chobe river is a river that feeds into the Zambezi and is home to Chobe National Park which is full of incredible animals. The visa we had purchased in Zambia covered Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana and is specifically designed for people like me and Michael who want to do this day trip to Botswana. Perfect!
One of the things that was different about the Victoria Falls area compared to other African cities we had visited was that the animals seamlessly mixed with the cities. It did not seem like anyone was trying to keep the animals out of town. There were baboons and monkeys everywhere. They just hung out on the roof of our hotel – you could hear them walking on the roof the way you can hear squirrels walking on your roof back in the US. Random wart hogs roamed the town. Every few miles you saw a new animal crossing sign. Baboon Crossing. Elephant Crossing. Here you have a random herd of elephants crossing on our way to Botswana:
After about an hour drive, we had seamless entry into Botswana and headed to the starting point for our tour. The first half of the tour was a river cruise on the Chobe and the second half was a game drive, with lunch stuck in between.
The river cruise was perfect. Really perfect. It was great being on this huge pontoon boat. Since Michael and I both grew up with family lake houses that had pontoon boats (albeit much smaller), there was something very comforting and familiar about being on that boat. Same with heading down the river – it made both of us think of the Au Sable river that feeds from Lake St. Helen and it made me think also about some of the rivers in Missouri that I had gone floating on. It was bigger, but a very familiar feel that made me equal parts miss home and really happy to be there.
On the cruise we saw elephants, crocs, hippos, Cape buffalo, Impala, Puku and a bunch of birds.
Monkeys:
Red Bishop:
Pide King Fisher:
Impala:
African Fish Eagle:
Some impala super close to a croc. Michael wanted an attack so bad!!! But it didn’t happen while we were sitting there.
Woodland King Fisher:
African darter:
The cool thing about these hippos: we may have got a little too close to them and two of them jumped out of the water at our boat and the captain pulled back the boat. It was the most movement we had seen from a hippo in our month and a half in Africa. A little scary, but amazing. Definitely did not get that on video unfortunately. So instead you get a picture of this lazy hippo.
And then we saw a hippo out of water later that was super cool:
And some salty Cape Buffalo
We grabbed lunch back at a lodge and were treated to local beer, called… St. Louis! It tasted like bud ice… in a good way?
Then we got into a familiar seat on a Land Rover and headed out for a drive.
Kudu –
Malibu stork (an old friend from the Serengeti)
Solo adult male Steambok – a little bigger than a dik-dik and clearly less cute
Blue chick bee eater
Carmine bee eater
Cattle Egrit on the back of the buffalo and an Ox pecker on the face which is hard to see. The Ox pecker will eat ticks and bugs off the buffalo and the egrit will eat bugs that are disturbed and fly up as the buffalo walks.
Here is a herd of impala and a reminder than only the women stay together and will mate with just one male. The men fight for the herds, so you’ll see the strongest male with the herd of females and then you’ll see an entire group of bachelors together feeling sad. Can you see the one male here?
How cute are these baby elephants?
We didn’t see any leopards or lions which was ok for us, but I was a bit bummed for the others in the car. We are just coming off such an embarrassment of riches as far as animals are concerned. It was a really great day trip, but it was no Serengeti. We did, however, see this leopard… tortoise
Also we saw a bunch of super cool dung beetles:
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_7716.movA lot of people were leaving the park all at one time, trying to make it back to the border before closing when our line of trucks came upon this herd of elephants. One of the first trucks tried to pass through, eager to make it on time to customs. What he ended up doing was splitting the herd on either side of the road and enraging a few of the elephants who became very aggressive with the trucks. We only then realized how large the herd was and that they were really surrounding the trucks. We all felt really bad being in the middle of this and causing so much anxiety. This is one tiny video that does not do it justice. It was sad and a tiny bit scary.
https://www.thatsonourlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_7763.trim_.movAfter our close encounter with the elephants, our game driver took us straight to the border at the end of the drive. Everyone went through customs to leave Botswana. This is where we hit our snag.
Customs Man: You don’t have a passport
Jane: Yes I do – it’s in your hand
CM: this is not a passport
Jane: Yes it is
CM: no it is not
Mike: It says passport right on the front.
CM: but it’s not a real passport
Jane: Yes it is
CM: It’s an emergency passport
Jane: right – I ran out of passport pages and had to get this one
CM: so it’s not a passport
Mike: it is a passport – it says it right on front.
CM: it has an E listed on it
Mike: no it doesn’t
CM: you shouldn’t have been let into Botswana this morning because you don’t have a visa
Jane: (points to visa) it’s right there.
CM: that’s not for Botswana
Jane: that’s not what we were told.
CM: well it only works for Botswana if you have a valid passport and you don’t
Mike: It is a valid passport
CM: no it’s not. And since you don’t have the proper documentation you should have paid for a visa.
Jane: how much does the visa cost
CM: a lot.
This stuff went back and forth for about five minutes. CM then said something about a visa costing like $200 or something, but I didn’t totally understand him. At this point both Michael and I are getting very upset. We just basically need this guy to let me leave his country. He starts yelling at us.
CM: do you want to make this harder? We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
Jane: (trying to talk in a softer calmer voice) no – let’s do it the easy way
CM: (grumbles something in his native language, mean looks at us, stamps my passport and huffs off)
We didn’t pay anything additional and we got to leave, but I was really upset and Michael was furious. I’m not sure what CM’s deal was, but it seemed like he was just trying to put me in my place. It was really the first time that I felt like perhaps all of the things being said in the US about Africa by our leader had finally affected us. That said, besides being yelled at, we still were able to go on our way without paying for an extra visa.
So it was a really great day that ended a little rough. Michael said it left a bad taste in his mouth about Botswana, but I think it’s one of those things that you just let slide off, especially after such a great day.
We got back to our hotel and just went straight to bed. It was pretty early but we were exhausted. If anyone is keeping count here, this is day three of us being too exhausted to get through the day without naps or early bed time. We were both starting to get a little worried that we were so exhausted. We were also super dehydrated. That’s something we can understand when we’re in wine country sampling all day, but here we were drinking a ton of water and still showing signs of dehydration. Ugh. Time to google. Turns out that the malaria meds that we are taking cause dehydration, creepy dreams, and exhaustion, among other things. We started taking them on January 31st. So over a month on the meds without any breaks and we were finally feeling the effects. Good news: Zimbabwe is the last country that we need to worry about malaria, so another 7 days and we’re in the clear!