Africa Trip Report Part 2: Chobe National Park, Botswana

(Missed Part 1 of this trip report? Check it out HERE).

From the metropolis of Johannesburg, South Africa, it’s a two hour flight to the northern Botswana town of Kasane. It can be a bit of a shock, actually, that journey.

The night before flying to Botswana, the group convened at a posh airport hotel, where we ate dinner in a sprawling dining room, drank South African wines and listen to the hum of recycled air in our rooms. Then, the next morning, we headed to the airport, boarded a plane, and took off to the north, flying for two hours over increasingly unpeopled landscape, before landing at the strangely modern Kasane Airport. Kasane has a population of only about 7500 people, but during the peak tourism months, that population swells as visitors fly in from around the world to visit Chobe National Park, or the not-too-distant Victoria Falls. Fortunately, by the time November rolls around, the green season is starting and the tourist season is long past. While a few travelers are still around, it’s definitely not crowded.

Chobe River

Within a half hour of passing through customs (an efficient process in Kasane), and being met by the local safari guides, we were whisked off for a quick drive to the Chobe River front. Another half hour and we were in a small boat, cruising up the river, looking at the abundant wildlife that concentrates around the river. Hippos, cape buffalo, several species of antelope, crocodiles, dozens of bird species, and many other critters greeted us.

And that’s the shock. No more than four hours before, we were in the busy, airport-chaos of Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International, and then, with very little transition, we were surrounded by the open flood plain of the Chobe, photographing a troop of baboons foraging on the river side.

With so many things to see, we lingered more than planned on the Chobe. But, off the river, with darkness approaching, we piled into the Land Cruisers and the local safari guides, Paul and Morgan, drove off down a stretch of paved road (one of the few stretches of tarmac on the journey) and toward our first camp.

In Botswana’s National Parks, it is illegal to drive after dark. This rule, designed to make poachers easier to identify, and limit impacts on wildlife is, I think, a good one. But it can be a challenge for the drivers to race back to camp before their time runs out. We pulled off the tarmac road and onto a narrow sand track where we bounced along for another 15 minutes (spotting a group of three Honey Badgers in the vehicle’s headlights) before pulling, a bit late, into the lantern-lit camp, where a welcoming campfire was crackling.

And so arrives another shock. After long hours of travel from homes in North America, to an airport hotel, to the Chobe River, and finally to a quiet camp in the African bush can feel more like time-travel than geographic transit. Kerosene lanterns and a campfire are the primary light sources of the camp, and that illumination pushes back the shadows to reveal a semi-circle of large, comfortably-equipped wall tents. Waiting for us, behind the tents, in a canvas-walled, open-sky bathroom were hot bucket-showers, where each of us took a moment to luxuriate and wash off the miles of travel and shed some of the last notions that we were anywhere but Africa.

We spent three nights at the first camp, located a couple of miles from the Chobe riverfront. With the arrival of the green season, wildlife was no longer so dependent on the river’s water and were dispersing out into the renewed foraging grounds further away. And yet, animals were not hard to find. Impala by the hundreds, Kudu, giraffes, waterbuck, mongoose, a Black Mamba (!!!), and flocks of thousands of Carmine Bee-eaters were more than enough to occupy our attention and cameras.

For me, it was the greenery, and the dramatic sky-scapes that most enthralled. My previous visit to Botswana had been in October, the hottest month of the year, and one of the driest. The landscape in October was entirely different. The scrub forest was dry and brittle, the only green, the narrow strip of riverside savannah. But in late November? It was eden-like with fresh growth on the trees, and green grass erupting from every open meadow. And the skies! Each afternoon dramatic clouds were building, sometimes enough to produce some thundershowers, but always enough to provide a level of drama to the scene I had not encountered before.

Savute Area

On the fourth day we packed up our bags, and headed deeper into Chobe National Park to the semi-arid landscape of Savute (also spelled Savuti).

Transport days are essentially full-day game drives. The crew needs to break down all the camp infrastructure, load it, drive to the next site, set up, and start getting dinner ready before the clients arrive. To give them the time they need, we spent the day out watching wildlife, had a picnic lunch and took advantage of the opportunity to explore. Transport days during the early days of the green season are some of the best days for wildlife.

With a group of four African Spotted Dog pups, a pack of hyenas, great herds of elephants with an arm’s reach of the vehicle, (and a blazing thunder storm) the drive from the Chobe River to Savute was full of memorable moments.

We spent two full days in Savute. In this drier habitat, we encountered a number of new species to us, including our first lions, leopards, dozens of giraffes, wildebeest, more Cape buffalo, tiny Steenbok, big herds of zebra, and close to a 100 species of birds.

One of the great features of the Savute area of Chobe National Park is the Savute Marsh. This is actually a misnomer, at least right now. The Savute River flows only occasionally, and by occasionally I mean perhaps once a decade. The rest of the time there is a dry riverbed. During extreme flows, which were once more common in the Savute area, the river would flow out into a large delta of open grassland known as the Savute Marsh. But for many years, the water has not reached the “marsh” leaving behind a flat, open landscape of rich savannah. Almost too large to see across, it is a wildlife rich place, with big herds of zebra, ostrich, impala, wildebeest, and tsessebe.

 

Too, Savute is home to two large prides of lions. The recent drought in southern Africa has taken a huge toll on many species of wildlife, but the misfortune of species like elephants and antelope can be a windfall for the predators. Animals weakened by hunger or dehydration are easy pickings and the lion populations have boomed. The Marsh Pride is now one of the largest in Botswana numbering around 40 cats, while the North Pride, has grown from a few individuals to more than a dozen. We were fortunate to see most of the members of the North Pride, including several cubs.

I feel like I’ve waxed on enough about this period of the trip, but did want to mention one further encounter. One evening we stumbled on a pack of African Spotted Dogs on the hunt. We managed to put ourselves in front of the moving pack, and they came racing past, full speed, intent on some unseen prey. After they blazed by, we moved our vehicle to a new perspective, but arrived just a few minutes too late to see them bring down an impala. Our view was largely obscured by vegetation, but we could just make out the writhing mass of dogs as they dug into their recently deceased prey. They looked set for an extended, bloody feast, until a watchful lioness walked in like she owned the place, grabbed the kill and carried it off. It happened so quickly, I didn’t even manage a photo, but the memory of the scattering dogs, and thieving lion is one I’ll carry with me.

That’s yet another thing about a safari in Botswana: each day is full of moments like the encounter with the wild dogs. Some dramatic, some beautiful, or heart-breaking, or touching, or painful, or wonderful, or quiet… There are so many of these that I’ve found when telling the stories, I often fall off into distracted muttering, or wander off on a dozen tangents.

…and I didn’t even mention the leopards. Well, next time.

Stay tuned.

Did this get you interested in a trip to Botswana with me in November? I still have space on the trip: check it out.