AFRICA 2017 Days 6-12

 Sorry about the interruption, but we have been out of contact for the past week and will be out again for the next 3 days.  We are now at a stop in Victoria Falls and have slow internet for about 30 minutes.  I'll upload text right now (it is unfinished, but will finish before our next internet access).  Photos will have to wait.  We are all having a great time, no major catastrophes.

Day 6 Travel to Botswana

After a leisurely breakfast, we left Jo-burg for Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.


This was our jumping off point to our next camp in Botswana.  Zimbabwe (or ZimZim), Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia all abut in the area close to Victoria Falls. 

Zambezi River becomes the Chobe River in Botswana and acts as a natural border between Namibia and Botswana, and between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

On arrival in Victoria Falls, we could see the spray of the falls in the distance. 

We all needed visas to enter Zimbabwe which involved standing in a long queue for about an hour and $45 cash (this was for a double entry since we were coming back here in a few days.  After clearing customs (which, once you paid your $45 ransom, was nonexistent), we met our guide, Mandela.  He was sure we had decided not to come because of the long wait at passport control.  We were greeted at the airport exit by African singers and dancers who got Anne, Lee Ann and Ken dancing.  Ken and Lee Ann seem like a lot of fun, and easy to be with. 

                                     

                 

We all regrouped and boarded a small bus for the 3 hour drive to Baobab Camp in Botswana. 

The most interesting part of the trip was crossing the border between ZimZim (as Mandela calls his home) and Botswana.  This is a major route for shipment of copper ore from Zambia and trucks have to wait, sometimes up to two weeks, to clear customs.  

Truckers camp out in their cabs, bringing along food, and doing wash (they hang clotheslines between trucks) as they wait in the queue.  There are agents that make a living taking care of the paperwork for the truckers and standing in line for them.  There is also an active prostitute trade here.  One thing we didn’t see was a full service truck stop with food and showers.  I see a business opportunity here.

The other interesting thing at the border was watching a vervet monkey family try to sneak across the border with babies in tow without passports.  The refugee group included a warthog or two.

                         

                                               

We finally arrived at our camp, Baobab II (I suppose there is a Baobab I somewhere), and were greeted by the entire camp staff singing a welcome song.

The location was quite beautiful.  It is situated on a steep hillside with a game highway running at its base and the Chobe River in the distance.  We were west-facing which afforded us gorgeous sunsets.  After a short briefing, we were assigned our tents.  Jeri and I were not thrilled about getting tent #9, the furthest, most remote tent from the main area, shades of our last trip to Botswana.  In Africa, you don’t want to be the impala at the back of the herd.  Our tent had a nice back porch that overlooked the animal highway, king bed with mosquito netting, shower and toilet, and about 40 watts of light.  Glad we brought our headlights.

We were fed (God forbid the lions and leopards would go hungry after eating us) the first of 12 times in 3 days, and then went out on our first game drive while at Baobab II.  We had 2 Toyota Land Cruisers for the 15 of us, and two guides, Moses and Six (an odd name, never found out how he got it- maybe his parents weren’t very creative, 1 thru 5 were, perhaps, already taken by siblings).  Both were fountains of knowledge about the flora and fauna, and very entertaining.  We all found them a vast improvement from the guides in Thornybush.  Chobe National Park was a five-minute drive from the camp.  

Because we were in a national park, we were restricted to daytime game drives and no off-roading.  Fortunately, the animals knew this and were kind enough to play near the roads.

Day 6-8  Chobe National Park in Botswana

Chobe is the 2^nd largest national park in Botswana and covers over 10,000 square km.  It has one of the largest concentrations of game in Africa, in particular, the largest continuous  elephant population in the world.  There are an estimated 120,000 elephants in the park.  In addition, there are large numbers of impalas, and giraffes, as well as an array of cats and birds, and birds, and birds.  African birds come in all sizes and colors.  It was great having Dave with us; he is a wealth of knowledge about birds.

Daily routine in camp was as follows; wake up by the camp staff at 5:30 am (this is not a trip for late risers), breakfast (and COFFEE) at 6 am, wheels up on our land rovers at 6:30 for a 4-hour game drive

Giraffe covered in Oxpeckers

Male Impala

Blue Wildebeest

Female Kudus

morning coffee in the bush,

more game driving,

Impalas and Male Kudu

Warthog

Leopard Tortoise

Monitor Lizard

Crocodile

Dung Beetle with a Dung Ball

10:30-11 brunch,

“siesta” (a.k.a., working on photos for the blog) until 3, high tea (yes more eating, also not a trip to try to lose weight) and a cultural talk by Mandela or one of the local guides, back into the vehicles for another game drive,

sundowners (drinks and appetizers in the bush watching the sunset),

back to the camp for dinner, and finally bed.  Each day was pretty full.

In addition to the great animal and birdlife viewing, two other bits of nature struck all of us as being unique to Africa, the sunsets and the night sky.  Both are incredibly beautiful and dramatic.  Every evening at dusk the sky appeared on fire with bright orange then magenta colors up-lighting the clouds.  

Once the colors faded, with the lack of virtually any light pollution, the sky filled with stars, and the Milky Way was visible as an arc across the sky.  After several trips to the southern hemisphere, we finally have learned how to identify the Southern Cross.  

The Southern Cross, 2 pointer stars below and the kite-shaped Southern Cross above

I could see Orion and Scorpio easily, but we could have used Brendan here to help unravel the rest of the constellations amidst the millions of stars that are visible here to the naked eye. 

On our second afternoon at Chobe, instead of a 2^nd game drive, we visited a local village of Mabele, about 10km from our camp.  

Several women in the village had started a basket weaving cooperative, and we spent about an hour with them learning how they produced beautiful hand baskets of various shapes and colors.  They start by collecting palm fronds that they strip by hand, dye them using carbon paper in water or ink from pens (for blue), rusty tin cans (for orange), and other common things (obviously I can’t remember) for yellow and red, and then hand weave the patterns in the baskets.  The process takes about 18 days to make a basket working 8 hours a day!

After dinner on the final evening at Baobob II, we were entertained by the camp staff with African singing and dancing.  

We were then informed that we had to reciprocate in kind.  Anne was quickly deemed our chorale director and we chose a couple of songs that we all might know.  The staff was enthralled with our rendition of “I Can See Clearly Now”, and “Kumbaya”.  From some reason, as we sang Kumbaya, I thought of Marty.  Somehow, I just couldn’t see him joining in (though his melodious voice might have been an improvement).

Birds of Chobe

African Fish Egle

Red-beaked Hornbill ("Chili Pepper")

White Backed Vulture

Southern Ground Hornbill

Southern Ground Hornbill

Oxpecker

Juvenile African Jacana ("Jesus Bird"-walks on water)

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Ibis

Helmeted Guinea Fowl

Pied Kingfisher

Blue Waxbill

Lilac Breasted Roller

African Fish Eagle

Blacksmith Plover

Days 9-12 Okavango Delta-Santawani

We left Baobab II for the airport in Kasane and flew in a single engine 12 seater to the Okavanga Delta where we landed on a dirt airstrip complete with corrugated tin to mark the landing zone.  Camp staff came early to shoo the wildlife off the strip (which could have produced a catastrophic outcome.  After disembarking, we loaded onto land rovers for a brief game drive to our next camp, Santawani.  This camp was on local tribal land, and therefore, we had much more latitude regarding night game drives and off-roading (Wilderness Safaris leases the camp land and permission to game view on tribal lands).  

Kenny and Lee Ann Arrive in the Okavango Delta

When we arrived at the camp, we were assigned our tents, and Jeri and I were a bit dismayed to find ourselves in the penultimate tent (were we moving up in the world?).  But the view was great, out across an open expanse that afforded a view of grazing zebras, impalas, wildebeests, and a variety of birds. 

During the night, we were serenaded by lions and elephants.  In fact, we awoke in the morning to find elephant footprints on the path about 10 feet from our tent. We were glad to not have experienced the "golden shower" from the elephants like Molly and Dave had on our last trip here.

Camp routine was pretty much the same, up at the crack of dawn, game viewing, a talk about culture, politics, or environment,

and multiple human feedings.  The game and birds were great, and being outside of the national park, we were able to drive off road.  This occasionally required some Botswana Bushwhacking.

Mongoose

Black Backed Jackals

During the day our guides, Moffatt and Bizzar were amazing at finding lions and leopards.  We found an entire family of lions, male, female and three adorable cubs with a kill from the night before.  

The lioness is the primary hunter and she allows the cubs to feed first.  The male then eats as much as he wants and finally the female (who did all the work) gets the leftovers.  Even in the animal kingdom, it’s tough to be a woman. The male has to protect the cubs from other male lions to allow his genes to continue. While the cubs are nursing, the female will not be in estrus, so other males will try to kill the cubs to allow them to impregnate the female.  The cubs were only a couple of months old and were very playful.  One was very brave and curious and came within 20 feet of our vehicle.  He also seemed to be practicing his ferocity by roaring at us (though it came it more like a kitten’s meow.

We also saw 3 male and 2 female adults that were lolling around in the morning after a night of hunting impalas.  Throughout the area, there were a large number of sage bushes which gave off  distinctive odor.  Lions roll around in the sage to cover their scent when hunting.  Makes it a bit less sporting for the impalas.

In addition to the 10 lions, we also had the opportunity to see 2 leopards, one up a tree, and the other on the hunt.  Fortunately for the impala, but unfortunately for us (ghoulishly hoping to witness a kill-hard to believe from the group of left wingers with whom we are travelling), the leopard lost.  

Night game drives were pretty exciting, tracking lions and leopards.  This impala did not fare as well as the ones this morning.

 The other vehicle went back a little later to check on the leopard, and found it up a tree with the remains of the impala.  These three shots are from Ken Comegys.  "the money shots".

Evening in the Delta.

Knob Thorn Acacia

Birds of the Okavango Delta

Yellow 

Sparrow Weaver

Cape Dove

Yellow Billed Hornbill

White Throated Bee Eater

Sacred Ibis

Little Bee Eater

Crimson Breasted Shrike

Lilac Breasted Roller

Martial Eagle

Maribor Stork

Lilac Breasted Roller

White Browed SparrowWeaver Nest

On our second afternoon here, we did a game drive into a more typical of the Delta.  Palm trees became more prevalent, and the antelope population changed over from primarily impalas to the red lechwee.  These are interesting antelopes that are designed for marshy wet areas.  Their forelegs are shorter than their hind legs giving them an advantage for swimming.

We arrived at the Okavango Marina for a boat ride on  a small inlet in traditional dugout canoes called “mokoros”.  

These “traditional” canoes, though, were actually made of fiberglass.  The government outlawed the fabrication with the raintree, the traditional wood used, to prevent  damage to the environment.  The boats are extremely unstable and uncomfortable.   Luckily, they are poled by a boatman, not us, who was capable of keeping us upright.     Like the leopard, the crocs failed to get their prey.  

At the boma entertainment on our last night, we were prepared.  After our traditional meal eaten without utensils, we impressed our hosts with “Frere Jaques”   as a round, “My Country Tis of Thee” (hoping they would not realize the similarity to “God Save the Queen” considering their propensity to the British) and our now finale standard, “Kumbaya”.  If you have any interest in hearing us, we will be on America’s Got Talent next month.