After breakfast, I rushed to the gift shop at the camp to purchase a wonderful describing all of the wonderful animals, birds, and plant life of the area. Once Mac saw my book, she decided to buy one, too!
By the time we set out, it was nearly 8:30 AM, the party had run its course and we were ready to begin our drive. We were again in the good hands of Tsabo and Collins. We saw giraffes in the field eating something with their front legs splayed, then also a wildebeest. Birds pointed out to us included a marabou stork and Dickenson's kestrel. Dickenson was a colleague of Livingstone, and also died from an African disease. We spotted an elephant hiding in the trees and some kudu and impalas running in the distance. There was also a black harrier hawk in a palm tree. Our guides spotted some leopard tracks and saw two impalas in the distance staring at something. We looked around for a little while, but the hunt did not amount to anything this time. We shared our land rover today with Andrea (Mac) and Tom and Shawna.
Next we saw an endangered bird, the wattled crane. There are only 1,200 of these birds, of which 1/3 are in Botswana. They were severely impacted by the use of DDT, which has since been discontinued. We saw a Burchell sand grouse, and then we lingered for a while to admire everyone's favorite bird, the lilac breasted roller.
Our next find seemed rather special: a large flock of ostriches. Tsabo maneuvered the vehicle into some good viewing positions -- not easy since the closer we got to the flock, the more they moved away from us.
Just adjacent to the ostriches were more giraffes and two zebras -- what a treat! We had all wanted to see more zebras! Great fun to photograph and video them!
At this point we needed to head towards the airstrip for our flight, but on the way we stopped to watch a sacred ibis by a pond with some Egyption geese and spur wing geese as well. We spotted a female kudu as well as more giraffe that our guides scare away from the airstrip (for their own good). We also saw a hammerkopf bird. Another giraffe video: this guy is getting a good drink of water.
We boarded the plane for a 1 1/2 hour flight to Chobe. This plane climbs higher, and I am a little nervous to be in a small plane so high off the ground. Rob and I realize that when we left Sandibe, we were supposed to have grabbed a sack lunch, but we didn't do that. Andrea nicely offered me her sandwich, which she said she didn't want, so I ate it. Really, none of us are lacking in nutrition on this tour! We have beautiful views of the Okavango Delta as we depart.
Oddly, as we were high up in the air, my phone received a text message from our friend Ken Neal, wishing Rob a happy birthday. After a little turbulence toward the end of the flight, we landed safely at the Kasane airport and transited easily through the airport to another set of land rovers. It was just a short ten minute ride to the Chobe Chilwero camp, located just outside the National Park. We were again greeted with singing and dancing by the staff. We are invited to join in, so Rob and I did! One young man in the staff couldn't stop laughing at us! We were processed quickly to check in, then enjoyed a vegetarian option for lunch -- time for a rest.
The group met for "tea" at 4 PM (Rob and I had celebratory sparking wine), then we were off for our Chobe River boat ride at 4:30 PM, just 10-15 minutes away. The Chobe River flows east and about 15 kilometers from here, it joins the Zambezi River, which then goes over the Victoria Falls. The river level is currently about as high as it ever gets. Across the river is the country of Namibia. At its lowest, it would be 70% smaller than what we saw today.
The early highlights of our boat ride were all birds. We are in a small flat bottom boat that probably seats about 12 people.
We saw a cormorant and and African darter landed on a dead tree. The cormorant is stretching his wings to dry them. It has no natural oil to repel the water like a duck does. We saw a white crown lapwing, a kingfisher (very handsome), and a small bird called the white fronted bee eater. The bee eater has a green body with blue in its neck. It was hard to photograph, but beautiful to watch. We also saw a yellow billed egret and a helmeted guinea fowl (also beautiful).
The first animal on land that we saw was a kudu, then we spotted an African buffalo, about 14 years old. This was a real treat as he was reclining next to the water where we were able to get close-in photographs with baboons in the background. His lifespan would be about 22 years.
In the distance we also saw an elephant in the water, washing himself.
Another real highlight of the evening was hippos ... and a lot of them! We paused to watch two different groupings, and everyone took lots of pictures. In the second grouping, there was a mama hippo and her baby.
They were mostly submerged in the water, but did come up out of the water from time to time. Getting a picture of a hippo yawning was much desired by everyone.
As we turned back, we did see a hippo out of water, but it was difficult to photograph since the light was so dim at this point. The hippos spend all day in water to protect their sensitive skin and come out at night to feed on the grasses. They are vegetarian, but still deadly -- don't mess with them. Needless to say, the sunset was spectacular.
Dinner at the camp was an outdoor barbecue buffet, similar to what we had at Stanley's camp, although we ate indoors. I especially enjoyed the local food, which was white corn polenta topped with shredded beef and chakalaka vegetable sauce -- really good. Tomato and onion sauce was also an option. We turned in -- another fabulous day!
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