We are in Botswana and this morning we woke up at our camp at the Chobe National Park, we took a few hours of safari at dawn and we spotted a beautiful pride of lions.

We left from the Chobe National Park Gate and went to Kasane, from where we boarded a flat-bottomed boat to go on a boat safari on the Chobe River within the homonymous national park.

The guide, and owner of the boat, is called Cherry; he is really good, we start from the pier and we sail against the current, we enter the park and we slip into secondary canals among isletscovered with low grass, where there are several water birds and some crocodiles, to then reach the main river.

Boat safaris are very relaxing because, unlike 4x4 safaris, the speed is lower and there are no typical jumps on the dirt tracks; even the pace of the safari is much slower and quieter and the sightings are different.

botswana chobe

We stop, keeping at a distance, to admire the spectacle of this immense buffalo herd and take photographs.

Then we continue our exploration of the Chobe river and, on a small island, we see some waterbucks, when we approach we see that, not far from the water, there is a puppy of waterbuck, it is really small, we have never seen one so small; it seems to lose interest in us and crouches on the ground, it looks at us only for a moment and then starts licking its fur again.

It is really an exceptional sighting, not only for the rarity of seeing a puppy so small, usually mothers keep them hidden, but probably here on this island they feel calm, but also for having been able to photograph it so closely and with perfect light.

Shortly afterwards on another island we see a crocodile that is facing us and with its mouth open, we approach it to photograph it and we realize that it has a part of the snout wounded, perhaps it has fought with another crocodile or was injured while it tried to catch a prey.

botswana chobe crocodile

At one point we see a cloud of dust rising along the Chobe bank in Botswana and, shortly after, we see who the architects of all this are: the buffaloes.

A huge herd of buffaloes is going to the river to drink, there are also many puppies that can be seen among the adult specimens; once they reach the river some of them drink from the beach, others enter the water and others go to the grassy islets that are not far away, here the grass seems to be greener and better, certainly it is fresher.

We approach the boat slowly to admire the buffaloes more closely and take photographs; many are drinking and it is nice to immortalize them with a wet face or take pictures of those who are eating and have the grass in their mouth or admire the puppies that still have the bristly and disheveled fur of their coat.

We stay a bit here to admire the buffaloes and, while we watch them, we drink a coffee, it took just a little caffeine and then with this show in front of our eyes it is really the best.

We continue our boat tour, we continue a little further and we spot some elephantsin the distance among the reeds, they are barely visible and they are beautiful; obviously we also see many hippos, but most of them stay in the water to avoid getting sunburnt.

The time has come to go back and sail along a different channel than the ones we traveled on the way in, we pass through the main river and see a beautiful lodge on the Namibian side of the Chobe; we have always visited the Chobe from the Botswana side, we have never been on the Namibian side, we are curious to know how it is, maybe in a next trip we will go there.

When we arrive where the dock of our small boat is, it is just passed 11.30 am, we get off the boat and go to the Hunters Pub, the place where we will have lunch today, but now it is a bit early and so we leave the backpacks and take the cameras and go for a walk around the stalls along the main road, then come back and drink something cool while we chat a little and comment on the boat safari we did this morning and enjoyed so much.

botswana chobe

Data di inserimento: 
Wednesday, November 20, 2019