It was time for the safari. I woke up early in the morning, just in time to listen to the Canucks win game four against the Kings! At 7:00am, Chris drove me towards the Botswana border, where the safari would be taking place. Half an hour later, I passed through Zambian customs, and hopped onto a speed-boat that would be taking me to Botswana. Crossing through this short channel of water, we passed the only spot in the world where four countries meet: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana! On the other side of the river, we passed through Botswana Customs, and took a short ride to another resort-lodge – it was time for the safari to begin!
This crocodile is huge - about 5m long!
My group had just five people in it – one couple was two middle-aged men from San Diego, and the other was an older couple from South Africa. All four of them were extremely knowledgeable on wildlife – the two guys were bird experts and the couple actually owned their own safari resort in South Africa! Needless to say, when you include our incredibly knowledgeable guides, I was definitely the newbie in the group. Our trip began with a boat safari before lunch. We climbed onto a comfortable speedboat and began traveling down the river, stopping to see many types of birds as well as some wildlife. I won’t go into too much detail into what I saw, but please click the link to the photo album at the bottom of this post to see the photo highlights.
I saw a lot of these guys!
I was extremely impressed by our guide Moses, who seemed to be able to spot birds from hundreds of meters away with terrific accuracy. He was also nice enough to lend me his binoculars. 🙂 With the river so high, we were able to explore a larger area by boat, which was also a bonus. We then returned to the lodge around 12:30pm and we had a way-too-filling buffet lunch at the resort.
These birds are sunbathing
After lunch, it was time for our safari drive. We got into a four-by-four with our guide Lucky, who was very lucky indeed in finding us some wildlife. We saw many animals, many of which were only meters away from us. The park is massive – over 11,000 straight kilometers. To guide you some idea, there are estimated to be more than 100,000 elephants in the park. The dirt roads provided great access to the animals, which seemed to be very comfortable and accustomed to the visitors. One downside of the safari was the fact that we didn’t get a chance to see any lions, which would have been a real treat. By 4:00pm, we returned back to the border, went back on a speedboat to Zambia, and I had to pay again for another single-entry visa to Zambia. Chris drove me back to the lodge, where I promptly feel asleep at 7:00pm! I must have been exhausted from seeing so many animals.
Three is a crowd.
Sidenote: by visiting Botswana, I have now effectively doubled the number of African countries that I have visited, from 1 to 2!
The photos will do a much better job of describing the safari – please click here for the Photo album with all of the photos. Today’s photos are numbered 42 to 93. You can also click here to see Part One of my photos from Zambia.