Valentines day 2014 was definitely one of the best days of our almost three year marriage. Who knew that you could pack so much into twenty-four hours. While staying in Botswana, we stayed in safari tents a few miles outside of Kasane, a town that makes the most of its close proximity to one of the best national parks in the world. But we should repeat that. We stayed in safari tents, in the bush! Well, it was at a safari lodge, but either way, it was overgrown.
Chobe has the highest concentration of elephants on the
planet, with between seventy to eighty-thousand of Botswana’s one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand
elephants supposed to be wandering the land. One interesting, and really cool
thing about Chobe is that it has no fences, meaning the animals are free to
come and go as they please. The lack of fences, along with the complete absence
of paved road, made our experience really authentic. But as with any safari,
there are no guarantees, and so we said our prayers and crossed our fingers in
the hope that we would see elephants.
We piled in the safari truck at about six in the morning
zipped down the A33 towards the park. It took our best effort not to get dust
and bugs in our eyes as our open safari truck hurtled down the road. We arrived
at Chobe National Park a few minutes later, a little chilly and with oddly watery
but dry eyes from the wind. Literally within two or three minutes of entering
the park, we were a few feet from an elephant. It was surreal! We took some
pictures, marveled a little bit, and then we were on our way again.
With the pressure to see an elephant gone, we were able to enjoy loads of other animals. We saw loads of hippos, baboons, antelope, mongoose, and even a few crocodiles and a massive dragon-lizard type thing. Everywhere you turned your head, you saw animals. Amazing.
We ran into a load of other tourist-carrying safari trucks
at a kind of rest-stop area with a toilet, and then faced a pretty fun race
with them to get away from the crowd and find some wildlife. It was really
quite exciting to race over dusty, sandy roads and through muddy areas and pass
another truck full of other tourists. Before too long, we had broken away from
the crowd and were making our way round a windy, hilly section of the park.
As the morning wore on, we realized that the one elephant we
saw right on entering the park might just have been the only one we would see,
but we were happily mistaken. Down a windy dirt road, sandwiched between a
couple of giraffe, we ran into another elephant. And then another. And another.
And another. We lost count of elephant, but we were just a few feet from each
one. It was exhilarating to see them in the wild. We have seen all of the other
of the “African Big Five” along with countless other animals, but we definitely
saved the best until last.
After a short trip to Namibia, we jumped back on to the
safari truck and headed towards the Chobe River (which feeds into the Zambezi)
and climbed into a small safari boat for our river cruise. Since we were first
on the boat, we picked the seats right at the very front of the vessel! Good
choice.
We sped down the river towards the park, and saw hippo after
hippo. Sitting at the very front of the boat had its pros and cons, which happened
to be the same thing: being so close to the animals. We were just a couple of
meters away from everything that we saw, including a massive hippo that looked
like it would charge, especially when it lifted its head up and checked us out,
and a huge crocodile that lay low on the grassy bank, unaware that we would eat
a fair bit of crocodile on the trip!
One of the most amazing moments of the trip, and definitely one of the greatest memories of our time in Southern Africa, occurred half way through our river safari. We watched in awe as a herd of close to forty elephants congregated at the river and bathed, drank, and played around in the water. We saw families of elephant wait their turn before going to the water together. We watched as baby elephants rolled in the dirt, and as larger elephants locked their tusks and wrestled with other bigger elephants.
We got really close to the bank, and had a once in a lifetime look at a herd of massive elephants. It was crazy to watch as the elephants squirted water over their rough skin, only to finish the job by scooping up dirt and throwing it back over themselves. It was funny to us to see this cleaning being undone right away as they literally leave their bath and go immediately to the dirt.
The bank of the river was full of elephants. There was so
much going on that it was hard to know where to look. We saw a baby elephant
getting pushed along by its mother, we saw another baby obediently leave the
water as a lurking crocodile was eyeing it up. In fact, throughout the cruise,
we lost count at about sixty elephant. We couldn’t, and still can’t, believe
what we saw!
One of Alastair’s biggest goals for the trip was to take a photograph of an elephant that showed its texture, something that we can put on the wall in our home. We got a great black and white block painting from our time in China, and we wanted something that could represent our time in Southern Africa. While not being great at photography (although we are trying to improve), it was hard to not get a decent picture! After deleting who knows how many hundreds of not-so-good ones, we still had loads to choose from. Chobe must be a photographers dream place.
When all our safari shenanigans were over, we were really quite tired. Having such a packed day really takes it out of you! We ended our Valentines day with a meal at a fancy hotel. It was nice to think about all of the great things that had happened that day. We will always remember Valentines day 2014 as one of the most incredible days of our entire lives! We went back to our safari tents and rested in preparation for the next leg of our trip, Zimbabwe!