Botswana and a Chobe Safari

Lobby of the Chobe Safari Lodge, complete with monkeys

For our last full day on vacation we disembarked the houseboat, road the small bass boat back through customs in Namibia and then onto Botswana.  We checked into the Chobe Safari Lodge on the Chobe River in Botswana for one night trying to fill our days with as much as possible.

Lunch was a little underwhelming and not the greatest quality, but then again the hotel was not as nice as the others we stayed at.  There was a large lunch buffet and several of the other patrons were just visiting for the day and not spending the night.  After settling in we visited the activities desk and signed up for an afternoon safari.

By 3pm this day, the weather was quite hot and the bugs had come out but luckily only noticeable when you were standing or sitting still.  Mark and I along with 2 other couples loaded up into a safari vehicle and went on a 3.5 hour game drive in the Chobe National Park.  We saw lots of elephants, giraffes, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, birds and luckily one leopard.

















Two days prior an adult elephant had died of natural causes according to our safari guide and the lions had eaten their share but it was still worth driving by the carcass to see if the lions had come back or any other animals were there.  Sounded like a good idea until we got close and the smell was unbelievable.  Not sure I had ever smelled a rotting animal before, but a several ton rotting elephant definitely made a huge stink.  All of the passengers in our safari vehicle had to cover our nose and mouth with our clothes to keep from gagging.

Leopard in the bush, you can see a side profile 

A short while later our guide spotted a leopard laying on the ground among the bushes and trees.  Occasionally the leopard would pop it's head up or stand up, but only for a few seconds to return back to hiding in the bush.  I was thrilled to find a leopard on our first game drive and we sat there for a while watching it.





Once the game drive was done we returned to the lodge and prepared for our dinner cruise on the Chobe River.  It was only us and a group of 8 Australians on board so it made for a romantic candlelight dinner.  The food for dinner was much better and after several courses we were stuffed.  We went to the roof top deck and enjoyed star gazing until the cruise returned back to the lodge.



The next morning we slept in as we were told the game drives were full which was a bummer as I never expected that there would not be room for everyone, especially those staying at the lodge.  We then were transferred to the Kasane airport which was a cultural experience all in itself.

Located about 5 minutes away, the small airport had 2 check in desk, one for each airline that flew out of Kasane.  When we went to check in with the airline, the attendant said she would come get us when the flight was ready, which was not hard since there were only about 40 people in the entire airport.  The attendant came and got Mark who printed our boarding passes, the attendant never even met me, but I guess she was okay with my passport and gave Mark my boarding pass too.  I was surprised there was an x-ray machine for our baggage to go through and a customs agent to check out with.  We then were told we could load the plane early if all 15 of the passengers were there.  The 2 hour flight home went smoothly and they even gave out biltong as a snack which delighted Adalyn when we gave it to her at home.

The entire 5 day trip was great for Mark and I, our first couple's vacation without the kids in over 2 years.  If we were to do it all over again, we would have spent 2 nights on the houseboat and one night in Victoria Falls, skipping the Chobe Safari Lodge.