Over The River We Go

We traveled to Botswana for a one-day safari in Chobe National Park. We traveled via automobile to the four borders of Zambia, Nambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and then crossed the Chobe River to arrive in Botswana. 

We finally arrived to the Chobe National Park where we got the chance to see the animals of Africa.  We cruised down the Chobe River where we came across hippos, crocs, impalas, buffalos and many, many elephants. We then hopped in a jeep to drive through the inland part of the park. We quickly came across zebras, more elephants and buffaloes, giraffes, wildabeasts, impalas and birds.  We were bummed that we didn’t see any cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards), but it gives us one more reason to come back and do another Safari.

We got a lot of great info from our guides in Bottswana about the animals, which we’ve listed below. We have also included a few pics of our safari and the various animals we met along the way.

Interesting Animal Facts:

·      Notable to mention the “big 5” as they call them in Africa, namely: Elephants, Buffalo, Lions, Leopards and Rhinos. This grouping / term “the Big 5” apparently came about in the 1950s when people used to hunt and was based on how aggressive and difficult the animal was to kill.

o   Elephants- spend 16-18 hours a day feeding and will often only sleep 1-2 hours then get up to feed in the middle of the night. They apparently eat 300 kg a day. Elephants have a 22 month gestation period and are around 25 kg (~30-50 lbs) when born. The males have rounded foreheads and the females have square foreheads and thinner tusks.  They have an average life span of 60-80 years and are vegetarians. They take ‘mud baths’ and roll around in the mud to cool their body temperature and also protect against parasites. We’ve been told by various sources that there are anywhere from 40,000 – 100,000 Elephants in Chobe National Park.

o   Rhinos- endangered and there are hardly any Rhinos left these days (only apparently 5 in Zambia and 3 in Bottswana). They have been poached for their tusks. Believe our guide mentioned that there are more in South Africa and they are trying to breed more there to then donate to Zambia and Bottswana. The punishment for poaching or shooting Rhinos in Bottswana is 15,000 Pula (Bottswana currency) or 5 years in prison- very strict.

o   Impalas- our guide called the lone male Impalas we saw the “losers” because dominant male Impalas travel in packs of females (usually 4-5) so if you see a lone male, then you know he is the non-dominant male and has lost to the other male.

o   Crocodiles “crocs” or “gators”- have an 18 month gestation period and can lay up to 40 eggs at once but only 25% live (or was it 2.5% ??). They live up to ~100 years. They have teeth only to grab / kill things but do not have teeth to break up food so they will kill their food then hide it somewhere in the water, waiting for the skin to soften (or in the case of humans- waiting for the human flesh to start rotting) so they can then easily eat the softened kill.

o   Hippos- Mating takes only 3-5 minutes (we have some video of that) and they have a gestation period of 8 months. They travel in families with the dominant male usually being the largest in the group.