Baobab Trees

 

One of the most unique trees we have seen in Africa is the baobab tree. It grows near the equator in northern Botswana. They are very impressive.

We saw them for the first time when we visited Kasane. It was the dry season so the trees had lost their leaves which made it easier to see their form and huge trunks. They store water in their trunks for the dry season.

When we went to family home evening there was a large baobab tree in the residential neighborhood.

This one by Victoria Falls reminded us of an elephant's foot.

Chobe River Cruise

Immediately after going on the Chobe National Park game drive we went on a Chobe River cruise. We were late getting off the game drive because we watched a leopard for an hour. Thebe River Safari was very flexible and waited for us to return to start the cruise. Because of this Richard, Brenda, and we had our own private cruise.

It was quite relaxing to be on the water and we were able to get amazingly close to the animals. The only animals we had to be very cautious about were the hippopotamus. They are very temperamental and aggressive. The cruise driver said that they have to flee from hippos more than any other animal. He also said that crocodiles in the water were hunting and also made him nervous. But, if they were out of the water sunning themselves they were not dangerous. We got very close to sunning crocodiles.

There is an island in the Chobe River that belongs to Botswana which is lush and green. There are a lot of animals on the island. We saw several there that we had not seen before. The Chobe River is the boundary between Botswana and Zambia.

The part of the cruise we liked the best was watching the elephants. Each day hundreds of them come down to the river and cross to the island. We would watch groups of them come down the hill. About halfway down the hill they would start to run to the water to get a drink. After a few minutes of drinking, one would start to cross to the island and the rest of the group would follow. You could see their pleasure at being in the water. Sometimes we could see them playing in the deep water like the picture of one elephant standing on another. The water was deep enough that they had to swim to get across. Once they were wet they often threw dirt on themselves to protect themselves from sun and bugs as you can see in the photo above. Notice how close the boats are to the elephants in one picture.

At the edge of the island was a section of water lilies. Our guide picked one and made a necklace for the women. He said that the natives used the stem from the water lily flowers as a drinking straw so they could stay further from the water to avoid crocodiles. He made the cruise very enjoyable and was very flexible to do whatever we wanted.

Chobe National Park Game Drive

When we were in Kasane, we went on an early morning game drive in Chobe National Park with Richard and Brenda. We left the lodge so that we were inside the park by the time it got light. We watched a beautiful sunrise.

 

Each time we saw big cats, lions and leopards, there were always lots of other safari trucks there too because everyone wanted to see the cats. This was quite different from our Madikwe game drives where only three trucks were ever allowed to be at one site. We watched a leopard hunt impala for almost an hour. The leopard was not successful possibly because there were ten trucks and the impalas detoured just enough to be out of the cat's range. They never knew the cat was there even though we were watching it the whole time. Because we watched the leopard for so long we had a longer than usual drive and were late returning to the lodge.

There are a hundred thousand elephants in Chobe and we saw many groups. Most of them with young elephants as well as fully-grown elephants. One elephant challenged our safari truck while we were stopped watching the elephants. It came right up to the front of the truck flared its ears and trumpeted. Brenda was looking elsewhere at the time and the trumpet scared her. Our driver said this was "teenage exuberance".

 

From up on a hill we had a good look at the "rocks", actually hippopotamus, on the bank of the Chobe River. They love sleeping in the mud.

 

 

We saw many other animals including giraffe, and a large herd of sables. Brenda has always liked warthogs and we saw many of these. We always got a kick out of the fact that whenever they are running they keep their tails straight up.

Cornelia's Hospitality

Cornelia Rautenbach, a member of the church, picked us up at the Kasane airport on our trip with Richard and Brenda Vernon. She took us to Thebe River Safaris Lodge where we checked into our rooms. From there she took us to a Kasane Group family home evening. Twice a month the whole group gets together for family home evening. We were lucky enough to be there when the group met.

Three families, and ten neighborhood children were at a member's home when we got there. The families are members of the church but only one of the children is a member. The children meet for family home evening every week with Cornelia.

The family home evening followed the normal agenda precisely. It started with a song and prayer. One of the fathers of the families gave a very good lesson on following the prophet. We played a couple of games and had refreshments. It was obvious that everyone in attendance was used to the routine, even the children who were very well behaved.

The second night in Kasane, Cornelia took us on a braai (barbecue) in the bush. She picked us up at the lodge just before sunset and took us along the Zimbabwe border to a clearing where we could have the braai. Along the way we saw many elephants, giraffes, and other animals. The white post in the picture of the giraffes is a Botswana-Zimbabwe border marker.

We enjoyed visiting around the fire and then used the coals to cook chicken, Bratwurst, and vegetables and to warm French bread. It was delicious. Cornelia is quite the bush cook. We heard elephants and jackals around us while we were there.

Cornelia used a spotlight to show us animals on the way back to the lodge. We saw hyenas, elephants, jackals, giraffes, impala, etc. She surprised us by stopping at a camp that had a water hole with a light above it and we were able to watch elephants come to the water hole to drink in the dark. It was very interesting.

Victoria Falls

On our trip to Kasane in Northern Botswana with Richard and Brenda Vernon, we took a guided day trip to Victoria Falls. Thebe River Safaris where we stayed in Kasane took us to the Zimbabwe border where our guide met us, drove us the hour to Victoria Falls and showed us the falls on foot. He gave us a lot of interesting information about the falls.

The falls were at bit below high water flow. This turned out to be a good time to view the falls. All of the falls were flowing but there was not enough mist to hide the falls which happens at high water. We were glad to have umbrellas at some of the viewing points and still got quite wet. The guide said the week before we really would have gotten wet. Victoria Falls consists of six falls - Devil's Cataract, Main, Horseshoe, Rainbow, Armchair, and Eastern Cataract.

David Livingstone was the first white person to view the falls. He spent twenty-five years in Africa. Both he and his wife died of malaria. We decided that we would take anti-malaria drugs rather than risk getting it. They buried Livingstone's heart in Africa and his body in Scotland.

There are a lot of shops and vendors in Victoria Falls. Brenda and Janet enjoyed shopping and bought some craft items. As part of the tour we were taken to lunch where we had traditional food.

On the way to and from Victoria Falls were saw some animals. There were only a few of them because poachers recently burned the area to make it easier for them to get at the animals. It is sad that they are having so much trouble with poachers. All the rhinoceros in Chobe National Park have been moved deeper into Botswana to try to protect them from poachers.

When we crossed the border from Zimbabwe to Botswana, we had to rub the soles of our shoes on mats wet with disinfectant and the tour truck had to drive through a bath to keep foot and mouth disease from spreading.

We had a wonderful day at Victoria Falls. They are truly a wonder of nature and pictures cannot do them justice.

Car Accident

On Saturday, 11 August, we had a nice lunch at an outdoor restaurant with Richard and Brenda and decided to go to the National Museum. On our way there a dump truck failed to stop at a stop sign and broadsided the driver's side of the car. The impact spun the car almost half-way around. We were very blessed that no one was seriously injured in our car. Brenda's knee was bruised and twisted. Richard had sore ribs. Unfortunately, running stop signs and red lights is all too common in Botswana.

A police office quickly arrived, and the other driver and I had the privilege of accompanying him to the station along with our vehicles. The other driver drove his truck and our car was towed. The police took my information and statement and soon I was allowed to leave. The Kimballs came and got Janet, Richard, and Brenda and took them to their house. They came back to pick me up but it took them a bit to find the correct police station. The other driver was not allowed to leave until he paid his fine of five hundred pula ($65).

We are now waiting for estimates on getting the car repaired, and then the church will decide how to proceed.

Mosetlha Bush Camp at Madikwe Game Reserve

Richard, Janet's brother, and his wife, Brenda, came to visit us for ten days starting 7 August. We picked them up at the Gaborone Airport, dropped off their baggage, and immediately took them to the Mosetlha Bush Camp in South Africa about an hour and half away from our house for a two-day safari experience.

The bush camp gave us a real feel of being out in the bush which we just loved while still having many comforts. It had accommodations for up to twenty people, but the most that were there while we were there was ten. We slept in open-air cabins. There was a dining room, game room, toilets, and showers.

To take a shower you pour a bucket of cold water into the "donkey" which would force hot water out the other side into another bucket. You mix the amount of hot and cold water to get the temperature of the shower you want. At the shower you use a rope and pulley to lower another bucket with a shower head and valve. You fill this bucket with your water and take a nice warm shower using about two and half gallons of water. The afternoon of the second day we were in camp we all took showers to make sure we had the complete experience.

The day we arrived it was unusually cold and windy, the coldest that the camp owner could remember in seventeen years. As soon as we were settled we went on our first game drive that afternoon. We wore our coats, hats, and gloves and wrapped up in a wind resistant blanket provided by the camp. It was still cold but worth it. Each night the staff placed hot water bottles in our beds for warmth which made them very comfy.

Each morning and afternoon we were there we went on game drives. We saw lots of animals and were amazed at how close we got to them. We would leave in the morning at sunrise and come back to camp three hours later when we would eat brunch. We would have afternoon tea. We would leave for the evening game drive at 3:30 pm and get back to camp about seven o'clock and have supper. On they way back to camp the guide always used a spotlight to search for animals and we saw many after dark.

We saw many different kinds of animals and birds. It was fun to have Richard with us because he is really interested in birds and there are lots of interesting and different birds to see. One of the most colorful birds we saw was the lilac breasted roller.

We saw hundreds of impala. They were described by our guide, Komotso, as the McDonald's of Southern Africa because they have an M on their rump, they are everywhere, and they are the fast food for all the predators.

We were lucky to see wild dogs which are endangered worldwide. Just after we saw them, three dogs killed and devoured an impala in six minutes.

We saw both spotted and brown hyenas. We saw a brown hyena carrying a bone from a kill that was as long the hyena was. Brown hyenas are threatened. We saw a solitary spotted hyena that was very pregnant.  At one spot the hyenas had killed a full-size male kudu and were eating it when we drove up and scared them away. When we went back the next day the carcass was gone. We were lucky someone in our group saw a lion nearby. When we got close we saw that it was eating the kudu carcass we had seen the day before. We were so close we could hear the lion crunching the kudu bones. When it had fed enough, it moved the carcass to the shade of a bush to keep it out of the sun and took a nap nearby.

Once we came around a huge bush to find an elephant right next to the truck. It flared its ears and the driver immediately accelerated. Ten feet from a startled elephant is a little too close!

A fire started outside the park the day before we arrived. The staff set backfires around the camp to save it. About half of the reserve burned which made it easier to see game. We would watch the fire both day and night while we were on drives. We were able to see klipspringers, a very small antelope, because of the fire. Our guide told us they were wary and rarely seen.

During each game drive we took a break for a snack. For one snack we stopped by a group of blue wildebeests and ate our snack while they looked at us and we looked at them. The snack consisted of hot chocolate, rusks, peanuts, carrot sticks, crackers, and a dip made of cottage cheese and sweet chili sauce. We were always grateful for the hot chocolate.

Madikwe only allows limited access which meant we saw few other game drive trucks and the "almost-camping feeling" of the bush camp made for a real wilderness experience. The whole bush camp and game drive adventure was wonderful.