© Nova Fisher 2015

Chobe National Park, Botswana

A Chobe Safari Day Trip is the ideal opportunity to experience the amazing fauna and flora that Africa has to offer. Only an hour’s drive from Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park is home to one of the largest game concentrations in Africa. Bordered by the banks of the breath-taking Chobe River, it’s famous for its rich elephant and lion population. In the dry season they estimate up to 85,000 elephants in the Park with the majority of them being along the river. Leaving Victoria Falls at 7am we drove 70km to the Kazungula border where our Botswana guide met us at 8.30am. We drove through Kasane where the river is bordered by Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. At 9.30am we went on a 3 hour river game cruise on the Chobe River that took us really close to brilliant bird life, pods of watering hippos, crocodiles and elephants. Snacks, bottled water, softs drinks and beers were provided on the river safari. After lunch at Chobe Safari Lodge we had a 3 hour road Game Drive through the bushland and along the Chobe River where we viewed the animals which were breath-taking in their sheer number. The Park has Lion, Leopard, Buffalo and a whole host of antelope like sable, puku, kudu, eland, roan and many others which you can get to see. The river is filled with big pods of Hippos and some of the biggest crocodiles in Africa. The birdlife is also very prolific with over 500 bird species in the region, birders from all around the world come to try and improve their life list with birds like Slaty Egret, Pygmy Goose, African Fin foot, a variety of raptors and many others. It’s truly an amazing place where we were bowled over by the number of animals and the beauty of the African bushveld.
We were scheduled to meet our Zhimbabwe connection at 16.30 and we arrived at about 16.20. However, our minibus went early, without us so Absolom of Africa Tours very kindly gave us a lift to meet up with the minibus, otherwise we would have been stranded overnight in Botswana!! We returned to our Hotel at 7ish.  (Botswana has about 260,000 elephants and as there is a no-hunting policy these are multiplying and causing great damage to the trees and vegetation. Elephants eat about 250Kg of food a day, which passes straight through with little break up of the food occurring in the stomach)