Days 456-475: Southern Africa Safari
Botswana: Nata, Maun, Okavango Delta, Chobe NP
Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls
South Africa: Kruger NP
Southern Africa is incredibly beautiful. Every sunrise and sunset was amazing, and we saw a lot of them. We’re in danger of becoming morning people. We didn’t just drag ourselves out of bed before dawn for nothing though. The animals were so amazing that you’d think Hollywood made them up.
We really wanted to go on a wildlife safari in Africa. But we were simply priced out of anything offered in Kenya or Tanzania. Turns out all the same animals are in southern Africa, and it costs a hell of a lot less to go on a camping safari.
The “Big 5” are the drawcard of southern Africa’s wildlife. We thought they were supposed to be the five coolest animals. But it turns out they are the five “most dangerous animals to hunt”. Real nice. The Big 5 are: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo. Note that three out of the five are herbivores! Even vegans can be very scary. We came up with our own Fab 5 that we wanted to see: elephant, giraffe, zebra, hippo, and lion.
Botswana was a surprise. The national language is English. It is surprisingly first-world, with chain stores, great roads, nice cars, posh hotels, and not much poverty (never saw a beggar the whole country). It could be the poster child for an African country gone right. Nice to have one’s pre-conceived notions proved wrong.
Our first major stop in Botswana was the Okavango Delta in the north. This is a huge flood plain that is navigated by dugout canoes called mokoros.
Not as easy as it looks. Kelly navigates our mokoro out into the delta so we could do some laundry.
We camped not far from a hippo pool. Hippos may have a cute and cuddly image, but they are really quite mean and dangerous. Hippos are sited as being the most deadly animal to humans in Africa. After seeing the size of their huge canine-like tusks, we can understand why. They have a booming sinister laugh-like call that Marc got pretty good at imitating and will perform after enough beer.
We hiked around the delta looking for animals, but there sure weren’t a whole heck of a lot to be found. Note our local guides looking dejected.
We did find a herd of skittish zebra that took off on our approach. They looked like chunky horses with a cool paint job.
Depsite not seeing much on the game walks, we were visited by a large mom elephant and her two kids near the camp one evening. They got pretty close but didn’t enter the campsite. It was a few hours before we were allowed to use our posh bathroom facilities – a hole in the ground out of sight from the camp. Speaking of which, at night you had to get someone to come with you to go to the toilet so they could watch for lions and hippos while you did your business. We’re not kidding.
Village huts are made from an appetizing mixture of crushed termite mound, dung, and water. The poles on the outside support the roof independent of the walls, nominally so you still have a roof over your head if the walls crumble.
Marc sizes up a termite mound for his new hut.
Zazu.
As we drove through Botswana, we saw lots of goats, donkeys, and wild ostriches along the roads. That is until we got near Chobe National Park and the animals got a bit larger. We had wild elephants crossing the highway and just stepping over farmers’ fences like they weren’t there. Awesome!
We camped on the banks of the Chobe river and could see elephants and hippos across the river. There were also a lot of crocs and were warned not to go swimming.
One morning we were watching a croc watching us. He was about 15 feet off shore and not doing much. We heard a rustle in the tree right next to us and one of our safarimates pleasantly says, “Oh, there’s a hippo.” It was less than 10 feet away from us and on shore. Our guides words were something to the effect of, “Everybody get the f**k out of here now!” Luckily, the hippo ran back into the water instead of after us, but it was good fun.
There were a lot of local wild residents at the Chobe camp. These striped mongeese were everywhere and constantly chirped. Very cute!
The local warthogs were cute. The chunky one ironically named “Dinner” was our favorite. Just look at the smile on her face.
After the disappointment of animals at the Okavango delta, we were shocked and thrilled by the variety and density of animals at Chobe. In the course of a three-hour drive, we saw: spotted hyena, giraffe, warthogs, elephants, hippos, kudu, impala, sable, vultures, and lions! Just an incredible place.
There were family after family of elephants crossing in front and behind the safari vehicle. These folks had just taken a mud bath.
Impala at Chobe.
We found out the way to find lions is to look for vultures in trees. A pride of lionesses had taken down a small elephant and were relaxing in the grass. These cats are really, really big.
After Chobe we headed to the town of Victoria Falls in the Land of Hyper-inflation, otherwise known as Zimbabwe. This is a pretty slimey town with loads of touts and beggars, but the general Zimbabweans were incredibly friendly. There must be more millionaires in Zimbabwe than any other place on earth. But with an exchange rate of US$1 to Z$420,000 its not too shocking. We got our hands on a Zim cent, which is worth $0.000000024. Nice work “Uncle Bob” (aka Pres. Robert Mugabe).
Inflation is so bad that folks actually try to buy the clothing right off your body since any tangible item holds its value better than Zim Bucks. It was really weird to watch people pulling stacks and stacks of money from every pocket just to buy groceries in the 10 items or less line.
They can hardly print money fast enough in Zimbabwe. They even put expiration dates on the currency.
Our first order of business in Zimbabwe was the sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. This cruise is also called the “booze cruise”, and rightly so. A bunch of folks file onto a pontoon boat that lazily looks for animals on the Zambezi. But the real draw card is the open bar. For the first hour or so, most everybody is still sober and actually cares about seeing the awesome animals.
Saw a few crocs lazing about the banks of the Zambezi.
A hippo warns us not to come too much closer. Why does an herbivore need such enormous tusks? Sorry it’s blurry – Marc was shaking from fear (or was it beer?).
We even got to see an elephant swim across the river from Zimbabwe to Zambia using its trunk as a snorkel! Nobody checked his passport either.
The final hour of the booze cruise wasn’t pretty and nobody cared about the animals or the sunset. Yeah, that’s Marc groovin’ it in the back along with the best safari-mates in the world. Beware of the Jungle Juice!
There’s a big waterfall in Vic Falls, or so we’re told. It was so misty we could only catch glimpses.
In southern Africa they call traffic lights “robots”. No booze cruise was necessary for Marc to display his vast repetoire of dance moves.
We drove back through Botswana on the way to Kruger National Park in South Africa. The most notable things about this drive were the family of weird spiders that nested in the van ventilation and would fall onto our bodies during the drive, and the innumerable “vetrinary check points” for hoof-and-mouth disease where they made us walk through some kind of shoe cleaner.
EVERY sunrise and sunset in Africa is stunning.
Our first night back in South Africa was by candle light. There was no power at the guesthouse. The owners of the place told us that folks from the near by township regularly cut the power lines, tie one end to the back of a truck, and drive off with as much as they can to sell the copper.
We stopped at a few nature sights along the way to Kruger including “God’s Window”. Nice enough view, but we liked the garbage cans asking us to “Please Keep God’s Window Clean” better.
The reason we don’t like package tours is that they frequently stop at “cultural” venues that are usually little more than enterprising locals whoring their culture for tourists. We had one night in a Shangaan tribal village that was better than we expected and the folks dancing actually seemed to be enjoying themselves and genuinely wanted to preserve their vanishing culture.
At the tribal village, the two of us were lucky enough to get the chief’s hut with its extra inner wall for “privacy and security”. Yes, they were cow dung floors, but fortunately they didn’t smell at all. The trouble with the chief’s hut is that there is a low archway over the inner door that you are supposed to duck under to enter. We joked that one of us would face plant before the end of the day. Unfortunately, Kelly listened to Marc’s suggestion of not needing a light and took a good blow to the nose from the doorway. Result: some scratched glasses and a pair of mildly black eyes. Glad we didn’t have to take any self portraits shortly thereafter.
What a fantastic park Kruger is. We saw the Big 5 and the Fab 5 within our two days. It was an incredible variety of wildlife in one place. The cool part is you get to drive yourself around and there is nothing between you and the animals. It’s remarkable that the animals seem to think that cars are just large, harmless creatures and pretty much ignore them.
This male lion had visited Mr. T’s barber and was lying next to a hollowed-out giraffe carcass.
One badass herbivore. This elephant had fluid running down his cheeks called musk that was supposed to attract the ladies. He blocked traffic for a good quarter hour and was none-too-happy when a guy in a Beamer made a break for it.
Big 5 buffalo. Help me out here: it’s a cow with a helmet.
Didn’t know Geoffrey Giraffe was a scrapper. The males do battle with those little nubs on their heads and cause the kind of scars this guy has on his neck.
We camped in a (thankfully) fenced area and were visited by the biggest hyena you can imagine each night. These guys are really quite scary.
The starlings in Africa are a stunning shinny green/blue.
Okay, we had to take this picture of a leopard through a pair of binoculars. But it was the last member of the Big 5 for us to see. (The rhino pics weren’t worth uploading) This guy had drug an impala all the way up a huge tree and was taking a break.
We managed to see the Big 5 and the Fab 5 within a matter of weeks and we were just getting started in Southern Africa. What a great safari!
Tags: Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Kelly & Marcus
August 20th, 2006 at 6:51 am
Looks like more fun than the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland!
August 20th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Hey Kelly!! (and marcus, whom I’ve yet to meet)…ur dad filled me in on this blog thing and i thought i’d check it out. WOW!! It’s amazing, everything you’ve been doing. I’m gonna keep checking back to see what’s going on. All is well with me and my fam (my daughter, Faline, is 4 1/2 already….eek!) I hope you 2 continue to have a wonderful time and once ur all done we HAVE to get together…i’m not joking;) miss u, love u….Alison
August 20th, 2006 at 7:59 am
So glad the Big 5 and the Fab 5 cooperated so you could see them all – great blog!
Stay Safe! xoxox
August 21st, 2006 at 5:07 am
Those are some of the best photos I’ve see to date!
I always thought the buffalo looked like they had a mustache on their head.
Good form on the ROBOT Marcus!
August 21st, 2006 at 2:32 pm
I’m a friend of a friend of a friend (your blog is making its way around) and I have to say now half of my office is reading this blog with envy. You have no idea…….congratulations on doing it! I’ll miss reading this when you are done travelling! Hopefully that’s not for a while!
August 21st, 2006 at 3:54 pm
you guys have got national geographic beat! this is way cool! if you visit lusaka, zambia that’s where i was born! keep on bloggin’!
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:22 am
Awesome pictures, well except for some of the spiders!
August 25th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
How did you get pictures of those fascinating animals like the lion or like the lepord or the female lion or the hippo.I also started fourth grade.
Tomorrow which is Saturday I am in a
fashion show at the north county mall in nordstroms.I’m wearing a sports outfit (nike clothes)
Love,
Kyla
August 27th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Hi guys,
Very happy to see that you enjoyed your holiday in southern Africa.
Enjoy the rest of your travels.
Ps: Got power again, don’t know for how long, but for now it is back.