Elephants, Elephants, and More Elephants!

Today we journeyed to Botswana and Chobe National Park, which is known for their high density of elephants. We were picked up this morning by Chris, a very nice taxi driver who gave us great detail about our itinerary for the day (he coordinates everything with the people on the other side of the river). And, thank god we had him with us going through immigration - he was very swift and sped us through the process which otherwise would have been very intimidating for us. We bypassed the ferry across the river by traveling in a small boat to the Botswana side. In the middle of the river (at the confluence where the Chobe River and Zambezi River meet), you are actually in 4 countries at once - Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. They told us that is the only place in the world where it happens. I don't know if that is true, but it's still pretty cool.
As a side note, as we drove both to and from the river crossing, we noticed semi truck upon semi truck parked along side of the road. The shortest way (distance-wise) to cross the border between Botswana and Zambia is by ferry (or a private boat), and the ferry can only take 1 semi at a time. Therefore, the drivers sometimes wait for weeks to cross the river. They've talked about building a bridge to replace the ferry, but it would have to also go through Zimbabwe, and they are stonewalling the project. The only other way to get from one country to another is to go through Zimbabwe, but as our taxi driver explained, most drivers don't prefer going that way because the taxes charged on the goods change on a regular basis. TIA man, TIA.

On the other side of the river, we were greeted by a very nice gentleman who again escorted us quickly through immigration, and took us to the Chobe Safari Lodge, where our boat safari was to depart. On the way we stopped at a ginormous Baobob tree, which was estimated at 1,000 years old. It was HUGE! Once we arrived at the safari lodge, we were greeted by our river safari guide, Moses, who took us to our boat. To our surprise, we were the only ones on the tour that morning, so we had our own private safari! Awesome! We saw lots of crocs, lizards, and too many hippos to count (seriously, there were hundreds!), but the best part was the elephants. Because there is a national park on both sides of the Chobe River, the elephants can swim from one side to another. And what did we see??? Elephants!! Swimming in the river!!! It was amazing - I think even the Monkeys would have been jealous, even with the hundreds of elephants they saw at Addo.

After eating lunch at the safari lodge, we were met by our guide for the afternoon game drive, Custard (who we later found out lived in the US for a year and worked at Disney's Animal Kingdom via there international program - very cool!). We knew topping the morning ride was going to be difficult, but Custard was up to the challenge. We saw HUNDREDS of more elephants, some getting as close to us as 2-3 feet from our vehicle (in our opinion, maybe a little TOO close :). We also saw baby elephants taking baths and playing in the water - Baby + Elephants + Water = Too Cute! However, the best part of our game drive came when we stopped by a couple of other vehicles who we assumed were looking at the hippos right off the bank of the river. Oh no, they were not looking at the hippos, rather they were looking at the 3 leopards that were sleeping in a nearby tree. Yes, 3 leopards. Sleeping in a tree. Do I have to say more?!? It was amazing! It was 1 female and her two cubs - they didn't move much, but were very cute! The first time we passed them we could only see 2 of the leopards, the second time we passed them on the way out, they had moved and all three were visible! It was definitely a highlight of the day. As Mike would say, it was re-donkey-donk.

After searching for the lions our guide had seen that morning (with no luck, but I really can't complain since I saw 3 leopards in a tree), we headed back to the border, where we had a very uneventful (thank god) trip back through the borders and then back to our hotel. Our taxi driver from the morning (Chris) took us home, and though he is a bit of a crazy driver, he got us home in one piece.

Tomorrow we move to the Zimbabwe side of the falls, and we've got some really fun activities planned, including a helicopter ride over the falls, a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, and an elephant back ride. More updates to come...