Trip Review - Part 2
Botswana: Chobe Game Lodge
At the border between Zimbabwe and Botswana, you have to give them your shoes to wash the soles. Apparently it is for infection control for hoof and mouth disease. They also take each person‘s temperature. Interestingly, we had been told by a travel doctor that because we had air transited through Ethiopia, we were going to have to have yellow fever vaccines, or yellow fever waivers ( we had waivers )to get into Botswana, even though we were coming from Zimbabwe. We decided not to mention the Ethiopian plane transfer, and kept our waivers in our pockets just to see what would happen. We were not asked for any validation of yellow fever vaccines when we were going through. I think it’s because our group was coming from Zimbabwe, and there was no way for the immigration or passport control people to know what countries we had flown through if they didn’t stamp our passports.
The Chobe Game Lodge is on the Chobe River . The site is lush , the lodge is beautiful and the rooms are nicely appointed and air conditioned with treed river views. Each room had a coffee and tea station and a well stocked mini bar with bottled and canned water, soda and beer. There is an elevated boardwalk with extensive tree covering that runs the length of the property along the river. The lodge is in the National park so when it is dark you need escorts to walk around. The food was very good and everyone ate everything with no ill effects. A table for our entire group was set up in different locations at various times around the resort and we had all of our meals together with Kathy. There are 15 people in the group ( the max for this tour is 18) and it is quite intimate and friendly. Kathy said we sounded like a school bus. 😂
The safaris here are land game drives ( morning and afternoon, 3 hours each) and also boat drives on the river (afternoon). It is early rise (5am); escort to the lodge (5:30am); coffee /scone, muffin, fruit set up and on the jeeps at 6am. The jeeps have 4 rows each with 3 seats per row. They are covered, but open. The Lodge runs the drives and has excellent staff. The guides are great at finding the game and avoiding crowds of jeeps. Because it is a national park, there are vehicles from other safari companies and the odd private car. Animals seen: elephants, elephants, elephants, more elephants, lions, leopards, kudu, giraffes, impalas, baboons , Cape buffalo, jackals, honey badger, hyena, hippos ( in water and eating on land in early morning), and many many birds I will never learn the names of. The river cruises were real highlights- watching the herds of elephants- playing in the water, mudding themselves and swimming across the river was amazing. There were also many hippos. As for the hippos…..it was pretty obvious they didn’t like having us around. ….. they started swimming towards one of the pontoon boats that got too close…. One must respect their space. The guides do NOT carry guns, and they cannot go off of the roads. The roads are simply sand and are bumpy.
We had a dedicated staff of game drivers and wait staff. Every day for lunch and dinner, our group was set up in different locations on the grounds. There was an evening of entertainment during dinner as well as traditional singing and dancing performed during lunch.
There were mosquitoes and none of the dining areas are indoors. Despite permethrin pretreatment and adequate twice daily mosquito repellent on exposed skin and under clothes, I got bites. It is not as though there were lots of mosquitoes, because there weren’t…. But all meals are outside and in the evening we were next to the river and heavy brush.
It was incredibly hot in Chobe- every day it was over 100 degrees. We were really happy the rooms were air conditioned.