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Bostwana

Goldenmaggot
2005-09-06 11:38:30

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When we arrived from Zimbabwe to the Botswana border post, we all piled into a building where there was only one immigration officer, so that took a while. We changed vehicles at this point and drove to the building on the Botswana side where our passports were duly stamped.

Making a stop soon after the border crossing, we were required to leave our truck and wipe our feet on a wet, very dirty looking mat which was, I supposed, (once upon a time) soaked in disinfectant. They obviously didn't want any Zimbabwe bugs in Botswana.

Our Lodge was the Cresta Mowano Lodge. Our rooms were not ready for us so we booked onto a 10.00am game drive.

Our game drive driver was Steven. The vehicle was a three tiered Landrover. I sat right at the back on the highest tier as I thought this could be the best place for photography.

We had some great Americans with us, they were really funny they kept saying "Did you see that, honey?" (elephants - about 15ft away). "Oh my Gawd honey, they are coming nearer" - "My oh my did you see that honey?" (Cape buffalo 50ft away) - and so on and on. They had heard a story from someone about an elephant attacking a vehicle while she had a calf with her (sounds reasonable). Every time we got within 100ft of an elephant they lapsed into "Oh my Gawd honey, its coming nearer!"

We saw huge numbers of elephants, and the biggest herd of cape buffalo I have ever seen, "Maybe three hundred" our driver reckoned. We saw puku deer which we hadn't seen before; puku can only be seen around the Chobe area. We also sighted a lot of kudu, impala and we saw a sleepy lioness under a tree. We also sighted sable, wart hog and baboon.

The Chobe River runs alongside the lodge and National Park and on the opposite bank where there are cattle grazing, is Namibia. The lions sometimes swim across into Nambia and take an easy meal ...