Day 7: June 30, Chobe morning

We had our first official game drive in Chobe National Park this morning... PHEW wow it was cold. The wool-lined ponchos they gave us just barely kept us warm enough not to turn into popsicles. They woke us up at 6am (sleeping in here!) with drums, and it was still dark. Then we were off at 7am for our 5-hour drive:

The terrain here is much different than in Pafuri - more open and arid... Much more like I'd anticipated Africa's climate to be. We followed more tracks of lions (including a lion cub), but never caught up with them. We did, however, catch a quick glimpse of a leopard walking through some shrubs, which was quite exciting! It was too brief of an encounter to take a photo, but it was magical nonetheless.

Our guide - Matelu - and Priscilla are fabulous at spotting animals, and it's become a sort of game for the rest of us to see if we can spot the animals before they do. We usually don't. But we did manage to catch a few things on the way. Here's some of what we saw this morning:

- Helmeted Guinea fowl:

- Zebras - including a little one:

I asked these zebras to smile, but only the one on the right actually did...

- Warthogs (they didn't run quite as quickly this time and we were able to get much closer to all of the animals.)

- Kudu - this one had a gorgeous rack of horns... really quite stunning animals.

We stopped near an open area for tea, and there were animals strewn all around the area. If you look at the larger version of the photo below, you can see all sorts of antelope (and maybe some zebras) in the background:

We also saw:

- Giraffe

- Impala

- Banded mongoose

- Knob-billed Duck

- Hippo (a very quick view - again, we decided it didn't count)

- Red Lechwe

- Marabou Storks

- Saddle-billed Stork

- Hamerkop

- Cape Turtle Dove

We returned to the camp around 11am for brunch (here's a photo of our tent):... and right before lunch, we had a demonstration of basket weaving. A few of the women from the local village stopped by and showed us their beautiful work... really quite beautiful. I remember baskets like these selling in the U.S. for gob loads of money, and here they were being sold for $5, $10 or (at the most) $12. Markups are amazing.

So I bought three bowls for $11. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but that's OK. Here I am with the ladies who made them, as well as two members of the lodge staff. These people LOVE to have their photos taken!

This afternoon, we're off on another game drive. The density of animals here in Chobe is spectacular, and we're seeing more here than in Pafuri. The guide says that this is because Chobe is an older reserve, and the animals are used to people and aren't as afraid. Since Pafuri is a much younger park, the animals are more skittish and shy. Interesting.