Botswana

After crossing the Botswana border, we stopped in Kasane, a modern city and gateway into Chobe National Park. Accommodations were not cheap so we opted for camping at a nice lodge instead. From the lodge we were able to organise a afternoon boat cruise on the Zambezi River. Since the river level was so high (7 metres higher than normal) we were able to get quite close to the bank and saw many elephants and hippos, as well as various antelope, Buffalo, monitor lizards, crocodiles, giraffes and birds. According to the guide the park contains about 150,000 elephants however the park can only sustain 60,000. They moved some to another park in Botswana, but they all walked back to Chobe.
From Kasane, we headed to Maun where we spent a day on the Okavanga Delta. A motor boat took us into the Delta, past some hippos (where I fell backwards in the boat due to the acceleration), where we switched to a Mokoro (a dugout canoe). We spent the day poling through the wetlands, swimming, and searching for animals in the grasslands. Unfortunately, we didn't see any more animals (except birds) but we had enjoyed travelling by Mokoro through the narrow channels abundant with waterlilies.

Holly