Into the Wilds

In the last week of February, a friend of mine visited from the states, and since one of the other short-termers (Jess Cosby) had visitors as well, we took a trip together into the wilds of northern Botswana. We met up in Kasane, in the far north-eastern corner of Botswana, and spent one night there before heading into Chobe National Park for two days and a night in the park along the Chobe River. Once Jess’ brother got over his fear of being eaten by lions and we got somewhat used to the huge swarms of insects attracted to our light, we had a good time camping. It’s nearing the end of the rainy season here, so everything was green and the undergrowth had grown quite thick. Because of the thick brush and the water that the rains have made available deep in the park away from the river, the animal life there wasn’t quite as abundant as when my family was there last year. It was still quite ripe with life, though, and we saw most of the large animals along with a vast number of different kinds of birds. We were planning on driving through the Chobe park south to Moremi, another national park on the edge of the Okavango Delta. The attendant at the park gate, however, informed us that the recent abundant rains had made the road impassable. That was a bit of a disappointment, but instead we took the long way around on paved roads, staying a night in Gweta on the way. On the road into Moremi National Park we had what was for me the most exciting wildlife encounter of the trip…as we were driving along, I saw an animal slowly entering the road from the right a few hundred feet ahead. I quickly recognized that it was a cat of some kind, and we stopped to watch it from afar so we wouldn’t scare it away. It crouched down on the edge of the road, looking intently into the bushes on the other side (at an impala, we later discovered). We were pretty far away from it, but looking through binoculars we could see that it was a leopard. It stayed long enough for us to all get a bit of a look in the binoculars and then got up and paced off into the bushes. It was the first leopard that I’ve seen (leopard sightings are quite rare – they’re pretty difficult to spot and don’t hang out in the open as much as lions), and I think it’s my new favorite big cat. From there, we continued into the park and spent two nights there. While the animal life was harder to spot in Moremi, we still were able to see quite a bit. We also took an hour-long boat ride through the fringes of the Okavango Delta, which was a great experience also. Finally, on the way back to Gaborone, we overnighted at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, which has, in addition to a large number of rhinos, many different kinds of antelope, cats, and birds. There we finally sighted the elusive zebra, most of which have retreated to the inland grasslands in the rainy season. It was a wonderful trip, and we had a lot of fun. I’ve posted a few teaser pictures here, and made two new photo albums on my google pictures site here and here.