My travel story: Botswana Day 11 (Chobe NP) - Part 10 - (36 photos)

Hello dear hivean friends,

Ohhh, it has been a while since my last post in this lovely community. Sure it was 2020, but it was further back. 9th of November was the date when I shared my last Slovenian adventure for the year. You know when was the last time I shared my African adventure with you? You get too old already as it was for 1000th Travel Digest edition. On that day I made a post about Chobe National Park and how it looks from the water angle. Hope you didn’t forget me, as I am continuing my adventure today :)

Actually I will be finishing my trip and travel blog from Namibia and neighbor countries today. Such a shame as this trip was one of the best if not the best I ever did! Reliving it with you guys here was another awesome experience. One of the main reasons why I like Hive so much is interaction with others and all the memories which gets out while I am preparing my posts. Without Hive, I doubt I would dedicate that much attention to my past travels and happy moments of my life.

Well enough for the intro; let’s go to work!

After sundowner boat cruise we took the other day it was time to explore the park on land. This experience was a bit different from the other evening and it was very much different from the one we had at the beginning of our travel when we were in Etosha National Park for a few days. The main difference was that we had a guided game drive this time with a ranger and private vehicle. In Namibia if you remember we did all game drives by ourselves like self-drives. There is a difference as park rangers have the experience and knowledge about wildlife there, so it creates another level of how you get to live this safari experience. I was impressed about how much they know about amazing nature there. It is also a special feeling when he turns out the engine and listening to the birds and monkeys sounds so he can orient where some big cat can be. By yourself you can never get that level of excitement as you don’t know what to listen and watch. Sure their stories and detailed animals explanations means something as well. I know a lion, but how well? Hours with the ranger are like being in school again, but in a very interesting school. I should bring my kids there when they will be in school and I am sure they will have only A grades at natural science.
Precious moments, but what when you simply forget the facts they are telling as you are too impressed with surrounding nature. If I would have a chance I would take a week there, at any safari park, and just enjoy and learn. That would be dram holiday which I can think of right now.
Ok, I think I get carried away a bit, but this is the part where I told you earlier how writing a post brings my memories back and as they are all the pleasant ones, they make me happy.

I will get to photos quickly, but still I will write a few words before.
Highlight of this morning game drive we take, was nature in full meaning of the word. With Africa it is most of the time everything connected with nature and its amazingness for us living in a cities. But I live in Ljubljana which is a capitol of Slovenia with about 300.000 population, so I don’t have a clue how it is like to live in a metropolis like Paris or New York or even Delhi for example. Some of these people probably don’t see anything else that skyscrapers or other things concrete jungle has to offer. I am living close to nature and I am doing many trips to the places on the countryside, but Africa is something else. It is so raw.
Most of us like the safaris due to the wildlife and big cats are usually highest on the scoreboard. We all want to see lion and leopard, possibly cheetah and don’t forget on elephant and rhino. Well it is not that easy in nature. You will see what the nature will offer, as that is not the zoo.
On that day we were quite lucky. Biggest or the most excited sight was lion going to work. What does this mean? He has to catch himself a lunch otherwise he will be hungry. There is no fridge if you are a lion… That was the closest I was to a “combat” if I can use this expression. It was thrilling. It might sounds crazy or bad, but that is nature. For moments like that you travel to Africa. If you will be there or not, lions will hunt and antelopes will run for their lives. Just the normal way of life in their environment so if you are able to witness that it is one of the best things it can happen to you while on safari. What was the result? 1:0 for the Sable Antelope. She run and lion waited for another opportunity… Well, being there I was cheering for the antelope if I can be honest :)
Another highlight that day, just as precious as lion attacking his prey was seeing an elephant cub. He was so small. I can even use the word tiny for the elephant standards. By the words of the ranger he/she was in this lovely world for less than a week. Amazing sight! Cubs are so special. Like babies who are always the most adorable and take all the attention.
Sure whole Chobe National Park is amazing and it offers awesome game watching opportunity, but I was there for 1 night only, so definitely not as much as I would like to be but I will share one of the reasons why at the ending thoughts where I will share my accommodation with you, but first feel free to take a look at the photos from my half day safari and try to enjoy at least a bit of what I had…

Let's the fun begin...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 999...

Every piece counts in the wild

Strange rocks, wait that are hippos

Thanks God I am peeking, not a lion

When offroad is road

What are you looking at!

I see some curls

Cutie pie

Front and back security

Just chilling

Wop, maybe not

Killing (wish)

Yummy, there will be a feast

Time to go

Playing hide and seek

F_ _ _ , better luck next time

I would almost forget to present the opponent

As promised I will share our accommodation for the one night at which we stayed in Botswana. The name of the lodge was Garden Lodge. You can check more on their website.
From my opinion it was a nice lodge as all of them on our trip. I can’t say for anyone that it let us down. In fact accommodation and dinning was two of the things that surprised us the most, beside people there but much was written about people in my previous parts... We knew that nature will be beautiful, but were surprised anyway as it was THAT beautiful.
Reason why we stayed in Garden Lodge for one night only was their rate. We don’t know exact final rate as we paid a whole packaged tour to our agent, but rack rates are at 430$ per person sharing a double room per night! It is hard to find more expensive destination than Botswana with its beautiful Chobe NP. Well it was worth staying there and paying the price, even though the room itself and the whole lodge weren’t anything special. The best thing there was probably warthog in their yard :)
Ohhhhh no, wait even better was crocodile in my stomach after the dinner :) They made some kind of stew with crocodile meat. Yummmmmy…

Sadly we came to an end of our adventure as already written in the intro. There should be one more part as we finished our travel in Victoria Falls visiting the falls and do the white water rafting, but I actually already published this part at the beginning, so probably it wouldn’t be right recycling my old content…
You can still check it on the following link and hope it will make a nice closure anyway.

Thank you very much for staying with me (if you did) till the end. Finally I managed to produce a post in HaveYouBeenHere community and I am happy that I can share a quality post as a contribution to the community. Some of the writing inspiration came back after all :)

Take care guys and HIVE ON!