Trip Report: Botswana
Visited in September 2021
This trip report is part of a three-part series. This is the third and last part and for a better understanding it is worth reading the Zimbabwe report first and after that the Zambia report.
It was 7 o’clock in the morning when I was greeted by my driver at my hotel in Livingstone. “Hi, are you Peter?” – “Ahem, actually my name is Nicolai. But yes, Petek is my last name.” – “Nicola?” – “…well, Nicola works too, yes.”
I had expected the driver to take several guests from Zambia to Botswana. However, it turned out that I would be the only participant in the tour. My driver would drive me to the border between Zambia and Botswana and wait there for me. Meanwhile, I would be picked up by the tour guide who would spend the day with me.
On the one hand, I found it quite cool to be able to enjoy such a special treatment. On the other hand, it made me realize once again what a disaster this pandemic is for people in developing countries who normally earn money with tourism. Instead of a minibus with 12 people, this guy now drove to the border with one guest. I don’t know how much money he made from that. $5? Maybe even less.
The drive went by pretty fast and after a good hour we reached the most modern border post I have seen in Africa so far. The Koreans built it and from the inside it basically looks more like a European bank than a border building. It took only about ten minutes until I had the stamp of my country #120 in my passport.
Outside the border building, the driver handed me over to the safari guide. I expected to be among a group of safari tourists in Botswana at the latest. “You’re the only one today, Peter,” the safari guide from Kalahari Tours greeted me. He explained to me that there would be two other tourists on the boat safari in the morning and on the game drive in the afternoon it would be just the two of us.
The boat trip then took place with two other tourists from French-speaking Switzerland. In a small speedboat we drove around an island that is claimed by both Botswana and Namibia. The trip took about two hours and we saw a lot of animals. Boat safaris are cool. They are something different than driving through a park in a safari vehicle and you see just as much. If not even more.
The highlight was a herd of elephants of about 30 animals that we saw from the boat on the shore. Although I have been to many African safari parks by now, I have never seen such a crowd of elephants. However, Chobe National Park is known to have one of the highest densities of elephants in the world.
Apart from that, we mainly saw hippos, crocodiles, buffalos and impalas from the boat. The fact that you can explore Chobe National Park by car on the one hand and by boat on the other hand makes the park special. It reminded me a bit of Malawi’s Liwonde National Park.
Unique was also the way of the game drive. Unlike other national parks where you have to navigate through a complex network of roads, Chobe has a single one-way road. All guests will follow the same route.
At short notice, two locals joined the game drive. The two came from Gabs (the locals call the capital Gaborone that way), but didn’t seem to be really impressed with what they saw. When we stopped next to a group of antelope, one of them complained that he finally wanted to see predators now, while the guide tried to explain that this is only possible during the day if we are lucky.
In fact, game drives in the afternoon are usually not so spectacular, as many animals are resting in the shadow. For this reason I also wonder why nevertheless most or all national parks offer game drives at 2 pm, although they know that most animals rest during this time of the day.
In our case, however, we saw quite a bit. Besides the animals we already saw in the morning, we also saw giraffes and… actually lions resting under a tree. The unhappy customer from Gaborone finally got his predator therefore.
For me, Chobe National Park ranks among the best on the African continent because safari there works differently than, for example, in the Serengeti or Etosha. So it is not surprising that it is one of Botswana’s top attractions, maybe only topped by the Okavango Delta.
The game drive then ended at 4:30 pm and I got back to the border where my driver was waiting. My time in Botswana thus ended after about eight hours. For a big country with many attractions this is of course a super short time. However, I was always aware that I cannot spend two weeks in every country on my journey to all countries.
That it has now hit Botswana, has also to do with the characteristics of the country as a destination. Botswana is first and foremost a safari country. Although I love safari, I’m starting to need a break from it. I have visited most of the major national parks in Africa over the past two years. All of these parks, whether the Serengeti, Masai Mara, Etosha or even the smaller ones like Hlane or Liwonde have been cool, but for now I’ve had enough.
With Botswana I visited the last country of what that the UN statistics department calls Southern Africa. It’s one of my favorite regions of the world to visit again when I’m through with all the countries. That was another reason I kept Botswana short with a clear conscience. Thus, I did not miss the Okavango Delta, it will simply take place at a later date.
