Africa - Part 4 (Chobe)

Up early after a good nights sleep, I quietly eased out of the cabin to enjoy the morning. Jen had already ventured out, so Radhika was left to snooze away. The lawn sprinklers were on over various parts of the grounds, and I had to time it just right to make it to the bank of the river without getting irrigated. Didn’t see any guests out and about, but lodge staff were scattered around, doing their duties. Saw nothing of interest in or near the river, so I worked on my timing again to get past the sprinklers. Did well with my timing but poorly on foot placement, as I stepped into a mud hole formed by the sprinkler. Guess it would’ve been smart to tie my shoes too before I slipped out of the cabin in my pj bottoms and t-shirt, because soon I had both socked feet in the mud as I looked back over my shoulder to see my shoes firmly secured deep in the brown muck! I have to pat myself on the back, only because I kept myself from doing something even more asinine, and that was the momentary thought of putting my muddy-socked feet into my new, still clean-on-the-inside Columbia hiking shoes. I balanced on one foot as I peeled the pasty sock off and carefully slid my clean foot inside one shoe. I bent down tying it just enough to keep it securely on, and then pulled the other one from the mud. Think of a sink draining the final measure of water in a whirlpool and the sound it makes, adding a little “pop” at the end for sound effect. And it was so securely in there that my pulling took me down at first more so than pulling out the shoe! Getting it on and quickly tying it, I returned to the cabin where I quickly gave the socks a sink cleaning, hung them to dry, and put on a clean pair and joined everyone for breakfast. A pretty yellow bird was chirping overhead near a platform at the corner of our outdoor location. I took this to mean only one thing – it was hungry and one of the humans down below needs to put something tasty on the platform. There was a family with two young children near this platform, and when I placed a small piece of bread on it, the yellow bird came down immediately and pecked away. The kids especially loved this close up view and sat there in amazement until the bird finished and returned to the tree. A fun start to our day.
The entrance to Chobe is just a few minutes drive, so we were there in no time. Once past the gate, we came upon a turnoff to the right with a sign that indicates the direction for the river route, which is where we wanted to be. It took us perhaps 30 minutes or more to reach the river, because almost immediately we saw Impala, and stopped every few minutes to observe them. But our “show” began in earnest when we reached the river. There’s a track that runs along the river several kilometers in length that you slowly drive, stopping whenever the situation dictates…like watching a group of hippos or giving ground to a frisky male elephant that’s picking up sticks and slinging them with his trunk in your direction. As a matter-of-fact, hippos and a group of crocodiles were the first animals we saw along and in the river. Soon, we were seeing more impala, elephants, baboons, warthogs, zebra, kudu, and many types of birds. All either stayed at or in the river, or made their way to it at some point during the day. But Chobe is known for the highest concentration of elephants in Africa, and that is what we saw. Elephants of all ages, solo, in small groups, and large herds. They are so much more magnificent-looking in the wild than they are in a zoo. Even more so than when we rode on elephants in Nepal during a bush safari looking for rhinos. Warthogs loudly munching vegetation at the waters edge, impala and antelope constantly grazing, hippos mostly dozing along with crocs, and baboons making their way across the watery field to play in the trees and get to the dry ground across our track and into the forest. We slowly drove the length of the trail, and at the end it seemed to me to be a dead-end…you just turn around and go back in the same direction. There were a couple of turn-offs along the way that lead you into the park, away from the riverbank. We took one of them as we double-backed, and it took us through sandy areas and a scrub forest before we came upon a sign that indicated a right turn would take us onto something called the “upper route”. Jen, with her adventurous spirit was very keen on taking this, but I was skeptical, as none of us knew where this would lead us. After a brief discussion, I said we would drive on it for a little while, seeing where it takes us. Well, a little while turned into a couple of hours, and as more minutes passed without signs or any indication of where we were headed, nervous tension began to permeate the vehicle. We had a map of Chobe, but no trail was marked as “upper route”. There was no cell phone coverage. No GPS. We hadn’t come upon or been passed by another vehicle since taking this route. Not one sign was passed that indicated a destination, the length of the route, or where we were. It had become late afternoon. I was (and possibly not alone in this) thinking we might be sleeping in the CRV tonight somewhere in this wilderness. Minutes dragged on as we continued to pass only unremarkable terrain and large piles of elephant droppings. No signs to direct us still. No signs of anyone else out there with us. We were hoping to be led back to the riverbank, and every so often became hopeful, as the terrain seemed to be changing back to what was found near the river. But those hopes were dashed and the scrub forest went on and on. Cell phones were frequently checked for signal, maps were being passed back and forth, and then silence would fill the CRV for a while as I just drove slowly on. I glanced at the time on the dashboard often. We came to an intersection where there was deep sand, and it was decided that we would make a left. But the sand was too soft from the side we were on and I did not want to cut the wheel and bury the front tires, so I went straight through. I hoped I could find, from the other side, a way to gain some speed along the safest path to avoid getting stuck. The path straight looked very overgrown, with vegetation so close on either side it was impossible to pass without the constant scratching of branches on the sides of the CRV. I stopped and managed to turn around, and now made what was a right turn, getting through the soft sand. On we went, hoping we were headed in a direction that would soon reward us with a road sign or any sign of human life! Fading light and gas level added to our concerns as we made our way. But almost out of nowhere, we drove up a small hill and on the other side was a paved road!! Everything that was puckered-up from tension in that car was released in unison! A couple of cars went by, and just up the road there looked to be some kind of checkpoint, so we pulled up and asked someone if Kasane was in the direction we were traveling. It was, indeed! We had no idea where we were, but so glad to be out of our “lost” situation. When a policeman at the checkpoint asked if we had seen the lion with it’s kill along the side of the road back from the direction he thought we had come (he obviously didn’t see us emerge from the forest), we didn’t flinch from our desire to get to Kasane, fill the tank with gas, and just go back to our lodge. We were going to Victoria Falls the next morning, and had enough adventure today. The excitement of dinner, a shower, and sleep was all that I was looking forward to, to end this day. The album for this post can be found at:
http://www.photoshop.com/user/johndp/?wf=sharegrid&galleryid=e3c6b6809fae4764865f22da26354c38&rlang=en_US&trackingid=BTAGC