Today, we drove all day into the central area of the Chobe National Park. The roads were better getting into the park, but getting to the animals down at the river's edge required the same 4-wheel drive, major bumping capability. In addition to the African Sable in the photo to the left, we saw four of the big five African animals: Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, and Elephant.
And not just from a distance in a fleeting moment, up close and doing what they do. but first, let's recognize that the main park contains 55,000 elephants, and what must be as many giraffes, and a serious amount of impalas, kudus, and (the birders amongst us can attest) an enormous number of multi-colored birds.
We encountered these two lions twice, and the big male let us know how upset he was that we were there. We also found two brother lions on a hill overlooking thousands of impalas and zebra on a large watery plain. Our travels today took us to scenes that were perfectly understandable from the view of who eats whom. All prey were watching out for who threatens them, or at least could do them serious harm.
Finally, we crossed a small tree-lined hill, and looked out at a stretch of grassland in Namibia that contained several hundred water buffalo. it reminded us how Botswana is a land-locked country surrounded by eight other countries. Cooperation is the name of the game here, as the animals don't pay much attention to borders. Many of the parks are adopting common rules, and attempting to work more closely together, especially around the issue of poaching - a problem they all share.
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