Welcome to Botswana!

Our first stop is Chobe National Park. We’re staying at Thebe River Safaris in Kasane, which is located just outside the park. It’s not until I check out a map later that I realize this area is like the Four Corners of Africa — Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all meet along the Chobe River. There’s nearly a fifth country in the mix: Angola is only a short distance away.

In Vic Falls we had a lot of turnover on our overland truck, including our guide — meet Soliwe, our excellent new tour leader:

We are lucky to have Soliwe for many reasons, not the least of which is that she is an extremely good cook. Check out this salad (olives are my favorite) and chicken veggie stir fry with warm tortillas:

We settle into camp by early afternoon and spend the rest of the day poolside. There’s a bunch of other overland tours here and I run into Riaan, half of my favorite tour guide couple who I last saw in Kenya a few months ago. (He and his wife Juliana have some time off between trips and he was called to drive for a few days on another tour leg.) I can’t tell you what a small world the overland circuit is — this is not the last time I’ll run into a familiar face during my time on this continent, and I get the biggest rush each time it happens. It’s like fate telling me I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The next morning there’s an optional sunrise game drive (meaning it’s not included in the price of the tour) and everyone decides to participate. It costs around $40 per person and normally I’d suggest taking advantage of these since it’s something you likely can’t do in your home country, but — spoiler alert — this time it turns out to be a bust. It’s my least favorite game drive in Africa.

We all squeeze into a single vehicle — worth mentioning here because only those on the perimeter of the truck have an unobstructed view for photos, and the rest of our group is blocked in. (Every other game drive I went on in Africa we spread out into two vehicles; the new people who just joined the tour yesterday don’t realize we should have more space. And we paid around $40 for the other tours too so it feels like this place is taking advantage by squeezing us into one vehicle.) Everyone in the group is considerate to make sure others get the photos they want but it’s still annoying.

All would be forgiven if we saw decent wildlife… but we don’t. The newcomers have just arrived in Africa so they are super excited, but those of us continuing on the tour commiserate that this was a waste of time and money. Of course wildlife is unpredictable so every game drive is a gamble, but it’s worth noting that this is the only one that left me disappointed.

I hope you scroll down to see the photos below even though the variety of animals isn’t as exciting as other safari posts.

There is something magical about the light and energy at dawn.

Our driver gets super excited when he spots this pack of wild dogs — he says they pass through maybe twice a year. All of the vehicles pull over to watch them for 20 minutes or so.

I believe this is an African fish eagle:

We have a quick break to stretch our legs mid-way through the game drive.

This is my annoyed face because the most exciting thing we saw all morning was wild dogs. (Shout out to tour mate Klaus for snapping this photo of me!)

In the last 20 minutes of our game drive we spot a few elephants and then giraffes off in the distance.

An unspoken truth: it is no fun to go on a game drive with first-timers. They get way too excited about the littlest thing, unaware that it gets MUCH better and we shouldn’t waste time on dime a dozen wildlife (giraffes, elephants) that are super far away. Seeing these creatures up close in the wild is a magical experience (as evidenced here and here) but when they’re hundreds of meters away our time is better spent pressing onward in search of other animals.

I apologize for doing so much complaining in this post. It is totally fine for people to get excited about spotting animals in the wild for the first time. I just get cranky sometimes.

Womp womp… sorry for being a Debbie Downer!

But it gets better — Botswana reveals itself in layers and we’re just getting started. Our sunset cruise along the Chobe River is a major highlight and I can’t wait to share those photos tomorrow. Then later in the week I’ll post images from our three-day trip to the country’s crown jewel, the Okavango Delta. This is a truly spectacular place.

I visited Botswana on a 30-day Nairobi to Joburg tour with Nomad Tours. They discounted my tour in exchange for blogging and photography; opinions are my own.