Chobe NP Morning Game Drive

Lazy lionesses.

Sisterly love.

A carmine bee eater.

A fish eagle.

A saddle beaked stork.

A sleeping lioness.

A male elephant checks us out.

Water fun.

A great view of the Chobe River and the elephants.

A sable antelope.

A female kudo.

And male kudo.

Saturday, October 14^th.

We were up before the crack of dawn to get organized for an optional game drive. Everyone went and paid the extra $40. We drove into the national park and within five minutes we came across three lionesses laying in the sandy road. We were in an open nine passenger land cruiser and they were no more than ten feet away. We stopped and took photos and watched as they began to take an interest in an impala on the other side of our truck. When they crossed the road on either side of our truck the impala took off and the lionesses walked off into the bush. Very cool.

Our guide was excellent. He gave us lots of information about the animals and birds we saw and actually kept us out a half hour longer than we were supposed to because we found some great animals on the way back to the gate.

We saw: Egyptian geese, spoonbills, a hippo sleeping in the mud, crocodiles, baboons, beautiful carmine bee eaters, guinea fowl, a fish eagle, saddlebeak storks, a cory bustard, vervet monkeys and hundreds of elephants! We saw whole family groups heading down to the river or walking uphill from the river and at a lookout we got out of the vehicle and watched as dozens of them played in the water. It was amazing and definitely a David Attenborough moment. We got really close to the elephant are rather they came very close to us, because we stopped when we saw them and they crossed right in front of us. The driver asked us why we thought they weren't aggressive and he said because we weren't bothering them. We just sat quietly and still, watched and took photos, and they basically looked at us and then ignored us. Incredible experience.

On the drive to the gate we came across a small herd of sable antelope, which are quite rare and I have never seen before in the wild, and then a herd of female kudos, a lone giraffe, and then a bachelor herd of kudos.

When we got back to camp, about 10:30 the crew had packed up our tents and we had a late breakfast before setting out for our drive to Zimbabwe.