Times in Tanzania: December Holiday: Chobe National Park (Botswana)

Elephant drinking water

A cool excursion offered from Victoria Falls is a day safari to Chobe National Park in nearby Botswana. This is made easier by the fact that US citizens do not require a visa for Botswana and although it requires a few hours drive, Chobe National Park offers much better wildlife than nearby parks in Zimbabwe or Zambia. So naturally, Chobe was a great choice taking a day from our trip to Victoria Falls.

I was real curious to see how the safari differed from other countries though I realized having the package deal from the tourist hub of Victoria Falls may not be an accurate reflection. We booked a tour online and there were a variety of operators all offering the same rate. I was happy to see a 1/2 day river cruise and 1/2 day game drive as river cruises can be quite a cool experience. It was unclear how many people were in our group or how it would be arranged, just a vague outline of the day's activities.

We were picked up in the morning from our hotel and shuttled to a river that was the border of Zambia and Botswana. Our driver took our passports (there were maybe 8 of us), went around the back of the already porous immigration office, and came back within ten minutes with everyone's passports stamped. We were then shuffled onto a small boat to be ferried across the river. When we arrived, different trucks with different company names picked people up and we strangely all headed to the same destination. A small cafe consolidated even more people (now we were up to +20 people) and it was there that we received our first instructions of the morning: the boat was going to be leaving in 10 minutes.

My kind of border crossing.

We loaded up on a double decker boat, went to a park checkpoint, and spent the morning floating around watching wildlife. It was a spectacular day and although everyone seemed to be curiously consolidated together, it didn't take away the joy of seeing hippos and elephants on the shores. After the boat ride we went back to the small cafe for lunch after which we were subdivided again into safari vehicles for a game drive. The game drive disappointingly took us along the same shore we had been on for the river cruise though I suppose our options were restricted with time and it did seem to have the majority of the wildlife.

At the end of the day I thought it was a perfect taste of safari for my sister though I knew the Tanzanian wildlife would blow it away. The tour was oddly arranged though it flowed well and seemingly made best use of the multiple tour operators resources. It appeared that everyone made their own arrangements and then funneled customers to the same itinerary which was adjusted depending on the number of total people that day. It felt slightly impersonal but for the money and time, I thought it was a great value and experience.

Lots of elephants in the park.

I have never ridden in a safari vehicle like this. It was cool until it looked like it was going to rain, then everyone got real nervous. Luckily the storm didn't catch us.