Our trip leader, Francis, had promised us a long but “productive” day and he was so right!
We began by crossing the new bridge from Zambia to Botswana, at the point where the Chobe River joins the Zambezi. This is a four corners point that separates four countries, Namibia and Zimbabwe as well as Zambia and Botswana. The immigration offices for Zambia and Botswana are in the same building, you just walk across the room to accomplish the transition. Very civilized and efficient!
Our first activity was a two hour boat ride on the Chobe, where we saw 39 species of birds as well as elephants, hippos, Cape buffalo, impala, greater kudu, waterbuck and Red Lechwe. But we REALLY saw some of these.. We watched a group of seven elephants enter the river, swim across, come up onto shore and play in the mud. They got very close to us, as our boat sat on the edge of the shoreline. We had several other elephant sightings as well, including babies. We saw hippos in and out of the water, including a group with a baby. We also watched crocodiles in and out of the water (there is something really spooky about watching them slide into the water). On the circle of life side, we saw two hippo carcasses, providing food for crocodiles and fish (and the fish in turn for the egrets, herons and kingfishers). The collection of water birds was pretty amazing, including openbill storks and four types of heron. Watching pied kingfishers hover and dive is always fun.
We then flew in a 12-seater plane to the air strip at Linyanti. Our lodge in Linyanti is about a 30 minute drive from the airstrip, but that’s only if you don’t stop to look at anything. Since we saw warthogs, impala, kudu, elephants, baboons, zebra, giraffe, red lechwe, buffalo and many birds along the way, it took us just a bit longer. Then other guides radioed in that a young leopard had been spotted (no pun intended), so off we went on barely defined tracks. We spent about 30 minutes with the one-year-old, who was no more than 20 feet from us. Initially there was one other vehicle there; the rest of the time we had the cub to ourselves. Spectacular.
We witnessed a number of inter-species encounters: an elephant chasing away red lechwe from a favorite spot; kudu snorting to alert other animals that the mother leopard was in the area; egrets following wading elephants to take advantage of the insects the elephants disturbed; two kinds of vultures and marabou storks sharing a giraffe carcass.
Around sunset we finally made it to the Linyanti Tented Camp, right on the edge of the Linyanti River (the other side of the river is Namibia). This is much more of a wilderness camp than Toka Leya, with platform tents right on the river and a simple open air lounge-and-dining room. In our part of the camp there are five tents and our group is the only group here. Dinner was fabulous. Sleeping may be a challenge, as the hippos, frogs and hyenas are quite loud!
Pictured: young leopard, elephants in the mud
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