Sunday, November 6

Sometimes you have no words to describe the beauty and wonder of God’s creation!  The morning started with 7 or 8 warthogs gamboling across the lawn beside the open-air dining room while we were eating breakfast!! And then we spent  the day at Chobe National Park in Botswana.  http://www.chobe-national-park.com/

The difference between the landscape on the eastern side of Zimbabwe and the western side of Zimbabwe is rather startling.  After two weeks we had gotten used to seeing mountains and green foliage. The soil was very red – not clay but a very arable, rich red soil. It was dry, yes, but you couldn’t imagine things looking any more alive.  Over here on the west side of the country it is very flat and brown.  Most of the trees are without leaves – the rainy season is about a month late here and they are anxiously awaiting spring.  As we said yesterday the Zambezi River is low so the falls are not so dramatic (but dramatic enough!!).  The contrast between the two sides of the country is very noticeable.

Victoria Falls is very near where four countries come together – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia.  We had to drive into Botswana to go to Chobe.  And right there at the border crossing we saw the first evidence of how very different things can be.  The Zimbabwe border post is older and run down.  We went through the departure process there (the first form to be filled out) and then had to walk through the gate into Botswana where we had to disinfect our shoes (against foot and mouth disease) and then present our papers to the officials there (second form of the morning).  Everything was cleaner and brighter from there on – roads were vastly improved, road signs were newer, vehicles were newer, buildings in better repair.

Botswana was never a colony the way Zimbabwe was – it was a protectorate so it has always had majority rule.  And it is still part of the British Commonwealth of Nations.  Zimbabwe, on the other hand, was a British colony and remained with minority rule until 1980 when it gained independence.  Botswana is a republic with a pretty stable immediate history.  Zimbabwe is a socialist country struggling with a multitude of problems.

Anyway, we drove on to the Chobe Safari Lodge where we boarded another pontoon-y river cruise boat.   Those warthogs at breakfast were only the start of the catalogue of animals that we saw today!  Chobe National Park is a vast place that sits on the Botswana side of the Chobe River.  Namibia is on the other side. In the middle of the river is a very long island – nice and green and full of wonderful grass for grazing.  The elephants are able to swim across the river to get to the island.  And we saw hundreds of elephants of all sizes (the park has the largest concentration of elephants in the world).  Did you know that elephants are either right or left “handed”??  We noticed that many of them had shorter tusks on one side of their trunk than the other side.  Our guide told us that they have a dominant side – thus being right or left “handed” – and that they tend to wear out or break the tusk on the dominant side.  We saw them in bachelor groups and in maternal groups, taking mud baths, drinking water, swimming and dusting off.

And lots and lots of birds – Egyptian geese, storks, ibis (sacred and not), bee-eaters, plovers, snake birds, and herons.

And hippos, warthogs, a variety of antelope, and a several crocodile.  The animals roam free in the park and on the island.  Poaching is rare but it does occur.

The three hour cruise brought us back to the Chobe Safari Lodge where we cleaned up and enjoyed a buffet lunch – with pitchers of iced tea and lemonade on the tables!  After the meal we boarded two Safari Land Rovers – open-sided, covered, 4 wheel drive SUVs with four rows of seats behind the driver.  This area is sandy so you have to have something that can negotiate not only the ruts but the sand as well.  This time we saw the wildlife from the land side – up close and personal.  More elephants, warthogs and antelope but now add giraffes, sables, bush bucks, cobu with their corkscrew horns, and even more birds including a pair of African Fish Hawks.  No cats or wild dogs or zebra – wrong time of the day.

We were all pretty worn out by the time we got back to the lodge (two more forms -- one to leave Botswana and one to enter Zimbabwe) – it had rain at some point and there was a rainbow over the Falls.  We had a quiet dinner and retired to our rooms for a good nights rest.   The day was absolutely amazing. God is good – all the time!!